Do You Know This Self-Publishing
Success Secret?
By Roy Furr

Now you're moving on your spare-time self-publishing biz!

First, you picked your niche, by knowing (not guessing) if there were enough people searching for your type of product online to support a niche publishing biz.

Then, you established credibility for yourself using the A-B-C credibility-building system.

Now, what's next?

Well, it's time to come up with a product strategy which will make you maximum money in minimum time (with minimum effort, too).

This will leapfrog your learning curve

Listen, I've met and worked with publishers who just didn't get this. Years into the publishing business. And their publishing businesses were surviving, but performing far below expectations.

… On the other hand, look at a company like $300+million financial publishing giant Agora, Inc. They get it. And, have had remarkable success as a result.

… Or Dragon Door Publications, a much smaller niche fitness publisher. They follow this strategy to the letter. And, their business continues to grow by leaps and bounds.

… AWAI, too. They followed this strategy early, and they follow it often.

You could struggle in your self-publishing business for years before figuring this out — following the traditional learning curve.

Instead, I'm going to help you leapfrog that learning curve … so by the time you finish today’s issue you'll know how to apply this strategy in your spare-time self-publishing biz.

Here's one of the simplest ways to make maximum money in self-publishing

Today I'd like to introduce you to the concept of front-end and back-end products.

Structuring your product offerings using both front-end and back-end products sets you up for making maximum money in self-publishing because …

Every successful transaction with a customer deepens the relationship and builds trust …
As your relationship deepens and a customer trusts you more, they begin to want more of what you offer and are willing to pay more and more for the right offerings from you …
By structuring your product offerings to take advantage of this natural progression, you're setting the customer up to happily spend as much money as possible with you throughout their lifetime!

Here's a quick description of front-end and back-end products

A front-end product is a product you typically sell someone first, when they don't have a preexisting customer relationship with you. It's a lower-cost, lower-committal product that's easy for the customer to say "yes" to. And, when a person says "yes," buys the product, and likes it … They've started a positive customer relationship with you.
A back-end product is usually reserved for people who have purchased your front-end product — they already have a customer relationship with you. Because of their previous purchase, they are people who are predisposed to buy more from you. The back-end product is usually a much higher-cost, higher-committal product. It takes the preexisting relationship from the front-end product to have built enough trust to sell the customer your back-end products.

Let's put this in a real-world example

To help you see how this might work, let me show you how I'd build front-end and back-end products for the "hockey skills training system" spare-time self-publishing business I've been using as an example in the last couple of issues.

My front-end products could include e-books, special reports, videos, or manuals on "Hockey Skills-Building 101," "Hockey Drills To Build Speed," and "Hockey Drills To Build Shooting Accuracy," as three examples. Each of these may be in the $19-$49 range, and would be the primary products I market to new customers.
My back-end products could include a monthly membership website with skills updates, a complete "bootcamp" DVD set walking teams and instructors through a skills-building bootcamp, or I could even do private coaching, or my own hosted bootcamp and skills-building workshops. These would range in price from anywhere above $49 up through whatever price I could justify ($1,000-$10,000+) by piling on value and creating an exciting customer experience.

How this translates into YOU making more money

Now that you've seen how to structure your front-end and back-end product offerings, let's look at how to sell them.

When doing lead-generation and new customer acquisition, you're going to want to focus on selling your front-end products. Again, they're easier for the customer to say "yes" to. And the goal of your front-end products is to get the first transaction — to start building the customer relationship.

Once you've sold a front-end product to a customer, now you've got your foot in the door. Your relationship has started. This is your opportunity to make more and bigger sales.

So, you begin to offer back-end products. Typically you'll want to start with the lower-priced back-end products. And work your way up as the customer makes more and more purchases.

(In effect, each next-higher dollar amount the customer spends with you is them raising their hand once more, saying, "Yes, I'm a better customer than you may have thought — where else can we take this relationship? Because I like what you're offering and I like to do business with you!")

But are there exceptions to the rule?

Sure, you've heard of one-hit wonders who wrote a best-selling book and made their fortune — then rested on their laurels on that one home run.

But, for every story like that, there's 100 or more who put their all into a single self-publishing project looking for that home run. Missing the ball on their first swing, they gave up on self-publishing altogether.

Well, that's not what I want for you — I want you to be successful!

That's why the front-end and back-end strategy is so important. Because it gives you the maximum chance for success. Then, if you get a runaway hit, it's icing on the cake!

How to begin making maximum money, applying this strategy now

Here's a quick to-do list for you today that will set you up to start making maximum money from your spare-time self-publishing biz, ASAP.

Brainstorm up to five front-end products you can offer to your market. Think e-books, special reports, videos, short how-to manuals — anything small that still packs a punch.
Brainstorm up to three back-end products you can offer to your market. Imagine how you can pile on the value here through ongoing support and information, presenting the info in multiple media, or creating an amazing customer experience. Some options are a subscription service, live seminar or workshop, or in-depth video or audio courses.
Pick the top three front-end options and one back-end option and make a personal commitment and plan to begin creating those products.

Then post your plan as a comment below.

Follow the map, make maximum money in self-publishing

When you're going on a road trip and you want to get to your destination without too much hassle, you get a map, learn the most efficient route, and follow it.

There are a lot of things in life like that. Selling customers front-end products first, then back-end products later is one of those things.

In fact, just about everything about building a spare-time self-publishing business works like that.

When the roadmap exists to get you maximum money in self-publishing, quicker … why not follow it?

And, if you’re ready to take the plunge and get AWAI's complete roadmap to spare-time — or even quit-your-day-job, full-time — self-publishing success, click here.

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Published: October 13, 2009

1 Response to “Do You Know This Self-Publishing Success Secret?”

This is a good and illustrative piece.

Abdulmalik Ofemile – October 18, 2009 at 2:07 pm

Do You Know This Self-PublishingSuccess Secret?By Roy Furr