How Book Marketing with Preorders Made Veronica H Moore $4000 in 4 Hours While Self Publishing
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Effective book launching while self publishing requires thoughtful planning and smart marketing for authors. In this episode, first-time author Veronica H. Moore shares her inspiring journey of how she leveraged preorder strategies to generate an impressive $4k in just 4 hours, highlighting powerful book sales strategies and the impact of working with Shep Publishing House.
Veronica discusses the importance of authentic storytelling and personal touches in author branding, as well as how concise and practical information can elevate a book launch. She emphasizes the value of coaching and support from Shep Publishing House as pivotal to her successful marketing and publishing journey.
Join the 4 Day Preorder Profits™ Challenge to learn about the top preorder mistakes and success strategies. Secure your spot here: www.PreorderProfits.com
TAKEAWAYS
Preorder strategies for book launches
Authentic storytelling and personal touches
Impact of launch strategies on success
Value of concise and practical information
Coaching style and approach of Shep Publishing House
CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
04:33 Transformative Mindset Shifts
07:22 Celebrating Wins and Successes
11:31 The Power of Authenticity in Marketing
14:15 Investing in Your Author Journey
18:23 Personal Touches in Coaching
Watch the video from the episode instead of just listening.
RESOURCES MENTIONED:
→ Join the Preorder Profits™ Challenge to find out preorder mistakes and success strategies: www.PreorderProfits.com
→ Profitable Publishing™ with Preorders to learn this strategy start to finish - www.PreorderProfits.com/book
RAW TRANSCRIPT
Ashley: Welcome back to another episode of Profitable Publishing. I'm your host, Ashley, and I am going to help you to package your expertise into a profitable book. Now today, we have an amazing case study with one of my favorite mentees, I should say. She's one of my former coaching clients, and she was able to generate $4,000 in pre-orders in 4 hours. Now, a couple episodes ago, back on Episode 5, I introduced you to another author who did $4,000 in 4 weeks, but today's author did that in 4 hours. And not to do the comparison or anything like that, but this is just to kind of stretch you and help you to understand that it's possible for you to have similar success. Of course, results may vary, but I want to just encourage you. And so today, we have author Veronica Moore, and she's using the same strategies that I share in my book, Profitable Publishing with Pre-orders, and she was able to do this through launching and generating that income through pre-sales. So take a listen, and if you want to understand my entire pre-order framework, pre-order process, then I encourage you to join my live challenge that will be happening at the end of March at the time of this recording. You can do that by visiting preorderprofits.com and get on the waitlist to be able to join us there. Now, let's take a listen to Veronica's story of being a first-time author that generated $4,000 in pre-orders in 4 hours.
Ashley: Hi, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to talk about your progress that you've had since we worked together and just to reflect on our time spent. So let me start off from before we began: what was your biggest struggle before you started working with us?
Veronica: Getting started, not overthinking the process, and just allowing for the beauty of the reason why we decide to author books in the first place be the main focus of why it was that I was creating my first children's book. So for me, it was like, "All right Veronica, stop coming up with all of these different reasons about how something wouldn't work, how it's not going to work, and really focus your attention on getting this book done, learning all that you can about the self-publishing process, and utilizing the tools and the resources to equip and prepare me for when it's time to launch." So those were the major things.
Ashley: So what issues were you running into during that process before you started using the launch strategies and the pre-sale strategies that I share?
Veronica: Finding accurate information—information that was concise, to the point, and digestible. There's a lot of fluff out there on the internet, and there are lots of individuals who are not providing valuable information. So you just really have to find the individuals who are passionate about helping authors be successful on their author and self-publishing journey. For me, it was like sifting through all of the information that's out there and finding the ones that would be applicable to what it is that I wanted to do and experience as an author. Going through your blog and finding all of the things and the tidbits—quick takeaways, especially—is bringing it. I love learning; I'm a lifelong learner. So I really enjoy information that is concise but thorough and gives me steps along the way on how to actually do something.
Ashley: Perfect! Well, thank you, and I'm glad that you've been able to find good stuff and the free stuff. I tell people that there's so much stuff out there that I have on YouTube, my blog, social media, that if you just use the free stuff, you can get results that get you paid.
Veronica: Absolutely, absolutely.
Ashley: How did working with us change your journey as an author?
Veronica: For me, it really changed my mindset on what was possible. I think that we shared this many different times when you did your training for our author group—really just understanding I was doing some of the things that you teach already, now that I know that that's strategy. It was putting the information that I obtained from the different trainings that were available to us and the mastermind that you put together on what I was given: the information that I needed to be aware of what the next steps were. "Oh Veronica, you're doing these things, you're launching, you just don't know you're launching." I'm like, "Wait a minute, I'm launching? I guess I am launching!" So what I was doing by being very authentic, genuine, and story-sharing with those who decide to follow me on this journey really allowed for me to continue on that path. Now that I knew that I was launching, I didn't change anything up in terms of like, "Oh, so now you have to add all these complicated things to it." I love the fact that you really encourage us to be ourselves, to showcase the good, the bad, and the ugly, to allow for people to see who we are behind our author journeys and our self-publishing journey so that they can connect to the person who's actually doing the things. I really enjoyed the process of knowing what it is that I was doing, continuing that, but then jumping out on the ledge and being like, "All right, so you want me to do what, Ashley? You want me to put it out for how long for free to do?" But it was really good information. Trust the process, know that you're not going to share anything with me that would be detrimental to a self-publishing author journey, and just having that information in terms of launching, sharing the behind the scenes, sharing the process, and then also preparing people for what that pre-sale situation might look like. Giving the book out for free because those who are going to buy it will buy it regardless. Really just walking through with you to overcome some of those self-limiting beliefs that I had for me on what was possible. Your girl won! So I was like, I'mma listen. Y'all better listen to Ashley and what she be telling y'all to do because it's helpful. We implement the things that you teach, we see the results that we want, and sometimes we have to navigate and shift our approaches, and that's okay too. But as long as we're able to take in the information and do something with it, apply it, I think that anybody can see results that make the most sense for them and meet their goals.
Ashley: Right, and that's huge because everybody's goal is different. Some people just want to get the book out, some people are like, "No, I need to make all my money back," and other people are like, "I need to make $10,000." We're going to have to work a little longer, but we can get to that goal, right? So awesome, that's helpful for me to hear what is beneficial for you. And then also, I'm sure other authors will be impacted by that too because I was telling Vanity that she had mentioned in the group one time—you and her were talking actually—and she had said, "Ashley tells you to do something and you're like, 'I don't know about that,' and then at the end you're like, 'Well, why didn't I listen?'" I try to pick things that are efficient, effective, and also realistic because I understand people have things going on, business owner, and you have family. So just trying to get it down to what's the most important is key.
Veronica: I love the fact that it's very customizable. You're not telling us to do things that another author would do that doesn't make sense for us. It's like choosing the things and the strategies that will work for our lifestyles, that will work for our personalities. Like you said, you tell me something and I'm gonna be like, "What is it? What's the steps? I'mma do it, right?" Where you have some other authors, that's just not how they operate. So to give me instructions when we talk to each other, you're like, "Veronica, do this, this, this, and this," and I'm like, "All right!"
Ashley: Yeah, and you're great about running with it! So I'm like, you're a great student in terms of just implementation, because that's the biggest thing that really holds people back is the knowledge hoard. I'm guilty of it too—in some seasons we just absorb, absorb, and we never actually implement and do the thing. You're never going to get the results, you're never going to be able to know whether or not it works if you don't actually try to do the thing. So that, I think, has been a testament to why you have had the success that you've had, because you're willing to go and do the thing.
Veronica: Thank you.
Ashley: Welcome! So talk about the success and the wins. I'm going to let you share. What are some of your biggest wins that you've had that you feel comfortable sharing as a result of using the strategies or the trainings that you've gotten from me?
Veronica: Yeah, absolutely. So once I realized that I was launching, I continued to do that, and it was a couple of months. I would say that I launched for almost an entire year—more like months, but anyway: from me saying that I was going to write the book in March to when the pre-sale link came out in October, I sold during the pre-sale period over 270 books. I was very close, a couple thousand away from $10,000 in sales from my pre-sale situation, so I'm really excited about that. I decided to order 500 copies of the book initially. All of those are accounted for and gone. Probably gave away maybe 30 of those books, and the rest of them have been sold, whether they've been individual orders or book orders for plant shops and things of that nature. So I'm really excited about that success. I've been able to really provide opportunities for local students to meet an author, which they have not been able to do, really working with the underserved population here. That's really been a great opportunity for me to just spend time with the community in that aspect and give back as an author who they have access to and that is within reach, that they live within the community that they reside or they're at least 15 to 20 minutes away. So that's been really great to be able to interact with the community in that way, also. A lot of things that I've been doing in terms of sharing during that launch process has given me a lot of exposure through the media and things of that nature. So I have been on the news, I have been on different interviews and special guest appearances locally in the community, and also been on the cover of a food magazine. It's a food magazine, but it's really very much so tied to the storyline behind the book. And so I know that if I was not sharing during that launch process in that launch phase, that the editor of that magazine would not have seen me for the story first and foremost, and they would not have seen value in what it is that I provided in terms of adding to their publication. So I've been really excited about that. Rosie's Special Gift has gone international! She's gone international before I've even gone international with this whole book experience! But there was a group in South Africa that was tied to my alma mater that was going down with some college students who are affiliated with the primary school down in South Africa, so a couple copies of the book for the students to read. I've been to St. Thomas, the Virgin Islands, so it's really just about me sharing my story and continuing to be authentically myself. People know that, yes, you know Veronica: she is a community advocate, she loves plants, she loves growing food, she's an author of a new children's book. But I'm also V! So they're like, "V in all of her capacities, we want to be able to support her in this doing also." So I'm just really excited about what's next and upcoming for Rosie and myself. There are a few of the wins that I've experienced from the things that I've learned from you.
Ashley: Amazing! And this is your first book.
Veronica: It is my first book, yes!
Ashley: Amazing.
Veronica: It's not even a year of it being out, right? So I'm very grateful, I'm very grateful. It happened fast. I've done a lot of different appearances and different book tour events, and I'm just grateful. God is amazing. I'm like a vessel; God used me for Your glory in terms of other people seeing what's possible, other people seeing healing through my story, and then also little babies being able to see an author that looks like you, and you can write a book too.
Ashley: Yeah, that's definitely a huge factor with our students and children across the world. Does Rosie have her passport? Does she have her passport? Cuz listen, she gonna have to do something and grab it real quick! You'll be able to have it for five years. You know babies get to keep theirs differently than ours.
Veronica: Yeah! That's amazing. I had heard some of that, but some was new to me! It's been incredible to watch your journey, and once again, just a testament to you using the strategies, implementing them, getting the results, sharing, and just being transparent. Because that's really what people want to see: they want to be behind the scenes, they want to get a sneak peek, they want to know what's going on. Absolutely, you have a great support system too with your audience as well that you've built from your life.
Veronica: Yeah, you know, it's really crazy to me because having spoken to so many of these people who decided to buy the book in like ages, there were people from grade school there. I was like, "Whoa, okay, I didn't even know that you were paying attention! You like my other stuff like here and there, but..." It was amazing to just really see that people enjoy connecting with me in that way. Because I was doing it as a healing for myself—I don't want to call it a project, but it was like, this is a healing journey for me, it's more than just about the book. When I saw that happening, I was like, okay, you are doing the same work. That is your superpower, right? Your God-given gift of really empowering and impacting people to see what's possible; the subject matter is just different. It's really been a great journey so far.
Ashley: So, working on book number two!
Veronica: Yes!
Ashley: That's incredible. I know mom is proud of your journey as well. All right, so if you were to speak to someone who was on the fence about signing up for our services or getting a product from us, what would you say to them to let them know this is the best choice for their book?
Veronica: I would say there's a couple different things that you should do to find value, and we talked about that a little bit earlier as we were speaking: see value in the free things that are being provided. If you are getting so much information from the free things that are posted on the blog and the free trainings that Chef Publishing House is doing and that Ashley is putting out there, and you are satisfied with that, just imagine what you are going to get when you make the investment in yourself to see the results that you want to see for you. This is not just about Ashley feeling as though, "Oh, I need to get your money," or "I need to get all these things from you as a client." Because trust and believe, there is a vetting process that is in place to ensure that it's a right fit. But it's really important to invest in what it is that you want to see. So if you want to achieve a set goal that is a stretch goal for you, then you need to invest in the resources that are available to you to do that. The free stuff is not going to get you to where you need to be and to stretch you beyond your comfort zone as an up-and-coming, or new, or even seasoned author. I believe that if you want to see the results, then you invest in the best options and the resources that are out there, and Ashley and Chef Publishing House is definitely that resource for you. Just as her students, we got the receipts! So if you need the receipts, we have them, she has them as well. She is one of the most genuine individuals that you will work with, who really cares about you as a person and will pay attention to what it is that you are sharing as goals, as setbacks, as things that you need to overcome, and will give you that gentle push that you need to get it done. So you will not go wrong working with Chef Publishing House.
Ashley: Thank you! Yes, I'm a... I don't know if you've seen Mean Girls, I don't know if I forgot her name, but Tina Fey, she plays the teacher, and then she's like, "I'm a pusher, I push people!" And yes, I gently push people. I feel like I gently nudge them in the way that God wants them to go. I feel like people are sent to me by God and that the Holy Spirit gives me downloads for things to say to people, because there's multiple times where I'll say something like, "In my house earlier today, I just was reading my devotional or I was talking to God about this, and then He sent you." So I definitely do feel like the people that come to me are divine assignments, and I can't not take care of them because then it's trying to mess up my blessings, and I'm not trying to mess up the purpose that God has put me here on the earth for. So thank you for recognizing that and allowing me to be obedient, because sometimes I'm like, "I don't know if I should say this," but then I'm like, "Nope, I got to say it, I got to say it!"
Veronica: Like, "Ready for this video? Yay! Be nice!" You want me to be intentional and purposeful. Like, do you want to hear what you need to hear, or do you want to hear a good job pat on the back? But I have a lot of good job pats on the back because you do what you need to do.
Ashley: I'm like, "No, give it to me straight!" It was so funny, we were like, "Girl, if you don't order that pen! If you mess up on a signature, what you gonna do?" I was like, "Oh yeah, the side..." We get in our head in our own way so many times. It's like, I was like, okay, got the real Ashley right there, I got it! Respectful and nice, but I was like... It's probably $5 to print, if that, and so if you mess up one, okay, it's practice, and then you won't mess up the other ones. So yeah, we definitely do get in our heads. Like the size! I know I was stressing about what color spiral to put on my cookbook, like the white or the black. I'm like, I really like this, and then I really like that. So it's definitely natural—your book is your baby, and so just cultivating it takes time and we get so attached to it. But we have to really realize that our book is for other people, because if we keep the book ourselves, then nobody's ever going to read it and then it never gets out there and does what it needs to do. So it's given to us to give away. I'm laughing at that—the real Ashley! Okay, every now and then got to toss it in there. So you were in the inbox though, so I was like, "All right, let's go, what are we doing?" Okay, so what was one strategy or tip or something that you learned from us that you felt had the most impact for you?
Veronica: I can't narrow it down to one! The launch piece was really a lightbulb moment because I was questioning in my head before. As I was getting that Author Society kind of information that I needed, like learning perspective on, "All right, so am I sharing too much? Are people going to be sick of this? Are people tired of seeing me post about the book?" But going through the training for that, I was like, "No, because it is my process. I am sharing it because I want to share it, and it happens to be helping other people as well." So it was really affirmation that was needed that I didn't know that I needed to just keep on doing that. I was doing it and sharing it mainly because I also wanted... like Facebook shows you those memories. I was like, "I need those recordings! I need to be able to see that progress at some point and be like, 'You did it, Veronica! You absolutely did it!'" So that was one thing. Then the tip and the strategy with the free ebook was great. It allowed for me to reach #1 Bestseller status on my ebook when it came out, and it also allowed for me to gain a few more individuals for my email marketing list. It provided people a sneak peek to see what the book was like before they got it physically into their hands. So I really appreciated that, and it gave me some leverage too, because of course there were hiccups throughout the process, so it provided me an opportunity to still get the book to those who have pre-ordered it or wanted to—they had the choice to do so. That was really great for me. I also really loved, during the launch phase, not only putting it out into Facebook world, but I was really intimate with my email subscribers about the process and what was going on. So many times they heard information first, and they were the first to comment on something that I may have put on social media because they knew it already. So it was just a really great opportunity to build community and just to get the results that I needed.
Ashley: Email is something a lot of authors sleep on or they don't know how to do it the right way. If we really just take the time to invest in it, the rate of return is a lot higher than social media. So I'm glad that that's something you implemented, and you actually reach your people because they'll be able to see your email in their inbox for future books, too.
Veronica: Exactly!
Ashley: And you'll get to a point where you're not so much in go-mode and it's... you kind of plateau, but you can coast a little bit more because the book ends up being its own marketing: the way that it's written, the illustrations, how you've been able to speak at different places and things of that sort. And so it becomes its own marketing situation, and then you can pull back a little bit if you need to to focus on another book, or just take a break if you need to as well. Cuz launching is a lot!
Veronica: It is a lot! It's a lot, yes.
Ashley: Okay, last question: over time, what's your favorite part of working with Chef Publishing House or with me during our time together?
Veronica: I love the personal touches. I love the opportunity to just speak freely and have an opportunity to be me, right? It didn't feel like—although it was, right?—we know that it does not feel like a client-provider relationship when we were interacting, because it was authentic, even from your point of view. When I work with people and invest in people's services and what they have to offer, I like to feel as though it is genuine and it's natural, it's not rehearsed. You're not telling me what I need or want to hear; you're telling me what I need to hear. I enjoy being coached, and so I really like your coaching style of the gentle nudges, straightforwardness when that needs to happen as well. I'm just really... I'm a learner, right? So the way that you provide information in a very centered approach, I received that a lot better than other approaches that coaches have when they are working with their students. So those are the main things that I really enjoyed.
Ashley: Great! You know, yes, I try to keep it real, but not "when keeping it real goes wrong" type keeping it real! Just in general, understanding people are people and we got to give grace. Pretty good! So I know some of my clients are like, "Oh, do X, Y, Z," and it's like... but I also take breaks, and sometimes I disappear and go re-enter and refocus in my journey as an entrepreneur of figuring out what works, what doesn't work, what's going to attract folks, what's going to repel folks. That can be a lot to try to be on all the time, and so I definitely want the coaching to be a safe space where you can just kind of lay your hair down theoretically and just be like, "Okay, this didn't work," or "I'm so excited about this, let me come tell you what happened!"
Veronica: Yep, and you provide that space. It's very open, and I appreciate that.
Ashley: Is there anything else that you felt like you wanted to share, or do you feel like you left it all on the dance floor? Is there anything else you need to...
Veronica: I got it! We don't have anything else.
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