๐ The 6-figure book launch formula
Corey Haines | Swipe Files
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Steph Smithโs first book, Doing Content Right, sold $100k+ in copies in less than a year across over 3000 sales. Her new course, Doing Time Right, did $20k+ in its first 3 weeks of presales. One key โ aside from simply making great content โ can be found in the 3-step launch process sheโs using for both products. 1. Idea Validation and PresalesAs makers and product people, it's all too easy to lock yourself in your room and spends months, even years, building something before you tell anyone about it. Steph did the exact opposite. Before writing her first book, Steph sent a quick tweet to her Twitter followers:
At that time, Steph had a small audience of ~6k followers. After positive feedback, she quickly moved to the next validation test: presales. That same day, she spent a few hours building a Gumroad page that described the intended product and allowed people to preorder, then shared it on Twitter. โIt was like, โOK, if youโre saying youโre going to buy it, let me make sure thatโs actually true,โโ she revealed.
She created a tiered pricing model, which increased the price every time a certain number of orders came in, that offered a few key benefits:
For her most recent course, she used a similar process, brainstorming the idea with her audience, then quickly moving to a presale after confirming initial interest.
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Now a favorite tactic, hereโs how the tiered pricing looks on Stephโs new course. She begins building only after confirming people will pay for her idea. As sheโs making the product, she adds regular updates to these initial tweet threads. These updates cause Twitter to recirculate the threads among her audience, building more hype โ and driving more presales.
Sometimes the updates build social proof by showing presale figures. Other times theyโre jokes or straight-forward check-ins. Through it all, she responds to everyone, creating an important sense of connection with early supporters. 2. Soft Launch and UpdatesThe second stage comes when the product is finished and ready to deliver to pre-purchasers. This is where founders often go wrong by embracing a โship-it-then-forget-itโ mindset, or by running straight into their main launch. โWhen you launch right away, you are hoping that the launch makes your product successful,โ Steph said. Instead, try to have a successful product make your eventual launch successful. Steph uses this time to learn from early clients, adapting and improving the product along the way, and collecting testimonials that will be useful when she launches. 3. Final LaunchAfter 6 months of quietly selling and updating her first book, Steph decided it was time for an official launch. Her distribution strategy focused on 3 key things:
The new course just entered phase 2 of this process last week, and will follow the same launch path as the book, with one addition โ Stephโs now got a list of 3k+ people whoโve bought from her once before, a powerful asset for marketing all future products. Steph is a prime example of how marketing is not rocket science. Whether you're selling an ebook or SaaS, building in public is a mainstay strategy to building traction. Marketing concurrently to building the product, and even before building the product, allows you to build momentum that launches your product into a positive trajectory. โCorey
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