What if you knew your next book would sell, even before you wrote the first word?

If you were already connected to your fans, how would your writing career change?

What kind of confidence would that give you? What kind of freedom would that give?

If your next book becomes an instant best seller, what would you do?

I want to talk to you about the online course that draws on the real-life evidence I gathered from working with more than 100 authors, both fiction and nonfiction. The course helped those authors launch books that have sold tens of thousands of copies.

The system that can take an author from no-sales to predictable-and-growing-sales is proven.

Even if, it is the complete step-by-step course that works.

• You’re still working on your first book
• You hate marketing
• You have almost no technology know-how

The course will help you build your author platform, connect with readers, and sell more books than you could imagine.

How do I know this information will work for you?

On the day I was going to share the plan with my biggest client, I was sitting on a train going to DC.

I was going to show him how we were going to use the work we had done for the previous three years to launch his book.

My plan was sketched out in black Sharpie on a flipchart in the overhead space. My notes were in front of me. I wondered if I had missed anything as I went over them for the twelfth time.

I was scared that I would blow it because I had been working on it for three years.

Daniel Pink told me that he was changing his book launch strategies.

He was relying on me to make his book a hit.

He had given me three years to build his connections with readers. He had had success in the past, but there was no guarantee he would repeat it.

He needed a way to make sure that every time he launched a new product, it would be a bestseller.

He hired me.

I had good ideas on what it would take to build a platform to the point where we could guarantee bestseller status, but I didn’t know if any of them would work.

I worked with Dan for three years to build his platform and connect with his readers. We saw that work pay off when we launched his book.

It hit #1 on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post bestseller lists at the same time.

The book launching was higher than any of Dan’s previous books because of my campaign.

You would think I would be excited about creating another gangbuster. I was. For a while.

I thought maybe it was a mistake. It does not mean that it actually works. His book might have hit the top spot without my efforts.

When I ran the book launch for Decisive, I was able to test my methods again.

They did not hire a publicist or any other outside firm. They just hired me.

The result? An instant #1 New York Times best seller.

I had 5 clients sitting with bestsellers at the same time.

The New York Times had a list of books that week.

Finally, I realized that this stuff works.

I had proof that the author platforms I was building produced real results after three years of work. A wonderful thing is validation.

What if I’m an author just getting started?

It works for traditionally published authors who get big advances. I’m a no-name author just getting started.

When I was about to publish Your First 1000 Copies: The Step-by-Step Guide to Marketing Your Book, I was thinking of the same thing.

I had a small platform because I spent all my time building my clients’ followings instead of my own.

Many of my clients had a lot of readers.

I was even more nervous now. What if my book flopped? Is there anything more embarrassing?

Even small efforts to build my platform paid off.

My book jumped to the top of all Amazon categories.

This category was extremely competitive.

My book has hit #1 in its categories dozens of times, and I have sold over 6,500 copies.

There is more validation.

I launched dozens of books and worked with more than 100 authors.

Any author with any level of fame can build an author platform to launch an instant bestseller.

It requires knowing what to do and what not to do.

Book marketing advice: It’s just too noisy in here!

There is a lot of advice about marketing via social media.

It is hard to know where to focus your time to get results.

Most of us just want to give up after a while.

I have talked to many authors who have failed and decided that failure is their natural destiny.

It breaks my heart.

Even though it is easier than ever to publish a book and connect with readers, many authors still feel stranded because there are no successful tools or methods that work for them.

Does the following story sound familiar?

After reading an article about how every author should be on the micro-messaging service, you set up or reactivate your account. You can find 3 or 4 posts on how to use Twitter to market and sell more books by searching around.

You follow their advice. 2 weeks, 3 months or 6 months later, you are once again frustrated that this is yet another tool that is not working.

We tend to focus on the tools instead of the blueprints.

Would you buy a hammer, watch a few videos on how to hammer, and start building your new house using no other tools and no blueprints? Absolutely not!

The same tools work the same way, they are just tools.

Before you can use them effectively, you have a plan. A way for them to work together to sell more books.

Before I explain how to do that, I want to point out two truths that have already been established.

1. Any author can build a platform that will launch an instant bestseller.
2. Before you start grabbing tools, you have to have a plan — a design or blueprint for what you’re going to build.

Let’s take a look at the plan. There are three pieces.

Permission is the first thing.

Permission is needed to communicate with your readers in a way that gets their attention and drives them to action. To know that they will listen, you need to be able to talk to them.

There is Content.

You have to let people know about your Content. People can interact with your work before they give you permission to contact them.

There is Outreach.

You need to make sure that people know you exist so that they keep hearing about your work.

That is it. That is the plan. It looks like this when you tie them all together.