It's All about angle...inspirational maybe?
This is from my most recent newsletter that I sent out. Just so you know, this isn't an attempt to draw attention to it (I don't even give a link). I just figured it could get some of you more creative marketers out there to fire up your brain....
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Daniel Suarez is an independent systems consultant turned best selling author. His book, Daemon, was a New York Times bestseller, and to be perfectly frank, he did it without having the big name publishers’ help. And what makes his story very unique is the angle in which he was able to sell 100,000 copies of his book without depending on the big brand publishers to promote it. I will get into how he did it later but for now, understand that his story should serve as inspiration to those of you who are struggling with highly competitive markets.
You see, most of us think of the road to success in a very rote, step-by-step sort of way. For instance, if you want to be a rock star, typically the steps are:
-Get a band together
-Write great songs...
-Practice really hard and build a following...
-Wait for the Record companies to recognize you as great and sign your band...
Tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of bands follow this protocol. Write good music, work really hard, and you will eventually get noticed. That is the mantra of most markets, right?
As a result, most bands never make it. This is even if they are 5 times better than the current bands out there. The record companies hold the keys to the gate and they aren’t letting everyone in. In fact, most won’t get into that inner circle. After many years, most bands just disappear into oblivion (their art forgotten).
In the case of Daniel Suarez, it’s the publishers who hold the keys.....
In YOUR case, if you are relying on organic search, it’s google.
Back to Daniel.....
Daniel’s book was initially self-published. It wasn’t that Daniel didn’t want the publishing companies to publish his book. In fact, he was declined by dozens of publishers. He was like most authors. He stood at the gates with thousands of others, waiting for his name to be called.The gates remained closed. He was on the outside looking in, in a sea of other hopeful authors....
After so many denials, Daniel decided to self publish. But the problem with self publishing was that he didn’t have the promotional arm of a publisher to back him and promoting it through conventional means would prove too expensive.
It is at this point where I should tell you about what Daemon is about. Basically, the gist of the story is a guy produces a Daemon (aka bot that lays dormant until it given a specific command) that relentlessly searches the internet for his obituary. When or if the bot finds his obituary, it unleashes a chain of other daemon’s (which were produced by several programmers who didn’t know what the bots were going to be used for...a la manhatten project kind of stuff) which would cause the world to come to a crashing end.
Real Sci-fi kind of stuff that would probably interest the tech community, right?
Daniel thought so. Daniel’s promotional strategy was to send books to tech mavens around the world. The book was good enough to stand on its own merits. These tech guys suggested it to their tech guys and so on and so forth until Daniel was able to sell 100,000 copies.
As a result, the publishers took notice and Daniel was able to pass through the gate. A movie is in the works. Life is good.....
The End.
Now, the real point of this story isn’t to try to sell you a book. The real point is that in competitive markets in which everyone and their mother are trying to crash the gates, sometimes you need to find a different angle to get noticed.
In Daniel’s case, getting noticed by the publishers was a long shot. But getting noticed by his peers (which were his target market, at least initially) was much more doable even if that meant that getting it moving would be slower....
To put this in better perspective, let’s say that you are in the credit card niche. If you are trying to rank for the search term credit cards, then you are going to have millions of pages that are trying to crash google’s gates to get noticed. What do you do?
Now, I am not going to spoon feed you what to do because there aren’t any step-by-step instructions to it.
But, let’s just say this....
-If you have value to your market....
-& If your value is recognized by your market....
-& If you can find an angle to get visibility within your market, even if it is initially small....
.....then you can sometimes pass all those people waiting at the gate to get noticed.....
__________________________________________________ __
Daniel Suarez is an independent systems consultant turned best selling author. His book, Daemon, was a New York Times bestseller, and to be perfectly frank, he did it without having the big name publishers’ help. And what makes his story very unique is the angle in which he was able to sell 100,000 copies of his book without depending on the big brand publishers to promote it. I will get into how he did it later but for now, understand that his story should serve as inspiration to those of you who are struggling with highly competitive markets.
You see, most of us think of the road to success in a very rote, step-by-step sort of way. For instance, if you want to be a rock star, typically the steps are:
-Get a band together
-Write great songs...
-Practice really hard and build a following...
-Wait for the Record companies to recognize you as great and sign your band...
Tens (possibly hundreds) of thousands of bands follow this protocol. Write good music, work really hard, and you will eventually get noticed. That is the mantra of most markets, right?
As a result, most bands never make it. This is even if they are 5 times better than the current bands out there. The record companies hold the keys to the gate and they aren’t letting everyone in. In fact, most won’t get into that inner circle. After many years, most bands just disappear into oblivion (their art forgotten).
In the case of Daniel Suarez, it’s the publishers who hold the keys.....
In YOUR case, if you are relying on organic search, it’s google.
Back to Daniel.....
Daniel’s book was initially self-published. It wasn’t that Daniel didn’t want the publishing companies to publish his book. In fact, he was declined by dozens of publishers. He was like most authors. He stood at the gates with thousands of others, waiting for his name to be called.The gates remained closed. He was on the outside looking in, in a sea of other hopeful authors....
After so many denials, Daniel decided to self publish. But the problem with self publishing was that he didn’t have the promotional arm of a publisher to back him and promoting it through conventional means would prove too expensive.
It is at this point where I should tell you about what Daemon is about. Basically, the gist of the story is a guy produces a Daemon (aka bot that lays dormant until it given a specific command) that relentlessly searches the internet for his obituary. When or if the bot finds his obituary, it unleashes a chain of other daemon’s (which were produced by several programmers who didn’t know what the bots were going to be used for...a la manhatten project kind of stuff) which would cause the world to come to a crashing end.
Real Sci-fi kind of stuff that would probably interest the tech community, right?
Daniel thought so. Daniel’s promotional strategy was to send books to tech mavens around the world. The book was good enough to stand on its own merits. These tech guys suggested it to their tech guys and so on and so forth until Daniel was able to sell 100,000 copies.
As a result, the publishers took notice and Daniel was able to pass through the gate. A movie is in the works. Life is good.....
The End.
Now, the real point of this story isn’t to try to sell you a book. The real point is that in competitive markets in which everyone and their mother are trying to crash the gates, sometimes you need to find a different angle to get noticed.
In Daniel’s case, getting noticed by the publishers was a long shot. But getting noticed by his peers (which were his target market, at least initially) was much more doable even if that meant that getting it moving would be slower....
To put this in better perspective, let’s say that you are in the credit card niche. If you are trying to rank for the search term credit cards, then you are going to have millions of pages that are trying to crash google’s gates to get noticed. What do you do?
Now, I am not going to spoon feed you what to do because there aren’t any step-by-step instructions to it.
But, let’s just say this....
-If you have value to your market....
-& If your value is recognized by your market....
-& If you can find an angle to get visibility within your market, even if it is initially small....
.....then you can sometimes pass all those people waiting at the gate to get noticed.....