How I Launched My First E-Book Without Morphing Into A Used-Car Salesman [CASE STUDY]

A Case Study by Katie Tallo of Momentum Gathering


This is the story of my very first e-book launch. There are lots of posts out there on the secrets to a stellar launch or the pitfalls of a launch flop. All I can do is add to the mix by sharing the story I know – my own. This is a story of a first-case scenario – a first time blogger launching her first e-book. I’ve been blogging for seven months now and I have no clue whether or not this is a stellar launch or a flop, but here it is.

I’ve laid out the basic steps I took in the hopes that they’ll help you launch your own product. Infuse these steps with your style, modify them to suit your approach, so that in the end, they become part of your launch story.

By the way, much of the blow-by-blow of this launch (and other blogger’s launches) unfolded on something called the Anatomy of a Launch thread in the A-List Blogging Club’s forum. That’s where Mary Jaksch acted as my mentor and launch master guiding me through a series of questions, road maps and feedback sessions from the beginning to the end of my launch. As well, the A-List Club members, an amazing tribe of bloggers, were there cheering me on and giving advice. This is the 100 day highlight version.

DAY 1

I gleefully approach Mary for advice on launching a free e-book. How hard can it be? She suggests we start the Anatomy of a Launch thread to let others witness my journey. Why not? The e-book material is ready and I’ll have it up and running in a couple of weeks with Mary’s help. Not so fast. Right away some questions come up. The biggest ones being:

“What is the goal?”
“What is the destination?”
“Do you want to be an A-List Blogger with lots of subscribers or do you want to be an entrepreneur building an internet business, creating an email list and making money or are you a hybrid of both?”

My head is reeling with thoughts of selling out and morphing into a used-car salesman so I snap back to reality, unplug and take a long walk to reflect upon why I’m doing this. I go back to my reasons for starting a blog and the impetus for writing the book in the first place. The purpose and meaning comes flooding back. Here’s what I wrote in the forum:

“My goal is to be true to myself and to do what I love. I love to collaborate, create, write, help others, mentor, motivate and inspire. I believe that I can do these things most effectively as an A-List Blogger hybrid – a bloggerpreneur, if you will.”

It’s a big day one.

DAY 3

Two days later, Mary proposes a roadmap for me. She’s looked at my e-book and thinks I’m crazy to give it away for free. She’s come up with an ambitious plan involving a free subscriber incentive product, a course with a workbook and an e-book. I like parts of the road map and decide to simplify it. I won’t do a course, but I will offer chapter one of the e-book as a free subscriber incentive and then sell the e-book. This is what I tell Mary:

“I really want to give a stellar impression with my first e-book. I am first and foremost a writer and motivator. I want to build my subscribers/email list and audience by guest posting on larger blogs, and then ensuring that when they do come to visit, I have something amazing and useful waiting for them.”

And with that, I begin 70 days of tweaking, editing, designing, testing, linking, writing, re-writing, and fiddling with maddening technical stuff that takes me hours to understand – all part of a three phase plan involving a subscriber incentive, an e-book and a launch campaign.

DAY 4 TO DAY 74

When I begin this process I have 131 email subscribers.

Phase 1:

  1. Hire an editor and proofreader to polish and finalize the material (Cost: $222).
  2. Hire a designer to create a clickable image and a PDF of the giveaway (Cost: $485).
  3. Create a pitch page for the giveaway.
  4. Create a delivery page for the free download of the giveaway.
  5. Add the download of the giveaway to the delivery page.
  6. Sign up to Aweber for $19/month (plus $10/month more if you have more than 500 Aweber subscribers).
  7. Integrate Aweber with Feedburner and set up a blog broadcast.
  8. Add the Aweber sign-up form to the pitch page for the giveaway and to the side bar.
  9. Add the delivery page URL to the “success page” box in Aweber.
  10. Create a confirmation message in Aweber that subscribers use to gain access to the delivery page.

Phase 2:

  1. Hire a designer to create a clickable image and a PDF of the e-book (Cost: $655).
  2. Create an e-book sales and affiliate page.
  3. Sign up to ejunkie ($5/month) and create an account linked to paypal.
  4. Create an affiliate program through ejunkie.
  5. Add the e-book download and confirmation messages to ejunkie.
  6. Customize the “buy” button.
  7. Add a message to the sales page that the e-book is coming soon.
  8. Add the clickable e-book image to the sidebar and link it to the sales page.
  9. Add the sales page link to the giveaway page and to the inside of the giveaway PDF.
  10. Reload the updated giveaway PDF now that the link has been added.

Phase 3:

  1. Send an email via Aweber to my subscribers mentioning my upcoming e-book.
  2. Send an email to 15 blogging buddies asking them to participate in the launch which results in three guest posts, two interviews and lots of social media mentions the week of the launch.
  3. Just prior to the launch, send a reminder to my blogging buddies and an image for them to use if they so choose.
  4. Remove the coming soon message and add the “buy” button and affiliate links to the e-book sales page.
  5. Write a post for my blog related to the launch of the e-book.

DAY 75

On launch day, I published the e-book-related post on my blog and my blogging buddies sprang into action. Traffic soared. Below are my stats for October and November. The first spike is my launch date, the second is my guest post on Zen Habits. It’s hard to tell because of the spikes, but my average traffic has tripled since launching.

To date I’ve sold 62 books, given away about 17, have 15 affiliates and made $955.34. My expenses (editing/proofreading/design/affiliate payments/istock photos and Aweber/ejunkie/paypal) came to $1542.00 (not including my labour). Only 40 more books to go to break even!

I’m a newbie at this so I have no idea how fast or how many e-books other bloggers sell and it doesn’t really matter. As Leo told me the day of my launch, it’ll have a long life of sales as you gain new readers. I hired a designer so the e-book would be top notch and have that long shelf life, but if you can do the design work yourself, you’re way ahead.

It’s early days yet and as I continue to gather momentum and subscribers, as I create new products, forge new alliances, build new friendships, write new guest posts, and continue to blog in a way that makes sense to me, I know that this is just the beginning of my simple, joyful blogging journey.

DAY 100

It’s been 100 days since I began working on this launch and 25 days since my e-book officially launched. I started with 131 email subscribers. Today, I have 3096 subscribers and counting. I’d call that momentum.

Katie Tallo seeks to inspire simple, joyful life change at Momentum Gathering. She is a wife, mother, vegan, runner and motivator. She is also the Senior Editor of The Daily Brainstorm. Her new book is The 7-Week Life Cleanse: A Simple Guide to Infusing Your Life With Momentum.

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