That picture is awesome, right? Team Disco Lego Dudes. What do they have to do with the idea of offering a preview for your book?
Costumes, lights, and the art of anticipation. Those things are all happening in the Disco Lego picture. They draw you in, they accent the core of the performance (the Lego Music, of course ;), and when you see it you know to get ready for what's next.
That's how I think of a PDF preview, an online zine, a blog post, a video reading, or any other document that an author can offer for FREE to the online (and offline) world. A preview can help you in 3 main ways:
1. Something to talk about: You can email literally ANYONE and tell them that you want to offer them a preview of your book. You can use it as a way to follow up with people you meet at a party, etc. Offering something for free rather than asking for something is much easier, and you'll usually get better results.
2. A Hook: Having 1-5 pages to get people hooked is a great thing to have on hand. People can download it from your website, grab it from your Twitter bio, get it off your FB page, etc. Rather than trying to talk someone into buying your whole book, you can just talk them into checking out the preview.
3. A/B Testing: I'm going to pull a serious marketing geek out on you here. The deal is, you can create more than one preview, give them out to different people or from different sources, and track how many of those people email you back, buy the book, or take any other action you want them to make. Make a Version A and a Version B, give them to different people, and then see which gets better results.
What do you think?
Image source: Nanagyei via flickr
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