Extend Your Book’s Life With a Sales Letter

by Judy Cullins

Authors, publishers and business owners are great at getting their books written and launched. But after the initial one-year honeymoon, sales slow down. To counter this, make sure to let your audience know about your book's benefits and how it can help them in their lives. Keep your book alive and selling well for years when you write a sales letter.

You can write your first sales letter in less than two hours. As you practice, you will be able to write a short one in only one hour.

What Every Sales Letter Needs to Pull Orders and Profits

1. Start the letter with a benefit-driven headline and include headlines throughout.

Example: "Want a Quick and Easy way to Quadruple your Online Income in Four Months?

If you answered, "Yes" to yourself, the headline succeeds, because you will keep reading. If you said, "No, I don't believe this, but I'm curious about where this is going," the headline still succeeds. You win when your headline seduces your potential customer to read on in your sales letter and finally to decide to buy.

2. List the top five benefits of your book with bullets.

To define your top benefits start with a list of challenges your client or customer wants solutions for. If you are not rock sure of who your audience is and what they need, your sales copy won’t work.

Essentially, you need to say how your book will make someone's life easier or richer in time or money; how it will entertain or inspire; how it will make readers be more successful, more attractive, healthier; how it will help them feel better and avoid catastrophe, sickness, or surgery.

Remember to highlight your book's ultimate benefit above the others. This could be the opening headline. If you list more than five benefits use the strongest three to five as your bullet points. Sprinkle the rest throughout your copy.

3. Address your potential buyer's resistance.

Tell a background story about where your audience is NOW so they will connect emotionally with your solutions. If your book is designed for people who want to write, the sales letter should focus on the fact that many people don't write books because they doubt that their books will sell well enough to justify all the effort; they worry that a book may not be significant enough, that writing it will take too long and publishing it will cost too much; and besides, they really aren't writers." One, by one, a good sales letter will address a potential buyer’s major concerns.

4. Provide a quick overview of the book’s features.

One client wrote a book on ways to live a successful life. Her top features included *a do-it-yourself” approach, *real-life coaching examples *mastering the art of ‘moseying’ and *practical tips and strategies that can immediately be implemented into your everyday life.

Example: In this treasure chest you will....

Impact your letter more when you combine your best benefit with a feature such as “Balance work and home by mastering the joy of moseying.” While benefits sell and features explain, your web or shorter email sales letter needs to mention features so your potential buyer will know what’s inside your book.

5. Sprinkle testimonials throughout your sales letter.

Since people who learn about your book are more likely to buy it when they think other people already have, it’s important to offer testimonials from experts in your field, relevant celebrities, and satisfied users who have profited from your advice. Don't send the whole book to people when you ask for testimonials. Just send them a list of the benefits and phrases to make it easy to respond as well as the title and introduction.

6. Offer your potential buyers three or four chances to buy.

They may have already decided to buy before encountering your sales letter, so put "Buy Now" information near the top and present more buying opportunities along the way after your list of benefits, your summary of the book’s features, and your testimonials.

7. End your sales letter with a 100% money-back guarantee.

When you offer an ironclad guarantee--"This product comes with a 100% Money Back Guarantee. Read the book cover to cover, and if the strategies don't work for you within 60 days, we'll cheerfully refund your money, and you can keep the product too!-- people see your book as valuable enough for you to put yourself on the line for it. They will be more likely to buy and be satisfied with their purchase.

8. Share the downside of your book.

Being up front about your book's limitations can increase your credibility and create empathy.

Example: "This e-book won't write the book for you, or even get it published, but it will show you the steps and resources you need to write compelling copy, finish fully and sell

9. Include your credentials.

Obviously, expertise is important. One author wrote a book on stress and how it affects relationships. Her salesletter included “I interviewed 30 couples and included their answers to my “what do you do daily to keep your relationship alive and joyful? My 20 years background as a marriage and family therapist includes 10 years coaching, consulting and presenting 25 seminars a year.

Keep your book alive and selling well for years with a salesletter emailed out and on your Web site.