21 Day Bestselling Author Platform + Guerrilla Publishing

21 Day Bestselling Author Platform + Guerrilla Publishing

bestselling author platform

***FREE book marketing course!***

I first outlined this course 3.5 years ago and haven’t gotten around to fixing up my site to stop “promoting” it… here’s what’s going on: I actually launched an intro course to marketing “Reach Your Readers” which you can now get as part of the Epic Book Design Bundle.

Recently I finished my second course, Guerrilla Publishing – which is a total A to Z, step-by-step roadmap to publishing books that sell (and keep them selling with advanced content marketing techniques). It should cover just about everything essential.

It includes free access to the 21 Day Author Platform course, when it’s ready – but it will be more expensive then… it’s cheaper to get access early by buying the Guerrilla Publishing package. (You can get a sneak peek by grabbing the GP book and workbook here.)

I’m still working with Guerrilla Publishing students and improving my program. I’ve learned that my resources and content provide so much information they’re overwhelming, so I’ve had to simplify. For the Guerrilla Publishing course, I made a companion workbook with just 24 book launch steps, and I’m going to turn that into a FREE video course people can access without joining my premium program (I like to help authors help themselves… I only charge when people need personal feedback or book marketing advice).

Once I figure out how to package my knowledge in the best possible format and make it easy for authors to see results quickly, I’ll finish the 21 Day Platform later this year and make it my best course ever.

I may also turn it into another free book promotion course, and only charge for consulting, coaching or custom services.

What it includes…

The 21 Day Author Platform has a juicy outline that I think will attract people and lots of content, but it’s really for career authors who are in this for the long haul and want to build recurring, long term, natural traffic for organic reach (so they can stop marketing and just watch the sales roll in)…. while that sounds amazing, and it does work, it’s kind of putting the cart before the horse if you’ve just finished a book and want to launch hard without spending a long time building a platform.

Why so many courses? Mostly, because I’m still learning and each time I put something out it’s better quality. I’m finding new ways to teach everything I know, and simplify it, and focus on getting you to learn and take action. Pedagogy is complex. I want to make it simple without being simplistic, and I want a very polished, professional project; and I also want to focus on engagement and support, to help you see results.

If you’re interested in my book marketing resources, sign up below for the free Guerrilla Publishing materials; if you decide to join the Guerrilla Publishing community, you’ll also be getting early access to the 21 day program at a steep discount.

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Everything you think you know about book marketing?

It’s a lie.

>>>Stop marketing. Sell books on autopilot. Learn how!<<<

When I ask new authors to share their biggest challenges, I always hear the same frustrations around book marketing:

  • “Putting together a marketing strategy is a challenge because I don’t have a strategy.”
  • “Maintaining visibility and sales (consistently) after launch is hard without spending tons of money on promotional sites.”
  • “Marketing is my hardest challenge because I’m not sure how to build my email list.”
  • “Biggest challenge so far has been marketing. I’m not as tech savvy as I’d like to be, all the peripherals have been a nightmare!”
  • “Marketing is probably the biggest challenge because of the time involved.”
  • “Being heard above the white noise. I spend a ton of time marketing and feel like I’m spinning my wheels to reach readers… I feel like I’m missing a huge component of the puzzle and can’t seem to figure out where to put my marketing efforts so they make a difference.”

Does any of this sound familiar?

And there’s another problem. It’s not only the time involved, learning curve or overwhelm that challenges new authors. It’s also that:

1) Most of what they’re doing doesn’t work, at all, and they don’t know what’s wrong or how to fix it.

2) They think marketing means reaching out to strangers and telling them about your book. They feel instinctively that they’re being sleazy. And they are. They think they need more confidence so they can just keep doing it anyway. They don’t!

There’s a better way: attracting the right readers to you naturally, and building a system that sells your books on autopilot, so you can get back to writing.

These are some of the ideas I played with in Book Marketing is Dead.

But I wrote that a couple years ago, and I’ve learned a lot since then. I also feel limited by the amount of value I can provide in a books – a course or email series is better because I can add pictures and videos actually showing you how to set everything up successfully. A well-built author platform is a marketing machine. 

I can teach you to build one in just three weeks, and you’ll never have to worry about these problems – not having enough time/overwhelm – again. When you’re done you’ll have a solid plan, you’ll know exactly what to do, and marketing will become easy, fun and enjoyable.

Don’t believe me? Sign up and allow me to prove it to you!

This email course isn’t ready yet, but if you sign up for the Guerrilla Publishing book and workbook you’ll get a 5 day email course touching on the four main phases of a successful book launch, and I’ll let you know when the new resources become available!

Everything you need to publish bestselling books

In the past five years I’ve helped thousands of authors get ready to publish their books. And while I’ve focused mainly on producing a high quality, well-designed product (because I know how much it matters) when we’re done I kind of feel like I’m dumping them out on the curb. They have no idea how to…

  • build an author website
  • get traffic to it
  • get news media to talk about them
  • attract new readers
  • get people on their email list (not to mention setting it up)
  • create their author bio and story
  • write sales copy that sells the book and converts

and SO MANY other things. The problem is that most of this stuff takes months to build up, but authors are ready to publish right now and haven’t thought about their author platform until it’s too late. For far too many authors, the platform is something they decide to build after the book is ready, to generate more sales.

The problem with the internet

There’s an abundance of material about book marketing online. The problem is learning about marketing is not the same as actually doing it. You can learn a lot about marketing and still have no idea how to set up a WordPress website or integrate your mailing list or design optin offers or set up drip content; you can understand what you need to do without actually knowing how to do it.

So while those other courses seem awesome on the surface, you rarely get the in-depth, nuts and bolts guidance that you need. That’s why I’m building my own system that will take you from having no online platform to having a powerful author empire that can launch bestselling books in only 3 weeks.

>>FREE, 21-day email series on building a bestselling author platform!<<<

bestselling author platform

Because you don’t need a thousand book marketing tips or Amazon hacks. They aren’t going to help you. You need to concentrate on the basics: the crucial elements that are killing your book sales. After you fix those, you need an organized plan of action, with simple steps, to setting up a marketing funnel that can run itself. (It’s a lot like having a robot assistant do your marketing for you).

I’ve launched fiction and non-fiction books successfully and have built systems that get 100+ email optins a day. That’s 3000 new readers on your email list every month. You think that would help you launch your book to #1?

Absolutely. And I’m going to teach you exactly how I did it.

The nitty-gritty

Each day we’ll focus on just one topic and really hone in. You’ll get a really long, in-depth email on the basics, and I’ll send you a link to a video you can watch. After the lesson, look over your current material / platform and make notes on what can be improved.

  1. Write a heroic author platform that inspires people to love and support you
  2. Write a book that millions of hungry readers will be hungry to buy
  3. Make a beautifully designed book that people will want to sleep with
  4. Self-publish and distribute your book around the world for free
  5. Stand out, get found, increase visibility
  6. Get blurbs and book review without begging
  7. Set up a perfect author website that sells books while you sleep
  8. Build your email list so quickly you’ll have to start culling subscribers
  9. Turn readers into addicts with an unmissable email series campaign
  10. Write 10 blog posts that bring you thousands of new readers a day
  11. Get famous overnight by writing guest posts for high traffic blogs
  12. Get famous people with influence to promote your book for you
  13. Test your sales funnels with advertising to see where you’re losing buyers
  14. Master social media to easily build your platform and charm readers
  15. Cast a wider net: reddit, librarything, linkedin, goodreads and more
  16. Use Slideshare and Youtube to double traffic and win the internet
  17. Generate early interest in your book by asking questions
  18. Identify, target and detour your target readers like bees to honey
  19. Make your offer more valuable with prizes, awards and incentives
  20. The automatic bestseller book launch campaign that works every time
  21. Staying relevant by newsjacking current events and trends in your field

After the course is done (in three weeks), you’ll have a very specific, highly detailed, actionable book marketing plan you can begin to implement, and you’ll finally start seeing the results you’ve been looking for.

There’s more!

I want you to start with the email series so you don’t get overwhelmed. One thing at a time. Learn and understand the basics before you roll up your sleeves and start tweaking. Action without education leads to ruin.

But after you make it through the course and understand what you need to do, actually figuring out how to use all the tools, references, resources and materials can be extremely frustrating. So I’m actually going to turn each topic into a short ebook.

Then I’m going to turn the whole series into a big video course. You may not need that much help, but I want it to be there for you in case you need it.

But don’t worry about all that yet; I’ll tell you more about the books and course after you’ve gone through the 21-day email series. By then you should have a much clearer understanding of what you need to do to find your readers, get them on your email list, sell more books, and stop wasting time on “book marketing” efforts or paid promotions that just don’t work.

Ready to get started? Sign up now!

This email course isn’t ready yet, but if you sign up for the Guerrilla Publishing book and workbook you’ll get a 5 day email course touching on the four main phases of a successful book launch, and I’ll let you know when the new resources become available!

27 Comments

  • Jason Clearwater Posted May 9, 2015 6:35 am

    When will this be available?

  • Eldritch Black Posted July 30, 2015 6:04 pm

    This sounds absolutely perfect. Are you still planning on making it available in July?

    • Derek Murphy Posted August 1, 2015 5:53 am

      Maybe not July… putting everything off so I can finish my first novel. I want to wait until I have experience publishing/marketing more fiction, so the course will really be able to help fiction authors. This fall though, I hope. 🙂

      • Eldritch Black Posted August 8, 2015 5:33 pm

        Another reason to look forward to the autumn then 🙂

  • Kerilou Rachal Posted October 12, 2015 11:04 pm

    I’ve signed up for the 21 day course but haven’t received a confirmation email. How long does it typically take? Thanks.

    • Derek Murphy Posted October 13, 2015 3:00 am

      Sorry about that – I set up this page but haven’t finished the email series yet, I’ll do it asap and then start sending out the series.

      • Kerilou Rachal Posted October 13, 2015 8:29 am

        Thanks for responding. I’m looking forward to it!

  • Austin Hackney Posted April 8, 2016 2:30 pm

    Hi Derek,

    This is a great site. I signed up for the course and I was just wondering how close you are at the moment to fulfilling this?

    Thanks! 🙂

    • Derek Murphy Posted April 8, 2016 9:42 pm

      Probably not so close, I’m going to release another course I’ve been working on first, then work on this one. This year, probably, but I also need to finish my PHD.

      • Austin Hackney Posted April 9, 2016 6:56 am

        Fair enough. I won’t hold the horses, then. You work pretty hard to get all those books out, plus marketing AND a PhD! I take my hat off to you, sir! Good luck going forward. 🙂

      • Austin Hackney Posted April 9, 2016 6:57 am

        Oh, I also just wanted to quickly ask if this site is of your own making entirely or is it based on an available wordpress theme? Thanks!

        • Derek Murphy Posted April 20, 2016 2:28 pm

          It’s a theme, Sahifa (I think, or something like that…)

          • Austin Hackney Posted April 20, 2016 5:00 pm

            Hi Derek,

            Thanks for that. Yes, I’ve just checked it out and it is Sahifa – a fabulous theme by the looks of it. I have to watch myself, however, as it is all too easy to waste time seeking the perfect theme – time that is undoubtedly better spent writing the next book! But thanks, I like it and I’ve noted it for that mythical future moment when I have time to build a beautiful site…

  • AuthZH Posted April 13, 2016 9:28 pm

    Have you started publishing the eBooks or posted the video yet?

  • David Tschoepe Posted July 4, 2016 5:19 pm

    I just signed up for the email course, but from reading earlier comments I’m assuming it’s not finished. Oh well. I’ve got a client who wrote a book I’m trying to help her out with marketing. https://goo.gl/xpAjGv

    • Derek Murphy Posted July 4, 2016 5:58 pm

      Sorry about that, I’m going to launch a course soon but got caught up with my PhD studies… there’s lots of indepth stuff on marketing on my blog though.

      Thanks
      Derek

  • Jet Quah Posted October 17, 2016 5:54 am

    Hi Derek,

    I have signed up for your 21 Day Bestselling course but I stopped receiving the course notes after the second email. Kindly advise.

    Regards,
    Jet

    • Derek Murphy Posted October 17, 2016 9:49 pm

      Yes, still working on it. I launched a different course (Reach your Readers) recently and am working on this one now… .should be ready by the end of the year, sorry it’s taking so long, need to finish some fiction.

  • Carolina G. Nulatienpo Posted February 1, 2017 10:14 pm

    derek, im confused. I downloaded guerilla publishing free, and i would be happy to pay the 2.99 for kindle if it helps me-but im a first time author with 0 platform and a not even a finished book. i see the unfinished 21 day launch and ‘reach your readers’ Which of your products should i buy?

    • Derek Murphy Posted February 2, 2017 1:15 am

      I’m still working on the new courses. I just added Reach Your Readers as a bonus for the DIY templates, (www.diybookformats.com) so you could get access there if you don’t want to wait for the new courses.

      • Carolina G. Nulatienpo Posted February 2, 2017 9:49 pm

        Thanks, i will look into Reach Your Readers right away.

  • Massiel Valenzuela Posted January 11, 2018 3:02 am

    Hi Derek,

    I love your videos, thank you for providing such great content! In your Bootcamp videos, you mentioned that you might need writers for your YA website. I wanted to apply as one of your writers, where can I send you my resume or other information?
    I look forward to hearing from you.

    Thanks,
    Massiel

    • Derek Murphy Posted January 11, 2018 3:51 pm

      You can join the YA author alliance on facebook, and also sign up at theYAshelf.com to get started.

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