Thursday’s profit tip for authors

Authors begin when authors look beyond the income they are going to receive, directly or indirectly, from the sales of their book. Back-end profits from speaking, consulting, coaching, e-books, workshhops almost always outweigh profits from book sales.

Authors can increase their back-end profits by doing something as simple as clearly specifying exactly the coaching and consulting services they offer their clients.

Stephanie Chandler’s website, which I have previously used as an example of promoting and profiting success, provides a great example of clarity and simplicity.

As you can see at left, she offers prospects an “a la carte” menu of tasks and topics, conveniently organized by category.

Lessons from Stephanie’s example

Notice how the use of a bulleted list format adds white space to the page, allowing your eyes to quickly skim available options.

Another lesson is the importance of the subheads which organize the list into meaningful categories, or chunks. Without the subheads, the list would be extremely long and it would be easy for readers to get lost in the middle of the list.

A long, easily-scanned, list creates an almost hypnotic situation for her prospects; once you start reading the list, you’re likely to continue.

A final lesson is the importance of the short paragraphs that introduce her list. Because the paragraphs are concisely edited, website visitors can immediately notice the list, which wouldn’t be possible if the visitors had to first scroll down to discover the listed topics. The list allows prospects to pre-qualify and pre-sell themselves before they even contact her.

Not visible in the example, but visible when you visit her page page, is the way the page is flanked on the right by a column of testimonials from previous clients.

Ask yourself…

How effectively does your website sell your personal coaching and consulting services?

Can your blog and website’s visitors see at a glance exactly the services you provide?

I’m always looking for more examples of ways that authors successfully build their profits; can you recommend any other sites I should visit? Nominate your favorite examples as comments, below.