My book, The Magic List, is a free ebook based on a simple tool I developed to help my clients see where people might support – or resist – them as they start to lead a big change in their organizations.
Here are three reasons why I wrote the ebook:1. Give my clients a quick way to begin to apply the concept of the list in their own work.I posted the ebook last month. To date, people have clicked on the book 1,357 times. It has been downloaded somewhere between 1,000 and 1,100 times. I have no way of knowing how many of those people might have downloaded the book and sent links to their own circle of colleagues.
2. Get the book in as many hands as possible in order to generate interest in my consulting and speaking services.
3. Attract a publisher who would be interested in an expanded version of The Magic List (this is the least important goal).
Here is what I did to get the ball rolling:
Title: I hired copywriter David Garfinkel to suggest a title. In addition to giving me a title and a sub-title that I love (The Magic List: Secrets of Successful Organizational Change), he gave me copy for the cover that I think will draw people in.
Timing: I timed the publication of the e-book to coincide with a keynote I was delivering on that topic to a group of organization development professionals.
Twitter: I tweeted about the ebook a couple of times so far (and will continue to send tweets related to the book). I was glad to see that some people retweeted the link. One of those people has a Twitter list of nearly 5,000 names.
Email Newsletter: I sent an email newsletter out to about 4,500 people. I mentioned it in that newsletter twice since the book went live.
Personal Emails: I sent personal emails to a select list of my contacts with a link to the ebook. Most of these emails included some personal message so that they would know that I was writing to them and not sending out a blast e-mail.
LinkedIn: I mentioned this book on LinkedIn. (500+ people).
Facebook: I posted a link on my business Facebook page at http://www.FaceBook.com/rickmaureronchange (275+ people)
Open Source Project: Before starting the Facebook page, I created the Change Management Open Source Project. It had over 1000 members at the time I made the switch to Facebook. I sent an announcement about The Magic List to that original list a couple of times.
Speaker Bureaus: I sent a hard copy of the ebook to a list of about 40 speaker bureaus. I wanted them to see just how good the book looked. (My designer did a great job.) I figured that they were likely to at least open an envelope and see the cover. I thought that just sending a link in an email would have a much lower open and click-through rate.
I plan to continue all of the social media activities listed above and expand that work by applying John Kremer’s 15,000 Eyeballs approach. This article is the first step in that process.
About the Author
Rick Maurer is an advisor to leaders in mid-sized to large organizations on ways to build support for change. In addition to this ebook, he is author of Beyond the Wall of Resistance (1996 and 2010), Why Don’t You Want What I Want? 2002), and Feedback Toolkit (1994 and 2011).
You can email him at rick@rickmaurer.com. You can read and download The Magic List at: http://www.rickmaurer.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/TheMagicList-V1.pdf.
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