Bestselling Books Sell Other Products as Well

When a book becomes a bestseller, it also often inspires sales of other products. Of course, many of those products are licensed products based on the brand of the book. Think Dummies and Chicken Soup for the Soul, both of which have generated a lot of income from merchandising royalties.

But, in this post, I want to highlight some of the ancillary product sales inspired by bestselling novels and memoirs. Check out these product sales inspired by bestselling books:

• Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert - Women were inspired by this memoir to join Siddha yoga programs. You can attend a three-day Eat Pray Love yoga retreat in Montana for only $1,295.
• Fifty Shades of Gray by E. L. James - Has boosted the sales of vibrators and other sex toys.
• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Inspired the sale of many tattoos, especially dragon tattoos. You can get a dragon tattoo just like Lisbeth's for only $1,200.
• Harry Potter series - The game of Quidditch inspired the sale of lots of brooms. You can buy an official Quidditch broom for $35 on up at Alivans.com.
• The Hunger Games - Sales of bows and arrows tripled in many sports stores.

When writing and promoting your novel, look to see if there is something in your novel that would inspire such fan devotion.

Jack Canfield on How He Got Lucky in Marketing His Books

Here is an excerpt from a long interview Jack Canfield did recently with the Economic Times, a division of The Times of India.

For those of you who haven't been paying attention for the past 15 years, Jack Canfield is the co-originator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books, which has over 225 books in print with total sales of over 500 million copies worldwide in 47 languages.



Here, again, is the excerpt from Economic Times (note that the video was not part of the interview, but does talk about one of his key points in the interview):

Did you just get lucky? Or was there a method to it?

I believe that people make their own luck by great preparation and good strategy. We used The Rule of 5 which I write about in The Success Principles, which is to do 5 specific action steps each day to move you towards the completion of a goal.

So every day for the 14 months before we hit the New York Times bestseller list we would take 5 actions steps. We would make 5 phone calls to newspapers to review the book. We would send out 5 free copies of the book to reviewers.

Once we sent copies to all the producers of TV shows like Touched by An Angel and when the producer got hold of the book, they required everyone on their staff, including the cameramen, script writers and actors to read it. That story reached the Hollywood Reporter which published it and then that article went out to syndication and appeared in many more newspapers all across the United States.

So we worked very hard. We actually studied how to create a bestselling book by interviewing 10 bestselling authors and everything they told us they'd done, we then did the same.

We also bought a book called 1001 Ways to Market a Book by John Kremer.

We made a post-it for each of the 1001 ways and put it on a wall, where our commitment was to do everything in the book and then remove each post-it until we were finished.

It took us the better part of a year to do it, but I believe it is this kind of commitment to a long series of actions that is what's always required to create major success that lasts.

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To read the entire interview with Jack Canfield, see: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/features/corporate-dossier/chicken-soup-for-the-souls-jack-canfield-and-his-mantra-for-success/articleshow/11825464.cms.

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It's interesting that I wrote about the Rule of Five in the 1989 edition of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books, Chapter 9. Here's what I wrote:

I'm giving you the basic rule, a rule that forbids excuses. I call it the rule of five.

All it takes is five promotions a day. Really, that's all it takes. Mail a letter. Send out a news release. Phone someone. Take an editor to lunch. Do a phone interview. Give a speech. Jot down a postcard. It need  not require much time - 15 to 20 minutes is enough - but it can make a world of difference on how well your book sells.



John Kremer is the author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books as well as the developer of the following programs:

Book Marketing Magic: http://www.bookmarket.com/novelmarketing.htm - How to market novels, children's books, memoirs, and more. $48 special offer

15,000 Eyeballs Internet Marketing Program: http://www.bookmarket.com/15000eyeballs.htm - Ten lessons on how to get thousands of impressions for you, your book, your blog, or your website. $50

Real Fast Book Marketing: http://www.bookmarket.com/realfastbookmarketing.htm - How to sell 100 to 200 copies of any book in two weeks or less. $97

Blog Tour Palooza: http://www.bookmarket.com/blog-tour-palooza.htm - How to carry out a blog tour or virtual book tour that gets millions of impressions, builds your brand, and sells thousands of books. $297

Book Marketing Makeover: Creating a Viral Story

Guest post by Kayleen Reusser

In 1989 a 10-minute incident with a stranger helped me through a miserable day during the Christmas season. The encounter wouldn't leave me. “If I’m still thinking about this incident,” I thought, “maybe it would impact someone else.”

I crafted an essay about the experience the next year at the beginning of my writing career. I wrote the story, titled “A Lesson in Forgiveness,” at 500 words, including details about the weather, the reasons for my bad mood and how I felt transformed following our interaction.

The subject of forgiveness was popular with religious magazines and editors of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Newspaper editors seeking holiday stories loved it. I even turned the incident into a skit that was purchased for a church program book.

Since its initial publication, “A Lesson in Forgiveness” has been reprinted more than 30 times and I believe it will continue to be evergreen because of its timeless message.

A Lesson in Forgiveness

It was snowing as I finished unbuckling my baby from her car seat. A toot from behind reminded me that I was holding up traffic on the one-way street.

I didn’t care. My six-month-old had to get an immunization shot, which meant she would be up all night with a fever. My head ached like I was coming down with the flu and my husband’s job didn’t look steady for the holidays. I wasn’t in a good mood.

The truck tooted its horn again. When I finally had my little one in my arms and covered from the cold air, I looked up and felt my heart sink. I had inadvertently parked in a delivery zone. A look at the name printed on the truck confirmed that I was parked in its delivery zone.

Angry at myself for not noticing the sign sooner, I put my baby back into the car and looked down the street. The nearest empty place was more than a block away. Gritting my teeth, I was tempted to go home and reschedule my baby’s vaccination for a day when things were going better, but I didn’t.

After managing to park in a tight spot, I again got ready to get out of my car. Glancing up, I saw someone waiting for me outside. I knew it was the truck driver.  Bracing myself for a verbal attack, I slowly emerged from the car.

“Sorry about that back there.” A strong note of apology rang in the man’s voice. I looked at him suspiciously. He was actually grinning at me!

“I saw you had a baby,” he continued, “but there wasn’t any other place big enough for me to park in.”

I managed to stammer my own apology, though I was completely taken aback by his friendly manner. Like Scrooge, I wondered if this was a setup.

“I’d like to give you this.” The stranger held out a coffee mug with his company’s name on the side. He didn’t wait for my reply, but shouted “Merry Christmas” and sprinted away, as fast as he dared on the slick pavement.

I stared after him, the coffee mug still in my hand. As the snow continued to fall steadily around me, a warm feeling spread throughout my body and I smiled for the first time all day.

At home that coffee mug serves as a constant reminder to me of the way that driver showed unexpected kindness and forgiveness to me that day. As I drink from it each day, it also reminds me of the way God forgives each of us when we least deserve it.

Using the coffee mug each morning as I begin my day inspires me to work on showing that same kindness and forgiveness to everyone I will meet -- clerks, cashiers, complete strangers -- not just at Christmas, but every day of the year.



About the Author

Kayleen Reusser has written nine children’s books, including biographies on Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, three books on the Greek gods, and Recipe and Craft Guide to Indonesia, all from Mitchell Lane Publishing.

She has written articles for Chicken Soup for the Soul, Indianapolis Monthly, Boy Scouting, The Lookout, Focus on the Family,  Fort Wayne News-Sentinel, and Bluffton News-Banner. She is a weekly columnist for the Ossian Sun Riser and co-founder of a writing group.

She currently works in a public middle school library where she finds inspiration for ideas among the students and books. Check her out at http://www.KayleenR.com.