While your book is providing your readers with value, going above and beyond for them by offering what’s known as a “content upgrade” can turn them from readers to loyal fans. A content upgrade can be something like a companion PDF, eBook, video, or even course readers can get by signing up for your email list.
By offering this content upgrade, your readers can get even more out of your book by signing up for your email list, but you can also use that email list to send notifications of future books or announcements.
However, the latter shouldn’t be the draw to get readers to sign up — no one wants to get emails that read like commercials. That’s where the content upgrade comes in.
Steve Scott comes on this episode to talk about different options for content upgrades and how they can be used to provide your readers with something complementary to the book, such as a video course or checklist.
It's almost like taking the concept of a content upgrade that works really well with blogging or if you're reading a particular piece of content, having a free bonus piece of content that directly relates to what you're reading is by far a much superior opt-in offer
Steve has used this technique to offer his readers a companion video series to his book to explore the topics of his books further. He also mentions Pat Flynn, who took the content upgrade even further by offering a free video course with his book “Will it Fly?” and then used that course to promote a paid course (which can be easy to create thanks to softwares like Teachable and Thinkific).
But you don’t just have to go with the video content upgrade, you can do a printable checklist, PDF, or additional eBook. This may sound like it would only be good for non-fiction books, but in the next episode, we’ll talk about how you can add readers to email subscribers for fiction books.
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Sign Up NowBio of the Author in the Case Study:
Steve Scott — also known by his pen name, S.J. Scott — is an author of more than 60 books for internet entrepreneurs, nonfiction eBook authors, bloggers, and affiliate marketers.
Steve also likes to travel, run marathons, and read.
Resources Referred to in this Episode:
- Steve Scott’s Amazon Author Page
- S.J. Scott’s Amazon Author Page
- Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take Five Minutes or Less by S.J. Scott
- Will it Fly by Pat Flynn
- Teachable
- Thinkific
- Udemy
- Traffic and Conversions Summit
- Book Marketing Show Start Your Author Email List ASAP
- Book Marketing Show Listing Previous Books for More Sales with Steve Scott
- Kindle Direct Publishing 
I’m guilty of one generic reader magnet, but you and Steve have convinced me There is value in creating book-specific opt ins. Thanks for expanding my task list! Also, thanks for the Thinkific link, I’ve been toying with the idea of courses, and Udemy was in my #1 slot because I did not want to go with Teachable .. but I’m going to give Thinkific a go and see how I get on with them.
haha..I know how that goes! Curious about Teachable…what is it you did not like? I sort of see Teachable and Thinkific pretty close to each other.
It was just the feel of it and the UI that put me off. Udemy seemed more approachable and user friendly. But I just signed up to Thinkific and I love It is simplicity. Not ready to dive in yet, but putting it on the back burner until I get my book-specific opt ins sorted!
Ah, good call and glad you like it!
Hey Dave! It is always a pleasure listening to Steve Scott and yourself, with your interviewing style; he has tons of useful tips to share and as you put it right, definitely he has ‘wealth of information’ and I like your way of extracting it.Agree with your point on showing up “content upgrades” in the beginning to show up on the ‘look inside’ – in addition to that perhaps, after our readers finish the entire ebook, and there are bright chances that they liked our work, might be even a ‘fan’ by now as you’d mentioned.Maybe we remind them, by inserting our opt-in at the end as well, for better conversion (I guess you did mention that towards the end of this podcast) and that CTA at the end could be an offer that our readers cannot refuse.Alongside, Mr. Scott`s point about having a super easy signup webpage is something That is vital for all this to smoothly flow.Brilliant episode! Thanks Dave, and Scott!- Arun (@pbarun on Twitter)
Hi Arun, yeah, great point on the signup page and it was a blast having him on. He`s a long time friend.