So far I’ve had 104 writers sign up for my Master Story Structure workshop!!!
It was by far one of my BEST launches to date. And, funnily enough, it was also one of my EASIEST launches.
I had NO SALES PAGE. Just some copy on my Facebook page (or in an email) and a direct link to sign up via PayPal.
I made ONE video talking about the workshop.
I wrote SEVEN emails over the last two weeks, mentioning it at the end (plus sent a couple short reminder emails right before we officially kicked off).
I posted about it on my Facebook biz page a HANDFUL of times (plus shared those posts in my free 1% Writers Club Facebook group).
And MORE THAN 100 PEOPLE SIGNED UP.
What did I learn from all of this? It’s time to STOP making marketing more complicated than it needs to be.
The online marketing world is FULL of people who are hocking tactics and “connect-the-dots” strategies (“if you just do these three things, you’ll be a success!”) and it SO DOES NOT work like that.
What works for one person may not work for someone else, and that is simply because we are all different. We value different things. We enjoy different things. We are excited and motivated by different things.
And so to say to someone “just follow this specific step-by-step strategy and you’ll sell tons of books or make tons of money” is just a little bit of BS.
Now this doesn’t mean I think people should stop sharing their strategies. No way! We learn by seeing what works for others and then creating our own version of it, one that feels good to us.
But trying to force ourselves to play by someone else’s rules or feel obligated to do certain things to be successful is nonsense. And it’s a big thing that’s holding authors back from doing the marketing that will help them sell more books.
If I told most business coaches about the launch I just had–without a sales page, without creating a ton of pre-planned marketing content–they would probably be horrified. Selling without a sales page is almost unheard of in the online world.
And yet I did it. AND it worked better than all of the launches where I pre-plan content and try to follow a strategy.
Which brings up a really good question… what if there were no prerequisites to being successful? What if you didn’t have to create success based on what works for someone else? What if you could just be you and show up every day as you and have that be enough?
The idea for my Master Story Structure workshop came to me as a Divine Download. I was watching a movie and for the first time since I started studying story structure back in 2009, the plot points ALL jumped out at me. It was like my brain finally fully got it, and it was using the criteria for each plot point as a checklist to show me where they were in the movie.
Usually what happens is, I watch a movie, easily see the Hook and First Plot Point (and even sometimes the Midpoint) and then when I’m finished watching, I figure out the general timing of all of the plot points for that movie and go back to find the rest.
But this time, I didn’t have to do that. The plot points all jumped out at me, with total ease.
I’m nostalgic, so that moment made me think back to where I was in 2009, when I first learned about story structure. And then I worked backwards to figure out what I did to get to this point, where structure is as natural for me as breathing.
I decided I should turn that list into a blog post about how I mastered story structure. And then…
BOOM!
An idea hit me like a lightning bolt: I should do a workshop showing you how to master story structure by walking you step-by-step through what I did!! In the workshop we would watch one movie each week and deconstruct it and then discuss via livestream.
It was genius!
So, what did I do next?
I ACTED ON IT. IMMEDIATELY.
First I wrote down everything I knew about the workshop content right then, just to get it all down on paper.
Then I wrote a blog post, talking about all of the steps in how I mastered story structure. I sent it out as an email to my community, and at the bottom of the email, I mentioned the workshop, what it was all about and put a link to sign up. (I would normally create a sales page, but I honestly didn’t feel like this workshop needed one.)
After that I published the post on my Facebook biz page, then shared it over to my free Facebook groups, the 1% Writers Club and Dream Life Or Bust.
From there, I continued on each day, writing about my experience with learning story structure, sharing what I did, how I did it, talked about why story structure is so important for writers to master, etc. I sent these posts out as emails and put them on my Facebook biz page.
A few days into the launch, it was the middle of the day and I felt like watching a movie that I’d recently found on Amazon Prime (Two Night Stand, which I’ve watched about a dozen times since finding it). I gave myself permission to watch it, in the name of studying story.
After the movie was done, I felt inspired to make a video, talking about what I’d just done (watched a movie in the middle of the day!!) and why it was an important part of how I study and learn about storytelling. Then I talked about the workshop and told you where to find the link to sign up.
I posted the video on my Facebook biz page, shared it over to my free Facebook groups, and sent it out in an email to my community.
All of this “marketing” felt so EASY. It felt totally natural and just an extension of me being me.
Because I would’ve written about and talked about that stuff anyhow, even if I didn’t have a workshop I was launching. That’s how I started my blog back in 2008–by sharing what I was learning on my writing journey, in hopes it would save other writers time, energy and frustration on their own journeys.
In June 2016, I had this exact same launch/marketing experience when I sold 1,007 books in 30 days. It was SO EASY. It felt totally natural and like I was totally being myself and that was enough.
Now when I say it was EASY, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t work. I still had to take action and do marketing activities.
But it FELT easy.
I didn’t have to force it. I didn’t have to pre-plan a bunch of launch content or worry about “how” I was going to sell books (or spots in my Master Story Structure workshop).
It just happened naturally as an extension of me being me.
This is what I’ve officially dubbed Manifestation Marketing. When you show up every day as you and do what you feel called to do, that’s when things magically start to work better than ever before.
I know this. I’ve known this. And yet somehow I keep forgetting.
This launch reminded me. When you work from alignment and flow ONLY, things become EASY.
And going forward, I’m no longer available to operate my biz in any other way.
STOP making marketing (book or otherwise) more complicated than it needs to be. Focus on doing what feels good to you.
Focus on being who you are and sharing and selling from that place, instead of thinking you have to create some mechanical launch plan or follow someone else’s strategy.
That’s it–that’s all you have to do. Marketing really can be easy when you do it the Manifestation Marketing way.
It’s such a dream to be able to do work I love and that feels like a natural extension of being who I am. No forcing. Just ease, flow and alignment. It feels so good.
Dream life or bust,
jen
