Best Seller in a Weekend - Webinar Review

Best Seller in a Weekend is the business of Alicia Dunams. This post is a review of a webinar I attended.

Alicia Dunams

The best description of Alicia's business is from her own website:

Alicia Dunams motivates thousands of entrepreneurs around the world to play big to produce the business results and life they want. She’s coached hundreds of entrepreneurs worldwide to write, publish and market their book during her acclaimed live Bestseller in a Weekend program.

I came across Alicia's website while searching for creating a book quickly. I signed up for her mailing list, and subsequently received an offer to attend a webinar: Best Seller in a Weekend. This type of service is targeted towards individuals who want to establish themselves as experts within their fields by writing a non-fiction (how to) book.

Webinar Summary

You can view the full slick deck from the webinar via the SlideShare presentation below.

These are the highlights from my notes
1. Amazon search results - how the algorithm works

• How you publish (CreateSpace, Kindle, and Amazon's own publishing companies receive a high prioritization).
• Higher sales translates into better ranking within a specific category.
• The number of legitimate reviews for a book indicates interest in the book.
• A book title (and subtitle) based on specific keywords enhances visibility.

2. Alicia's basic process

• Identify 6 concepts related to the topic.
• Develop 20 questions for each concept (a total of 120 questions)
• Get a friend to ask you these questions while recording.
• Transcribe the recorded question and answer session.
• The resulting transcript forms the bulk of content for the book. Two hours of recording roughly translates into 20,000 words which is the equivalent of a 100-page book (5x8 dimensions).

3. Establish yourself as an expert
Use this template to establish yourself as an expert:

• My name is ____.
• I help ____ be/do/have (insert your target audience)
• _____ (your expertise)
• so that _____ (results).

You can use this same information to pitch your book:

• My name is _____.
• I'm the author of ____ (title)
• which teaches how to
• _____ (subtitle).

4. Create a title and subtitle

• The title of the book should be a noun.
• The subtitle of the book should be a verb.
• The words "teaches (how to)" should silently connect the title and subtitle.
• Example: Straight A Student (teaches how to) Get better grades today
• Example (Actual book): Blog a book (teaches how to) Write, Publish, and Promote Your Work One Post at a Time

5. Establish bestseller status
A strategy to achieving bestseller status is to select a super niche category for your book. The next step is to use social media to coordinate the follow:

• Set up a book-buy blitz where as many individuals as possible buy your book within a limited time (24 or 48 hours).
• Enlist the help of friends, associates, and bloggers to help promote your book.
• Arrange for bulk purchases through civic clubs and chamber of commerce groups.
• Generate interest through pre-orders.
• Key point: Start promoting while writing via social media (posts, tweets, photos).

Slideshare Presentation

How to Write a Bestseller in a Weekend (Free Webinar) from adunams