NOVEMBER 1, 2022

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Welcome to The Tilt, a twice-weekly newsletter for content entrepreneurs.

In This Issue: Successful authors talk about their ebook strategies. Content marketing led to a content business, and why 2:32 p.m. Wednesday isn’t an optimal time.

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For an industry that inspires the latest viral and innovative social media content, the idea of using an ebook to gain followers might feel – well – a little bit stodgy.

But here’s the thing about ebooks – when done right, they work. They:

• Help you tell your story and demonstrate your expertise – growing your community.
• Provide one more touchpoint – extending your reach even further.
• Offer another way to diversify your content – helping you grow your revenue streams.

“It’s a way to get people into my orbit and familiar with my work and hopefully get excited over time about what they might be able to learn in the course,” says Dorie Clark, online course creator, communication coach, and bestselling author.

Says author Rebecca Cuevas, the online course creator behind Learn and Get Smarter, “A book is the basis of building a community – your community of practice around whatever it is that you’re teaching and that everyone can, literally, be on the same page.”

No one-size-fits-all game plan exists for ebooks, and Dorie and Rebecca illustrate that with their strategies. Here’s how.

Dorie’s three primary online courses help professionals get better known for the great work they do, and her ebooks have been a critical lead-generation strategy. They are the primary way she connected with new clients as she built her seven-figure business.

When marketing her online courses with guest appearances on podcasts or articles in high-profile publications, Dorie shares a link to one of her ebooks, each based on her four full-length books. The link leads to an ebook landing page, such as Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive, where visitors share their email address and download the ebook. Those emails get added to Dorie’s course marketing outreach list.

“Ebooks are terrific because they are heftier than just reading an article in a publication, and it gives people a chance to engage with you in a more substantive fashion,” Dorie says.

In addition to the flip books Rebecca creates for her online courses, she has two ebooks – Hello World – Meet Mother Rebecca: The Autobiography of a Fictional Victorian Know-It-All and Course Design Formula: How to Teach Anything to Anyone Online.

Meet Mother Rebecca is about Rebecca’s fictional alter ego who shares her values and mission and shows up in an online space without being divisive, she says. “It was a way to tell my story by keeping the truth but removing all the facts,” Rebecca explains.

Course Design Formula is a how-to book that provides practical tips on how to design online courses. Her ebooks may sound like dramatically different topics, but Rebecca says both have helped her build her business and bring the right kind of clients to her.

If a potential client hears about or reads Meet Mother Rebecca and doesn’t relate to it, “that’s a good indicator to me that they probably aren’t really attracted to my brand, so I’m probably not going to be the best service to them,” she says.

Rebecca sells her ebooks on Amazon, so she doesn’t gather emails from those sales. However, she includes ebook links to her website in a “free resource” section so readers can sign up for her email list. She also uses her books as one more entry point into all her offerings, which include courses and coaching. “What it’s enabling me to do is scale my impact,” she says.

– Sarah Lindenfeld Hall

Learn these authors’ four tips to create an ebook for your business.

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Entrepreneur and Biz: Philip VanDusen

Tilt: Marketing, design, brand strategy, and entrepreneurship

Primary Channels: YouTube (256K), private Facebook group (4.9K), LinkedIn (7.4K), Brand Design Masters podcast, website

Other Channels: Twitter (3.1K), Instagram (4.3K)

Time to First Dollar: 2 years

Rev Streams: 50% from YouTube sponsorships, YouTube ads, appearances on other channels, paid mastermind groups, online course; 50% from agency clients

Our Favorite Actionable Advice:

• Keep your eyes open: Formerly head of design for Pepsico snack products, Philip ended up building a design agency. His content marketing for that business led him to create an educational content business.
• Repurpose everything: Showing up in people’s feeds regularly is important. But you may not be able to create new content every day. So repurpose what you have – turn a video into a short video, an audio clip, an Instagram post, and/or a blog post.
• Don’t try to be everywhere: Content creators have many distribution vehicles, from social media platforms to newsletters to website content. Pick one and focus on that for at least six months.

– Ann Gynn

All the Story: Read more about the man who led design for Lay’s Potato Chips before becoming a content entrepreneur.

Know a content creator who’s going full tilt? DM us. Or email tilt@thetilt.com.

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• If TikTok is banned, what should content creators do? (Content Inc. podcast)
• Is a drop in advertising to blame for Meta's stock plummet, or is there something deeper marketers should worry about? (This Old Marketing podcast)
• ​Start on an entrepreneurial path even if you don’t finish it successfully. (FEE Stories)
• ​9 steps to get started on your business (Forbes)
• Are you moving your business to a new state? (CPA Advisor)

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Your team for this issue: Joe Pulizzi, Pam Pulizzi, Ann Gynn, Laura Kozak, Marc Maxhimer, and Dave Anthony, with an assist from Sarah Lindenfeld Hall.

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