Getting your book noticed is difficult and one of the strategies that’s now becoming common is to offer bonuses to people who buy it. Sometimes this is used to drive sales on a particular day so the author can become “an Amazon best-seller” (if only for that one day). You order the book online and send your receipt number to the author, who then sends you an email with the bonuses, which are e-books or reports or a CD.
It’s an appealing strategy—if people actually want the bonuses you are offering. Today I received an offer for a book on personal success. One set of bonuses originated from the author and included an interview series and “24/7 access” to him (what, I can phone him at 3 in the morning?). The other bonuses included a CD and mini-course on turning your passion into cash ($497 value—really?), a course on letting out my inner millionaire ($197 value), a business breakthrough quiz and audio program ($247 value), a report on getting cash in 90 days or less ($299 value)…a 12-week interactive course on waking up to my dream (obviously I’m sleeping too much--$695 value)…you get the idea.
According to my calculations, the bonuses add up to a value of $3217.85 (I think that’s right but my calculator was starting to overheat).
Two problems with this. The bonuses were all over the place in terms of topics—it felt like the kitchen-sink approach. Second, do I really believe that someone out there has paid $695 or $497 for the exact same product I am now getting free for buying a $16.95 book? Uh…nope. Frankly it turns me off to the whole proposition and to the author, and that ain’t good.
