Today, I’m joined by Carlos Whittaker, a people’s choice award winner, a former recording artist who spends his time creating new books and travels to speaking gigs. I’ll be chatting with Carlos about how he sold his books “from the trunk of my car.”
With a passion for writing starting with his blog, Carlos was pursuing writing in addition to a career as a singer. In 2010, he created a VLOG that went viral, which, in turn, produced traffic for his blog. At this point, he had 30,000 readers per day looking at his website, and publishers started to find his blog. “Although I was a singer, I had more people reading my words than buying my music.”
When Carlos decided to write his first book, he chose his best blog writings from his work that created the most traction from his past seven blogging years. Moment Maker was birthed from his blog in 2014. Although it didn’t sell well, “this was my little experiment, and I’m proud of it.”
He took his first offer from a publisher that approached him. “The first book was a book that I wanted to write that felt good for me, and I thought that maybe this could help a lot of people.” Carlos decided to be strategic in writing his second book and directly answered his audience’s pain point. Doing beta testing, targeting sales, and tweaking his talks to target more book purchases in the lobby post-speaking. “Once I found that secret sauce, I just stuck to that.”
With his third book, he is creating many Zoom talks and hasn’t had as much success with video marketing. Carlos is looking forward to 2021, when he can hit the road and see people in person to market his book.
Listen in to find out how you can make your audience the hero of your story, how to set up your book sale to get more people to buy your book, and Carlos’ pro tips for selling books.
Show Notes
- [01:40] Why Carlos decided to write his first book.
- [05:16] Getting approached by publishers to write his book and had one offer.
- [07:01] Tips for bloggers who want to turn their blog into a book.
- [09:52] Why he wrote his first book.
- [18:18] How to make your audience the hero of your story.
- [24:26] Pro tips for selling books at speaking gigs.
- [28:05] Figuring out how many books to bring with you to sell.
- [32:14] What Carlos reviews when revising his talk to sell more books.
- [37:30] Parting advice for listeners about how to be a better author.
Links and Resources
- Visit Self Publishing School Online
- SPS Free Training Course
- How to Write a Children’s Book Online Course
- Visit Carlos on the web
- Connect with Carlos on Instagram