Interview With Sharon Lechter, How To Sell More Books
Hi, this is Sotiris Bassakaropoulos. This is my interview with Sharon Lechter.
- What advice would you give somebody who wants to transition from a job to setting up their own business? A lot of it has to do with personal risk, so if you have a family you want to start your part time business before you walk away from your job. At the end of the day we have high stress which means low intelligence so, get your business plan in order and start it as a part time business. Till it gets to the point where you can step out of your job knowing you have a business that is already starting to be successful. At the end of the day you want to be able to sleep at night
- When advertising products and services what methods would you generally use or prefer to use? Well, my entire career I have spent very little money on advertising, I think the best advertising is word of mouth referral, there is a difference between serving and selling. So if you actually serve people you create relationships and certainly Rich Dad Poor Dad was a phenomenal viral success before the internet.  It was a success because people read the book and shared it with everyone they know. So that’s the number one, to make sure you take care of the customers and make them your raving fans.
- What was the best bit of advice that helped change the course of your life? As a kid every night, my dad would ask me when I went to bed at night; Sharon, have you added value to somebody’s life today? I lost him ten years ago but I still ask myself that every night.
- What factors would you say makes the difference between being a bestselling author and an unknown author? In order to be successful as an author, you have to have a platform and that’s the business around the book. So when you’re writing a book you have to think about how you’re going to market it, how you’re going to get other people to support you, Joint Ventures or affiliate programs where people will share the book with others. And that’s your platform, through social media, through advertising, through ways to have additional products behind it, you surely want it not just to be a bestseller for an hour, you want to have it so it truly makes a difference.
- My mum met her one-hundred year old mother by accident in a bar in Dublin. She died on her hundred-and-fourth year of life. What do you think would be a good title for the book? My friend Paul Harvey said he had a review called the Rest of the Story or the Gift of Life at one-hundred, the icing on top, The Gift of Love.
- What advice would you give to a writer launching their first book? It’s one thing to write the book but you need to understand as a writer how you’re going to market it, are you going to have products that go along with the book? How you’re going to market it, are you going to spread the word about it? On launch it has a multi-faceted approach, so it’s not just how are you going to get it in the store, how are you going to get it on Amazon, how are you going to get other media outlets to support you? Plan the launch in a very concentrated amount of time. Then radio interviews, television interviews, but primary building that platform to provide the tools for people to read it, love it, review it and then share it. Social currency is all part of your platform.
A few years earlier I found out your book from advice from somebody many years ago when I was actually driving a taxi for a short period and I just went to New York and it was actually the time that they blown up the Twin Towers. My flight was booked for the 13th of September and I was going to do a tour of the Twin Towers on the 11th to the 13th of September 2001. But I met my wife there, so I stayed on in Virginia Beach and changed my flights to the 26th of September. Your book changed my life and I’ve changed a lot of people’s lives by changing their mindset.
If people want to find more about you where do they look?
Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, my website, sharonlechter.com, so I’m easy to find, reach out to me, I would love to hear from everybody and at the end of the day remember that you are the CEO of your own life, so we’re all where we are today because of the decisions we made before today.