Hey! It’s been about 3-4 weeks since Lucky Bastard! was launched in the bookstores and as a first time author, this is obviously a very exciting time for me. Anyways, first time anythings are always exciting! (Remember, the FIRST time you passed your driving test on your 176393396th attempt? Something like that exciting!)

Personally, I’ve only been around to two bookstores – Borders and Kinokuniya Orchard – and I’m REALLY stoked to see my book and name in bookstores. It is unreal sharing shelf space with luminaries like Kiyosaki and Obama. I’m a nobody!

According to a friend, Lucky Bastard! is #6 on the Border’s bestsellers list — she saw the list while she was there (but I didn’t catch it myself). So even though I wanna be number 1 in the entire freaking universe, this will do for now.

Anyway, I never thought I would EVER write a book in my life. I mean, writing just a blog post every now and then is tough enough. But an entire freaking book?! OMG. Too painful. I remember meeting some friends over a year back and one of them kinda confused me with Adam Khoo’s name on one particular book and he thought I wrote it. Whereupon, this look of incredulity came over me before I scowled “Noooooooo… I’d never write a book!” But looky here, one year on – I’m eating my own words.

If you’re wondering, this is how idea for the book came about. A year ago, I was on a private coaching program with Michel Fortin. Michel’s the #1 copywriter on the Internet today and an extremely successful Internet marketer and businessman as well.

So one day, Michel wrote an entry on his blog asking his readers to share their stories about how they got started in the world of Internet marketing. I read that blog post and decided to share my personal story with Michel on our private coaching platform. And this is what Michel had to say:

Now when I read that, I went “Wow! You mean people would actually pay to read about what I do?” It never really occurred to me that my knowledge was bankable because I was just simply doing what the Internet marketing gurus were teaching. But then, if Michel thought so, then he must be right.

Now even with someone like Michel backing me to write a book, I never really got into action at all (we all procrastinate — and I’m really good). I mean… like I mentioned earlier — write an entire freaking book?! Ughhh…

So as you can see from the screenshot above, that whole exchange happened April 2008. I got excited the very day Michel floated the idea to me and the very first page I wrote was my acknowledgments page. I was imagining my book already out and these were all the great people that helped me get to where I am now.

After I wrote that one page, I then procrastinated for 3 whole months, dilly-dallying, swinging back and forth about whether I should ever write that darn book. Until the Universe tapped my shoulder and quite explicitly told me to get the thing done. Seriously. This is how it happened.

I went down to this casting call – it was for some TV advertisement Starhub wanted to do, so my agency sent me to audition for the role. So anyway, I went down and this is the scene the casting studio wanted me act out — They wanted me to sit down at a desk and pretend I just finished typing my book, and celebrate as I hit the final keystroke to complete the book.

WTF.

When I heard that, my brain was going whooooaaaaaa…… this can’t be real. This is TOO freaking coincidental. I was in daze the whole time I was at the audition (didn’t get the job anyway) going “Okaaaaaaaay… now I REALLY need to get the book started asap” (or I’ll get struck by lightning or whatever).

So after 3 months of procrastinating and deliberating, it needed a sheer act of providence to get my ass moving. Not that I mind anyway! It’s always nice to know that there are certain things you MUST get done.

So I took another 3 whole months to write the book. I spent every Sun-Thu night and wee morning (brain only works at those times!) typing away at the computer writing my book page by page, line by line, word by word. It was VERY painful at first because I’m a very slow writer. I really take the time to craft my sentences to express whatever the heck it is I want to share – it’s got to express my personality, ideas and essence at the time I write it.

So I’m a very slow writer. It can take me 20-30 minutes just to write ONE freaking page. ONE freaking page – half an hour! There were nights I spent 5-6 hours just completing four pages! Arghhh! And you know how a book has at least 150- 250 pages. I was DEAD.

Anyway, somehow bit by bit, the book started to take shape. I aimed to complete a chapter every week. And a chapter being 15-20 pages long. So I just wrote and wrote and freaking wrote. Every night for three whole months. Until finally one late afternoon (inexplicably writing at that time of day for some reason), I finished the thing! I hit the final keystroke and BAM! I completed the first draft of Lucky Bastard! All DONE. From acting out a similar scene at some casting call three months ago, I was now doing it for real for my own book. FUCKING AWESOME.

Of course, it didn’t end there. Now came the endless rounds of editing. You see, I’m a perfectionist PIG. I tinker my personal projects to death until I think it’s perfect enough to show to the world. I’m really bad (and good) this way. I’m actually much better now; I used to be terrible when I was younger. I’ve learnt to let go and let things be as I’ve grown older.

As for the book, I then spent the next month editing, adding, subtracting and rewriting portions of the draft until I was satisfied. I then handed it over to an editor to clean up the manuscript, got it back and then I tinkered some more! Gawd! I’m terrible! In fact, I tinkered with the book all the way till the final week before print! Mad! But it being my first (and maybe my only) book, I wanted it to be as ‘perfect’ and as true to my heart as I wanted it to be.

I can know safely say I’m pretty satisfied with what I’ve come up with. There are things I’d like to change here and there still, but if I go on, it never ends does it? There are still typos and errors here and there (if you spot any, please let me know. Thanks!) but I’m happy and the book is out there now sitting pretty in the bookstores.

And speaking of pretty, the bright orange cover was no accident either (but of course, everything in life happens by design). When I first imagined how my book cover would look like, bright eye catching orange popped into my head. And I guess it kinda stuck. We had a white cover design done up as well, which was really nice too. But I went for the orange, because in a sea of books you want people to take notice.

Which is of course why I chose to name the book Lucky Bastard! buahahhahaa! I mean, what if I were to name it “Internet Marketing 101″ or “How To Make Money Online”? Decent enough, but it doesn’t stop people in its tracks. I betcha if you were to browse through a bookstore and come across a book that screamed “You F___king Twit!” (hahahahhaha!) — I mean you’d stop and at least pick up the book to find out more, right?

And I’m not the first anyway. There’s a New York Time’s bestseller called Skinny Bitch (a diet book), Rich Dad, Poor Dad, online there’s the Rich Jerk. So the formula works. Because I learnt this from somewhere; people DON’T buy books (because they haven’t read the thing yet), they buy book titles.

When I realized that tiny bit of fact, I went “ohhhhh… that’s true.” Cos that’s the way I buy my books anyway. So BAM! Lucky Bastard! Great title! I think I really picked the right name for this book because it really suits the whole essence of what I’m doing. Just have some freaking fun while you’re doing the stuff you’re doing in life. Besides… who needs another ‘boring’ IM book, there are tons out there already. I can’t compete.

So to leave with some bit of inspiration, I just wanna share with you that for any goal you have right now – just do it! Like me, I had NO idea how I was going to write a book. Never done anything like that before, no idea how to start, and I wasn’t sure if it was going to succeed or not. But it got done. Not in one night or two or three. From idea to manifestation, it took 10 MONTHS. It got done step by step.

And it is AMAZING.

To see something that only existed in your mind. An idea, the bright orange cover, the vision of it on shelves of major bookstores — all of that was just imagination. But now it’s manifest into reality. I tell ya, when you do stuff like this; to see something that’s only in your head and have it made real, you know you can CREATE the very world and life you want. Might not take a day, or two or three. But you get there in the end.

So! If you’re interested to know more about the book, I’d be really pleased. You can go to www.VeryLuckyBastard.com and download the first chapter of the book absolutely free. You’ll receive in your inbox when you opt-in and I hope you enjoy the read.

Follow your bliss,
Adam

=> Millionaire Stock Investors

Great!

Now, the focus of this blog post isn’t going to be about my promoting the contest or the new book. It’ll be about how we’re running the marketing of IT. If you go take a look at the site (link above), you notice one simple thing again – We’re collecting opt-ins.

If you take a look at all my sites, all of them have an opt-in box somewhere asking for your name and email address. Collecting leads is of utmost importance to your online business. Your mailing list is your biggest asset and the majority of your efforts online should be about building that list, building that list, building that list.

Ok, now back to the site. As you can see, we’re asking for the name, email address and we’ve added something extra. An extra field where you can ask a question. Why do we do this?

For market research. We want to know exactly what’s on the minds of the consumer and what better way than for them to say it out loud themselves. Obviously, we’re also incentivizing people to enter their names, emails and questions by offering them a prize. People are lazy pigs, (I am!), you have to push them before they take action…

Anyway, this here’s called an ASK campaign. I didn’t invent it, I learnt it from Alex Mandossian who also probably learnt it from somewhere else. This is a great way to conduct market research BEFORE you actually create your product. So that when do write that ebook, you know exactly what your market wants to read about.

So normally what you’d do is you set up a simple ask campaign like this, run some PPC ads so you can quickly drive targeted traffic. You then obtain invaluable market research which you use to create your product, plus you’re also collecting targeted leads at the same time. And when your product’s ready to go, you mail the offer out to the leads you’ve built up during the ask campaign.

A great strategy that works!

In this case however, Adam’s already written his book, so the market info wouldn’t be used towards creating the product but it will still be very useful nonetheless. Here’s why:

One, knowing more about your market never hurts and all the questions will come in use. Next, we’re adding interactivity with the people and this allows them to participate. We’re running a contest (fun!) with a prize that’s attractive to them. Also, we plan to answer the questions, which will benefit the participants and place us as an expert in our field, which indirectly leads to better sales and conversions.

Also, we’re building a targeted list of people who are interested in stock investing. Segmenting your lists leads to higher profits because you can then better tailor targeted offers to people on that list. So all in all, this will be pretty useful for us.

So consider using an ask campaign if you need to gather some important market research.

Ok my mind’s suddenly blank now. So I’ll stop.

tata..

$1003.56 in 5 days. Decent but way below my expectations. I was aiming for the $3k mark, so it’s a disappointment for me in my opinion. Anyway, if you’re reading this (of course you are…), I’m just showing you all of this just so you have a behind the scenes look at what we do ummm.. behind the scenes.

Just to recap the entire promo, I actually did an earlier mailing to a sub list about Success With NLP. I sent out two emails, one Tuesday and a follow-up on Thursdat, and that garnered a decent $600+.

I then went on to mail my other lists this Monday (4 days ago), a quick follow-up on Tuesday, and one last on yesterday on Thursday. Like I mentioned before, because I had a lot more people on my lists the second promo round, I was expecting a much bigger response. But that did $1k+ and so in total we made $1.6k+.

And so frustrated with the lack of BIG money and a rabid response from the people on my lists, I just bought a host of email promos, copywriting. salesletter, etc, products just so I can stuff myself with more mind-numbing information and learn how I can go about improving some more.

Anyway, for you reading this, just hope you enjoyed the sneak peek behind the scenes.

$558.63 in 24 hours.

Which isn’t really what I expected. I was aiming much higher than that. As you can see, the earlier figure ($600.71) was for a mailing sent out to a previous list and that had a lot less people on it. And that’s why I was gunning for a much higher figure this time around.

Ok.., the gurus are probably laughing at me right now. $500 in a day? I do that in 30 secs! ahahahhaha! Anyway, I’m still gonna continue my promo, so let’s see what happens the next few days.

As I type this, it’s Monday morning in Singapore (I can’t believe I’m actually awake at this time!) and pretty soon I’m going to be sending a mailing to my lists. Around 2-3pm local time. After lunch, when most people are loafing around anyway… (for my SG subscribers anyway, my US ones should be asleep).

Anyway, this mailing’s for SuccessWIthNLP.com where we sell Adam’s Master Your Mind, Design Your Destiny book (MYM from now on). MYM’s been around for a couple of years now, in print around the region, so it’s not really a new product. Which explains why I’m not doing a pre-launch, all the fancy stuff, like most people do for a new product.

I actually did small mailing for MYM to one my lists already. Kinda like a small test to see what’s the response like. And it was quite OK. But I’m aiming much higher this time, so let’s see where we’re gonna hit.

I’ll be doing like a live coverage sort of thing, with extras thrown in along the way, so if you’re interested to read about it, hang around my blog for the next few days.

Have a look at the site:

tata..

If you’ve been following my posts the past few days, you’d have known about this contest I’m doing.

So let’s get to the beef of it: The prize of this contest is a copy of The Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires program. And do you know I just found out the physical version of SSMM is retailing at S$558?! So you’re getting a real deal here.

What do you have to do?

Just head on down to my counterpart’s blog, read the latest post and then leave a comment. That’s it!

==> http://www.adam-khoo.com/?p=40

2 winners will be walking away with the prize, so all the best.

If you’ve been waiting for a new post, I’m sorry but I’ve been really busy with something (don’t I always use this line?). Anyway, the thing I’ve been really really busy with is that I’m revamping the copy of Secrets of Self-Made Millionaires.

Yup. I felt that the conversions on the sales page could be improved, so I’ve been really knocking my brains out just to make the message more compelling. It’s almost done soon (not yet) so once I’ve finished the updated copy, I’ll upload both the old and new copy and open it up to your comments and scrutiny.

No comment will be spared! Gimme all your feedback, good or bad, bouquets or brickbats.

And that’s where the contest is gonna come in. I’m gonna post the news about the change in salescopy for SSMM on either mine or Adam’s blog and we’re gonna invite comments on the copywriting like I mentioned above.

Because we want you to join in the analytical fun of praising or trashing my copywriting, we’re gonna give away a prize for the most helpful, informative, critical, slapbangjeewhiz comment that appears. You get the picture. So the best comment wins a prize.

And the prize is… well I’m not gonna reveal now because I want to have the A-OK from Adam first before I mention anything that’s gonna be given out for free. (it’s not CASH, if you’re wondering. So stop dreaming. Slap! Slap!)

UPDATE: We’re giving away the entire copy of SSMM to two winners. So if you’ve always wanted to get your grubby little hands on it but were too cheapskate to buy, here’s your chance to grab it. Really, all my blog readers should have got SSMM by now. anyway…

So look out for that pretty soon and we hope to see you participating in the contest. And of course it’s free to join. you can place as many comments as you want.

And just to end this post, here’s an email I just received 5 minutes ago about SSMM:

Hi Adam,

I’m Alex from Jakarta. I have just finished reading your book Secrets to a Self Made Millionaire and let me say to you that it has been THE most enlightening book I have read in my entire 25years – I have re-read your book 10times and I still cant get enough of it!

I have read Rich Dad Poor Dad a few years back & I have started accumulating positive cashflow generating assets since then, but your book makes Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad Poor Dad (and his subsequent books) look like a read for primary school students – Kiyosaki was so rudimentary when compared to your book.

Wow! The MOST enlightening book in his last 25 years! What a great testimonial for SSMM. But I probably can’t use it on the salescopy because of the references to Kiyosaki. So I decided to post it here on a more ‘private’ blog.

Out.