How Last Year Our Book Marketing Platform Increased Revenue By 30%
This is a follow up story for AllAuthor. If you're interested in reading how they got started, published over 3 years ago, check it out here.
Hello again! Remind us who you are and what business you started.
AllAuthor is a book marketing platform where authors can directly connect with readers and increase their book visibility through a host of tools and features. AllAuthor was started in 2016 by Naveen Joshi & Madhuker Joshi after seeing a massive market gap for a simple, quick, effective, and budget-friendly book marketing solution for self-published authors.
Soon, we added a host of new tools and features (many more lined up for release!) geared at simplifying book promotions. We have two main membership programs: free membership and paid membership.
Through the free membership, authors get limited access to the tools on AllAuthor, along with four book listings. Authors can use the free membership as long as they need to.
The paid membership costs $59 for 6 months and provides unlimited access to the tools and features on AllAuthor, along with unlimited book listing. Many authors have started using their Author Profile on AllAuthor as a central hub of information and a landing page for readers to get more information about their books.
Here’s our previous feature on Starter Story.
Tell us about what you’ve been up to. Has the business been growing?
We’ve introduced a few new features, one of which is the New Book Release Alerts. Authors with free memberships can send their followers alerts about their new book releases through the AllAuthor platform. And authors with a paid membership can send the alerts directly to the emails of their followers.
Apart from this new feature, we’re also in the process of beta testing a new format of the ‘Cover of the Month’ Contest which is expected to launch by August. We have also launched new themes for our existing tools so that authors will have a wide variety of options for their book banners.
We need to test new ideas from time to time. We can not be stagnant or left behind.> We need to test new ideas from time to time. We can not be stagnant or left behind.
Based on all of these improvements, our author base has grown from 13K to 17.5K authors and our reader base has grown from 333,000 readers to 375,000 since the last year we were featured on Starter Story. We have also registered a 10 million increase in page views in the last year. Our revenue has increased by around 30% in the past year with our increasing base of loyal customers and referrals.
What have been your biggest challenges in the last year?
The recovery from COVID-19 was the biggest challenge for us in the last year. Since AllAuthor thrives on introducing new tools and features for our authors as and when they need it, it was a concern to navigate the new normal of remote working.
Due to the work-from-home situations and online communications and collaborations, a few of the projects in the pipeline got delayed. But our team has bounced back and is almost back on schedule with our latest releases; we plan to keep the same momentum going forward.
What have been your biggest lessons learned in the last year?
This year has been a whirlwind of change, and I've learned a lot about what's important to us.
We need to test new ideas from time to time. We can not be stagnant or left behind. If you're doing something that's working, don't be afraid to change things! You can't give up and stop trying, you must keep going until you find a solution!
From bouncing back from the COVID-19 situation to managing expectations and helping the team get through the tough times, we’ve learned to prioritize and change as the expectations of your customers and our work lifestyle change.
What’s in the plans for the upcoming year and the next 5 years?
While we’re close to catching up on the to-do tasks on our pipeline, we’re planning to accelerate and try to make up for the lost time.
We have a few more tools in the planning and development stage, so in the next year, our authors can expect more such time-saving and innovative tools to help them with their promotions.
We plan to reach our target of 25K authors in the coming year and retain most of our existing author base with more such solutions that provide them with more readership and visibility. We aim to increase our revenue by 80% with such additions of useful tools for the author community.
In the next 5 years, we plan to develop a platform where readers can directly buy authors' signed books. This will be a simple author-reader platform with no middleman involvement where authors can sell signed copies of their books to interested readers.
What’s the best thing you read in the last year?
I recently read Traffic Secrets by Russell Brunson, which provides great insights into getting the business discovered by the target audience — even when they don’t know that we exist. Instead of sitting around waiting for customers to drop in, Russell Brunson talks about getting out of the place and reeling people in.
The book goes on to outline hooks and strategies to make it happen, which was quite helpful in developing our outreach strategies for AllAuthor.
Advice for other entrepreneurs who might be struggling to grow their business?
The only thing I would advise is to never give up and keep on trying new things. Even if a few things fail, don’t let it deter you. Find out what happened, why it didn’t work and learn from the mistakes.
Treat every opportunity as a learning experience to grow and have the attitude to continue trying new stuff until one stick.
Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?
Yes, we are currently hiring developers and online marketing professionals. You can send the resumes to [email protected] if interested.
Where can we go to learn more?
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Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
Download the report and join our email newsletter packed with business ideas and money-making opportunities, backed by real-life case studies.
