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Since I launched Write a Book, Build a Brand, people have been asking me what exactly is needed to sell a book through a SLO funnel. There isn’t a long list of things needed to make a successful SLO book funnel, but it does take time to build everything out.

Let’s jump right into the SLO book funnel requirements.

• A nonfiction book
• Valuable bonuses (at least 5-7)
• Supplemental products for your upsells and downsells
• Sales cart builder
• High-ticket offer
• Email service provider
• Email sequences
• Membership area

Your Book

The hallmark of your book funnel is your book that solves a particular problem your reader has.

Your book needs to ascend readers into buyers of your supplemental products and services related to your high-ticket offer through the ascension model.

The ascension model is based on your book creating a problem that the reader now wants to solve after reading it. For example, in Write a Book, Build a Brand readers may want to quickly implement the method for their own business, but don’t know how to put all the pieces together.

My book has caused a problem – people want to be able to achieve what they’ve learned in the book faster, with less hassle and fewer mistakes made along the way.

Here are the key features your book needs in order to lead people into your high-ticket offers:

• Non-fiction

• Teaches your complete signature method, framework or system

• Leaves the reader with a new problem after finishing your book

Valuable Bonuses

To make the purchase of your book a ‘no-brainer’ offer, you should aim to include at least 5-7 related bonuses. Bonuses can be anything that is related to the subject of your book that will help readers. For example, the bonuses included in Write a Book, Build a Brand are:

• Private Facebook group
• Podcast Guest Pitch Tips
• Anatomy of a Killer Sales Page list
• Book Funnel Launch Checklist
• Names That Sell Naming Guide
• 7-Day Quickstart mini course
• Book Profit Calculator

All of the products I’ve included as bonuses help people with implementing their own book sales funnel and offer incredible value. This is especially important if you’re trying to sell your book for $27 or above.

Supplemental Products

Any successful book funnel will need supplemental products to help you negate your ad spend (making it free!) and make a profit on the backend. My suggestion is to include two upsells and corresponding downsells, meaning that if you sell a course for $197 as an upsell, then your downsell should be a payment plan of the $197 course instead of a completely new product.

Once again, these products should be related to your core offer of your book and help readers get something faster, with less hassle and fewer mistakes than if they were to do it all on their own. Examples of good upsells and downsells include:

• Courses
• Templates
• Checklists
• Guides
• Software
• 1:1 coaching
• Memberships
• Digital planners
• Audiofiles
• Fonts
• Branding services
• Stock photos
• Stock video introduction
• Apps

The list of what you can sell as a supplemental product can be whatever you want it to be so don’t feel limited to this list.

Sales Cart Builder

You’re going to need to have a sales page and a platform to accept payments (Stripe, PayPal, Venmo, etc). I use ThriveCart which allows me to build a sales page and accept payments on the same platform. Some people build sales pages on their website and attach a separate payment processor to accept payments. I’ve done both, but after using ThriveCart, everything is so much easier to have everything in one place.

Another great reason I like ThriveCart is that it has lifetime pricing, meaning you pay for the software once and don’t have to worry about monthly fees! You can grab a lifetime membership here for $495. I’d jump on this ASAP because no one knows when ThriveCart will pull this offer.

And for the people wondering how user-friendly ThriveCart is, it’s super easy to build sales pages and their support team is phenomenal if you get stuck!

High-Ticket Offer

This is optional, but I highly suggest you have a high-ticket offer in your business that you can lead your book buyers into. Check out my post on How to Turn Your Book Into a High-Ticket Offer for in-depth information on high-ticket programs and how they work with a book funnel.

Email Service Provider

If you have a way to collect emails and send out semi-regular emails to your list, you’ve already got this covered. If you’re new to email marketing the first step is to get an account with an email service provider like ConvertKit, MailChimp, or Active Campaign and start collecting emails.

It’s taken me a few years to figure out the whole email marketing thing, so when I finally figured it out, I choose ConvertKit as my provider after using a few others that weren’t user-friendly for me. Even with my limited knowledge of email marketing, it was relatively easy for me to figure out how to use ConvertKit to send out emails and create automations.

Email Sequences

To properly set up your email automations, you’ll need to have email sequences for each product of your funnel. This means you’ll need to have emails that trigger for purchases, cart abandons, and for upsells. Last but not least, an email nurturing sequence that will help people with the know, like, and trust factor.

Check out this post for 6 Email Must-Haves for Your SLO Funnel.

Membership Area

It’s highly recommended that you have a dedicated member’s area for your products instead of a download link. The reason being is that with a member’s area, you can showcase all of your products. This includes products that a book buyer didn’t end up purchasing. Later on down the line when a reader is ready to buy your upsell, it’s easier fot them to purchase.

If you’re ready to start building your book funnel, these are the components you need. If you need help trying to figure out what type of book works best for this type of funnel and need extra support in terms of helping you reach your goals faster, purchase your copy of Write a Book, Build a Brand.