I'm selling books on Ebay Australia for $25, postage is $3. How do I sell globally on Ebay & Amazon when postage is $25 or more?

I was an eBay trading assistant and they still have them. What you can do is access the eBay trading assistant program on eBay.com. The page lets you search for eBay resellers in your local geographic area, but better, you don't have to pay them 50/50. The eBay trading assistants usually make between 25 and 37%, so don't feel like you need to pay them 50%. I hope this helps. I would be glad to take you through the program if you are interested. Bruce

This is a hugely important question. Thanks for asking it. You have to first understand the goal of your book. Book sales are a terrible return on investment for 99.99% of authors. The real value is in growing your business and creating new opportunities for more substantial returns. You can often put the same amount of energy into selling a book (and gaining a few bucks) as you would into creating a new client (depending on your business that can be substantial revenue). So know your goals. If your goal is to use your book as a lead generator for your business, then sure, you want to make it available for sale wherever people buy books (at least online), but you want to get that book into the hands of as many potential clients as possible. So plan on giving away lots of them for free. To do that, you're going to need a printing partner who knows how to get you fantastic bulk discount rates so you're spending no more than a few bucks a book. What you also have to consider is that if your book is going to be your calling card, it has to be exceptional. Not good. Not alright. But exceptional. It has to capture the essence of you. Your voice has to resound through the writing. And it has to be a page turner. So hire the right expert or team to help to ensure you are showing off your brand in a way that excites the kind of people you want to attract. Feel free to get in touch with me for more thoughts in this direction. This is the world I live in. Big Love, Corey

I think you're on the right track with the likes of eBay, Instagram, and Etsy. Those sites have established communities interested in what you have to offer. That said, each of those platforms have different optimization techniques to reach the right audience. For example, using proper hashtags on Instagram will likely result in increased traffic. Spending some money on Etsy's pay-per-click ads will result in fresh, targeted traffic. I've helped brands around the world increase their reach through optimization with varying budgets. I don't believe in "one-size-fits-all" approaches, as each market has a unique audience, product, and seller (you) - those are important considerations before launching any type of sales campaign. I'd be happy to schedule a call with you to discuss more in detail. -Shaun

Think big. Start small. You should always think of the bigger picture (i.e. Facebook for everyone in the world), because you want to make sure that you enable yourself to grow towards that point. Using Steve Jobs' analogy, it's about anticipating where the dots will be. Or as Wayne Gretzky puts it: skate to where you expect the puck will be, not where it is at the moment. Having this bigger vision in mind, will help you move forward. That said, always start small. If you can make your product or service valuable for a small group of people (that are also representative of a bigger population), you can definitely figure out ways to reach those people. The initial challenge though is to make those first 10 / 100 / 1000 people really use your product or service (and preferably pay for it).

It can depend on the type of book and goal for your book. But the strategies I know of working and that have worked for me. Involved building an audience of your own and leveraging other peoples audiences. So if you don't have an audience go through and find the thought leaders and personalities in that space. Chat with them about the book and see if you can get them on your launch team. Start Sending out advanced copies to these people to get their feedback and support. Then you want to create some pre-sale freebies. With Mark Mason The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. Had a bunch of freebies if you pre-orded it for 20 bucks or something. He also appeared on a shit load of podcasts and had a bunch of people promoting his pre-launch.