New Service Providers often run into a quagmire of problems - tough to find clients, clients are not ideal, clients who don't pay, clients who want a free trial, clients who are one and done (from the ecosystem), clients who keep asking for changes (without understanding your time costs money)

If you want to build a sustainable business you need a reliable supply of Trusted Author Clients. We will consider three streams of Clients that you MUST build

1) A solid customer base of Trusted Author Clients who supply you steady business

2) Word of Mouth Referrals and Viral Growth that provides you with an additional regular stream of new customers

3) Marketing Methods that provide you a third stream of (new) customers

Before we jump into these three Client Streams, we will cover what you want from your Clients - so you can build Client Streams that get you Great Clients with whom you can build win-win relationships


The absolute most important thing is to Define and Envision who your Ideal Clients are, and focus on acquiring them. Only them - forget all other clients and focus only on these Ideal 'Clients of Good Intent'

Here are some guidelines for what constitutes 'Clients of Good Intent'

1) Believe in Win-Win

2) Not High Maintenance

3) Are profitable - they make you more than it costs you to provide services and support to them
This is absolutely critical

4) Show you common courtesy
Working with anyone who is rude and/or treats you poorly gets very tiring very fast. Make sure you run away from any Clients who don't show you common courtesy

5) Are 'Clients of Good Intent' i.e. they are OK with you doing well and growing and prospering as you help them do well and grow and prosper
For many people, who haven't experienced this, it will be a shock when you find a small percentage of Clients who want you to suffer losses and 'make it up with other customers' or 'make it up in some other way'. These clients do exist and avoiding them is important to succeed

6) Are a good fit for your skills and talents i.e. you can do great work for them

7) Are good at what they do and/or are working hard to improve
If you work with people who do bad work, your hard work is wasted as no one is going to read their books
This doesn't just waste your work, it also means less referral sales as no one sees the quality work that you have done

8) Are successful enough to stick around
You do not want to keep searching for new clients. Focus on clients who have been in the ecosystem for a while and will remain in the ecosystem for a while
This is also why we strongly recommend working only with people who do good work and who improve their work

9) Are not jaded or burnt
The tech companies in the ecosystem want to enslave content creators and keep them all tiny and unsuccessful and working as digital sharecroppers. This creates a small set of authors who are very jaded
Avoid these authors. Even if you are starving avoid these authors

10) Have some basic level of common sense and are pragmatic
Authors who come up with illogical demands and have crazy expectations are best avoided


This is your Bread and Butter. EVERYTHING depends on building up a client base of loyal and regular and trusted clients. The 'Secret' is not really a secret

1) Provide them with really good service and really good product

2) If you get efficiencies of scale, productivity increases, reduced costs, then provide them with more value for the same price they were paying earlier

3) Treat them with common courtesy

4) Have easy communication options and communicate regulary and clearly
Most authors are antsy and henpecked by the stores. Half your battle is establishing clear communication lines with them and having a way they can reach you easily
Quite simply, authors have been bothered so much by stores (which are often capricious and unfriendly) and by dishonest elements in the ecosystem, that they start panicking if they do not get some quick and easy communication method
It will seem crazy to you that you need to do this hand holding in the beginning of the business relationship - however, it's quite necessary for the percentage of authors who are antsy

5) Have a way to contact them quickly and easily and cheaply. An email list is a good option

6) Offer them specials and/or special products

7) Have some 'bonus' services that only regular customers get

8) List down their pain points (pain points of your regular customers) and see if you can address any of those

9) Make it clear to them that they are Special. Have a special membership level, or give out some special 'offering' or 'service' to them

10) Make it easy for them to give you money i.e. when they are buying your product it should be an easy and straightforward process

11) Figure out what percentage of your business is Repeat Customers and if it's over 50% then tailor your website and customer experience to focus on Repeat Customers
Most companies focus so much on 'Customer Acquisition' they forget that their REAL customer base are their existing customers

Your loyal repeat customer base is what will make you a great company - deliver a great service to them, make great products for them, eliminate one or more of their pain points


Your Client Stream 2 are clients generated by your existing clients. There are two main ways this happens (one natural - word of mouth; and one you catalyse - viral growth)

1) Word of Mouth Referrals. Not only does your loyal repeat customer base keep your business going (and growing), it's also a great source for new customers via word of mouth referrals
1b) Make it easy for customers to share with potential new customers. Have a Share button. Request customers to share
1c) Make your customers aware that you would appreciate referrals

2) Viral Growth. You can supplement natural word of mouth by giving customers incentives to refer you to new customers
2b) Offer a special 5% or 10% discount for Referrals. Example: Refer a customer and get 10% off your next order
2c) Even Better: Offer a special discount for both the referring customer and the new customer. Example: Refer your friend and she gets 10% off and you get 10% off
2d) Have a special level of service that opens only for those who have referred a customer (or for those who at least invited someone)
2e) The Golden Rule for Viral Growth is - Each existing customer must create at least one new customer
You achieve this and you get never ending growth (well, until you saturate your entire addressable market)
2f) The most important factor is how soon an existing customer creates a new customer referral. This is called viral lifecycle time and you want this to be one week to 4 weeks (shorter is better)
i.e. A New Customer who signs up, within 1 to 4 weeks, should have referred another new customer for you

2g) Design your product with virality and word of mouth in its DNA
You literally start with - how can people who like my product tell other people about it? how do I offer incentives so that they share?

If you get one out of Word of Mouth and Viral Growth right - you are guaranteed to become very successful (provided your product has Product Market Fit and is a great product)

If you get both Word of Mouth and Viral Growth right - you will be on a rocket ship to the stars


Your Client Stream 3 are new clients you get via marketing. There are lots of different types of marketing. We'll list a few here

1) Traditional marketing in print and on radio and on TV
You can also target Book Conferences and magazines for Authors

2) Online Marketing on Search Engines
Very Important to go with Pay Per Click (Pay Per Impression is pretty much burning money)
Very Important to measure conversion and make sure the clicks convert into sales at a good conversion rate

3) Online Marketing on Social Media
Critical to only do Pay Per Click (everything else is wasting money)
Critical to measure conversion. Social Media marketing is notorious for not working 90% of the time - so make sure you are actually getting sales

4) Marketing by providing a service authors need/use
Create a small calculator tool to let authors calculate their royalties
Create a tool to let authors calculate their Earnings based on Pages Read and Rate per Page Read
Provide some tool or service authors use, and then market your products to them

5) Marketing by providing some content authors like
You can provide them something useful, something about writing, or you can just entertain them
Most effective is content that helps them in their writing career

6) Marketing by providing a free blog post to some popular blog

7) Marketing by just joining various groups or forums and providing value in the discussions

There are a multitude of ways you can market your services. Try out as many different methods as you can. Measure the effectiveness of each. Then focus on what works for you. There will usually be 1 or 2 paid marketing methods and 2 or 3 free marketing methods that work very well for you
Make it even more powerful by leveraging Pareto Principle - focus on what is working and getting you actual sales