What Is In It For You?

I had an interesting set of short conversations a couple of weeks ago at a mentoring event that it turns out was for women only. I was the only male, besides the host of the event, in a field of 250+ very intelligent women and the 35 female “mentors” they were there to meet. Needless to say I got a considerable amount of attention and even a fair amount of praise for participating at the event.

I guess I knew that it was a women-only event, but I didn’t really think about it that way until I arrived at the venue. The young lady who greeted me asked me, very nicely, why I was there. So I told her I wanted to ask some questions of the mentors, several if not all of whom seemed like very bright people. She thanked me for being there and for appreciating the people I was going to meet and talk with — female though they may be!

I wasn’t at the event to network or to try to sell something to the people participating in the event. I did strike up conversations with several of the women while standing in line to speak with my chosen mentors, and we had good giggles about my presence as the only male participating in the event. I had a ball! And I got to talk to the three women mentors that I wanted to speak to.

My question to the women I spoke to was pretty simple and pretty specific: How do I attract more readers for my new (2015) book Inspiration Now!? Two said they had no idea. Book promotions weren’t their thing. Fair enough. Number three, however, had a good question: “Why your Inspiration Now! instead of anybody else’s?” I think that was a pretty good question. But I didn’t like her suggestion for personalizing it, even though people have made money — and maybe a lot of money — “repurposing” the same material over and over.

Her thought was that I create a whole series of ersatz titles: Inspiration for Dummies, Inspiration for Accountants, Inspiration for Smart People and Inspiration for yadda, yadda, yadda specific audiences. Same basic book, a few tweaks and wow — an instant empire of books.

What do you think? The book is designed to inspire people regardless of their profession. I give even “dummies” the benefit of the doubt. If they think they might get a good idea from reading it, and they turn out to be right, are they dummies? I don’t think so! Is an accountant or a “smart person” too obtuse to figure out that even one inspiration from the book might double or triple his or her practice unless I “package” it specifically for them? I don’t think so.

But OK, let’s play devil’s advocate. I’m supposedly a marketing guy after all. I know the book could — should? — be repackaged into a big series. But I just don’t like the ethics of it. And I’d like some additional opinions. Yours, if you please.

The book is at Amazon — http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00RQT1BLK —  and it’s a whopping $2.99 in the electronic version for Kindle — and other — eBook reading smartphones and tablets if you want to read it before rendering your opinion. You don’t have to do that, of course. I’ll respect your opinion either way. But please do let me know via a comment to this post about the strategy you think I should use.

If you don’t, I may have to replicate it as “What’s In It For You?” for Dummies. And I really don’t think my readers are dummies. Please don’t prove me wrong! As an incentive — What Is In It For You? — I’ll send you a free copy of the new “Presentations That Persuade!” ebook — a $4.95 value — in return for your comment.

Come to think of it, you might want to read Inspiration Now! at $2.99, make a comment on this post, and get the $4.95 Presentations That Persuade! book in return. Make sense?

I look forward to hearing from you either way. Thanks!