Case study: Lester Levenson’s book called The Keys To The Ultimate Freedom gets repackaged

Many years ago I sold about 7,000 sets of the Sedona Method home study course in the UK, by direct mail (at around $300 a set). [The Sedona Method helps you let go of anger, sadness, anxiety etc.]

Hale Dwoskin, the creator of the Sedona Method course, was trying to write a book on the method but was stuck.

Lester Levenson, the originator of the Sedona Method, had written one book called The Keys To The Ultimate Freedom, which was a thick book: 392 pages of small, densely laid out text: edited transcripts of his talks.

It was then out of print. It looked like this…

I was always looking for new products to promote to my list of 50,000 buyers, so I spoke with

Hale and proposed a new product: a set of 6 books each containing one sixth of The Keys book, with the same introduction in each one, and the same conclusion.

Hale was interested in the idea and asked me to write him a full proposal.

I sat down and wrote a detailed proposal for what I had in mind, plus I explained how to market the set of 6 books.

With 6 books, and a higher price (much more than we could really sell for one big book) we could both afford to market it by direct mail to our mutual customers in the UK and US.

Also, if the books were well designed, many bookshops would be keen to stock the set. If a bookshop sold 1 and 2 then it was likely that they would reorder them to continue to have a complete set in stock.

Hale loved the idea, especially as it was much easier to top and tail a book that had already been published than to write from scratch about the Sedona Method, which was a daunting task! He decided to break The Keys book into 5 books: he was happiest with that, rather than 6.

I encouraged Hale to use my graphic designer of 25 years in the UK, Wendy Barratt – to design the cover, and lay out the text inside with plenty of white space to give an airy feel to suit a series of books on letting go of emotion.

I had come up with a few ideas for new book titles, so Hale and I emailed back and forth, until he settled for Happiness Is Free – And You Can Have It All The Time. This seemed to me a much better title than The Keys…!

Wendy came up with various book cover designs, but Hale went with another US-based graphic designer in the end. Wendy did the layout of all the chapters, and designed the ‘woodcut’ images.

Hale came up with the idea for simple exercises at the end of each book.

This is what the final result looked like. You can see 2 of the front covers on the left, then on the right what the 5 books look like on a bookshelf…

I created a mailing to sell the Happiness book set at £99 (US$160) and we promoted it to our buyers of the Sedona Method course. We bundled in a few free gifts as well.

Hale kindly acknowledged my input – and for getting him out of writer’s block – on a teleconference call with other Sedona Method trainers.

Hale was on such a roll that he went on later to write what became a New York Times bestseller: The Sedona Method: Your Key to Lasting Happiness, Success, Peace and Emotional Well-being. (Amazon UK link) (Amazon US link)

You can still get the Keys book at Amazon for between $54 and $300. One reviewer there wrote…

Hale Dwoskin has taken the content from this book and placed it in the five (5) books: “Happiness Is Free and it is easier than you think”, series. So, while this book is excellent and I won’t part with mine, one can still receive the information contained in it from these other books. In fact, Hale has added some of his own releasing techniques in these other books, so they are even better. So, if you are lucky enough to purchase a copy of “Keys”, good for you, but if you can’t, you can get the same information a cheaper way: “Happiness Is Free” five (5) book set.

Some takeaways for you…

• Consider taking one of your products and break it up into smaller units.
• Think about selling the complete set for more than the price you originally charged.
• Add in extra bonuses to make the set more complete and well-rounded.
• Consider renaming the product if you do any of this – especially if you can make the name more targeted and relevant – to give it a new lease of life.