The Self Publisher's Guide

2011-10-09T03:18:00.000-07:00

Are Social Media Strategies for Book Marketing Worth It?

Is it worth our time, money, and energy to market our books with social media strategies and why?

Before social media, it took a lot of effort, money, and time to reach our book’s best audience. We scheduled talks, press releases, and networked in person to get visibility and even credibility for the information our book shared. A lot of work, with a relatively low return on investment (ROI).

In exposure numbers alone, it’s so worth participating in twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

For me, LinkedIn is my favorite social media marketing strategy. It serves my books and my book coaching business the best because, I am able to join groups who have my primary audience in them that wants engaging writing tips along with social media expertise to get books & business marketed.

That’s huge visibility and credibility as one “go to” person, because each time I comment or give good tips in the groups with my blog URL in the discussion box, my LinkedIn profile visits increase exponentially as well as my web traffic surges.

Trust and likeability follow after my audience tastes samples of my expertise. Outcomes include more book writing and social media marketing coaching clients, as well as a increased sales in my popular book, “LinkedIn Marketing.” It takes some time for these outcomes to manifest, so you need to participate in the game for the long term.

How do you find out what marketing works best, and where your “buyers” come from? Like me, you’ll want to test with Google Analytics to see where your best traffic comes from. Also, keep track of your Alexa.com score that shows your growth compared to other websites. Years ago, I my score was near 1 million. Over time and with solid, continuous marketing, my score came down. Since LinkedIn participation, my Alexa score has come down to 240,000. Lower is better. My goal this year is under 100,000.

How much time do I spend on LinkedIn? I divide my time on interacting in LinkedIn groups, especially my own book group and writing blog copy like this to share among my 50 groups I belong to. Both of these activities pay off handsomely.

I only participate, giving useful tips in active groups with around 1500+ members. This is exponential, viral visibility and the increase of payoffs is exponential also. Together, this engaging writing takes me about an hour a day total for the week.

When I post a blog article in the “discussion” box in each group, it’s almost instant with LinkedIn’s magic. That’s a possible 75,000 eyes seeing my expertise each week. With two how to blogs a week, that’s a possible 150,000 reading my posts each week. These business people visit my site to read the entire article, then comment and ask questions. It’s all interactive and powerful. Of course, you must write engaging blog titles too. These results can be yours with only 30 minutes-1hour a day time investment!

It’s really not time; it’s outcomes you want! What outcomes in $ do you want from your book or business? My end outcome: I want 10 or so clients per month and ongoing “LinkedIn Marketing” book sales. The in-between outcomes? Meeting with influential people who like what I offer. Meeting with my audience on a regular basis to establish trust, so that when they need my kind of services, they will connect back with me. This leads to profitable joint ventures of teleseminars, Twitter tweet exchanges and much more.

You get the picture. It’s worth your time and money investments and if you want to invest no money, a little money, a medium amount, or one on one social media coaching, see these opportunities at bookcoaching.com.

By Judy Cullins, 5th September 2011

http://www.publishingbasics.com/2011/09/05/are-social-media-strategies-for-book-marketing-worth-it/

2011-10-09T02:12:00.000-07:00

Book Interior: Typefaces and Readability of your Books’ Interior

The interior of your book is just as important as the cover. In fact, it just might be more important.

For me, the design of the books’ interior is liken to…

“Getting the book to speak to the reader, while being a soundless physical page.”

Once your book is purchased you’ll need to hold the reader’s attention. Certainly good content has a lot to do with it. Good editing and proofing as well. But the real reading is done from the typography that is set… designed, formatted, sized and styled to hold the reader’s attention and make them feel comfortable, safe and secure and not want to put your book down before they turn yet one more page. Compelling!

The typeface being used is of great importance for it is what the designer has to work with for presenting the compelling atmosphere of the interior. Some designers believe that each book needs a different typeface to represent the ‘feeling’ of the book, while others feel that if an author finds a face they like how it represents their voice, the words they write… they stick with it. I believe the Harry Potter books did just that.

We have been “taught” through exposure, to feel comfortable with reading a typeface with “little feet” otherwise known as serifs. Typefaces such as Times Roman and Garamond are known as serif faces and when used for your interior text will give your reader an easy read. Typefaces such as Ariel and Futura are known as sans-serif, “without little feet,” and are best used for chapter titles, heads, subheads or charts and graphs. Although I’ve seen several books using a sans-serif for the body text, which is to be considered a matter of preference. When you are presented with your proof, take the time to print out a page or two to be sure you feel the words talking to you as they and you move sentence by sentence into paragraphs and pages pass like time does when you’re having fun.

AND

I recommend requesting a sample proof of the first few pages of your book interior for your approval before your book is totally formatted. Be sure to look at it carefully.

http://www.publishingbasics.com/2011/09/05/book-interior-typefaces-and-readability-of-your-books-interior/

NEW WEBSITE FOR SELF PUBLISHERS

2008-02-23T07:04:00.001-08:00

A new website has been recently launched allowing self publishers to advertise their work for free. From their website they promise the following:

"We provide:

A place to facilitate the sale of your book. You can upload the cover picture of your book, a few sentences about your book and a link to your personal web page. On your personal web page you can display sample pages of your book, reviews and purchasing information.
If you do not have a personal web page we can provide one for you at a reasonable price.
A forum where self-published authors worldwide can communicate regarding all facets of creation, publishing and marketing books.
Pertinent news and items of interest to self-published authors.
We will be attempting to direct as many potential buyers as possible to our site.

Book lovers and self-published authors are welcome. For absolutely no fee of any kind self-publishers may display their book's cover, a blurb and a link to their own website. Book lovers deal directly with authors cutting out the expensive middlemen. We have a unique sales plan and work tirelessly to help authors promote their books. Our international forum is open to all. Whether you are a writer or a reader please check out our new site, join us and help spread the word."

Check out their website at http://www.selfpublishersplace.com/

USING FACEBOOK AS A MARKETING TOOL

2008-02-04T06:33:00.000-08:00

What do you think of Facebook as a marketing tool for self-published books?

An Interview with Ron Pramschufer

A month ago I would have told you that Facebook was a useless website where 15 years olds trash talked each other and otherwise wasted time. As a mater of fact, I originally opened my Facebook account to try to rummage around and see what my 16 year old was up to. Today I am convinced that Facebook should be considered a primary marketing tool by every self-publisher.

About a week or so ago, I visited FaceBook to see if my 16 year old had changed the “Animal House” looking picture of himself that was posted to his account. He hadn’t. To the first time visitor the website is just what the name implies, a virtual book of faces. The first time you go to the site you reach a very plain looking page with a green button that says “sign up”. For those who don’t want to sign up right away there is a search field where you can use to enter a person’s name. For instance, if you enter “Pramschufer”, you’ll come up with my picture, right on top. There are a few links about the picture like “send message” or “view friends” or “Poke him/her” but all links take you to the sign-up page. This is as far as you go without signing up. The sign-up is no big deal, go ahead and do it. An email, choose a password, enter a birthday and you’re in…. or at least part way in. Now those same people that you did the sample search for, you can click and “send message” or “Poke” or “View Friends” or “Add to Friends”.

As a parent, using the site for the first time, I thought I had hit pay-dirt when I hit “View Friends” because I could now see my kid’s “friends”… but that was all I could see… postage sized images of all his “friends”. Other than a few, “I haven’t seen him/ her since 2nd grade; this is as far as you get in the super snooper department at Facebook.

The next level of activity is adding friends, which is what Facebook is all about. It took me a while to figure out what it was all about. To add a friend, you click on the “Add to Friends” link next to the picture. The trick is that the person on the other side needs to click “ok” before you are officially a friend. A friend basically means that you have gone from access of the person’s headshot, to access to the persons home page. What is on a person’s home page? Whatever they put there. I think I originally just listed my name and company name and maybe a picture.
Finding friends is a bit tricky in the beginning. For instance, did I ask my 16 year old son to be my friend? Of course not. There was no way he was going to click OK and let me in. He doesn’t even let his older brother into his “inner sanctum”. I tried my oldest son first. He accepted me as a friend. That was pretty neat. I got to see some of his friends. Many of which I already knew. I clicked on a few of them and they were added to my friend list. I still didn’t see any real point to the site until I did a search for publishers, or self publishers, I forget which. Lo and behold up pops the picture of probably the best book hustling self-publisher on the planet, Relentless Aaron. I click the “Add to Friends” link and a half hour later Relentless was on my friend list. It was exploring his site that the full impact of this site became apparent.

If you are going to sell books, or anything else for that matter, you need to look your prospect in the eye, reach out and shake their hand and demonstrate how your product meets their need. Facebook give you that opportunity. I don’t see it as a “quick hit” but a place to build a strong foundation on which to build. The site is very easy to work with and everything can be customized to meet your personal tastes. There is a great mixture of work utilities as well as playthings and other gimmicks to keep you coming back for more. If you let them, your “friends” will get to know you. As they get to know you, they get to know your product. If you are an author/self-publisher, you have something to share. Share it.

Facebook is the #7th highest ranked website on the Internet for web traffic. To put that number in prospective Amazon is ranked #33. Think about that a moment. Authors spend countless hours and sometimes thousands of dollars to get a few copies on a shelf, spine out, in a bookstore visited by a few thousand people per month, in hopes of selling books. Facebook has tens of millions of visitors and it costs nothing but a little bit of your time.

If you are already listed in Facebook, look me up and add me to your friend list. There aren’t too many Pramschufers there so it shouldn’t be hard to find me. I started a group called Self-Publishing Basics the other day. You are welcome to join that as well. I am not 100% sure what I am going to do with that group yet so you’ll certainly be getting in on the ground floor. If you haven’t signed up yet, go do it now. Once you are in, spend some time there and work on your contact page. This is how people will get to know you. There are dozens of modules that can be added to your site to help people get to know you and help you communicate with others. Have some fun, meet some prospects, shake some hands and sell some books. See you there.

Your friend,
Ron

From Publishing Basics Dec 5 2007
http://blog.selfpublishing.com/?p=230

WILL YOUR BOOK SELL ITSELF?

2007-10-27T07:06:00.000-07:00

Not without Divine intervention, and even then it might be “iffy.” And of course, your book won’t sell itself. If the public is not aware of your book’s existence, it really does not exist. This means someone has to promote your book so it can be sold. That someone is you. To paraphrase Pogo, “I have met the publicist and it is me.”

Not too long ago, book publishers promoted books and authors. Today, only the big-name authors are promoted. And, we can’t blame the publishers. They’ve paid many ga-zillions of dollars in advances to these authors, and what dollars are available for promotion have to be spent to protect these advances and maximize their sales.

If you’re self-published, it’s even more important that you come to grips with the reality that promoting your book is even more important than writing it. Let’s assume you spent hundreds of hours, perhaps months or years completing your book. And let’s assume you’d like to sell it so you can pay the rent, or make a car payment, or your student loan. Maybe even alimony. Perhaps quit your day job.

If these things are important to you, then run – don’t walk – to the hat rack, and put on your marketing hat. If you are rich and famous, you can hire a publicist, but for most of us, that’s beyond our means.

BOOKS SALES STATISTICS
Let’s stoke the fires with a few facts. According to The Wall Street Journal and Nielsen’s BookScan, even books published by mainstream publishers can represent a dim sales outlook. In a recent survey, approximately 80% of the titles tracked by Nielsen sold only 99 copies, and fewer than two percent sold 5,000 copies or more.

The survey also determined the average title sells 500 copies, and fewer than ten percent of the 110,000 titles published in an average year reach the shelves of traditional bookstores. Just being on the shelf doesn’t mean thousands of people will pick up the book and buy it. The really sad news is that titles reaching bookstore shelves have about ninety days to be sold or they will be returned by the store to the wholesaler.

The public must be driven to the marketplace, whether the marketplace is a bookstore or a website. Do these numbers mean that 90% of these books were un-saleable? Of course not. Most of these unsold books weren’t promoted, either by the publisher or the author. You can avoid the “swamp of low sales” with effective promotion. Even if your book isn’t great and even if you’re not an experienced PR person, a decent promotional campaign will sell books.

BOOK PROMOTION
“The press release is the most widely used and effective means of communicating to the newspaper.” Mac Tully, Publisher, Kansas City Star News releases (called ‘press releases’ until recently), are the cheapest and probably the most effective means of book promotion. Good promotion is a numbers game. Throw enough news releases up on the wall and some of them will stick. Some will get published. One good news release can pull your book out of that “swamp of low sales” and turn your life around.

Obviously, there are many kinds of promotion. Book signings, articles, book reviews, radio and TV interviews, and public speaking appearances are all worthwhile projects. But we’re playing a numbers game. One has to make a lot of garden club guest appearances or host a lot of book signings to accomplish what a news release can do. Especially one that reaches several hundred thousand readers. And, in a major publication the numbers can get to the millions in a hurry.

NEWS RELEASE BASICS
There are so many things involved in the writing of releases, I can only cover a few points in a few paragraphs. In my book and software program, Promote Your Book in the Media, I devote many pages and examples to the subject. Here are a few things that are really important.
The headline. Most PR mavens believe a good headline represents a 90% chance for your release being published. And a poor headline represents a 90% chance of its being summarily rejected. I concur. The headline is critical. And remember, for purposes of your release, the editor is the customer, not your library group or the ladies in the garden club. The editor is the person who must be sold.

Consider limiting your release to a single, double spaced page. If the editor likes your story, there’s a chance you’ll be contacted to expand it into a longer article. Avoid fancy fonts and gimmicks. Stick with Times New Roman, black. The KISS principle is paramount. Editors are busy, overworked professionals who have no time for gimmicks, games, or cutesy gambits. These things will brand you as being un-professional.

If you are mailing, faxing, or e-mailing the release, it should be directed and personalized to a specific editor. The same principle applies to media editors as is applicable to sending out your queries and submissions. Personalization is critical.

If you mail your releases, envelope labels are an absolute no-no. For the editor to read your release, the envelope must be opened. A personalized envelope has a much greater chance of being opened than one that has been labeled or addressed to “Editor.” These envelopes will usually be trashed. You can’t afford a summary execution.

WRITING THE RELEASE
The old press release format was an announcement of a new product or service. They generally opened with a headline, and a first line that stated, “XYZ Publishing is pleased to announce the publication of Suzie Striver’s new book …” Editors will trash that release immediately. They won’t bother to re-write it, either. They don’t have the time.

Editors want a story, not a sales brochure. It is estimated that more than thirty percent of a paper’s news space (not advertising space) is populated and derived from news releases. Read your paper and count the number of articles that begin, “XYZ Company is pleased to announce …” Not even the automobile companies use these old hack formats, but they are still being recommended by some so-called PR experts.

Make your release a story and sell the story, not your book. This is easier said than done. It is critical that your release not appear to be a sales brochure – even though it is. I’m not a speed writer, nor do I represent myself as a PR expert. I only know what has worked for me, and I have spent as much as a week writing and re-writing a 400-word release. News releases pulled my first self-published book out of the “low sales swamp” into a book that sold 50,000 copies. Actually, my swamp was the “no sales swamp.”

SENDING OUT THE RELEASE
Since this is a numbers game, utilize every avenue possible. Post your releases on your website, and on the internet. Post to the professional services, such as PR Newswire. You can gather media data from the library (Bacon’s Directory), but many of the names are out of date. For my first self-published book I spent many hours transcribing data from library resources and keying the data into my computer. It worked, but it was laborious.

I have faxed and emailed releases, and posted them with the wire services, but the most effective were releases printed on good paper stock (not 20# copy paper) and addressed to specific editors. Email is the cheapest. However, the editors get so much junk and spam, unless they know you, your chances of getting an email to their desk is getting to be more remote every day.

Services such as PR Newswire can be good, but they can also be very hit and miss. If an editor or reporter picks up your release, that’s great. However, I subscribe to being pro-active. There’s nothing more effective than a release sent to a specific editor in a personalized envelope. Most of the time, the editor will open that envelope, and that’s the biggest hurdle in getting a majority of your releases read.

MEDIA INFORMATION
Regardless of the medium used, your job can be made hundreds of times easier with a simple database populated with current media data. In Promote Your Book in the Media, I use My DataBase, an uncomplicated program that is simple-simon easy. I can contact specific editors at almost 500 of the nation’s largest newspapers by email, fax, phone, or U.S. mail. Data is current as of January 2007, since it was gathered over the last four months by contacting each of the papers in the database. Circulation of the listed papers exceeds 70,000,000. That kind of circulation allows you to play a true ‘numbers game.’

With this information and system, all one has to do is compose the releases, print them, and print your personalized envelopes. My DataBase interfaces seamlessly with Word, but will also print your envelopes if you don’t want to use a word processor. It’s not necessary to try and send out 500 releases in one day. When I first started, I found that sending out twenty releases a day brought a lot of success. And it was easy to do.

Remember, you must promote your book because your book won’t sell itself. Pogo was right.

William Hutchins

From Publishing Basics, 13 June 2007
http://blog.selfpublishing.com/?p=196

SELL YOUR BOOK WITHOUT BOOKSTORES

2007-10-27T06:52:00.000-07:00

Recently, an author sold over 10,000 books, without ever hassling with bookstores. Here’s how your book can generate this kind of quantity sales this quickly:

BACKGROUND
According to a Harvard Business School report, 84% of books in large US bookstores sell 2 copies or fewer each year; only 2% sell 10 or more copies in a year. In addition to these dismal statistics, our author, whose name is Stuart, was stymied by another complication: He lives in Israel, rather than the US, so marketing books in the US was sure to be more complicated for him. So Stuart decided, with my encouragement, to temporarily ignore US bookstores for his children’s book, “Who Invented Vegetables?”

PUT THE BOOKS INTO A NON-BOOKSTORE VENUE
Stuart was intrigued by anecdotes of selling books in coffee shops and movie theatres. Non-bookstore venues have several key advantages: They pay better (60% and up, instead of 45%), they pay upon receipt (rather than 60-90 days later), and they don’t return books. Most importantly, however, there is no competition—because unlike a bookstore with hundreds of thousands of titles, coffeeshops, movie theatres, and other non-traditional venues generally don’t sell books. Once the decision was made to ignore bookstores, the question became, where would Stuart’s vegetable book sell in quantity?

FOCUS ON THE META-CUSTOMER
Rather than trying to sell to millions of end-customers, Stuart decided to focus on those who had the most to gain by selling the subject of his book: Vegetable exporters and retailers. The largest retailers of vegetables, he realized, are the major supermarket chains. And the chains are much easier to focus on than the thousands of individual vegetable stands.

GIVE THEM A REASON TO BUY NOW
Not only did Stuart want the chains to consider stocking the book in their grocery stores, he wanted to give the chains an impetus to buy the book immediately. Since the Jewish holiday of Shavuot is associated with vegetables, he presented it to the chains as a timely item, that would sell best if in the stores in the last few weeks of May, just before the holiday.

THE RESULTS
Stuart approached the largest supermarket chain in Israel. Within a week, his book was available in over 150 supermarkets across the country. Not content to rest on his laurels, Stuart then approached the major vegetable growers and exporters, and offered the books as a holiday gift item for children of employees and clients. For orders over a certain quantity, he would even put logos and personalized messages on the inside cover.

Results? Over 10,000 copies sold in a matter of weeks. Proportional to population size, that would be the equivalent of over 500,000 book sales in the US.

And because of the tremendous sales records, Stuart was then able to approach a US supermarket chain with his idea.

So think quantity sales, think outside the box venues, and think creative.

By Fern Reiss
From http://blog.selfpublishing.com/?p=197

10 MODERN-DAY SELF-PUBLISHED SUCCESSES

2007-10-25T09:09:00.000-07:00

Many works now considered classic were originally self-published, including the original writings of William Blake, Virginia Woolf, Walt Whitman, William Morris, and James Joyce.

Here are 10 modern-day self publishing success stories:

1. The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield
2. The Book With No Name by Anonymous
3. The Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
4. What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles
5. In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters
6. The Christmas Box by Richard Paul Evans
7. Invisible Life by E. Lynn Harris
8. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information by Edward Tufte
9. Contest by Matthew Reilly
10. Eragon by Christopher Paolini

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-publishing

JOHN MILTON ON SELF-PUBLISHING

2007-10-25T08:55:00.000-07:00

The first systematic defense of one’s right to publish, John Milton’s self-published Areopagitica of 1644, identified three areas of tension, political, business, and academic, that render self-publishing highly controversial.

Survival of an ideology-based state hinges on its tight control of ideas, which is impossible to affect if self-publishing is allowed: “it is of greatest concernment in the Church and Commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves as well as men … I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men.”

Business-wise, a viable option of self-publishing undermines the entire business model used by publishers, “publicans that have the tunaging and the poundaging (i.e., taxing) of all free spoken truth,” in which publisher wedges himself between the author and the public, and uses his position as marketplace’s gatekeeper to take most of the profits generated by sales of a book.

And finally, self-publishing flies in the face of the notion of professionalism, which acknowledges only the credentialed authorities in a given subject-matter as permissible contributors to the public debate and public instruction. As to the non-professionals, “What need they torture their heads with that which others have taken so strictly, and so unalterably into their own purveying”?

Three and half centuries later, those attitudes still define government, industry, and public perception of self-publishing.

From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-publishing

SELL YOUR BOOK ON THE TELEPHONE - NO, REALLY!

2007-05-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

USING THE TELEPHONE FOR CONTACTING POTENTIAL BUYERS

Only about 50% of sales opportunities are found in bookstores. In most cases, you’ll be more successful if you seek buyers in special-sales markets and sell to them. One effective way to contact many people in a short period of time is to contact them via the telephone. You can disqualify those who cannot meet your needs, and arrange a meeting with those who can.
You have only one chance to make a good first impression when you use the telephone, so you can’t afford to make any mistakes. Two of the best ways to maximize your results are to organize your calling area and create a script to guide you through your calls.
Be conscious of your surroundings.

A SCRIPT WILL IMPROVE YOUR PERFORMANCE

Actors and actresses use a script to make sure their performance is precise, and capable of being reproduced regularly. Professional speakers use scripts to make sure their speeches are presented smoothly and completely. You too should use a script to make your telephone prospecting more effective and efficient.

A script is not a detailed document you read word-for-word to your prospect, eliminating the spontaneity and charisma you must project on the telephone. Instead, it should be an outline providing consistency, security and momentum to your calling efforts.

* Consistency. Telephone calls are rarely identical to one another. Your presentation should be tailored to the specific needs of the prospect at hand. But the sequence in which you present your information should be consistent on every call. For example, you should begin with an attention-getting introduction and move on to a compelling and concise presentation, culminating in a request for an interview. Although the words you use on any one call may or may not be similar to another, a script makes sure that you move from step to step, methodically.

* Security. A script should contain the general questions you want to ask a person, as well as the major points you should communicate. It will keep your conversation proceeding in orderly fashion toward its proper conclusion. If you begin to lose track of your thoughts, your script will keep you moving ahead. You won’t have unwanted periods of awkward silence as you search for the proper words to use.

* Momentum. If you are having success with your telephone activities, a script will help you continue on a roll. On the other hand, you must bounce back quickly from a particularly negative discussion. A script will keep you on track and motivated to make the next call.
Your script should be an extension of your personality.

Your script should not be a crutch, but a tool. It should be an outline of key words and phrases to which you can refer at a glance. If you simply read from it, your presentation won’t come across as being extemporaneous. Use it to stay on track while you speak freely enough to release your real personality and build rapport.

Even the most well-organized script will not be successful if you can’t get through to your target. If you call and explain to the receptionist what you want, you will probably be told they are not interested. You do not want this to happen. You have to get through to the decision maker.

BEGINNING THE CONVERSATION

It’s up to you to keep the conversation moving ahead. Use your script and advance toward your objective methodically. You can do so by including several basic categories of information in it:

1) The prospect’s name. Leave room at the top of your script to pencil-in the name of each person as you call him or her. Write the correct spelling of the target’s name in your records, but write it phonetically on your script. It’s important to use the listener’s name regularly, and it could cause ill will if you mispronounce it.

2) A list of opening statements. Specify different ways to get the listener’s attention under a variety of conditions. That way you can choose the most appropriate one for each situation.

If you sense your prospect is busy:

“I wanted to talk to you about the ways in which I could help your company become more profitable quickly. But it sounds as if I’ve caught you at a bad time. Should I call back later this afternoon or would tomorrow morning be better?”

If you are calling based on a referral:

” Ms. Jones asked me to call you about the ways in which I could help your company increase its sales by 20% in the next six months.”

If you’re calling with a congratulatory remark:

“I read your article in today’s paper and thought it was excellent. Do you have a moment to listen to several ideas I have about your topic that could help your company?”

If you’re calling to follow up:

“I’m calling to follow up on the recent letter I sent you about…. Did you receive it? Do you have a moment now to discuss it or should I call back tomorrow morning?”

Follow these hints:

* Take control. When you initiate the call, the content and direction of the discussion is up to you. Be prepared with a list of questions that will keep your prospect involved in the discussion. Probe for areas of need and then let him know that you can satisfy these needs. This is how you create value for yourself.

* Be aware of the time of the day. If you say “good morning” when it’s afternoon where your prospect is located, you may come across as being unprepared. However, you can use this strategically. For example, it could be 7:30 pm where you are calling on the east coast, which makes it 4:30 pm on the west coast. You could say “good evening” and then correct yourself (to “good afternoon”) so the listener knows you’re calling from a later time zone. He may be impressed by how diligently you are working to seek employment with his company.

* Create a mnemonic. Try to give listeners something with which to remember you. For instance, if you have an unusual last name, you could spell it after saying it (I’m Brian Jud. J-U-D). They may comment on how unusual it is, and the conversation begins on a friendlier basis.

3) Your objective. Keep your objective in front of you. You may want to lead with it to get the prospect’s attention, and you’ll want to refer to it when you get to the action step.

4) Your skills/special talents. What skills and accomplishments do you have to get your contact’s attention and motivate him to invite you in for an interview?

5) Your prospect’s need? What is the one thing likely to get your prospect’s attention most quickly? Why will he be interested in talking with you further?

MAKING YOUR PRESENTATION

Once you have your prospect’s attention and permission to proceed, move immediately into your presentation. Follow up on your opening statement with a comment enticing the listener to invite you to come in for a personal meeting. Remember, that is your goal. You shouldn’t tell your entire story now, but only enough to whet your prospect’s appetite.

Offer a “hook” to get the listeners involved. This is either a statement or question that involves them in what you have to say. A statement should respond to their unspoken concern: “OK. Now you have my attention. Tell me what you have to say, and you had better make it worthwhile.” Begin by making a connection between their needs and what you can do for their companies.

If you begin with a question, it should elicit a positive response and immediately involve your prospect. Before you begin asking questions, seek the person’s permission to do so. A simple “May I ask you a question?” should eliminate his interpreting the exchange as an interrogation.
Be careful how you ask questions. Do not gamble by unwittingly prompting a negative response and thereby ending the conversation. For example, if you said, “Could you use a book like this?” he could simply say “No,” and you might be hard pressed to respond positively. Instead, ask your questions in a way that will start them talking, get them involved, and provide you with additional information.

Brian Jud is a book-marketing consultant and the author of Beyond the Bookstore (a Publishers Weekly book) and The Marketing Planning CD-ROM describing new ways to sell more books to special-sales buyers. Contact Brian at brianjud@bookmarketing.com, blog at http://blog.bookmarketing.com or www.bookmarketing.com or the Publisher’s Bookstore
This article from http://blog.selfpublishing.com/?p=189

SELLING YOUR BOOK THROUGH AMAZON

2007-05-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from Steve Weber's book 'Plug Your Book!'

In just a few years, Amazon has demolished the barriers to book sales. No longer are new authors summarily locked out of the bookstore. Whether your book was trade-published or self-published, Amazon will not only stock it, but rearrange the whole store when a likely reader arrives. And if your book sells modestly well, Amazon will do lots more -— like displaying your book right inside the door, at the end of each virtual aisle, on eight different category shelves, and smack-dab in front of the cash register. Think your local bookstore might do this? Maybe if you’re William Shakespeare, but the rest of us are out of luck.

Book sales over the Internet now account for 15 percent of the average publisher’s business, up dramatically from 1 percent in 1997. But the real impact is far greater -— it’s not just the 65 million readers buying their books on Amazon, it’s the untold millions more using Amazon’s catalog and book reviews to inform their buying choices elsewhere.

Amazon is ground zero for your online campaign. It provides free worldwide exposure -— exposure to those readers most likely to buy your book. Simply having your book properly listed for sale on Amazon can create demand for it everywhere. Whether you’re a famous author or an unknown, Amazon is essential because it has a critical mass of buyers using its search engine, recommendations, and reader reviews.

Amazon helps create demand for niche books that have a widely dispersed audience that can’t be targeted effectively through traditional marketing. These are the books readers often can’t find in their local bookstore, or even the library -— but they’re easy to find on Amazon. Twenty-five percent of Amazon’s sales come from obscure books that aren’t even carried in a Barnes & Noble superstore stocking 100,000 titles. And the percentage of these “long tail” sales grows every year.

Sure, part of Amazon’s appeal is its discount pricing and free shipping offers. But the real value for book buyers is being able to find exactly what they want, says Chris Anderson, author of the 2006 business bestseller The Long Tail:

"It’s not enough that things be available, you need to be able to find them. The big problem with brick-and-mortar stores is, all shoppers experience the same store. But the problem of findability is solved when you go online. You have searching, recommendations, and all sorts of narrow taxonomies -— things can be in multiple categories at the same time."

For 50 years, publishers have been chasing blockbusters -— the bestseller hits. They had to, because with limited shelf space, bookstores had to focus on the stuff that moved fastest. Today, chasing blockbusters is obsolete. Authors and publishers have a wide-open opportunity in serving niches.

These niche books are the ones people care about most, and the ones Amazon is most effective in recommending, says Greg Greeley, Amazon’s vice president for media products: “The Web site is designed to help customers find books they didn’t know existed.”

Getting Recommended

Book sales are a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially on Amazon. The more people who buy your book, the easier it becomes for the next reader to discover it. When Amazon notices your book is selling, it automatically displays your book higher in its search results and higher in its category lists. And most importantly, Amazon starts plugging your book into book recommendations on its Web site and in e-mails to customers.

Book recommendations are Amazon’s biggest sales engine, after keyword searches. Sixty-six percent of sales are to returning customers, many of them acting on automated recommendations for books popular with customers with similar buying histories.

Because they are personalized, Amazon’s book recommendations are network-powered word of mouth -— more effective than a highway billboard seen by everyone in town. And as long as your book keeps selling, Amazon continues recommending it month after month, year after year, to its likely audience. No longer are books sentenced to the bargain bin three months after publication. Online word of mouth can keep your book alive as long as it satisfies readers.

Each of Amazon’s 65 million customers sees a unique store. The layout is personalized, based on which books the customer previously viewed or purchased. Each customer has a recommendations list, based on which books are bought most frequently by other customers with similar buying histories.

If you have an Amazon account, view your recommendations here:

www.Amazon.com/yourstore

As an author, here’s how Amazon recommendations work for you: Let’s imagine you’ve written the book How to Grow Organic Strawberries. It turns out that one of every five Amazon customers who buys your book also purchased an earlier book, Healthy Eating With Organic Fruit. Realizing this, Amazon starts recommending your book to customers who bought the earlier book but haven’t yet bought yours. Why? Amazon knows the odds are good that once these readers discover your book they’ll buy it, too, and Amazon makes another sale.
Buyers see book recommendations in several places:

On Amazon’s home page, where it says, Hello, [NAME], we have recommendations for you. Click here to view all your book recommendations.
In e-mails titled “Amazon.com Recommends” and “New for You,” periodically sent to Amazon customers.
In the “Gold Box” treasure chest icon at the top right of Amazon’s home page. Clicking the box reveals special offers on books and other merchandise on your recommended list.
In a book’s “Also-Bought” list. Every book’s detail page on Amazon includes a list with the headline Customers who bought this item also bought. The Also-Bought list shows the five other books bought most frequently by customers who also purchased the displayed book.
An extended Also-Bought list including many more titles is accessible from each book’s detail page at the link Explore similar items. Buyers can view the same list during the checkout process by viewing Customers who bought [Title] also bought…

The Wisdom of Crowds

Amazon’s recommendations aren’t just a computer talking, it’s the collective judgment of millions of people acting independently in their own self-interest. Amazon is the biggest and most effective word-of-mouth generator for books because it measures not what people say, but what they do. People don’t always recommend their favorite current book to each of their friends and acquaintances. But Amazon factors each buying decision into its recommendations for like-minded customers.

Just as a well-programmed computer can defeat a master chess player, automated recommendations can suggest just the right book, including books that would never occur to a brilliant bookstore clerk, says Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos:

"I remember one of the first times this struck me. The main book on the page was about Zen. There were other suggestions for Zen books, but in the middle of those was a [recommended] book on 'How to have a clutter-free desk.' That's not something that a human editor would ever pick. But statistically, the people who were interested in the Zen books also wanted clutter-free desks. The computer is blind to the fact that these things are dissimilar in some way to humans. It looks right through that and says, 'Yes, try this.' And it works."

Bubbling to the Top

The more your book sells on Amazon, the more frequently it’s shown and recommended. Books that sell well on Amazon appear higher in search results and category lists.

Let’s imagine your book How to Grow Organic Strawberries outsells a competing title, Idiot’s Guide to Growing Organic Strawberries. When Amazon customers search for the keyword “strawberries,” your book will appear on top -— customers will see it first, and notice it before the competition.

More benefits result from your Amazon sales: Your book moves up in category lists, providing another way for potential readers to discover it. For example, your title on organic strawberries would appear in this Amazon subcategory:

Home & Garden > Gardening & Horticulture > Techniques > Organic

This subcategory list is like a bestseller list for your niche. Amazon has 35 top-level categories (like Arts & Photography; Business & Investing) divided into dozens more subcategories. Unlike general bestseller lists compiled by the New York Times or USA Today, Amazon’s subcategory lists show what people care about at the niche level, where passions run deepest.

Amazon’s subcategories are discrete enough that just a few sales can push your title near the top, exposing your book to more people who care about that topic. In our example subcategory Home & Garden > Organic, your book could claim one of the top three spots with only two or three sales per week on Amazon.

Once you’ve bubbled up to the top of your subcategory, you’re firmly inside the positive feedback loop. Amazon acts as a huge funnel, sending thousands of readers to your book. That’s why some authors encourage their Web site visitors to buy books on Amazon -— each additional sale boosts their exposure, prompting yet more sales.

“Simply put, the more customers you send to Amazon who buy your book, the more visible it will be on Amazon, and the more books Amazon will sell for you,” says Morris Rosenthal, publisher of Foner Books.

If your book continues selling for six months or so, Amazon can assign it to more categories, making it even more likely browsers will find you after browsing in related categories. Books that sell moderately well eventually can be assigned to 12 or more categories, the same exposure as your book being shelved in a dozen different sections of a brick-and-mortar bookstore.The big difference is, Amazon is the world’s largest bookstore.

To see your book’s subcategory assignments on Amazon, find the section on your book’s detail page headed “Look for similar items by category.” Clicking on those links takes you to a list of the subcategory’s bestsellers.

Sometimes persistent publishers can talk the folks at Amazon into assigning their books to additional categories, or removing the book from inappropriate categories. Research other books in your niche, and see which categories they’re displayed in.

Narrow a list down to 10 categories and send your list, ISBN, and contact information to Amazon. You can send your message, along with any other typographical corrections for Amazon, by using this form:

www.Amazon.com/gp/help/contact-us/typographical-errors.html

(Chapter one goes on to describe Recommendation Effectiveness, including some nifty charts and statistics, and how your Sales Rank affects the big picture.)
* * * * *
About Steve Weber:A native of Charleston, West Virginia, Steve is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and a Journalism graduate of West Virginia University. He now lives in Falls Church, Va., with his wife and their four-year-old daughter.

http://independentpublisher.com/article.php?page=1138&urltitle=PLUG%20IN%20to%20Turn%20On%20Your%20Book%20Sales

FREE E-BOOK! DOWNLOAD HERE

2007-04-27T04:11:00.000-07:00

Hesperian Press have generously provided an online guide to publishing your book with them. This guide explains the process involved, from preparing your manuscript right through to printed book.

http://hesperianpress.com/publishingyourbook.pdf

The various stages in which you, as the author, will be involved are explained.

Should you wish to have a book published with Hesperian Press please pay close attention to this guide. By adhering to it you will ensure that your book is published quicker and cheaper (for you and Hesperian Press). Further, they know from many years of experience and after having published hundreds of titles, the information in this guide will assist you in the preparation of your manuscript.

'Publishing Your Book with Hesperian Press' is a guide only and the information it contains describes the way they publish books and the style they require. It is recognised that other styles are equally valid and no pretensions are held that this guide is the definitive text on spelling, grammar or style.

Hesperian Press is run by a Non-Profit organisation.

GETTING DISTRIBUTION THROUGH AMAZON

2007-04-26T19:18:00.000-07:00

Anyone interested in self publishing has probably at least heard of author services like iUniverse, Xlibris, AuthorHouse, Lulu.com, Booklocker, Outskirts Press, and Amazon’s own BookSurge — services commonly referred to as “self publishing companies.” (Many self publishers prefer to call them subsidy publishers, but I’ll stick to the common usage here.)
You may also know that these businesses are based on print on demand. Though this term describes a printing technology, it usually refers also to a distribution model—which, to the self publisher aiming at Amazon, is just as important. But to understand print on demand as a distribution model, you need to know a little about how the industry is set up.
Most people assume that the big self publishing companies print the books they sell, but in most cases they don’t. In fact, the only one in the U.S. that does is Amazon’s BookSurge. Nearly all the rest rely entirely on the company that is the real heart of the industry: Lightning Source Inc.
Never heard of it? I wouldn’t be surprised. Lightning—as I’ll often call it for short—doesn’t want you to! They don’t want to work directly with “authors” at all, only with publishers and author services, because otherwise they’d be overwhelmed.
So, Lightning Source lets the self publishing companies act as “front ends” for the operation. Those services take your book, convert it to a form that Lightning can use, and take care of all the submission and administrative details. Meanwhile, as of 2006, Lightning churns out a million books a month!
But let’s get back to distribution. There’s something else you need to know about Lightning Source: It’s owned by the same company that owns Ingram Book Group, the biggest book wholesaler in the U.S. Almost every bookstore in the country, along with many libraries and schools, orders books from Ingram.
As you might expect, Lightning Source has a direct line into Ingram. In fact, Ingram “carries” every title printed by Lightning—even if Ingram doesn’t really keep the title in stock. Actually, it does stock popular Lightning titles, but the others it can get from Lightning overnight. So if a bookstore inquires, Ingram reports any Lightning book as immediately available.
So, by working with any of the self publishing companies that feed into Lightning Source, you automatically make your book available to booksellers throughout the U.S. (Contrary to what many new self publishers think, though, Ingram does not promote books and get bookstores to buy them. Ingram only makes them available and waits for orders.)
Foremost among the booksellers that can get your book from Ingram is Amazon.com. And because Amazon draws book data directly from Ingram’s electronic catalog, you are guaranteed that Amazon will automatically list your book. What’s more, because Amazon regularly uses Ingram for drop shipping, all Lightning titles are normally listed on Amazon as in stock or available within 24 hours, even if Amazon doesn’t have its own copies at the time.
The connection between Lightning Source and the rest of the U.S. industry is even stronger than that. A few huge booksellers have the resources to tap into Lightning Source’s electronic systems and order directly instead of going through Ingram. These include
Baker & Taylor, the second largest U.S. book wholesaler and the largest supplier to U.S. schools and libraries.
NACSCORP, another major wholesaler, as a service of the National Association of College Stores.
Barnes & Noble, including BN.com.
And of course, Amazon.com. Though Amazon normally orders from Ingram to fill immediate customer demand, it orders directly from Lightning to stock a book.
Meanwhile, Lightning’s overseas branch, Lightning Source UK, is similarly well connected. Among the companies it supplies are Gardners Books and Bertram Books—prime U.K. book wholesalers and major suppliers of Amazon.co.uk—and the national chain Blackwell’s. Books handled by Lightning in the U.S. can easily be earmarked for printing and distribution by Lightning UK as well—and vice versa.
Despite its printing in only these two countries, Lighting Source’s books show up on all Amazon sites worldwide. Books from Lightning in the U.S. are sold also by Amazon in Canada, while books from Lightning UK are sold by Amazon in Canada, France, Germany, and Japan.
Of course, BookSurge—Amazon’s own self publishing service—will get your book onto Amazon.com as easily as can any company associated with Lightning Source. But it can’t begin to match the rest of the distribution that Lightning automatically provides. In fact, at this writing, BookSurge can’t even get your book onto Amazon in other countries! Amazon.com might be your main marketing target, but you still want your book available as widely as possible.
So, just as print on demand can remove cost as a deciding factor in publishing, print on demand through Lightning Source can also remove what has traditionally been the biggest roadblock for self publishers: lack of access to the channels of distribution. What’s more, it does it in a way that eliminates most of the ongoing labor of publishing. Success no longer means you must spend your time taking orders, shipping copies, and sending invoices and reminders for payment.
Instead, just let booksellers, schools, and libraries order your book from Lightning Source or one of its partners or major accounts. Then all you need do is sit back and wait for your monthly check. In fact, except for maybe a few copies for promotion and gifts, you don’t need to keep a stock of your book at all. (And as one who remembers having a hallway full of printed books in the “old days,” I can’t begin to tell you what a blessing that is.)
So, you should run right out and sign up with one of the self publishing companies, right?
Not if you can help it!
As I said, self publishing companies like iUniverse and Xlibris are basically front ends for Lightning Source Inc., which does all the printing and maintains the distribution channels. The cut that these companies take for their middleman role is no doubt well-earned, but it’s hefty. In fact, for each copy printed, it about doubles your cost of getting the book out.
But what can you do about it? Lightning Source declines to work directly with authors, limiting its dealings to publishers and author services. How can you get around that?
Well, you can become a publisher.
Now, this may or may not be the best idea if you’re handling only a book or two. But especially if you’ll be producing any more, then setting yourself up as a publishing company makes very good sense—even if it’s only to work with Lightning. Doing that can not only cut your costs in half, it can also let you set your own terms on discounts and returns!
If you live outside the U.S. or U.K., you’re not left out. Because of the Internet, it’s no trouble to work directly with Lightning or Lightning UK from anywhere in the world. Once you set yourself up as a publishing company, you’re ready no matter where you live.
No other avenue to Amazon can match the full range of benefits available to publishers who work directly with Lightning Source. Working with Lightning, then, is a key element to the new business of self publishing. If you plan to keep going in publishing and don’t need a lot of handholding, Lightning is the very best way to aim at Amazon.

By Aaron Shepard
Excerpted and adapted from the book 'Aiming at Amazon: The NEW Business of Self Publishing', Shepard Publications, 2007
For more resources, visit Aaron Shepard’s Publishing Page at www.aaronshep.com/publishing

SHOULD YOU FIND A DISTRIBUTOR FOR YOUR BOOK?

2007-04-17T01:13:00.000-07:00

Not all self publishers give thought as to how they will market their book once the final product is in their hands. There are many ways to market a book, which usually involves the publisher doing the leg work. However, not all publishers see themselves as marketers, so one way to sidestep the sales process is for them to find a distributor.

Vanity Press Distributors (www.vanitypress.com.au) was originally set up to keep distribution costs for the publisher down. It's aim was to simply be an online bookshop for use by Australian small and self publishers to sell their books.

Today I had a telephone call from a brand new self publisher seeking distribution advice. Naturally, I want her book on my site, where our commission is 25%. However, as her print run was in the thousands, it occurred to me that perhaps I could phyically distribute the book for her, as well as posting it on our website. The topic on which she wrote has a potentially wide appeal, and I was confident that bookshops, even the major high street stores, would be interested.

It took only a couple of phone calls for a reality check.

The Recommended Retail Price (RRP) for her book is $29. The major book chain I called wanted a 45% disount. This is a modest discount as far as bookshops are concerned, being that some stores are asking for up to 60% trade discounts AND MORE.

So let's do the math.

As a self publisher, my client had spent about $10 per book. This included editing costs, the cover design, and the print run. At $29 for a direct sale, she should make $19 per book, if postage charges are paid for by the buyer. This does not include the freeby copies she would give away in her own marketing adventure.

On the Vanity Press Distributors website, the commission would amount to $7.25, leaving the publisher $21.75. Compare this to the bookshop's commission, which would be $13.05, leaving only $15.95 for the publisher - a profit margin of only $5.95 per book.

If I were to physically represent her book to book chains for a further 25% commission, that would leave the publisher a mere $11.96, reducing her profit margin to a tiny $1.96, hardly worth getting out of bed for!

This is the rather tough world of publishing as it exists today.

So, do you find a distributor, or do you D.I.Y?

That is a question only you can answer. However, a combination of means can be used. As there are few online distributors in Australia, Vanity Press Distributors is certainly filling a void in niche publishing, with one of the lowest trade discounts in the industry. This means can be used in combination with others, which have been addressed in previous articles on this site, and which will be addressed in further detail in the future.

Dallas Robertson
Vanity Press Distributors
www.vanitypress.com.au

DOES MEDIA COVERAGE TRANSLATE INTO SALES?

2007-04-12T10:13:00.000-07:00

It’s wonderful to get media coverage for your book or business. But even if you’re successful in getting publicity in magazines and newspapers—how can you guarantee that your publicity will translate into sales? Here are five ways to up the odds that your media coverage will translate into sales:

Target the right publications and media.

Getting media attention, by itself, is no guarantee of sales, particularly if your media attention is in the ‘wrong’ media. While it’s probably true that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, there definitely is such a thing as ineffectual publicity: If you’re a vendor trying to target homewood floors manufacturers, an article in “Homewood Floors Magazine” will go straight to your target market—and probably will result in more sales than a generic article even in The West Australian. So think carefully about what your market is reading and listening to, and target those specific outlets. (A side benefit is that those publications will probably be easier to break into than more high-profile publications.)

Be sure your distribution is set up and seamless.

There’s nothing worse than getting the perfect media attention, and sending thousands of potential buyers out to stores in search of your book or product—and then finding out, belatedly, that your book wasn’t available to be purchased. If you’re going to go to all the effort of going after the media coverage, be sure your distribution is set up and ready to roll. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time and energy.

Make sure the publicity you’re getting ties into your product.

A lot of people end up pursuing media attention for the sake of media attention. And it’s true that any publicity is a good thing. But if the media attention you’re getting has nothing to do with the product you’re selling, or if you make it too hard for people to make the connection to your product, then that is sure to diminish, if not completely curtail, your sales.
Be careful about word of mouth.

Regardless of how good your ‘official’ publicity is, companies are made and lost on their reputations. So be sure that your product, and company, stay immaculate. Try to address problems early and respond to customer complaints promptly. The mark of a good company is not that they don’t have problems from time to time—it’s inevitable—but how you respond to your customers over time.

Keep the buzz going.

Remember that regardless of how much publicity you garner, the public’s memory is very short. So however good your publicity is today, be sure that you’re also keeping an eye on tomorrow. The better you are at keeping your company and book’s ‘buzz’ going, the more successful your publicity, and your sales, will ultimately be.

So get out there and rustle up some publicity. And then be sure you reap the sales that you’ve earned.

Fern Reiss for http://blog.selfpublishing.com/?p=182

BOOKER PRIZE VICTORY FOR SMALL PUBLISHER

2007-04-08T10:12:00.001-07:00

October 24th 2002 Times Online UK http://timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/magnus_linklater/article816965.ece

A BOOKER VICTORY FOR THE LITTLE MAN HAS MADE THE BIG PUBLISHERS EAT THEIR WORDS

There is, after all, a God of small publishers. By awarding the Man Booker Prize to Yann Martel for his delightful novel Life of Pi, the jury also gave a massive boost to the tiny Edinburgh publishing house of Canongate, the only independent company on the list.

At a time when media empires are expanding farther and faster than ever before, when booksellers are setting increasingly ferocious terms, and proud names such as John Murray, Harvill Press and Fourth Estate have fallen victim to the conglomerates, it is reassuring to learn that there is still room for the small enterprise armed with passion, enthusiasm and a devotion to good writing.

Not that these alone will do. The lesson of Canongate’s success is that passion and enthusiasm are no longer a nourishing enough diet in the harsh world of modernpublishing. The days of the gentleman publisher, armed with nothing more than an elegant back-list and a promising young writer, will never return. On the contrary, with nearly 120,000 new titles being published in Britain every year, the market has never been more crowded, nor the competition so bitter. Unless you have a commercial sense which is every bit as keen as that of your larger rivals, you will not make it for long. As the hero of Life of Pi says at one stage: “I had a plan and it was a good one. I only needed to survive to put it into effect.”

Surviving means facing daunting odds. With the ending, in 1995, of the Net Book Agreement which protected the publisher’s cover-price, the booksellers have grown increasingly powerful, devouring their smaller rivals and imposing tough conditions on publishers. Chains such as Waterstone’s, Ottakar’s and Borders demand a discount of 50 per cent and sometimes as much as 65 per cent if they are to put books on sale. In order to guarantee a decent display in the front window a publisher will have to pay even more. It is known in the trade as a “marketing contribution”. The less charitable might call it a bribe.
The bigger companies, like Random House, Transworld, or HarperCollins, have far greater resources than Canongate could ever muster to ensure that their potential bestsellers are given the prominence and publicity they need. One recent report estimated that Time Warner in the United States has to allocate $100,000 (£65,000) to each book it publishes to cover the cost of promoting it. With overheads such as this, it is not surprising that the big players are looking for sure-fire successes in the form of proven writers, and that if their latest book fails to cover its costs, it will be rapidly remaindered.

Against this kind of background the chances of a small publisher surviving at all, let alone putting its long-term plan into effect, might seem remote. What Canongate has spotted, however, is that this apparently ruthless climate offers an opportunity to the independent firm. Authors who feel themselves squeezed out by the system, or underrated by a larger publisher, may be on the lookout for someone who can offer them the personal commitment they lack elsewhere. It is no coincidence that Mr Martel, whose previous two books were published by Faber, was drawn to Canongate’s owner, Jamie Byng, because he had heard about his drive and enthusiasm.

Although Faber was offering five times more than Canongate, “their warmth felt a little stale”, according to the author. What Byng had instead was tireless ambition, a determination to see the book succeed, and the marketing skills to match. Since he had already demonstrated his ability to pick winners, and, unlike many small publishers, was able to match his book production to the retailing schedules of the big sellers, doors that might have been closed sprang open.

By winning the Booker, Canongate stands to sell an extra 100,000 hardback copies and, by the time the paperback goes on sale, will have made at least £2 million net profit from this book alone. Its challenge now is to stay small enough to retain that personal touch, while growing sufficiently to take on the authors who will increasingly beat a path to its door. Other independent publishers have gone to the wall or been taken over because growing sales have led to unsustainable overheads.

Canongate has to avoid this if it is to survive. Its plan, surprisingly, is to publish less rather than more. In 2000 it published 125 books. This year it brought out 85. Next year it plans to reduce that total to only 75. Along the way, however, it has managed to increase its revenue and its profits. By choosing only those books in which it believes, and to which it can devote personal attention, it believes it will be in a better position to nurture and promote its authors.
Small, it seems, can indeed be beautiful.

Mangus Linklater

SELLING YOUR BOOK ON A RADIO SHOW

2007-04-08T09:54:00.000-07:00

Performances on radio talk or news shows are the workhorses of book-promotion activities. With radio as part of your communication plan, you can reach hundreds or even thousands of people at little or no cost. You can even sell some books, if you do it right.

Most radio shows are conducted over the telephone, from any place in which there is a good connection, no background noise and where you can talk uninterrupted for the length of the show. Telephone interviews provide inexpensive exposure because the producer will usually call you. Here are several guidelines to make telephone interviews more effective:

* As you agree upon the time and date with the producer, confirm your time zone. The producer may say he or she will call you at 3:00, but is that 3:00 p.m. in your time zone?

* Do not use mobile telephones and do not ask the station to call you on a line with call waiting. Similarly, this is not the time to impress your friends by having them listen to you on an extension or speaker phone.

* Have a specific area set aside for telephone interviews, one in which you can keep your notes, books and pad handy. Unplug nearby phones if they are on a different line.

* Nobody will say, “You’re on the air,” so always assume the microphone is hot (live).

* Your host may want to give the audience the impression that you are in the studio. He or she may say, “Here with us today is Dallas Robertson, owner of the website Vanity Press Distributors.” Take the hint and do not make comments such as, “How’s the weather there?”

* While you are on hold, either before you begin the interview or during a break, you will hear the station’s regular programming. Listen for key points to which you can refer later. On long shows, the host may talk to you during the break to plan what you will discuss during the next segment.

* Give your ears a rest. Alternate the telephone from one ear to the other during lengthy segments. If you have a speakerphone, engage it during the breaks only.

* Before a long show starts, ask when breaks will occur and how long each will be. Listen for the show’s theme music, which will usually start at low volume and increase as it leads to the break. Close your answer as the music begins.

* Keep water nearby and drink it generously, but only during breaks so the sound of your swallowing is not heard on the air (and if the water goes down the wrong pipe, your coughing will not interfere with your interview).

* Keep your list of questions and answers in front of you. Refer to it regularly and make notes as you speak.

* After two or three shows in one day, you may begin to wonder if you are repeating yourself. Make notes as you speak to remind yourself of what you said earlier.

* Write the host’s name phonetically at the top of your note pad and use it during the show. Do the same with people who call in top ask you a question during the show.

* Sit in a comfortable, quiet chair. If you gesture frequently, try standing as you speak. Keep your head high to open your breathing passages; relax your jaw muscles and you will speak more clearly.

* Do not schedule telephone interviews too closely together. Invariably, one will be delayed due to an unpredictable event, perhaps impinging on the time allocated to another show.

* Rarely will you get bumped (canceled on short notice), but it can happen. If so, be polite and reschedule your show for another time.

* At the end of the show, you will get the chance to tell the listeners where they can find your book. Spell out your web address clearly.

If you are thorough in your preparation, you will alert your host to your potential as an interesting guest. You both will be relaxed, and the interview will be conducted between two professionals, both trying to create an interesting, informative and entertaining show to meet their respective objectives. When this occurs, you may be asked back to repeat your performance.

Published March 7th 2007 by Brian Jud for http://blog.selfpublishing.com/?p=174

LOCAL NEWSPAPER COVERS VANITY PRESS DISTRIBUTORS

2007-04-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

From The Guardian Express, March 27 to April 2 2007 p. 10

The full transcript of the article is as follows:

"When Dallas Robertson noticed a gap in the world of publishing, he jumped online to do something about it.

The Maylands resident is the owner of Vanity Press Distributors, an online distributor of small and self-published books.

The business is an outlet for authors frustrated by traditional publishing houses.

Robertson said he had the idea three years ago while studying to be a librarian.

But it was working at a library and watching self-published authors refused distribution that motivated him to act.

"In the past, self-published books used to be of poor quality but today, with the advancements in printing and the like, the books end up looking professional," he said.

Robertson said the sales focus of larger publishing houses meant that good authors with a small target readership but something to say missed out.

"For example I get a lot of autobiographies, which is one thing I really do like about it," he said.

"They're not from Paris Hilton, people famous for being famous, but they've lived extraordinary lives in their neighbourhood."

Vanity Press helps authors who do not know how to sell or market their books.

It has been running for a year and sells more than 50 titles.

Robertson is selective about the presentation of the books he distributes but will accept books on any subject matter.

"I am not too worried about what people write in the book. I come from a library background so I believe in freedom of speech," he said.

"In publishing circles, in the past when someone went and published their own book it was regarded as vanity, because they were not good enough to get their own book published.

"I thought it would be good to take the name back."

For more information, visit www.vanitypress.com.au."

NEED A COVER ARTIST?

2007-03-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

Have you written a manuscript and are about to self publish?

Don't rely on the printer to organise your cover.

Despite the adage, people DO judge a book by the cover (just read this article to find out - http://blog.selfpublishing.com/?p=173). If you want to increase the chances of selling your book, your cover must be outstanding.

Warrigal Press can provide cover artists and illustrators at excellent prices. They have a list of talent on tap ready to make the cover of your book sell it for you.

Contact Bob Sheppard at Warrigal Press on 08 9295 0891, or visit their website at http://www.warrigalpress.com.au/.

AUTHORS WANTED - NO GIMMICKS!

2007-03-20T05:34:00.000-07:00

Have you got a manuscript of around 3000 words? Warrigal Press wants you.

Warrigal Press is seeking manuscripts from Australian writers in the following genres:

Crime
Mystery
Horror
Science Fiction
War
Romance
Western

If you have an exciting new manuscript of around 3000 words and are interested in joining a growing team of writers, cover artists and illustrators at Warrigal Press, contact Bob Sheppard at bobsheppard@warrigalpress.com.au.

VOTE NOW FOR VANITY PRESS WEBSITE!

2006-04-25T03:07:00.000-07:00

If you like the Vanity Press Distributors website - VOTE FOR IT!

Webbie World is a website which allows people to vote for their favourite site. If they don't like a site, they can 'wonk' it.

Vanity Press Distributors has found its way onto their site. If you like our site, you can now vote for it! And if you don't like it - well that's cool too, because even a wonk site can still work!

To access their Home Page, type http://www.webbieworld.com/ into your URL address bar. Click on Search, then type the word "vanity" as the first phrase, "press" as the second. Then vote for it - that's it!

Check out a heap of other cool sites while you're there.

VANITY PRESS DISTRIBUTORS GOES LIVE!

2006-03-19T23:03:00.000-08:00

After a few delays, Australia's newest online bookshop, Vanity Press Distributors, has at last gone live.

Specialising in books by small publishers, VPD is filling a need that other bookstores are ignoring - by providing small publishers a cheaper, easier way to distribute their books, while providing its customers access to books they would be rarely able to buy in high street book chains.

Supported by authors, small publishers and book printing companies, VPD showcases some of Australia's best writing and most diverse range of books. Some of the more unusual titles now available are Ships' Figure Heads In Australia and The Mystery of the Mayanup Poltergeist. Other titles in its broad range of titles includes Gluten-Free Recipes, the ABC-publicised Voice For Peace, along with books by award-winning author Hugh Edwards.

All items are airmailed to anywhere in the world, so the customer does not have to wait long to receive their purchases. A smooth, fast and easy customer service is the standard to which Vanity Press Distributors subscribes.

Vanity Press Distributors also encourages self-publishing, and to this end will provide links, articles and news items of benefit to the self-publisher. Aware that there are rip-off merchants operating in the publishing business, VPD provides information on printers and publishers who have proven themselves with a reliable and honest track record.

For more information, or simply to buy a book, click on http://www.vanitypress.com.au/ and take your reading off the beaten track.

WHAT IS AN ISBN AND HOW DO I GET ONE?

2005-12-10T02:00:00.000-08:00

An ISBN plays an important part in you being a self publisher, for whoever obtains the ISBN for a new book actually becomes the publisher. Most people know an ISBN relates to books, but a number of questions can be raised regarding it, such as: what exactly is an ISBN, what do the numbers mean, and how would I get one?

WHAT DOES ISBN STAND FOR?

The letters ISBN stand for International Standard Book Number. An ISBN is a 10-digit number unique to your book, and is used throughout the world in the same way. Agencies such as libraries and booksellers use ISBN’s for cataloguing, ordering and stock control. Since it needs to be published on your actual book, it must be obtained before its publication, although use of ISBNs is not compulsory. Bookshops, however, will rarely deal with a book without an ISBN.

WHAT DO THE NUMBERS MEAN?

An ISBN is usually divided into a group of four numbers, usually by hyphens, like this:

1-86252-140-9

The first group of numbers represents the country, such as 0 or 1 for English-speaking countries, 2 for French-speaking countries, 3 for German-speaking countries etc.
The second group of numbers, issued by the national ISBN agency, identifies the publisher.
The third group is the book number describing the specific title and edition.
The last digit, which will be either a single number or the letter X, is a check digit – the result of an algorithm designed to ensure the previous 9 numbers are correct.

THE HISTORY (AND FUTURE) OF ISBNs

The first book-identifying system was used by UK book and stationery chain WH Smith in 1966, and was called SBN or Standard Book Numbering. The current ISBN numbering system commenced in 1970 and has remained to date in this form. However, from 1st January 2007 ISBN’s will transition to 13 digit numbers. This is due to a dwindling supply of 10-digit numbers. Publishers will be required to recalculate all their ISBNs to accommodate the new number format in their systems, while libraries and booksellers will need to make changes in the software to support the conversion.

HOW DO I GET AN ISBN?

Each country has its own agency providing ISBNs. Usually an application and accompanying fee are submitted to obtain one. In Australia, ISBNs are available through Thorpe-Bowker for AUD69.50 for a block of 10, or AUD33.00 for a single ISBN. The process takes about five days. In New Zealand they are available from the National Library of New Zealand. I was unable to determine the price from their website. The National Library of Canada houses the Canadian ISBN Agency, while in the United States R.R. Bowker issues ISBNs for books published there. Nielsen BookData operates as the UK and Republic of Ireland ISBN Agency for those countries. For other countries, a list of ISBN Agencies is provided through the following website: www.isbn-international.org/index.html .

Ironically, a self publisher will not need all ten ISBNs issued as a block, although a single ISBN, if obtainable, is hardly cost-effective. It has been this ‘generous’ allocation of ISBNs in the past that has resulted in the current shortage, thus necessitating the introduction of the new 13-digit system. As a result, ISBN Agencies in the future will seek to issue smaller blocks of numbers. This will hopefully reduce the cost for self-publishers.

WHERE ON MY BOOK DO I PUT THE ISBN?

According to Bowker Thorpe, an ISBN “should be printed on the reverse of the title page of a book, along with copyright and publisher information. It must be printed exactly as given (with the letters ‘ISBN’ preceding it) somewhere in the publication for it to be valid.”

(http://www.thorpe.com.au/isbn/isbn_faqs.htm%20at%2010/12.05).

CONCLUSION

This article answers some basic questions surround the use of ISBNs. Many other questions about this subject can be answered by visiting the website of the ISBN Agency in your own country, particularly with regard to price, and allocations of blocks of 10.

Dallas Robertson
VANITY PRESS DISTRIBUTORS
Read Something New! at http://www.vanitypress.com.au/

GETTING STARTED AS A SELF PUBLISHER

2005-11-09T08:56:00.000-08:00

If you pushed most people, they would admit there is a book inside them waiting to see the light of day. If you are thinking of taking this thought one step closer by self publishing your book, it would be of great assistance to see the whole process in advance. That way, you will not be in for any shocks or surprises along the way. Many authors have leaped without looking, and paid dearly for it. There is no reason why the process of having your book put into print should leave a bitter aftertaste in your mouth. This article will provide you with an overview of the self publishing process, from woe to go.

MOTIVES

Since self publishing is not only a creative, but a financial decision, you should ask yourself why you want to see your book in print. Is it to make money? Is it for fame? Would you love to see your name on the cover of a book? Are you trying to raise money for a charity? Do you want to promote a cause dear to your heart? Or do you simply love writing, and are up for a new challenge? Since self publishing only sometimes makes more money than it costs, it is worth analysing your true motives for self publishing. Otherwise, you could be disappointed. It is worth doing this before any financial transactions take place.

CASH

Depending on the type of book you want to write (or indeed have written), consider the cost. A fairly basic book might set you back about AUD5000-6000 for 1000 copies. Books with hard covers, better quality paper, colour photographs or other extras will cost more. Ensure you have the money before you even begin. You do not want to endanger your credit rating or financial situation by underestimating the cost of publication.

TIME AND ENERGY

To self publish means to handle every aspect of the book’s production, from typesetting the manuscript to marketing, and everything in between. As such, it becomes like a small business. Small business owners can attest to the expenditure of time and energy required for a successful operation. This can be an extremely rewarding experience, whether or not you have experience as a businessperson - so long as you have factored in the time and energy required to get your book finished and into the hands of the public.

PREPARING THE MANUSCRIPT FOR PUBLICATION

Whether you have hand-written, typed or word-processed your manuscript, the final result needs to be put into typeset material for the printer. For a professional-looking finished product, it is best if the manuscript is typeset by a professional. A hand-written copy requires more work by a typesetter, so to cut costs, it would be best to convert it to a more readable format. The services of a typesetter can be provided by, or located through, a good printing company. In your writing, be careful to avoid copyright infringements, libellous comments, breaches of privacy and confidentiality, racial hatred, or revealing government-sensitive information. If in doubt, seek the advice of a solicitor.

DESIGNING AND PRODUCING YOUR BOOK

Before your book can be printed, decisions have to be made on its design. Some things to consider are: the size of the book, the typeface used, cover design, hard or soft cover, binding style, quality of paper, and whether to use illustrations or photographs. You also need to think about how many copies you would like. Generally the more copies produced, the cheaper each copy. However, bear in mind that you will have to sell them, or finish up with boxes of books lining your walls. Since you will be the publisher, you will also need to obtain the ISBN (International Standard Book Number) yourself, and arrange for a Legal Deposit to be made at your state and/or national library. Lastly, you will need everything required to run a small business, such as invoices, padded envelopes for mail order, and possibly business and taxation registration. This is an exciting time!

PROMOTING YOUR BOOK

There are many ways to promote your finished book, especially with the popularity of the internet. Here are a few marketing suggestions: set up your own website and blog, issue a press release, contact libraries, media advertising, ebay, set up a stall at a fair, approach bookshops, tell friends and relatives. There are many more. Be warned that some of these methods may not always work. It sometimes depends upon the subject of the book. Websites and advertising cost money, and time is involved attracting people to the site. A library will often accept a book if its subject is of local interest, but generally will only buy through traditional publishers. Bookshops usually sell on consignment only, and even then retain 40-60% of the retail price. Still, many self published authors are having great success using some of these methods, so don’t be dismayed.

CONCLUSION

If you see the big picture before you embark on your self publishing journey, you will have the time of your life, not to mention the satisfaction of having your book in print. With your book at least in Legal Deposit, you and your family will enjoy a lasting legacy even after you’re gone.

Dallas Robertson
Vanity Press Distributors
Online Bookshop for Self Publishers
Live January 2006
vanitypress.com.au
dallastexjr@gmail.com

WHAT EXACTLY IS SELF PUBLISHING?

2005-11-06T05:24:00.000-08:00

Perhaps this sounds an obvious question to somebody who has already self published, or is familiar with the industry, but for someone finding their way - perhaps an author who has written a piece of work and is contemplating financing its release - this question is appropriate. Not only is there a lot to learn about the actual process of self publishing, but there are unscrupulous operators out there waiting to pounce of those who are naive and unsuspecting.

Self publishing is a rather self-explanatory expression: it simply refers to the process by which an author, having written a body of work, publishes it themselves. In actual fact, it can be summed up in three points:

1. The author is the publisher
2. The author uses their own money to finance its publication
3. The author markets it themself

In reality, the process of self publishing a book is as follows:

The author, having produced the work for publication, obtains an ISBN (International Standard Book Number). The author then approaches a company specialising in printing books. (The author’s obtaining the ISBN is actually what makes the author a self publisher. This is the exact definition of a self publisher. Should any other person or business obtain the ISBN, then they would be regarded as the publisher).

The author pays the printing company for whatever services it offers to put the book into print, such as editing, word processing, cover design, photography, and printing and binding the book. Note that not all printing companies offer such a full range of services, so the author may approach others, such as an editor or cover designer, to complete these tasks first. They may then take the product to the printer, who should at the very least print, and probably bind, the book. The author will be handed back boxes containing whatever quantity of books they requested.

The author then sets out to sell the book, using whatever marketing means are at their disposal, usually charging at least double the cost price to recoup the cost of printing and make a profit.

The most important thing to realise is that the true definition of self publishing is when the author themself obtains the ISBN.

The reason this is so important for a potential self publisher to understand is that some businesses are set up to prey on those unfortunate enough to venture into this field without doing much research. This will be the subject for a later article, but for the moment, it will be sufficient to point out that these businesses provide the ISBN, making them, not the author, the publisher. This means that the book belongs to them, not the author. Despite now owning the book, they will charge – in fact overcharge – the author to print the book. More often than not, the quality will be awful. They also charge for marketing the book, which they usually do half-heartedly or not at all. Should the author wish to have copies of the book, they will have to pay for them. It sounds outrageous, but a lot of authors have suffered the indignity of being caught up in such a scam. In the United States, lawsuits against such firms occur daily.

Fortunately, with some research, and by always reading carefully any fine print, most authors avoid these pitfalls. They enjoy the reward of having their own self published book in print, which is often indistinguishable from that produced by a traditional publisher.

Vanity Press Distributors provides a website for self published authors to market their books. In March 2006, www.vanitypress.com.au will be available, featuring not only this article, but many others aimed at promoting and educating self publishers. Its main goal, though, is simply to sell self published books. In the meantime, email me at info@vanitypress.com if you would like more information.

Dallas Robertson