Author Shares Guerilla Marketing Tips that Work

Danny Kofke doesn't have a big platform, nor does he have a lot of time. He teaches full time in a public school (special education) and is raising two young children. Yet, he's selling far more books than your typical author, largely through his own publicity efforts. On his media page, I find four radio shows and one book signing that are booked for the next couple of months. And it's not a brand new book. It's been out over two years. It's called How to Survive (And Perhaps Thrive) on a Teacher's Salary.

Here are some tips I picked up from him in a phone conversation this morning:

1) Face it, it takes time and effort to sell books. They don't sell themselves.

2) Book marketing is fun! He's been at this for over two years and still gets a charge out of doing radio interviews, TV and other media. He still fondly recalls the excitement of doing his first radio interview.

3) He takes advantage of both large and small opportunities. You never know what might pay off. He had one interview he did for Bank Rate that got picked up by the FOX site. Another went secondarily to AOL's home page. The point? Just get out there and do something, even if it's small. Do something enough and cool things start to happen.

4) His main method is to research viable media and send e-mails to them.

• He starts with a Google search for such topics as "radio stations about teachers", "financial radio shows," etc. Then, he finds them on the Web and studies the show. If it's all about, for example, recommending stocks to buy, he doesn't pursue it.
• Next, he finds the contact person on the site. E-mail them a pitch. The pitch must be powerful. Remember, it's not about your book, it's about their audience. With the first paragraph, share a startling statistic or something to grab them, demonstrating that their audience wants to hear what you have to say. If you've gotten publicity before, link them to your media page so that they can see or hear past interviews.
  

5) Follow-up and keep good records. Danny emphasized this over and over. He'll pitch anyone and everyone, then write on the calendar to follow-up in a month or so if they haven't responded. If they still don't respond, he may e-mail again several months later, saying something like, "Hey, I just spoke on this station and was mentioned in this article. If you'd like to interview me...." And he keeps following up until someone says that don't want to hear any more.

As you can imagine, good record-keeping is vital. He calendars items that he needs to do at a later time. He keeps a notebook as to who he's e-mailed, how they responded, and when to follow-up. If someone declines and wants no further pitches, he notes that as well.

Example: He contacted the "700 Club" early in his marketing. They declined to interview him. But recently he e-mailed again, telling them what other events he's done and linking them to his author site so that they can see his other interviews. This time, they booked him!

6) Interest can build over time. The media isn't just interested in new books. Once you get one interview and put it on your media site, this can leverage more reviews. Now the media has something to judge whether or not you're a fit for their program. The more interviews you get, the more impressive you look. It's called building a platform from scratch. It's called leveraging one opportunity to get other opportunities.

Danny sent 10 e-mails over time to CBS about getting on their early show. Finally, he could say in an e-mail, "Hey, I was just on CNN." This time, they replied and asked to see his interview from CNN. That's progress! Hopefully, he'll let us know if it comes through!

7) Danny uses HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to give his expertise to journalists who need to interview experts, or regular people with specialized experiences. Responding to a HARO request got him into the Wall Street Journal.

8) Set up your media page. We've already mentioned how he's using it. I like it for two reasons:

1. It gives the media exactly what they want to know, all there on one page where they don't have to waste time searching for information. They can click on both articles and interviews and see that Danny can handle himself well on interviews.
2. It's free and takes minimal time to maintain. I can hear marketing experts saying, "You need to post a blog every day, or at least a few times a week. You need to get links from other prominent sites. You need to post on other people's blogs." To which I'd respond, "Danny doesn't have time for all that crap. He's got something that works for him. Why ruin it?"
   
   Danny's blog is free and functions well for his purpose. He set it up on blogspot.com and didn't even bother to buy a distinct url. Apparently, he doesn't need a url, so why pay $10 a year to get one? That goes along with his book on how to live on a teacher's salary. You don't buy things you neither want nor need.
   
   
3. It's easily up-datable. You don't have to use DreamWeaver or ExpressionWeb or have to hire a webmaster. Blogspot gives you all the basic tools you need.
   

9) You don't have to do everything. If I understand Danny correctly (I'll let him edit this), he isn't putting his book in book fairs, sending it off extensively for review, going for book awards, writing articles for magazines, and traveling extensively. While he has his eye on other opportunities, like presentations to school faculty, he's hung in there with something that's working for him - doing radio shows. I've heard that one of the hardest things for entrepreneurs to do is to stick with a winning formula once they've found one. Danny's making it work, and for that, I greatly admire him!

Follow-Up Interview

Out of 20 first contacts that you make, how many do you estimate end up
actually booking you?

Danny -I would say maybe 4-5 even replied to my message and maybe 2 would book me.

SM - Now that you've got interviews on your press page that they can look at
and realize that you've been in major media, is it easier to book interviews? If so, how many out of 20 responded at first and how many out of 20 now?

Danny - Yes, it's easier to book interviews now. Most producers want to see how you can fit into their show and help their listeners/viewers out. It is not about you or your book most of the time - it is about your message. Since I have been on numerous TV and radio shows, producers can take a look at these and see if I would be a good fit for them. They no longer have to guess what I would sound/look like since they can see first-hand. I would say I now get 5-6 responses (still not half) from the pitches I send out.

SM - Is 90% of what you're doing going after radio?

Danny - No, I would say about 60% radio, 30% television and the rest various print outlets. At first, before I had any television exposure, I was mainly going after radio but now, since I have had exposure in all three areas I mentioned, I pitch appropriate people in all of these areas.

SM - How many contacts (new and followup) do you think you average each week?

Danny - I would estimate 100 or so. Some weeks it is more and some less but, overall, I would say that is the average.

SM - How much time do you think you average marketing your book each week?

Danny - It is an endless job since there are so many ways to market. I have come up with a balance to be the best husband, father, teacher and marketer I can so I limit myself since I could probably work on marketing 10 hours a day! I would say I spend an average of 15-20 hours a week working on book related stuff.

Thanks Danny! That's great information. Thanks for being so generous with us!

When Marketing Meets Magic

I'm sure some low-profile authors, by some inexplicable stroke of fortune, publish their books, get a phone call from Oprah within the first month, become instant media darlings, and watch their books quickly climb to best-seller status. It's like magic, but a magic that graces far less than one in a million authors.

The more typical magic comes as a complete surprise in the midst of an author doing the daily, mundane tasks to get her book noticed. Sadly, the great majority of authors will never experience the tap of the fairy's wand, not because their books suck, but because they failed to create the context frequented by fairies. Fairies quickly lose interest in authors who hope that their mother and brother will start an unstoppable word-of-mouth campaign. Soon, they flutter off to visit a more worthy author - the one passionately speaking at an obscure school to a bunch of half-interested students, wondering how in the world her life came to this. But then, quite unexpectedly, the fairy arrives with her wand. A teacher recommends the presentation on a popular teachers' forum, and you arrive home to find school after school begging you to speak at their schools and sell your books.

In broad strokes, that's how young author Christopher Paolini was touched by the magic. He tried doing the book signing thing in bookstores, but soon discovered that it didn't work very well for unknown, first-time authors. So he tried doing school presentations. He called school librarians in Houston and several of them allowed him to speak. Then the first fairy appeared, in the form of a librarian who posted an enthusiastic recommendation on a teachers' forum. That one recommendation allowed him to book a solid month of school talks in Houston.

He ended up doing over 135 presentations. In the summer of 2002, the second fairy appeared, in the form of novelist Carl Hiaasen, who was vacationing in a city where Paolini was speaking. Hiaasen's stepson showed the book to his stepdad, who recommended it to his publishing house. They signed Paolini and his book placed on the New York Times Best Seller list for 121 weeks.

You might wonder, "How lucky was it that one of those librarians frequented such a forum?" Or, "What are the odds that a novelist with connections just happened to find Paolini's book?"

Well, I'd argue that, although the odds of either of those specific events happening may be quite remote, the odds of something happening, given his 135 presentations, was almost certain.

At first, I didn't understand the magic. I thought that if one of my marketing efforts didn't produce immediate sales, it was just one more failure. But just getting out there and trying stirs things up. Fairies notice. Eventually, wands come out tapping and truly extraordinary stuff happens.

During my first few months of book marketing, I felt much like the pastor who went to watch the train go by every day. When someone inquired about his unusual habit, he said, "I just love to see something that moves without my having to push it." For the first few months, my book sold only when I was out there doing something. If I let up for a day, nothing happened. And 90% of what I tried seemed to have no impact at all.

But somehow, all that cumulative publicity made things start to happen. Some may call it word of mouth. Others may call it reaching a tipping point. Some may say I was touched by an angel. Whatever you call it, it certainly appears to be magic.

• A book reviewer to school libraries wrote a positive review.
• A respected distributor to school libraries started getting orders and requested a contract.
• Twice as many sold on Amazon last month, without any promotion on my part.
  
• Today, someone at the gym told me how he was successfully selling my book at his video store. Someone else found my website and said he's moving a branch of his organization to Atlanta and was interested in partnering. Yet another e-mailed to say he'd love to read my book, review it in his blog, and write an article for a popular youth-leaders publication.
  

Some may say I'm having lucky breaks, but I think luck tends to fall upon those who've been doing the daily, mundane stuff for nine months straight. Today, I felt the brush of the fairy's wand. It's pretty cool!

Is Twitter and Blogging Worth an Author's Time?

A recent blog by the CEO of Thomas Nelson (Michael Hyatt) recommended that almost anyone could build a platform with social networking:

"But today, by starting a blog and making use of tools social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook, you can build a big platform with little more that the investment of your creativity and time. I’m not saying it is easy, but I am saying it is within reach. (By the way, I consider my blog to be my “homebase” and Twitter, Facebook, Plaxo, LinkedIn, etc., to be “outposts.”)"

I think that this can be true in some cases, but I'd like to know some hard data on how many authors actually start off as "nobodies" and successfully build a platform that sells books by these social networking tools, even if they put a lot of time into it and do it right.

Don't get me wrong. I'm blogging and I tweet. And I'm sure that many sales have been made through authors Twittering. But that doesn't mean it's for everybody. In my opinion, we need to question the prevailing wisdom that promises all authors that they can build strong platforms through twittering and blogging.

Here are some of my reasons:

1) It appears to me that the ones who build a platform with Twitter, Blogging, etc., are often special cases.

a) Some were already famous (already had a platform) and thus many people wanted to follow them. The president of Thomas Nelson is a prime example. It's a great way to expand his platform, since many people already look to him as a thought leader. I and many others care what the CEO of Thomas Nelson says about publishing. A comparatively minuscule group cares about what I say about publishing. With limited time to read, if we were publishing about the same subject (I'm actually blogging about a different niche than Nelson), would you rather follow Hyatt or Miller?

b) Some do well because they're blogging about themes attractive to bloggers. Someone who becomes a thought leader in blogging or social networking in general will build a following because so many of the people interested in their thoughts search and redistribute blog posts and link back. Also, people need to subscribe to these thought leaders because the industry is developing so quickly. People want to know the latest ideas in fast-moving industries. The same can be true of the publishing industry, which is experiencing such a revolution. But with so many thought leaders out there in these areas, good luck becoming one of the top leaders!

Let's say you're a young writer, hoping to get published. Publishers keep telling you, "I like your writing, but you have no platform! We don't think we can market your book, since you have no platform." So someone advises you, "Go start a blog and start twittering and build yourself a platform!"

So, what will you blog about? Thousands of authors are blogging about their writing experiences. What's unique about your blog that would make people follow you? If you can't answer that question, lower your expectations about getting a following.

2) I don't see any hard data about what percentage of writers achieve significant sales by blogging and tweeting. (If you know any hard data, please let me know!) Sure, I hear many stories of people who made a great contact or made a great sale, but we can't conclude from these success stories that anybody can succeed by replicating what they did. I think it's called "success bias" - we hear the stories of the successes but don't hear from those who worked hard at blogging and reaped nothing. Thus, we assume that it should work for anyone.

Let's imagine that we collect 50 stories of authors who made significant contacts and sales while riding trains. Does that mean all authors should start riding trains? Hardly. Similarly, tell me 50 stories of people who are selling a lot of books through their blogs and I've still got to ask questions such as:

• "Why are they doing well through blogs?
  
• Are these people like me, starting with no significant platform?
  
• Are they targeting a niche subject that they've become a recognized expert in?
  
• Do they put hours a day into blogging, twittering and commenting on other blogs?"
• Can I easily replicate what they're doing with their blogs?

3) My track record of sales through Twitter and my blogs has been, well, underwhelming. I think I've achieved approximately 0 sales so far through those efforts. (I've sold many through review articles in newspapers, etc.) (For an article by a person with much more blogging experience than me, echoing my experience, see the article, "Why Blogging Won't Sell My Books." The author concludes: "In terms of visitors received and books sold for the time I put in writing, blogging is the worst return on investment I get."

4) A marketing professional reported dismal results. In a recent article , a twitter marketer, who tracks what happens to his tweets that he sends to his 55,000 followers, reported that his potential sales were rather dismal:

"Now, 6% of them are all I can get to click on a link, and I must assume that if I have anything I wanted to sell to these folks, I would be lucky to sell 6% of them (using 6% as my new social-networking constant). That gives me almost 0.4% from my total “mailing list” of followers, which is about one-fifth of what you get from any real-world direct-marketing effort. This is hardly a revolution in marketing. But it might be what you can expect from the average social-network marketing schemes. And it isn’t much."

5) Blogging and Twittering experts say you have to blog and twitter very often to attract a following. Do we really have that kind of time? A responder to the above article said,

"Three or Four Tweets a day will do absolutely no good. You have to do 30 tweets a day. The life expectancy of a tweet is less than 15 minutes. You need to have a network of twitter accounts that can get your message to over 500K users - not one single account."

So let's see, that means I Twitter something every 30 minutes of my 16 waking hours.

Similarly, I've heard that if you really want to build a following on your blog, you should blog about seven times per day.

That's a huge time investment! So this morning I took a son to school, planned for supper, got my 103-year-old granny up and took her for a doctor visit. I'm raising 7 boys, the flowers in the front yard need watering, I'm setting up a book signing, sending books to reviewers, planning articles to send to magazines. My main business is running an educational resources organization. I need to read more, exercise more, write more books, write more articles about my books, set up more signings, pray more, and water the dying flowers in my front yard. And someone's saying a good use of my time is to put up 7 meaty, relevant blogs each day and twitter every 30 minutes!

None of us have unlimited time. I own an older copy of Kremer's 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Now with web-based social networking, let's make that 1002 ways. So if I'm blogging and twittering all day, when will I find time for some of the other 1001 marketing tools?

The Bottom Line

I blog about once a week for several reasons: 1) I blog about matters that I will later write books about. 2) Blogs are great ways to get out important information. 3) Blogs can help establish me as an expert in a field, leading to speaking opportunities, a platform, etc. 4) My blogs store important information that I want to refer back to later. 5) My blogs are part of a small web of links from my sites, blogs and other social networking sites - helping me to raise my search engine rankings for my books on Amazon.

I twitter to let people know I've published a new blog or link them to important articles. I'll twitter something once every few days.

Will I ever sell any books through these efforts? Perhaps. But I see them more as parts of my online presence that will pay off in the long-run, since I'm using them for several purposes, not just sales.

Questions to Ask Yourself Before You Start a Blog Campaign

So someone's told you that, in order to sell your books, you should start blogging to build your following. Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

1) Does the topic of your blog lend itself to bloggers? If your topic isn't a passionate one among a significant niche of people, then don't expect regular readers.

2) What's your competition? So you're an unknown who's writing your first mystery and you start a blog about writing mysteries. How many other mystery writers already have blogs? Why would people follow your blog rather than the writing professors with blogs and the famous mystery writers with blogs? What are you offering that people can't get better somewhere else?

3) Do you enjoy blogging? Would you do it even if it didn't result in many sales? Life's too short to invest a lot of time doing something you hate.

4) Do you have the time to pursue it? I justify posting a blog about every other week. I know that this isn't frequent enough to get a big following, but there are only so many minutes to go around. Additionally, I honestly don't have enough to say of significance on my topic to post more often. To add more posts would be to add fluff.

5) Are you prepared to do the research and writing it takes to become a true expert (thought leader) in your field? If you don't plan to become a thought leader, fine. If you aspire to being a thought leader, you don't get there by posting what you ate for breakfast. You'll need to keep abreast of the top books and periodicals in your field, reading the the most respected bloggers in your field and interacting with them. You don't become a trusted expert by proclaiming yourself a trusted expert. You earn that trust by putting out consistently accurate, helpful, thought-provoking posts. That takes research. That takes a passion for your field. That takes time.

6) Are you already a recognized expert? If not, it may take a lot more than establishing a meaty blog to establish yourself. Most of these folks (recognized experts) seem to speak widely and establish themselves in other ways besides just blogging.

7) How intimately tied to your book is the topic of your blog? My character education site has thousands of subscribers and attracts from 500 to 600 visitors per day. But sending them an e-mail about my book on personal money management provoked very little interest. The fact is, few of my subscribers are teaching personal money management.

So you're writing a mystery and your blog is about writing mysteries, which attracts other mystery writers. Even if you get a steady following of 100 people, or even 1000 fellow-authors who are interested in writing mysteries, how many of them will actually want to purchase your mystery? Probably some, but is it worth the vast amount of time it takes to gain that following?

8) Where do you want to be within the next 5 or 10 years? Does your blog fit into that picture? If, beyond selling books, you see yourself pulling together your blog posts to publish books, or using your blog to show a school that you're the right person for teaching that writing class, then blogging may be for you. If you see it as a quick fix to sell some books, you'll likely be disappointed.

9) Have you defined your expectations for your blog? If you expect hordes of people to start buying your book, simply because of your blog, you've probably got the wrong expectation. Choose one of Kremers other 1001 ways to market your book. First, if you constantly blog about your book, people won't follow you. They'll see you as advertising rather than informing. Second, blogging seems to be more about helping people and establishing relationships than directly selling products. Sure, the resulting relationships can result in setting up a speaking engagement that sells books, but define those expectations beforehand.

In Sum...

With my present state on knowledge, I'd advise authors to blog if they enjoy blogging, have enough time to blog, and have other reasons to blog besides just selling books. If you don't already have a platform and don't relish blogging regularly, don't just gut it out to try to get sales. There are probably other things you could do that would have a faster and more likely payoff.

What do you think? (Feel free to post your thoughts.)

When "What Makes Sense" Keeps us from "What Works"

Need to sell more of your books? If marketing methods that make sense aren't working, try methods that don't make sense. This kind of thinking isn't unusual in the business world.

• Who'd have thought that people would pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee? Starbucks did the nonsensical and built a great company.
• Who'd have thought you could make money by selling products so cheap that real businessmen "just knew" you couldn't make a profit? Wal-Mart did the nonsensical and built the largest retailing outfit in the world.
• Times were when people "just knew" that the universe revolved around the earth, that the earth was flat, and that time wasn't relative. But thinkers who entertained nonsensical thoughts discovered otherwise.
  

Assumptions I'm Questioning

So what are some of the things that "everybody who's anybody knows for certain" about selling books, that we might want to question?

Assumption #1: The best places to sell books are in bookstores.
Assumption #2: Businesses that don't currently sell books are the worst prospects for selling my book.
Assumption #3: The larger the bookstore, the better.
Assumption #4: Go for the large cities since more people are there.
Assumption #5: Go for reviews only in the largest newspapers.
Assumption #6: The ultimate is to get on TV.

Why I Question These Assumptions

I now question all these assumptions:

1. If you're a best-selling author with a traditional publisher, bookstores are great places to sell books. Although, after distributors, wholesalers, and bookstores take their cut, you won't get much money for each sale, people know they can find your books there. But if you're not that well-known, or not with a traditional publisher, you'll probably have trouble getting into the bookstore. And if it doesn't sell within a few months, it may be returned to the distributor and never re-ordered.

That's why Dan Poynter is fond of saying something like, "Bookstores are lousy places to sell books." Great places to buy books, just lousy places to sell them. And it makes sense, once you think about it. If my book is one of 100 personal finance books in a large bookstore, why would someone choose mine over the high profile Dave Ramsey's and Suze Ormans? But if they find it in a smaller, non-bookstore setting, there's no competition.

Since my current book is self-published, I'm encountering hurdle after hurdle to getting into bookstores. I've got it into some locally owned bookstores, but chains are much tougher.

2. Businesses that don't currently sell books at all might take some initial convincing to sell my book, but if they take it on consignment, with no risk, they might like the idea of finding a new source of income. That's how my friend David sold 200 books in a local restaurant in about 6 months. I've currently got my book in a consignment clothing and furniture store, and a video rental store. I'll keep you posted as to how these go.

3. Larger bookstores mean more competition for similar books. Amazon means the most competition. If you have a niche book, like my Contemporary Christian Music Debate, Amazon's a great place to sell a book. People searching for "Christian Rock" or "Contemporary Christian Music" find it at the top of their search. But my book on personal finances, Enjoy Your Money!, competes against thousands of books on the same subject. It's unlikely that anyone would find it searching the term "personal finances". (However, once readers hear about the book from other sources, Amazon's a wonderful place to sell my financial book.)

4. While big-time authors should do well signing books in large cities, where they already have followings, I doubt they'd come out for small-time authors. But since most big-time authors go for the large cities, why not go for the smaller cities? People in smaller, established cities actually read their newspapers to get local news. Hearing that an author's in town, they might be delighted to come to the library and hear you talk about your topic and your book.

5. It's great to get coverage in big-time papers that have a large circulation. Three days ago a financial columnist reviewed my book in the Oakland (California) Tribune. I sold 11 books that first day, five the second day, and four the third day. (One personal actually called to order from me, so that I'm reasonably sure where the other orders came from. For the few days prior to the article, none sold at all.) But if you can't get the big papers, realize that several small ones may net you just as many sales.

6. TV is cool, but can be frightening as well. I was on Fox 5's Good Day Atlanta last Thursday. Great potential, but what if I froze up like the Psychiatrist's interview in "What About Bob?". Everything went great, however. Everyone raved about how relaxed I seemed, how I gave great information, how the station highlighted my book and gave great contact information, how they linked to my book information from their Website, etc. Yet, on the day of the broadcast, I sold exactly 0 books. That's not a typo. The next day I sold a few, but I suspect the sales came from my wife telling her facebook friends about the interview.

Am I glad I did the interview? Sure!

• It exposed a lot of people to the book who may buy it later.
  
• People often need to be exposed to a product several times before they purchase.
  
• I can purchase the video and use it on www.youtube.com and link to it from our publisher's Web page to show other potential media that I can handle interviews.
  

But still, no immediate sales as a result? I've heard similar stories of people who got big-time media coverage, but no or few sales. (I passed on this phenomenon to publishing consultant John Schuster, suggesting that perhaps "viewers view and readers read." He responded that "several marketing studies have shown exactly that.")

So don't put all your eggs into a few massive events, seeing them as your silver bullets. In the long run, the little, local stuff might be your biggest hit.

What are your experiences with what works and what doesn't concerning selling books? Are you questioning some common assumptions? Post a response and let's learn from each other!

Publicity Steps (Part 4)

Imagine that the largest bookstore chain has promised to carry your book. Now, imagine that the owner tells you that you can make changes in the way your book is displayed? What if you could convince the management to

• show the front rather than the spine
• place it in a special display rather than competing with other books on a long rack
• bring up near the front of the store rather than leaving it on the back row.

Would you be interested?

Well, the world's largest bookstore, Amazon.com, gives authors many tools to influence their "position" in their store. Taking advantage of these tools can make the difference between your book being hidden in a corner and getting first class positioning.

We've already talked about such basics as putting up your book image and adding tags. Here are some more tools to put your book out front:

1) Start your Amazon Blog. You do this through Amazon Connect. You can either use the free blog they offer, or connect your blog to Amazon through an rss feed. Your blog entries will show up on your Amazon book page.

2) Tags for Amazon Search. Put in search suggestions (staff will have to approve them) to show Amazon that your book should come up when certain terms/phrases are searched. (Don't put in over 10 yourself. If you want more terms, enlist the help of others.)

3) Listmania. Recommend top books in your field, including your own book. You do recommend it, right?

4) Consider participating in the Amazon Upgrade program, by which customers who purchase your book on Amazon can choose to pay a bit more and access the book digitally (online). They can't download it, but they can search each page.

5) Participate in Amazon forums. (You should find some displayed at the bottom of your book page.)

Here's a general page on Amazon to help authors get started on maximizing their exposure on Amazon.

Follow Amazon's Rules

You don't want to be a pest, or get in trouble with Amazon. So follow their helpful rules for involvement in their communities. I think it's fine to put your name at the end of a comment on a forum and under it put, "Author of...." But beyond that, answer people's questions rather than advertise your product. Don't be obnoxious. Don't cut down your competition, use profanity, put in live links, etc.

Appealing to Publishing Trends

Whether you're seeking publication or marketing your book, recognizing trends can be important. Know what's hot. If everybody's concerned about the current economic crisis (the current hot topic), then tell a publisher how your book can help those financial hurting or worried about impending economic doom. If you're marketing a book, tell a newspaper or magazine how your expertise could help.

To learn about trends, I listened to respected editor Nancy Hancock's (who works for a major publisher) presentation at the Maui Writers Conference. No, I wasn't able to attend. I just went to their site and signed up for a month of free audios. Now I get to hear top authors and industry professionals via my mp3 player!

Here are some of my takeaways:

You need power to get published.

• Get a good agent. That empowers you.
  
• Work on your platform to gain more power. Build your website. Get your e-mail list together. The bigger your platform, the greater your power.
  
• Work with meaningful people. Hancock believes in the 6th degree of separation. She pays attention to a manuscript if a best-selling author recommends it. Very few books get published without someone helping you. Meaningful people give you power.
  
• Study collaboration. Learn from successful collaborators.
• Trends also give you power. Here's how:

Most editors get fifty to 100 proposals per day. They're also editing something that's in process for production, perhaps 12 or more books. They also talk to agents and authors. Plus, they have 8-10 hours of meetings per week. So, they read proposals on weekends.

To get a busy editor's attention, tie your book to a trend.

You're either following a trend or creating a trend. Trend cycles tend to be 7 years. There are trends for topics and trends for formats -- Big books, tips books, etc. Dummies books were hot, but not as much now. There are language trends. Think of the trends: "Diaries" books, "Confessions" books, "Insiders Guides."

To discover trends, try clipping. Hancock and a famous publicist read magazines and newspapers and clip out phrases and topics that might indicate trends. Then, they paste them on a board to track and observe them. If you read a variety of publications, you'll begin to see trends as the same phrases keep popping up.

Trends impact the degree of expertise needed. On morning shows (at the moment Hancock speaks), everyone has to be an M.D. or Ph.D.

Read news magazines and several different papers -- a regional paper, then the NY Times and Wall Street Journal. The WSJ is often the best indicator of trends because of what they feature. She discovered a potty training trend from a Wall Street Journal article.

There are financial trends: from day trading to flipping houses to what's next.

Historical trends. We recently experienced DaVinci fever. But after it peaked, it went away.

We've gone from simplicity to gratitude to happiness to volunteerism.

Find something that's all your own, but show how it fits into existing trends.

On Contracts and The Authors Guild

Want to keep from getting screwed over by a publisher? Consider the Authors Guild.

We've all heard horror stories of popular writers or musicians who make their publishers and labels rich while they live with mom and survive on Ramen Noodles. What happened? They were probably so delighted to get published or produced that they were willing to sign almost anything. And besides, they're artists - you know - "art for art's sake" and all that. It seems rather unartistic to haggle about a few words in a contract. As a result, they got a lousy contract that keeps them working at McDonald's when they could be making a living with their writing.

Like it or not, there's a business side to writing. And unless you aspire to study publishing law on the side, you'd probably benefit by having someone with experience in publisher contracts to look yours over before signing on the dotted line.

A writer friend recently received an offer from a publisher and immediately sent the contract to the Authors Guild. (They'll give input on contracts as a free service to their members. Annual membership is about $90, I believe.) Input from their staff attorney was detailed and invaluable, reflecting an intimate knowledge of what's standard and what's not in the industry, and what you want to push for as an author.

Example: the attorney mentions that royalties based on the publisher's "receipts" is referring to net-based royalties, which are about half what you'd get from the same percentage of list-based royalties. Thus, you should expect your publisher to offer about twice the percentage in net-based royalties that they would pay in list-based royalties.

Plus, when a publisher bases the author's cut on receipts, the publisher might give special discounts to certain distributors or sellers, putting more money in their hands and less in the author's.

That's not to say that basing royalties on the publisher's receipts is wrong. (My traditional publisher based its royalties on their net, or receipts.) It just means you need to know exactly what you're getting out of the deal, comparing it to industry standards.

What are the standards? According to the above expert, many authors get 8% of the list price (which would be about 16% of the net) for sales of the first 150,000 copies and 10% for copies sold above 150,000 (about 20% of the net).

A change in the wording of one, brief sentence in a writer's contract could easily have you making twice as much income from a book. So know what you're getting into!

Write Feature Articles to Publicize Your Book

I just listened to a telephone seminar on this topic. Lots of useful information from successful writers and big-time magazine editors. Here are my takeaways:

1) Writing articles and getting mentioned in articles is powerful, free advertising.

• People believe articles more than ads.
  
• You're reaching readers, who are more likely than listeners to purchase a book.
• The articles have lasting power. They can remain in doctor's offices or archives on websites.
• You can use the article for blurbs "As mentioned in Womans Day Magazine."
• You can attract other media people who may read the articles.
  

2) Know the magazine you're targeting and show them you know it. Most don't. Perhaps compare your article to a previously-written article in the magazine. Call to make sure you know who to address by name as the "Articles Editor." Ask if it's appropriate to follow-up with a call or e-mail.

3) Get to know media contacts personally. Time spent face-to-face can reap rich dividends. Make it a two-way street: How can I serve you?

4) Offer all the bells and whistles. They're busy and would love an interview format, with you asking your own questions, a side bar with five tips for a broad audience, etc.

5) Offer yourself as an expert who can either provide the information or give them someone who can. Are you a life coach, psychologist, pet expert, etc.? They're always looking for experts to interview and quote. They want to have relationships with as many experts as possible. How can I put myself forth as an expert in personal money management?

• Have written a book on it.
  
• Raising seven boys.
  
• Worked with youth and trained youth-workers for 30 years, both nationally and internationally.
  
• Write resources for educators.
  
• Am an investor.
• Have done noteworthy research and fresh interviews.
  

6) If they don't want your article, it's OK to ask, "Is there anyone else on staff who might want to see this article?"

7) Show yourself as one who knows how to consolidate concepts into sound bites. Give them a brief, catchy title, a descriptive subtitle and a brief summary.

8) Tie your book into current trends and news. One expert on how to prevent dog attacks goes to Google Alerts to automatically receive e-mail alerts from breaking news, videos, blogs, etc., about about dog attacks. He then contacts the press in that area to find if they want an article by an expert on how to prevent them in the future. Was there a recent study released on your topic of interest? Tie the study into the topic of your book and suggest an article. You don't have to make the news or be the news. Rather, piggy-back on what's already news.

9) Track the impact on your book sales on Amazon.com. When a lady published an article concerning her book on caring for an Alzheimer's patient, she looked under the category "Alzheimer's" and found that she was #1.

10) Find a common link with someone important in the organization. One author wrote a book about succeeding without goals. He had heard that Oprah had succeeded without setting goals, so he contacted her to let he know he'd written a book on it. She was fascinated and interviewed him.

11) Keep learning about your niche, so that you become that most respected person for the press to call upon when they need an expert.

12) Send notes of appreciation to reporters when they've written a good, substantive article in your field. If they respond, offer them a copy of your book, your web address and phone number, letting them know that if they need you in the future, you're available. Say that if you don't know the answers, you'll refer them to an expert (This person refers to an expert about 50% of the time, getting him in good with the expert as well!)

13) Use e-mail to make your first contact with a magazine (or whatever method they request).

14) Think outside of the box concerning which magazines might be interested. One author wrote a self-help book for young people getting jobs. She pitched an article to ESPN magazine (sports) with this angle: "How many people read your magazine because they love sports, don't have the athletic ability to compete, but would love to work in the sports industry? What about an article on all the ways to work in the sports industry? They took it! Concerning my money book, I could write for a sports magazine on how sports figures have lost their money and how to handle it more wisely.

How I Plan to Earn $2000 More with my Writing this Year

I plan to save $1500. That's it.

No, the difference in numbers isn't a typo. Let me explain.

Money management gurus drive home the need to curtail spending. They often put it this way:

"A dollar saved equals two dollars earned."

Here's their angle: If you want to net $1 more through writing this year, you can do it in one of two ways:

#1: Earn an extra $2. If you're in a higher tax bracket, half of those earnings will disappear in the form of taxes, leaving you with your $1.

#2: Save $1. You keep it all. The IRS doesn't tax savings.

Now I'm not in a high tax bracket, so let's imagine that for me, $1500 saved equals $2000 earned.

The amazing thing is that the way I'm saving won't hurt me at all. It's not like I'm committing to eat Ramen Noodles for the rest of the year, or cutting my marketing budget. I simply compared prices on some of my services and winged better deals.

My primary savings came from changing my merchant account (the company that processes my credit cards for online purchases of my writing.) Cherie had been complaining for some time that too much of our earnings were being eaten up by our merchant account. I'd always respond, "Well, you know we compared before we got the service several years ago. I guess it just costs a lot."

But when they said they decided to charge us $40 more per month (ostensibly in order to serve us better!), I fired up my calculator and began asking around about the top merchant services. One ministry said they had changed merchants every two years, because companies would advertise a killer rate, inching up to an exorbitant rate before you knew what had hit you. He ended up with PayPal. I'm making the change, which should save me about $1200 per year. (Before the increase, they were charging us over six times the amount that PayPal charges for the same service!)

I've also found that you can bargain with Internet Service Providers. Mine was charging me about $70 per month for DSL wireless (allowing me about five computers to access). I got an advertisement in the mail that said I could get a competing service for about $45 per month. But I didn't want to go through the hassle of changing (change e-mail addresses, etc.). So I called my provider and said, "I like you guys, but your competitor is offering me the same service for $45 per month."

"We can beat that," he said. So immediately I began saving another $300 per year.

In my book on personal finance, I quote the CEO of Wherehouse Music as saying,

"Manage costs, not revenue. And remember that there is no such thing as a fixed cost."

Cutting costs frees up writers to take the assignments and write the books we're passionate about, rather than having to always go for the best paying. Extend this to paying less for houses, cars, etc., and you'll be that much closer to making a decent living from your writing.

Chapter 10: No platform? Then consider self-publishing

Self-Publishing is not necessarily second best, especially in today’s market. Why?

I don’t think I’m exaggerating to suggest that the combination of print on demand and social networking via the Web (see chapter 8) have revolutionized publishing. But it hasn’t struck me just how revolutionary the changes are until the last few months.

The “Print on Demand” Revolution

So my book on music was out of print and all but one used copy was gone from Amazon. Someone was selling the last copy for $500. Was that you Cherie? Trying to republish with a traditional publisher didn’t seem like an option.

So why would a publisher quit printing a book that’s still selling? Because if they’re printing 5,000 copies at a time to keep the costs low, they’re taking a big risk in reprinting. If it sells too slowly, they’ve got to store those babies and take a loss.

But Cherie and I felt that my book could be a good backlist seller for a long time – that it still met a niche need.

So Cherie called a Print on Demand publisher, BookSurge, and had them call me to get me moving on it. I wasn’t that interested because the last time I’d checked out self-publishing in small quantities, you’d have to sell each book for such high prices that

a. nobody would buy it and
b. you couldn’t tack on enough above the selling price to make a profit

But after Cherie enlightened me about the print on demand revolution, I felt like it was the best fit for my book at this stage. I still say I’m glad I went with Tyndale House first and got the respect of being with a respected, traditional publisher. I doubt I could have landed those radio interview or gotten it out to near as many people without them.

But at this stage in the book’s life I couldn’t be more thrilled with Booksurge. For future books, I’m 50/50 as to whether to self-publish or go traditional. There are benefits to each. I may decline the offer on my Money book and self-publish through Booksurge. Let’s brainstorm a bit about self-publishing versus traditional publishing. I’d like to harvest some collective wisdom.

How many of you have self-published (that is, you paid to have your book published)? How many have published with a traditional publisher (that is, the publisher paid you an advance for the privilege of publishing your book)?

Let’s list the pros for each type of publishing.

The Case for Traditional Publishing

1. I’m much more likely to get it into bookstores. (I’m in their catalog that goes to bookstores and distributed through traditional channels.)

2. They will do some free publicity. Tyndale House had connections with radio and TV that I didn’t have. They arranged the thirty or so radio interviews.

3. I get more respect.

• For future publishing.
• From bookstores.
• From schools and libraries.
• From magazine reviewers and major reviewers.
  

4. There’s no up-front monetary risk on my part.

5. I get up-front money.

The Case for Self-Publishing

I'm heavily considering self-publishing my next book at this point. Here are some of my reasons:

1) I Can Do a Lot More Marketing Myself Than in the Past. As I study social networking and marketing via the Web, I'm more and more convinced that I can reach my customers pretty effectively via these methods. I couldn't have done this 10 years ago, but so many possibilities exist today.

2) More Long-Term Profits (possibly). My traditional publisher gave me 15% of their net (what distributors pay them for the book), which probably meant about 15% of half of the retail price. For an $18.00 book, that would mean I'd receive $1.35 per book. With BookSurge (print on demand, subsidiary of Amazon) I'd receive 35% of retail (the price it sells for on Amazon), which is $6.30 per book. That's a huge amount over time! Example: If I sold 10,000 books through Booksurge at $6.30 per book, I’d have to sell over 4.5 times as many books (over 45,000) at $1.3 per book to net the same amount of money. Can the traditional publisher generate that many more sales because of their connections and publicity channels. Certainly, in some cases. But probably not in others. If a traditional publisher is offering you a contract, make sure that they are doing a super job of marketing their books.

3) Sure, I'd love to receive a $10,000 advance and the clout and the marketing to traditional bookstores that comes through a traditional publisher, but that $10,000 would be taken back by the publisher with my royalties until it was paid back. (An “advance” is an “advance against future royalties").

Since in my case I've already been promised an early purchase in bulk, I could pay back the printing costs quickly and begin making a profit.

4) I get to retain all rights and offer it as an e-book, parts of it as articles, etc.

5) I get more control over the graphics and the final editing.

6) Speed: Published in a couple of months versus a year.

7) Flexibility: It's so cheap to publish that I don't have to think of my original publication as final. I can use it to test the waters, get input and make a revision based on that input in a year or two.

If you choose print on demand, you haven't burned your bridges to a traditional publisher. Amazon.com has a service which allows publishers to see your sales and consider picking you up. BookSurge just gave me a raise, from 25% to 35% of the selling price on my book. They didn’t have to do this. My contract was for 25%. This makes me think they’re willing, like their parent company, to lose money or make very little in order to eventually own the market. If so, that’s good news for authors. My contact at BookSurge is John Schuster. He's been very helpful in answering my questions and leading me through the self-publishing process.

The Web (Web 1.0) and Social Networking (Web 2.0) Revolutions

So Print on Demand has revolutionized our ability to get our books into print 1) with quality printing 2) quickly 3) at reasonable prices and 4) in small or large quantities. The Web revolution allows those who can’t hit the road or do bubbly radio interviews a plethora of new avenues for cheap and effective marketing. It’s a move from “interruption marketing” to helping those already looking for our products to find us. It allows everyone to learn the new tools (blogs, online press releases, forums, etc.) and market effectively and cheaply.

Questions or input about Self-Publishing versus Traditional Publishing? Feel free to comment!

Chapter 1: No Platform? Then start thinking like a publisher

Authors tend to think that publishers are simply looking for great writing on an interesting subject. But if we’re to sell our ideas to publishers, we must learn to think like a publisher.

Here’s how the acquisitions editor, who currently has your query letter and proposal sitting in a huge pile next to his desk, may be thinking:

"I love great writing, but my children are hungry. Convince me that your book will sell and make us a profit."

Sure, they love great books. But more than that, they love great books that sell. To publishers, strong platforms mean strong potential sales.

So you’re an acquisitions editor with 10 manuscripts on your desk, all of them about personal finance. Why risk publishing the unknown financial writer when they could take the guy who teaches successful financial seminars from coast to coast? So when you’re sending a proposal, do more than point out your unique angle and convince them that you can write; convince them that you can sell the book.

And by the way…start working on solutions now! Don’t wait until you’re trying to pitch it to publishers. If you’re on the first chapter of your first book, set up a file on your computer or in hard copy and label it “Marketing and Platform.” As you get ideas, put them there and calendar when to implement them. Much of what I say is much easier to do when you’re still researching your book.

So the first, and I think most important point, is to begin thinking like a publisher. Following are some things I’ve done as a result.