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January 27, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Seth Godin: The single biggest change in book publishing

Seth Godin is amazing, and you should follow his Domino Project. In this brief article, he summarizes a key point about publishing books that is overlooked by most authors and many publishers. Go there and read the whole thing.

The single biggest change in book publishing is this:

The industry was built around finding readers for its writers.
And new technologies and business models now mean that the most successful publishers and authors find writers for their readers instead.

Go here to read the whole short piece.

 

Filed Under: book love, marketing, publishing Tagged With: , , , ,
January 23, 2012 By 8 Comments

Can this new publishing model work?

Unglue.it is not even in beta yet, but it is raising a lot of eyebrows: Can you use a pledge campaign to raise money to induce a copyright owner to put their publication into the public domain? The owner gives up future royalties in exchange for a one-time payment, raised from a crowd of interested people in small amounts. (Compare Kickstarter.com)  It’s an intriguing thought, and I will be very interested to see if it flies. Here’s a brief video in which Unglue.it founder Eric Hellman is interviewed by my friend David Weinberger.

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December 23, 2011 By Leave a Comment

7 qualities of an engaging book title

Your book’s title is important to its impact. If the title is not a grabber, the prospective reader will not open the book.

So–how to name your book? As I’ve mentioned, a lot of the advice that applies to copy writing applies to book titles. Here are 7 characteristics of a successful title; make sure your book’s title has at least one of them:

  1. Make it the answer to a question. Questions are memorable. And they are “open loops’; the reader’s brain seeks an answer, a place to find closure. A good title addresses a question that is plaguing the reader. “But Is It Art?” by Nina Felshin includes the question in the title. “Plants and Landscapes for Summer-Dry Climates of the San Francisco Bay Region” by East Bay Municipal Utility District Conservation Staff answers a very specific question.
  2. Cover of Make it targeted. You need to know exactly who you are addressing with your book. And your book’s title must promise to address a major pain that they are experiencing, like “Flat Belly Diet!” by Liz Vaccariello; or “The Official SAT Study Guide,” by the College Board. These speak to people lacking a flat belly and to those studying for the SAT.
    The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
  3. Make it address primal issues. Life and death, health, love, children–these are emotion-fraught topics. Even if your book is technical, your title will draw more attention if it mentions mortality, sex, or body functions, even if these are used only metaphorically. “The Age of Virtual Reproduction,” by Spring Ulmer. “I Miss You: A First Look at Death,” by Pat Thomas and Leslie Harker.
  4. Make it a promise of a benefit. “Beyond Anger–A Guide for Men: How to Free Yourself from the Grip of Anger and Get More Out of Life,” by Thomas J. Harbin.  ”Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill.
  5. Make it a “how to.” When looking for a book, people are often trying to find out how to do something. Good titles: “How to Make People Like You in 90 Seconds or Less,” by Nicholas Boothman; “Mushrooms: How to Grow Them,” by William Falconer.
  6. Make it a command. How about “Wreck this Journal,” by Keri Smith? “Do the Work,” by Steven Pressfield? “Cook Like a Rock Star,” by Anne Burrell and Suzanne Lenzer?
  7. Make it almost familiar. “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich,” William Shirer, harked back to “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”  ”An Inconvenient Book,” by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe, played off of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”
What are your thoughts about successful titles? About how to create them? Comment below!
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Filed Under: book writing, inspiration, marketing, steps to write a book, write a book Tagged With: , ,
December 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

What’s the question?

Your audience–the people you want to reach with your book–has a question. Yes, I know they have more than one. But for many of them, there is one big question they share. It occupies them. It represents a pain, a hole in their lives, that is demanding comfort, that must have an answer.

Do you know what your audience’s question is?

If you do, great. The title of your book should address that question. And the answer found in your book should be powerful. Actionable.

If you don’t know what the audience’s burning question is–find out. Ask. Call. Interview. Read market research reports. In fact, if you don’t know, don’t publish a book until you do–that is, if you want anyone to read your book.

 

Filed Under: book love, book writing, marketing, planning, steps to write a book, write a book Tagged With: , ,
July 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

If your market is “everybody,” it’s nobody

I heard a coach say to another coach at our Silicon Valley Coach Federation meeting last night, “I tried to word my website copy so as not to exclude anyone who might become a client,” she said. The other coach replied, “Bad idea. Think of it like this: If you needed knee surgery, would you prefer to see a surgeon who does heart surgery, brain surgery, knee surgery, and plastic surgery? Or one who only does knees? You need to focus narrowly, so that your potential clients will see you as an expert in the domain that is of interest to them.”

It’s the same with your book. You must address it to SOMEone, not to everyone. If you attempt to reach everyone, nobody will see themselves addressed by the book.

So, yeah, you need to choose your niche carefully. If you choose one that is too small, you will have difficulty building your business.

One powerful set of tools for use in finding your niche are the ones used by Internet marketers for keyword research. Some of the best of these are free, like Google’s keyword tool. Use it to find out what keywords match the topics in which you are interested, and how many searches there are for them. That will give you an idea of the size of your market.

And within your niche, find out what the greatest areas of “pain” are. What are the problems to which most members of the target market are seeking solutions? Visit forums and blogs that focus on your niche topic, and learn what people are most interested in. Focus your book on your chosen niche, and address the problems of the niche in its title. That will help your audience find its way to you.

You are an expert; your clients are seeking your expertise. You can’t be a general expert.

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July 14, 2010 By Leave a Comment

What’s your platform?

As a result of a teleseminar I gave yesterday, my calendar has been full of strategy calls with people who want to write or market a book and need questions answered or help. (If you want to book such a free call with me, click here.)

I’ve been amazed how many of the people I’ve spoken with have a well-established platform for marketing their book and other products. What’s a platform? It is a collection of ways in which you already have contact with a significant audience–frequent presentations; a newsletter; on-line or newspaper or magazine columns; and so on. If you contact a literary agent or a publisher, they are sure to ask about your platform. Do you have one? What is it?

A solid and broad platform is the key to immediate volume sales of your book. One person I spoke with has a continuous stream of corporate presentations on the very topic about which he is writing. I pointed out to him that most of his corporate clients are likely to want a copy of his book for each member of the audience; this could double his revenue from a single engagement! He agreed.

If you already have an established platform, think how you might take advantage of it to promote your book. If you don’t yet have one, consider investing time and energy into the creation of an appropriate one; it will both greatly increase the volume of your book sales, and enhance your market presence for your professional services.

Arielle Ford says in the Huffington Post:

“I don’t buy authors, I don’t buy books, I buy platforms.” – #1 Self-Help Publisher in the world

One of the biggest mistakes authors make is thinking that they have to first write a book or the book proposal and then go out and look for a publisher. In reality, the biggest thing you need to do before you approach a publisher is to build your platform.

You want to be able to say to any publisher, “I have 3,000 names in my e-mail database. I’ve have been a guest speaker on 10 radio shows. I have done 20 paid speeches, and I am scheduled for four weekend workshops. Here is my list of upcoming speeches, the interviews I have done and my press kit.”

The reason you want to be able to tell a publisher all of this is because the only question they really have for you is, “Who is going to buy your book?” If you have something important to say and you are on to something that’s really great, you still aren’t ready to be an author until you have a platform.

Pay attention.

Filed Under: marketing, planning, publishing, steps to write a book Tagged With: , , , , ,
July 6, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Promotion: It’s up to you

If you want people to buy your book, you have to let them know of its existence, and where to order it. To do this, you need to know who they are, and where to reach them. And much to the surprise of many new authors, this is not only the case for self-publishers; it’s true for authors whose works are published by major publishers, too.

Most major publishers put promotion dollars behind winners, not newbies. So if promotion was a reason for you to seek a publisher rather than publishing yourself, strike it off the list.

For most non-fiction authors, the very best way to sell your books is through speaking engagements. For corporate gigs, you can often offer your book at a discounted price to the client, so that they can buy a copy for each attendee. I’ve sold thousands of books this way, and so have many other speakers.

In other speaking environments, you can sell them in the back of the room after your talk, if the venue allows it. (Although I would suggest having a higher-priced product at the back of the room, such as a CD series, a DVD series, or a course, and throw in the book as a free bonus. But if you do this, do not offer the book for sale as well; most people will just buy the book.)

One of the best investments an author can make is to buy “1001 Ways to Market Your Books,” by John Kremer. Then read it, and start implementing just a few of the hundreds of excellent ideas in its 700+ pages.

Here are a few starting places:
  • Find out what your most important keywords are. Search on “keyword research” to learn this important skill. Then begin to identify your book’s audience with precision, and the words that they would enter into search engines that ought to lead them to your book.
  • Find blogs read by your reading audience, and find a way to participate in them. Offer to write guest articles. Comment on the entries. Include your book’s website (you have one, right?) in your signature.
  • Create a Facebook page around your book and its topic.
  • Blog about your topic and your book on your own blog, at least 3 times a week.
  • Find out how to get on radio talk shows. They need people to interview, and will allow you to promote your book. Make a special offer–a low price or bonus if they mention the radio show. (Search for Alex Carroll; he offers help along this line.)
Filed Under: book love, marketing, publishing, steps to write a book Tagged With: , , ,
July 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Self-publishing and POD (publish on demand)

My buddy Bill Quain and I are doing a podcast series on behalf of FastPencil.com. It’s called FastPencil Pointers, and you can get it on iTunes or here. As we were preparing next week’s issue, I realized that many people do not know what self-publishing and publish-on-demand are.

Definitions:

Self-publishing: The publishing of a book or books where the author is also the publisher.

Publish-on-demand: The use of print-on-demand equipment to produce books in as small a quantity as one.

Thanks to the Internet and modern printing and binding technologies, it is possible for an author to publish his or her own book without having to invest heavily in large quantities of printed copies and the attendant logistics.

A self-publisher can use a publish-on-demand company for producing the book, or simply have it printed by a traditional book printer.

POD companies often offer additional services to the author, such as ISBN codes; cover design; connection to distributors, like Ingram (who supply bookstores, like Barnes & Noble, Borders, etc.); editing; and more.

The initial POD vendors were not always transparent about the specifics of their service offerings, and sometimes left customers unsatisfied with the value of the “packages” they had bought. Today, competition has forced these firms to be more open about precisely what they do and do not provide. It’s easier for an author to make comparisons than ever before.

I recommend self-publishing to all my authors. If you publish your book yourself, and sell a few thousand copies–and then pitch a major publisher–you will be in a FAR better position to bargain for royalty rates, promotional budgets, intellectual property rights, and more. But frankly, at that point you may ask yourself whether the imprimatur of the major publisher is worth what you may have to give up.

As an author, you will make out better financially if you get a cover designed; get your book printed; and control your own promotion. Now, you may not have the time or the inclination to do those things, and there are plenty of people who will gladly undertake to do them for you; but whichever way you go, you should study the process so that you will understand what you are buying.

Filed Under: book love, book printing, marketing, publishing, steps to write a book Tagged With: , , , , ,
June 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Produce book video trailer for next to nothing

I’ve been working with my new friend Bill Quain on a variety of projects. (Check out our FastPencil Pointers podcast, or download it from iTunes.) Now we are preparing a teleseminar on producing a compelling video trailer for your book–at almost no cost.

The secret is Animoto.com, a website that uses artificial intelligence to create a fabulous video from still, video clips, and audio that you create or choose. Here’s what Bill wrote to his subscribers:

This message goes out to all of my newsletter subscribers. I have some very exciting news.

You can create fantastic, high-quality video Book Trailers for FREE! I did a couple, and they took me about 40 minutes each.

Now realize this – I am legally blind, 57 years old, and not that bright. Imagine what you can do! Just click here to sign up for your free account .

As a free account holder, you may create as many 30-second videos as you like. But, get this – for just $30/year you can upgrade to an account that lets you create as many full-length videos as you like!

Animoto provides all the music, and an incredible editor that allows you to upload images, create text, and even upload video clips. Then, their fantastic software mixes the music and creates a tempo, with many interesting transition techniques to make your video a really cool experience.

This is not just for book trailers! Many of my clients are coaches who would love to have a great, professional quality video on their websites. One friend of mine, who does a lot of workshops, takes pictures of the people in the workshop, inserts some text with points from the workshop, uploads some Animoto audio tracks with music, then shows the video at the workshop. He then emails it to each participant (Animoto actually does it for you) so they have a great reminder of the workshop, along with some major points.

Now, here is a special announcement for all the MEMBERS of The Anatomy of a Best-Selling Book membership site. I am going to give you a FREE tutorial on using Animoto. It will be coming up in the next two weeks, so sign up for your free acount, and upgrade to All Access status ($30/year) if you like. I will teach you exactly how to produce a video.

For those of you who are not MEMBERS of my site, the workshop will cost $39.77. Even if you have to pay, it is a very valuable tool. It will FLATTEN THE LEARNING CURVE!

(If you want to see a sample of one of my videos, just send me an email to request a link.)

Watch this space for the announcement of the workshop.

Filed Under: book writing, marketing, people & ideas, steps to write a book, tech Tagged With: , , , , ,
June 3, 2010 By Leave a Comment

FastPencil gets some ink

It was a good day at FastPencil.com. My friends at this Campbell, CA startup were featured on VentureBeat and in the Wall Street Journal.

Meanwhile, the new FastPencil Pointers podcast site–that’s with me and my buddy Bill Quain–is up, and the podcast is also available in iTunes.

All of which probably means it’s time for you to take a look at FastPencil.com and see what it has to offer authors and publishers. Good stuff.

Filed Under: book love, book printing, book writing, marketing, steps to write a book Tagged With: , , , ,
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