You know? When you publish a book and send it out into the world, it’s like giving birth to a baby. Everyone checks out your baby. Is it breath-taking? Does it have ten toes and ten fingers? Is it pink and sweet or does it look like an extra from “Alien?” We writers are baring our souls, our deepest thoughts, and our feelings lay open like a cavernous wound. We can’t hide anymore. They know us inside and out. Now they see our baby, and they get to pick it to pieces, bit by bit, until the only thing left is a fuzzy blanket.
Oh, hell, we know that and go right on writing, don’t we? It’s in our DNA. We can’t help ourselves, we’re masochists.
When I started this whole book-writing process, I had full intentions of finding an agent and/or a traditional publisher; they’d do all the work while I sat back and listened to “Ca-ching, Ca-ching.” However my journey to that end has been long and stress-filled and I ended up doing just the opposite…I’d kept a daily journal while living in Thailand in the 90s. When I returned to the States, I copied my journal onto a floppy and had it printed, spiral-bound, and mailed it out to friends and family so they could read about all my trials and tribs while abroad. One of the friends who read it insisted that I make a book out of it.
“You know,” she said, “like the book ‘A Year in Provence.’” I immediately ran out and bought the book and was amazed at the problems that the author had endured in a short year. I just knew that if his book sold, then mine would also, however, life got in the way of living and I put it aside.
I joined some creative writing classes a few years later, and with encouragement from my peers I began the long road of putting the journal into book form. In 2003, when I finally thought I’d finished it, I entered it into the Southern California Writers Conference in San Diego. While there, I read chapters from my story in the Read and Critique groups and the attendees laughed in all the right places and even clapped, (I’d hoped it wasn’t because they were happy I’d finished). At the end of the conference I was notified that I’d won the Best Nonfiction award for my story and an agent asked for my manuscript. Wow! That just doesn’t happen unless they love it! I knew I was ready for the Pulitzer.
Then I began to panic. What if it isn’t perfect? I had talked to a “book doctor” at the conference who advised me that my story “…needed some conflict. Who really cares about a housewife who’s having a good time in Thailand? Give them a reason to turn the page.” Okay, that’s what I’ll do. There certainly was plenty of conflict in my life in Thailand, but I’d left it out; it was painful to relive and I wanted it to be a humorous book. I emailed the agent and told her I wasn’t ready. Take your time, she’d said. It’s not time sensitive.
So began the journey of “weaving” the conflict into my story. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. It was three years before I felt it was good enough to be a real book. But, those three years were not only spent rewriting. I took online writing classes and signed up at the local college for creative writing classes, I attended a critique group every week, putting my chapters up to their scrutiny as they tore it apart and helped put it back together. The rest of the time I was editing my life away. But as Stephen King says in his book On Writing: edit, edit and edit. And when you think it’s perfect, edit some more. My husband had a name for my constant editing: “Paralysis by analysis.”
When I felt I had everything in place, I looked for professional editing. I first paid the book doctor $500 to tell me that it needed help. He didn’t give me any, just told me it needed it. I found a line-editor in Canada, who did a great job, and then I hired a freelance editor; total for both $600; quite inexpensive in today’s editing market.
During those three years, I also did a lot of reading on the publishing world; agents, print-on-demand (PODs) and off-set printing companies. I attended conferences specifically on “How to get published.” The more I heard and read, the more I thought: From all the conferences I’d attended, the agent panels were the most disillusioning. I learned that agents don’t want you if you’ve not been published, and publishers don’t want you if you’ve not been published, or don’t have an agent, who doesn’t want you either. Who needs ‘em?
Publishers don’t want you if you don’t have a “platform!” A what? To my dismay I learned that I needed to have my own buying public. There was no publisher that was going to run out and sell my book for me, pay for my cross-country book signings and hotel rooms, unless of course I was a King or a Grisham or a Joyce Carol Oates. Then of course, there’s the eighteen month wait for the book to appear on the shelves after the publisher accepts it (if the publisher doesn’t decide to pull the plug at the last minute), and don’t forget the two years that it takes the agent to shop around for a publisher who might decide to pull the plug at the last minute. Who has that long? I don’t even buy green bananas anymore.
Wow! I remember my table mates and I frowning as we listened to the dire answers of this panel of agents and publishers. So how do we get published? Well, we have two options so it seemed: 1) have an agent living next door who loves your home cooked brownies or has a crush on your husband, or 2) know a publisher whose kid mows your lawn or has a crush on you. Not living in New York was going to be a definite drawback. Should I move? Okay, how about a POD? I was fortunate to have a friend who is a small press publisher of railroad books. He offered to put my manuscript into a Quark Express PDF file (which is the format printers prefer). He did an incredible job putting it together for me. He felt that if I had the print setup taken care of, I could approach a POD and save some money.
I signed up for the POD classes at the conferences I attended, where they explained everything I needed to know about their business ─ except how they kept most of the author’s money while they got big and rich and the author got $3.09 per book. Okay, well, $3.09 a book is not that bad. Maybe I could make it. But, wait, I had to pay them to print my book, and then pay them to buy my book back from them; too many “thems” going on here. Something didn’t compute. Maybe I should chuck the book and go into the POD business.
Well, I succumbed. I bought a book called The Fine Print of Self Publishing by Mark Levine, an attorney, then sat down to do some homework. After going over all the PODs he listed with a fine-tooth calculator, I realized that I could pay as much as $30,000 to one such POD group, but hey, my books would be free. How generous of them. Or, I could choose a POD group charging as low as $299, but I’d still have to buy my own books back at about $8.00 each.
I finally settled on a firm I’ll call “Dewey Cheatem & Howe” (name changed to protect the guilty), and thought I’d finally get on with this damn book printing. They sent me a sample of their work that was done beautifully. I signed on the dotted line, waited three more weeks and then my author’s copy was delivered. And there it sat. On my desk. Opened to the first page, which I couldn’t read. I started bawling. Where is my baby? The font was so garbled that it was illegible. There was a space after every capital letter and the other letters were so piled on each other you couldn’t make out the words.
When I’d used all the Kleenex in my desk drawer, I called them. Of course, no one was on the other end, save for the automated voice of their mailboxes. But at least I got rid of my postpartum anger. I cried and said very imperiously, “HOLD THE PRESSES! I will not accept this book. I will call Visa (of course they already had my money) and stop payment and …” I felt like an inner tube impaled on a sharp rock. Then I called my friend, the publisher. “Of course you can do this on your own. You have the file, just find a good printing company.”
I inquired around and found out that I could get my book printed overseas at half the cost of stateside. I began to get phone numbers and surfed websites. There were some good deals to be made overseas; however, the problem was I needed a broker. So after the broker took his cut, and the shipping charges were added, a stateside printer looked better. Plus, the thought of having a problem and not being able to connect at once with your printer was worrisome.
I searched the Internet and found many websites where you could input the details of your book, number of pages, size of book, print run, etc., and within a week I got a bid from ten printing companies. After picking one printer (not the cheapest), I felt we had a fit. I spoke to the owner, who offered to throw in a hundred free books, which might have had something to do with my decision. He checked out my website while we were speaking, loved the site and the look of my book and of course, he had me. He also offered storage and order fulfillment. Now, all I had to do was put our house on the market and clear out our 401K.
I know what you’re thinking. Sure, maybe she has it, but not everyone can come up with that much money. Yes, you can if you want to. We took an equity line on our home and as the money comes rolling in, I’ll be making payments on the equity line. We authors must be optimists. Really! If you don’t believe in your book, who will?
I ran off my own bookmarks and saved a few hundred dollars. I used the cover of the book, wrote a short synopsis on the back, and had 500 printed. I have handed out those bookmarks on airplanes and in airports; Seattle, Palm Desert, San Diego, Portugal, New York, Australia, New England… well maybe not personally, but I’ve given them to people who live in those places and they were happy to have them and said they’d pass them on. I’ve handed them out in restaurants to women sitting around me; two of them bought my book right on the spot. My friends call me “A self-promoting slut.”
I have to leave you now, as that’s where I am in this wonderful world of the written word, where the writing was easy… now comes the hard part ─ marketing!
You know? When you publish a book and send it out into the world, it’s like giving birth to a baby. Everyone checks out your baby. Is it breath-taking? Does it have ten toes and ten fingers? Is it pink and sweet or does it look like an extra from “Alien?” We writers are baring our souls, our deepest thoughts, and our feelings lay open like a cavernous wound. We can’t hide anymore. They know us inside and out. Now they see our baby, and they get to pick it to pieces, bit by bit, until the only thing left is a fuzzy blanket.
Oh, hell, we know that and go right on writing, don’t we? It’s in our DNA. We can’t help ourselves, we’re masochists.
When I started this whole book-writing process, I had full intentions of finding an agent and/or a traditional publisher; they’d do all the work while I sat back and listened to “Ca-ching, Ca-ching.” However my journey to that end has been long and stress-filled and I ended up doing just the opposite…I’d kept a daily journal while living in Thailand in the 90s. When I returned to the States, I copied my journal onto a floppy and had it printed, spiral-bound, and mailed it out to friends and family so they could read about all my trials and tribs while abroad. One of the friends who read it insisted that I make a book out of it.
“You know,” she said, “like the book ‘A Year in Provence.’” I immediately ran out and bought the book and was amazed at the problems that the author had endured in a short year. I just knew that if his book sold, then mine would also, however, life got in the way of living and I put it aside.
I joined some creative writing classes a few years later, and with encouragement from my peers I began the long road of putting the journal into book form. In 2003, when I finally thought I’d finished it, I entered it into the Southern California Writers Conference in San Diego. While there, I read chapters from my story in the Read and Critique groups and the attendees laughed in all the right places and even clapped, (I’d hoped it wasn’t because they were happy I’d finished). At the end of the conference I was notified that I’d won the Best Nonfiction award for my story and an agent asked for my manuscript. Wow! That just doesn’t happen unless they love it! I knew I was ready for the Pulitzer.
Then I began to panic. What if it isn’t perfect? I had talked to a “book doctor” at the conference who advised me that my story “…needed some conflict. Who really cares about a housewife who’s having a good time in Thailand? Give them a reason to turn the page.” Okay, that’s what I’ll do. There certainly was plenty of conflict in my life in Thailand, but I’d left it out; it was painful to relive and I wanted it to be a humorous book. I emailed the agent and told her I wasn’t ready. Take your time, she’d said. It’s not time sensitive.
So began the journey of “weaving” the conflict into my story. It was the hardest thing I’d ever done. It was three years before I felt it was good enough to be a real book. But, those three years were not only spent rewriting. I took online writing classes and signed up at the local college for creative writing classes, I attended a critique group every week, putting my chapters up to their scrutiny as they tore it apart and helped put it back together. The rest of the time I was editing my life away. But as Stephen King says in his book On Writing: edit, edit and edit. And when you think it’s perfect, edit some more. My husband had a name for my constant editing: “Paralysis by analysis.”
When I felt I had everything in place, I looked for professional editing. I first paid the book doctor $500 to tell me that it needed help. He didn’t give me any, just told me it needed it. I found a line-editor in Canada, who did a great job, and then I hired a freelance editor; total for both $600; quite inexpensive in today’s editing market.
During those three years, I also did a lot of reading on the publishing world; agents, print-on-demand (PODs) and off-set printing companies. I attended conferences specifically on “How to get published.” The more I heard and read, the more I thought: From all the conferences I’d attended, the agent panels were the most disillusioning. I learned that agents don’t want you if you’ve not been published, and publishers don’t want you if you’ve not been published, or don’t have an agent, who doesn’t want you either. Who needs ‘em?
Publishers don’t want you if you don’t have a “platform!” A what? To my dismay I learned that I needed to have my own buying public. There was no publisher that was going to run out and sell my book for me, pay for my cross-country book signings and hotel rooms, unless of course I was a King or a Grisham or a Joyce Carol Oates. Then of course, there’s the eighteen month wait for the book to appear on the shelves after the publisher accepts it (if the publisher doesn’t decide to pull the plug at the last minute), and don’t forget the two years that it takes the agent to shop around for a publisher who might decide to pull the plug at the last minute. Who has that long? I don’t even buy green bananas anymore.
Wow! I remember my table mates and I frowning as we listened to the dire answers of this panel of agents and publishers. So how do we get published? Well, we have two options so it seemed: 1) have an agent living next door who loves your home cooked brownies or has a crush on your husband, or 2) know a publisher whose kid mows your lawn or has a crush on you. Not living in New York was going to be a definite drawback. Should I move? Okay, how about a POD? I was fortunate to have a friend who is a small press publisher of railroad books. He offered to put my manuscript into a Quark Express PDF file (which is the format printers prefer). He did an incredible job putting it together for me. He felt that if I had the print setup taken care of, I could approach a POD and save some money.
I signed up for the POD classes at the conferences I attended, where they explained everything I needed to know about their business ─ except how they kept most of the author’s money while they got big and rich and the author got $3.09 per book. Okay, well, $3.09 a book is not that bad. Maybe I could make it. But, wait, I had to pay them to print my book, and then pay them to buy my book back from them; too many “thems” going on here. Something didn’t compute. Maybe I should chuck the book and go into the POD business.
Well, I succumbed. I bought a book called The Fine Print of Self Publishing by Mark Levine, an attorney, then sat down to do some homework. After going over all the PODs he listed with a fine-tooth calculator, I realized that I could pay as much as $30,000 to one such POD group, but hey, my books would be free. How generous of them. Or, I could choose a POD group charging as low as $299, but I’d still have to buy my own books back at about $8.00 each.
I finally settled on a firm I’ll call “Dewey Cheatem & Howe” (name changed to protect the guilty), and thought I’d finally get on with this damn book printing. They sent me a sample of their work that was done beautifully. I signed on the dotted line, waited three more weeks and then my author’s copy was delivered. And there it sat. On my desk. Opened to the first page, which I couldn’t read. I started bawling. Where is my baby? The font was so garbled that it was illegible. There was a space after every capital letter and the other letters were so piled on each other you couldn’t make out the words.
When I’d used all the Kleenex in my desk drawer, I called them. Of course, no one was on the other end, save for the automated voice of their mailboxes. But at least I got rid of my postpartum anger. I cried and said very imperiously, “HOLD THE PRESSES! I will not accept this book. I will call Visa (of course they already had my money) and stop payment and …” I felt like an inner tube impaled on a sharp rock. Then I called my friend, the publisher. “Of course you can do this on your own. You have the file, just find a good printing company.”
I inquired around and found out that I could get my book printed overseas at half the cost of stateside. I began to get phone numbers and surfed websites. There were some good deals to be made overseas; however, the problem was I needed a broker. So after the broker took his cut, and the shipping charges were added, a stateside printer looked better. Plus, the thought of having a problem and not being able to connect at once with your printer was worrisome.
I searched the Internet and found many websites where you could input the details of your book, number of pages, size of book, print run, etc., and within a week I got a bid from ten printing companies. After picking one printer (not the cheapest), I felt we had a fit. I spoke to the owner, who offered to throw in a hundred free books, which might have had something to do with my decision. He checked out my website while we were speaking, loved the site and the look of my book and of course, he had me. He also offered storage and order fulfillment. Now, all I had to do was put our house on the market and clear out our 401K.
I know what you’re thinking. Sure, maybe she has it, but not everyone can come up with that much money. Yes, you can if you want to. We took an equity line on our home and as the money comes rolling in, I’ll be making payments on the equity line. We authors must be optimists. Really! If you don’t believe in your book, who will?
I ran off my own bookmarks and saved a few hundred dollars. I used the cover of the book, wrote a short synopsis on the back, and had 500 printed. I have handed out those bookmarks on airplanes and in airports; Seattle, Palm Desert, San Diego, Portugal, New York, Australia, New England… well maybe not personally, but I’ve given them to people who live in those places and they were happy to have them and said they’d pass them on. I’ve handed them out in restaurants to women sitting around me; two of them bought my book right on the spot. My friends call me “A self-promoting slut.”
I have to leave you now, as that’s where I am in this wonderful world of the written word, where the writing was easy… now comes the hard part ─ marketing!
Have you ever dreamed of selling your book to a large corporation? A sale that would register several thousand copies of non-returnable product on the book sale meter? What’s that? You’ve never thought of it, you say? Well, never fear! It’s not too late to pursue this avenue, especially if you have a book ripe for a particular market.
Before you embark on this project, it’s important to understand the possibilities out there. Start being aware of incentive items you might see and understand how they are used. Many are offered as consumer gifts or incentives while others are used as training tools or morale boosters for employees.
Some examples of premium sales might be:
• Books offered at yearly company sales meetings
• Books offered to consumers at a discount (consumers are usually asked to send in product UPC’s to qualify for these specials)
• Books offered to new customers at financial institutions
• Books offered to new home buyers
• Books offered to new magazine subscribers
To determine the market segment you want to go after, study your book first for obvious clues. If you’ve mentioned or recommended companies or products in your book, those will be the first tier you’ll want to go after. Next, think about the message of your book and how it aligns with particular companies within that industry. Company web sites and ads will offer great clues when trying to match a company or organization up with your book.
If you’re going after the magazine subscriber bonus segment, you’ll have a bit more flexibility. Generally, if the book fits the reader demographic and aligns itself with the message of the magazine, it will be considered. For example, you might offer a home organization book to Good Housekeeping or a fitness book to Self or Redbook. Before you approach these magazines, read them for about three months so you get a good sense of what they’re about and who their audience is.
If you’re going after a particular market and are trying to locate companies within that industry, try doing a Boolean search in Google. Your search should look like this: “your industry and companies.” Another resource is .thomasregister.com. This site will link you to companies nationally and internationally within your industry.
Next, don’t overlook companies in your own backyard. Think about industries, companies and organizations in your area that might work well for your book and begin going after them. Many times, local companies will welcome the opportunity to support hometown authors.
Once you’ve put your list together, you’ll want to contact them and pitch them the idea. Or, in some cases, our company will send them the book and proposal before we even make phone contact. Sometimes the companies you’ve targeted will be on the lookout for incentive items, other times this will be a new (and exciting) area for them. If you’re going after employee incentives, it’s interesting to note (and mention in your sales letter) that employee incentives increase individual performance by 27 percent and team performance by 45 percent.
Be open and creative with your pursuit of premium sales! Many times, companies will want to put their logo on the cover or include an extra page in the book with a letter from the President or CEO. Check with your printer or publisher on whether this is possible for you and what the additional costs will be before you start pursuing the premium sales arena.
So, how long does this process take? We’ve seen premium sales turn around in a week, while others take a year or more to complete. Oh, and the most important part… how many books can you plan to sell? Anywhere from one thousand to several thousand depending on the deal and the company. We’ve even got a deal in the works for a half a million copies of one book.
Discounts and negotiations vary. Often, we’ll negotiate volume discounts of 50 percent to 70 percent on bulk orders. Again, make sure you’ve got these figures ready when you pick up the phone to make your pitch.
With the right book, premium sales are not only a great way to gain exposure of your book, but in the end, they make great “cents.”
Have you ever dreamed of selling your book to a large corporation? A sale that would register several thousand copies of non-returnable product on the book sale meter? What’s that? You’ve never thought of it, you say? Well, never fear! It’s not too late to pursue this avenue, especially if you have a book ripe for a particular market.
Before you embark on this project, it’s important to understand the possibilities out there. Start being aware of incentive items you might see and understand how they are used. Many are offered as consumer gifts or incentives while others are used as training tools or morale boosters for employees.
Some examples of premium sales might be:
• Books offered at yearly company sales meetings
• Books offered to consumers at a discount (consumers are usually asked to send in product UPC’s to qualify for these specials)
• Books offered to new customers at financial institutions
• Books offered to new home buyers
• Books offered to new magazine subscribers
To determine the market segment you want to go after, study your book first for obvious clues. If you’ve mentioned or recommended companies or products in your book, those will be the first tier you’ll want to go after. Next, think about the message of your book and how it aligns with particular companies within that industry. Company web sites and ads will offer great clues when trying to match a company or organization up with your book.
If you’re going after the magazine subscriber bonus segment, you’ll have a bit more flexibility. Generally, if the book fits the reader demographic and aligns itself with the message of the magazine, it will be considered. For example, you might offer a home organization book to Good Housekeeping or a fitness book to Self or Redbook. Before you approach these magazines, read them for about three months so you get a good sense of what they’re about and who their audience is.
If you’re going after a particular market and are trying to locate companies within that industry, try doing a Boolean search in Google. Your search should look like this: “your industry and companies.” Another resource is .thomasregister.com. This site will link you to companies nationally and internationally within your industry.
Next, don’t overlook companies in your own backyard. Think about industries, companies and organizations in your area that might work well for your book and begin going after them. Many times, local companies will welcome the opportunity to support hometown authors.
Once you’ve put your list together, you’ll want to contact them and pitch them the idea. Or, in some cases, our company will send them the book and proposal before we even make phone contact. Sometimes the companies you’ve targeted will be on the lookout for incentive items, other times this will be a new (and exciting) area for them. If you’re going after employee incentives, it’s interesting to note (and mention in your sales letter) that employee incentives increase individual performance by 27 percent and team performance by 45 percent.
Be open and creative with your pursuit of premium sales! Many times, companies will want to put their logo on the cover or include an extra page in the book with a letter from the President or CEO. Check with your printer or publisher on whether this is possible for you and what the additional costs will be before you start pursuing the premium sales arena.
So, how long does this process take? We’ve seen premium sales turn around in a week, while others take a year or more to complete. Oh, and the most important part… how many books can you plan to sell? Anywhere from one thousand to several thousand depending on the deal and the company. We’ve even got a deal in the works for a half a million copies of one book.
Discounts and negotiations vary. Often, we’ll negotiate volume discounts of 50 percent to 70 percent on bulk orders. Again, make sure you’ve got these figures ready when you pick up the phone to make your pitch.
With the right book, premium sales are not only a great way to gain exposure of your book, but in the end, they make great “cents.”
May
15
Getting a manuscript published has never been easier; marketing and selling books has never been harder. Authors who pursue the smallest place for their Independent book on the shelf of a traditional bookseller is wasting valuable time and resources.
The six largest publishers in the world, all based in New York (five owned by foreign corporations), tightly controls the traditional world of retail bookselling. They pay an enormous price for prime retail space for all their titles. Space that is not only cost prohibitive, but space that also carries a huge financial risk for the successful Independent author.
Even if that retail shelf space was within the marketing budget of most Independent publishers or authors, the risk in returned product, shipping and handling charges, advertising allowances, and other assorted fees could bankrupt even the savviest small company.
Marketing is about finding ways to reach your audience with minimal cost and maximum exposure. Finding readers interested in your book is the essence of marketing. Why then would any Independent author concentrate on scratching out even the tiniest of space in the traditional world of bookselling?
The key for the Independent author to reach a global audience is to become a part of a growing movement, developing a community that will provide an online platform to market books and authors. A place where a global audience can easily find books not found in the typical neighborhood bookstore.
The only way to successfully market Independent titles to readers on a global scale is via the Internet with the creation of a single location for these books. The creation of an Independent marketplace on the web would substantially increase the exposure, availability, and eventual sales of these books worldwide.
I’m a 25-year veteran of New York publishing who became tired of the old model for bookselling. I love books, admire writers, and felt there had to be a better way to introduce new writers to readers. My goal is to help create a marketplace for Independent titles. Anyone involved with the Independent author marketplace cannot help but recognize the enormous opportunity for marketing and selling these titles to readers worldwide.
When I began speaking to writing groups and at writing seminars I quickly realized that an opportunity existed for the sale of Independent books. If an online marketplace could be developed that would present those titles and their authors in the right format to readers around the globe, the chances for success would increase substantially. An online platform representing a million Independently published titles would be an enormous advantage for the consumer, not to mention the author and small publisher.
Traditional publishers send authors on book tours to meet their audience and hopefully create a personal connection. Without the benefit of a book tour an Independent author can do the same by utilizing inexpensive audio and video. This would be the single most cost effective way for the Independent author to expand their readership. The technology exists, we just need to take advantage of the opportunities.
Let us join together to change the face of publishing and become a part of the new wave in Independent publishing; we will establish a voice for the Independent author.
May
15
Getting a manuscript published has never been easier; marketing and selling books has never been harder. Authors who pursue the smallest place for their Independent book on the shelf of a traditional bookseller is wasting valuable time and resources.
The six largest publishers in the world, all based in New York (five owned by foreign corporations), tightly controls the traditional world of retail bookselling. They pay an enormous price for prime retail space for all their titles. Space that is not only cost prohibitive, but space that also carries a huge financial risk for the successful Independent author.
Even if that retail shelf space was within the marketing budget of most Independent publishers or authors, the risk in returned product, shipping and handling charges, advertising allowances, and other assorted fees could bankrupt even the savviest small company.
Marketing is about finding ways to reach your audience with minimal cost and maximum exposure. Finding readers interested in your book is the essence of marketing. Why then would any Independent author concentrate on scratching out even the tiniest of space in the traditional world of bookselling?
The key for the Independent author to reach a global audience is to become a part of a growing movement, developing a community that will provide an online platform to market books and authors. A place where a global audience can easily find books not found in the typical neighborhood bookstore.
The only way to successfully market Independent titles to readers on a global scale is via the Internet with the creation of a single location for these books. The creation of an Independent marketplace on the web would substantially increase the exposure, availability, and eventual sales of these books worldwide.
I’m a 25-year veteran of New York publishing who became tired of the old model for bookselling. I love books, admire writers, and felt there had to be a better way to introduce new writers to readers. My goal is to help create a marketplace for Independent titles. Anyone involved with the Independent author marketplace cannot help but recognize the enormous opportunity for marketing and selling these titles to readers worldwide.
When I began speaking to writing groups and at writing seminars I quickly realized that an opportunity existed for the sale of Independent books. If an online marketplace could be developed that would present those titles and their authors in the right format to readers around the globe, the chances for success would increase substantially. An online platform representing a million Independently published titles would be an enormous advantage for the consumer, not to mention the author and small publisher.
Traditional publishers send authors on book tours to meet their audience and hopefully create a personal connection. Without the benefit of a book tour an Independent author can do the same by utilizing inexpensive audio and video. This would be the single most cost effective way for the Independent author to expand their readership. The technology exists, we just need to take advantage of the opportunities.
Let us join together to change the face of publishing and become a part of the new wave in Independent publishing; we will establish a voice for the Independent author.
Sylvian Browne’s Bio
Sylvia Browne is a self-proclaimed medium and psychic from Kansas City, Missouri. She was born in 1936, started her career as a psychic in 1973, and founded the Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research. Browne has now authored several books on spirituality (published in paperback and audio), and has been regularly featured on The Montel Williams Show.
She has also made her appearances on TV shows such as Larry King Live, Montel, Unsolved Mysteries, and Entertainment Tonight; and has been featured in Cosmopolitan and People magazine. She is the president of the Sylvia Browne Corporation, and founder of her church called the Society of Novus Spiritus, based in Campbell, California.
Well-Known Predictions:
Sylvia Browne has predicted certain events in her career as a psychic, some considerably accurate and some questionable. One was the Clinton-Lewinsky affair in which she predicted that Clinton was falsely accused, which turned out to prove incorrect. Other well-known predictions include the 2000 U.S. presidential election and victory to Bill Bradley, the death of Bin Laden, the “hiding in caves” of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, a verdict of “not guilty” in the Robert Blake case, September 11 attacks, and the emergence of extraterrestrial life on Earth by the year 2010. According to police officials and family members, in all 35 police cases she has worked on, she didn’t play any significant role.
Criticism and Controversies:
Browne has been criticized in her career as a psychic by skeptics such as James Randi, who asserts that there is no distinction between Browne’s reading and those made by mentalists using cold reading and hot reading methods. There have also been a number of controversies surrounding this famous psychic. In 1992, Sylvia Browne was convicted of investment fraud and was asked to perform 200 hours of community service.
In addition, there were reported contradictions in her stories on the subject of “Visits from the Afterlife” and “In Life on the Other Side”. More famous controversies were the Sago Mine controversy and the Montel Williams controversies, in which several skeptics raged battles against Browne, questioning the credibility of her predictions and her career as a psychic.
Sylvia Browne Audio Books:
Sylvia Browne’s audio books are available for purchase in downloadable formats such as MP3, on CD/DVD sets, and on tapes. Each set of Sylvia Browne audio books lasts several hours, and is priced from $9 to $24. These audio books include &ndash
1.Adventures Of A Psychic
2.Angels and Spirit Guides: How to Call Upon Your Angels and Spirit Guide for Help
3.Angels, Guides & Ghosts
4.Blessings from the Other Side
5.If You Could See What I See: The Tenets of Novus Spiritus
6.Insight: Case Files from the Psychic World
7.Life on the Other Side
8.Past Lives, Future Healing
9.Phenomenon
10.Prophecy: What the Future Holds for You
11.Secrets And Mysteries Of The World
12.Book of Angels
13.Sylvia Browne’s Tools for Life
14.Visits from the Afterlife: Truth about Ghosts, Spirits, Hauntings and Reunions of Loved Ones
Sylvian Browne’s Bio
Sylvia Browne is a self-proclaimed medium and psychic from Kansas City, Missouri. She was born in 1936, started her career as a psychic in 1973, and founded the Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research. Browne has now authored several books on spirituality (published in paperback and audio), and has been regularly featured on The Montel Williams Show.
She has also made her appearances on TV shows such as Larry King Live, Montel, Unsolved Mysteries, and Entertainment Tonight; and has been featured in Cosmopolitan and People magazine. She is the president of the Sylvia Browne Corporation, and founder of her church called the Society of Novus Spiritus, based in Campbell, California.
Well-Known Predictions:
Sylvia Browne has predicted certain events in her career as a psychic, some considerably accurate and some questionable. One was the Clinton-Lewinsky affair in which she predicted that Clinton was falsely accused, which turned out to prove incorrect. Other well-known predictions include the 2000 U.S. presidential election and victory to Bill Bradley, the death of Bin Laden, the “hiding in caves” of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, a verdict of “not guilty” in the Robert Blake case, September 11 attacks, and the emergence of extraterrestrial life on Earth by the year 2010. According to police officials and family members, in all 35 police cases she has worked on, she didn’t play any significant role.
Criticism and Controversies:
Browne has been criticized in her career as a psychic by skeptics such as James Randi, who asserts that there is no distinction between Browne’s reading and those made by mentalists using cold reading and hot reading methods. There have also been a number of controversies surrounding this famous psychic. In 1992, Sylvia Browne was convicted of investment fraud and was asked to perform 200 hours of community service.
In addition, there were reported contradictions in her stories on the subject of “Visits from the Afterlife” and “In Life on the Other Side”. More famous controversies were the Sago Mine controversy and the Montel Williams controversies, in which several skeptics raged battles against Browne, questioning the credibility of her predictions and her career as a psychic.
Sylvia Browne Audio Books:
Sylvia Browne’s audio books are available for purchase in downloadable formats such as MP3, on CD/DVD sets, and on tapes. Each set of Sylvia Browne audio books lasts several hours, and is priced from $9 to $24. These audio books include &ndash
1.Adventures Of A Psychic
2.Angels and Spirit Guides: How to Call Upon Your Angels and Spirit Guide for Help
3.Angels, Guides & Ghosts
4.Blessings from the Other Side
5.If You Could See What I See: The Tenets of Novus Spiritus
6.Insight: Case Files from the Psychic World
7.Life on the Other Side
8.Past Lives, Future Healing
9.Phenomenon
10.Prophecy: What the Future Holds for You
11.Secrets And Mysteries Of The World
12.Book of Angels
13.Sylvia Browne’s Tools for Life
14.Visits from the Afterlife: Truth about Ghosts, Spirits, Hauntings and Reunions of Loved Ones
We all know that audio can be a powerful way to engage your audience, but can it really help you make a book sale? You bet it can. Here are some ways you can use audio to help sell your book:
1. Audio book samples: do a reading from your book, maybe a chapter or two and load it onto your website (if you don’t think you’re a good reader, have someone else do it or hire some voice-over talent)
2. Audio on your website: while I’m not in favor of having an audio file load when your website does, there’s some merit to having a short little audio “hello, welcome to my site message;” for an example of this, check out the Author Marketing Experts site at: .amarketingexpert.com/# (scroll down to A Word From Penny).
3. Daily/weekly Podcast: Podcasting is powerful, there’s no two ways about it and it’s here to stay. Creating your own podcast that you update daily or weekly is a great idea and a terrific way to draw some interest to your book. (we have a great article on podcasting, if you’d like a copy feel free to email us at: infoamarketingexpert.com)
4. Teleclasses: I’ve personally done teleclasses for years and I love them. They’re not only a fantastic way to promote your message, but you’re also educating on your topic which is always a great idea. Remember: record every teleclass you do so you can use it as another sales item on your website.
5. Audio series: consider creating an audio series based on your book’s topic. Remember though, if you’re just rereading the content from your book then these cd’s aren’t necessarily an added value item but an audio book. Your audio cd needs to be different from your book in order to entice the reader to buy it in addition to the book. So, for example, if you finish your book and you say, “gee, I wish I had included a chapter on XYZ,” now you can create that additional chapter (or chapters) in your audio series.
6. Freebies: offering any of your audio products as a freebie to add value to a sale is a great idea. Something I’ll do at the end of a speaking gig is offer a free audio cd to anyone who buys a book after my session!
7. Speak up! It’s not always about a recorded product or podcast, get out and talk about your topic in front of a crowd. Passion sells, and if you speak passionately about your topic, your audience will resonate with your message and (hopefully) book sales will follow.
8. Book trailers: well, maybe that’s cheating a little, technically it’s audio and video, but we’re still talking about hitting the same sensory targets. Book trailers are hot, if you don’t believe me just Google them and see what I mean. Getting your book into a visual medium can be powerful. Don’t believe me? Check out this trailer about my book: Candlewood Lake: .redhotinternetpublicity.com/bt.html
9. Radio is another powerful way to sell books. Keep in mind that one radio show often doesn’t sell books but doing many shows might. Also, if you’re going to do radio, get some media training so you’re spot-on in your presentation and can relay your most important points in succinct, bulleted, benefit-driven points. These will help engage the listeners and encourage them to buy.
10. If you’re going after radio, don’t forget Internet radio. While the podcasting craze is taking over a lot of the Internet radio territory, there are a still a lot of shows out there in need of guests. Also with Internet radio you tend to find more niche topics so you can really target your shows and your readers!
Using audio to promote your book is a powerful way to gain additional reader attention. Not only that, but you never know who will respond better to audio than to a printed review, ad, or article. Putting the audio element into your sales arsenal can make for a powerful partnership, and the good news is that every day, audio and the creation of audio products becomes more accessible.
We all know that audio can be a powerful way to engage your audience, but can it really help you make a book sale? You bet it can. Here are some ways you can use audio to help sell your book:
1. Audio book samples: do a reading from your book, maybe a chapter or two and load it onto your website (if you don’t think you’re a good reader, have someone else do it or hire some voice-over talent)
2. Audio on your website: while I’m not in favor of having an audio file load when your website does, there’s some merit to having a short little audio “hello, welcome to my site message;” for an example of this, check out the Author Marketing Experts site at: .amarketingexpert.com/# (scroll down to A Word From Penny).
3. Daily/weekly Podcast: Podcasting is powerful, there’s no two ways about it and it’s here to stay. Creating your own podcast that you update daily or weekly is a great idea and a terrific way to draw some interest to your book. (we have a great article on podcasting, if you’d like a copy feel free to email us at: infoamarketingexpert.com)
4. Teleclasses: I’ve personally done teleclasses for years and I love them. They’re not only a fantastic way to promote your message, but you’re also educating on your topic which is always a great idea. Remember: record every teleclass you do so you can use it as another sales item on your website.
5. Audio series: consider creating an audio series based on your book’s topic. Remember though, if you’re just rereading the content from your book then these cd’s aren’t necessarily an added value item but an audio book. Your audio cd needs to be different from your book in order to entice the reader to buy it in addition to the book. So, for example, if you finish your book and you say, “gee, I wish I had included a chapter on XYZ,” now you can create that additional chapter (or chapters) in your audio series.
6. Freebies: offering any of your audio products as a freebie to add value to a sale is a great idea. Something I’ll do at the end of a speaking gig is offer a free audio cd to anyone who buys a book after my session!
7. Speak up! It’s not always about a recorded product or podcast, get out and talk about your topic in front of a crowd. Passion sells, and if you speak passionately about your topic, your audience will resonate with your message and (hopefully) book sales will follow.
8. Book trailers: well, maybe that’s cheating a little, technically it’s audio and video, but we’re still talking about hitting the same sensory targets. Book trailers are hot, if you don’t believe me just Google them and see what I mean. Getting your book into a visual medium can be powerful. Don’t believe me? Check out this trailer about my book: Candlewood Lake: .redhotinternetpublicity.com/bt.html
9. Radio is another powerful way to sell books. Keep in mind that one radio show often doesn’t sell books but doing many shows might. Also, if you’re going to do radio, get some media training so you’re spot-on in your presentation and can relay your most important points in succinct, bulleted, benefit-driven points. These will help engage the listeners and encourage them to buy.
10. If you’re going after radio, don’t forget Internet radio. While the podcasting craze is taking over a lot of the Internet radio territory, there are a still a lot of shows out there in need of guests. Also with Internet radio you tend to find more niche topics so you can really target your shows and your readers!
Using audio to promote your book is a powerful way to gain additional reader attention. Not only that, but you never know who will respond better to audio than to a printed review, ad, or article. Putting the audio element into your sales arsenal can make for a powerful partnership, and the good news is that every day, audio and the creation of audio products becomes more accessible.