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Today's Feature Article

11 Tips to Avoid Self-Publishing Traps
Marilyn and Tom Ross

Self-publishing used to be the Rodney Dangerfield of book publishing. It didn’t get “no respect.” Today that’s all changed. With originally self-published books like The Celestine Prophecy, Butter Busters, The Christmas Box, and What Color is Your Parachute? monopolizing bestseller lists—do-it-yourself publishing is very much in vogue.

To be successful, however, it’s mandatory that you adhere to certain guidelines. By following the tips below, you’ll avoid the pitfalls and enhance your chances of flourishing.

1. Educate yourself. Self-publishing is a business. Approach it as such. There are informative books on the subject, seminars offered, and associations where you can learn the ropes and network with the more experienced. This can be very lucrative if properly approached. Conversely, you can waste thousands of dollars by blundering along without knowledge or a plan.

2. Study the competition. Don’t add more to a subject that’s already glutted. Be sure the topic hasn’t been overdone. Just checking a local library or bookstore is not adequate research. Look in Books in Print Subject Guide and Forthcoming Books in Print Subject Guide. You’ll be amazed at how many books there are on the topic. Yours must be better than what’s already available. Make it shorter, longer, easier to use, more informative, funnier, richer in content, or better organized. For fiction, try to tie into a hot topic so you have a “hook” for publicity.

3. Write what other people want. Catering to your personal desires often makes for lackluster books nobody buys. The fact is, few care about your life history or your deep-felt opinions. Personal journals and impassioned tirades are best saved for family and friends, not foist upon the general public.

4. Think “marketing” from the very beginning. The time to generate marketing ideas is before you write the book, not after you have 3,000 copies in your garage. Identify and target your market. How can you reach them? Start folders of ideas: what catalogs might be interested, which associations reach your potential readers, what magazines and newsletters are relevant? Can you sell the book as a premium to companies that would give it away as a gift to entice new customers—or use it internally for training? Think about who else reaches your potential customer and how you can partner with them. Do you have contacts who have national name recognition and might write an advance endorsement?

5. Get professional editing. No, we repeat no, author should edit or proofread his or her own work. You’ll miss the forest for the trees, overlooking things that are obvious to you, but unclear to your reader. And it’s so easy to pass by the same typo time after time.

6. Create a snappy title. The right title can make a book, just like an uninspired one can be a death peal. Short is best. While clever is nice, don’t sacrifice clarity. For nonfiction, be sure to include a subtitle as it gives you extra mileage in helping readers know what the book is about.

7. Include all the vital components. Just as a cake falls flat if you don’t add the right ingredients, so do books. Yours needs an ISBN, LCCN, EAN Bookland Scanning Symbol, subject categories on the back cover, etc. (If you don’t know what these are, refer back to #1!)

8. Have a dynamite cover. The cover is your book’s salesperson in bookstores. Get it designed by a professional who understands cover design . . . not just somebody who does nice logos or pretty brochures. You have enormous competition—and a wonderful opportunity to stand out.

9. Make the interior inviting. Go to a bookstore and study the insides of books. Find one with clean, “user-friendly” pages. Use this as your model. It may not make sense to purchase and learn typesetting software if you’re only doing one book, however. In that case, consider hiring an outside vendor.

10. Use a book manufacturer for printing. Don’t expect your corner print shop to have the knowledge or technical capabilities to turn out a quality book. Book manufacturers specialize in this type of printing and can save you enormous grief and considerable money.

11. Publicize, promote, publicize, promote. Eat, sleep, and talk your book. Nobody cares about it as much as you do. Ongoing, enthusiastic marketing is the real key to success. Never quit. Keep your antenna out for new review opportunities, freelancers who write articles on your topic, etc. We have books that have been in print since 1979 because we’re tireless promoters.

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Marilyn and Tom Ross are the co-authors of 13 books including the best-selling Complete Guide to Self- Publishing and the award-winning Jump Start Your Book Sales. Through phone consultations and ongoing coaching/mentoring, Marilyn empowers authors and self-publishers to realize their dreams. She can be reached at 719-395-8659 or Marilyn@MarilynRoss.com

Visit http://www.SelfPublishingResources.com and sign up for their FREE monthly ezine on how to make more money selling books—plus get your FREE downloadable copy of 15 Smart Strategies for Self-Publishing Success. Order books by calling 800-331-8355.

Today's Motivational Reading

Twenty Dollars
Inspiration Peak

A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked. "Who would like this $20 bill?"

Hands started going up. He said, "I am going to give this $ 20 to one of you - but first, let me do this."

He proceeded to crumple the 20 dollar note up. He then asked. "Who still wants it?" Still the hands were up in the air.

"Well," he replied, "what if I do this?" He dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe. He picked it up, now crumpled and dirty. "Now, who still wants it?"

Still the hands went into the air.

"My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way. We feel as though we are worthless; but no matter what happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.

Dirty or clean, crumpled or finely creased, you are still priceless to those who love you. The worth of our lives comes, not in what we do or who we know, but by ...WHO WE ARE.

You are special - don't ever forget it.

********************************
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Today's Subscriber Article

Marketing Success Defined
Mark Levit

How do you personally define success? High income? Substantial net worth? A fine home? Peer recognition?

On a personal basis, there are likely almost as many definitions of success as there are people in the world.

In marketing, though, there are just four measurable elements of success: Profitability, Market Share, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention.

Profitability requires little explanation. The very reason businesses exist is to make a profit, or generate more revenue than they pay out. Profitability may be increased by reducing overhead and the cost of goods sold—or by increasing the price to the buyer. But prices can only be raised so much. Per the laws of price elasticity, as prices rise, unit sales tend to decline, as does Market Share; which brings us to our next measure of marketing success.

Market Share, as a measure of success, is important to marketers since the greater the share, the more stable the brand’s performance is in the marketplace. A product with 65% market share is a force with which to be reckoned. A product with 3% share is vulnerable to a variety of market factors such as competitive pricing, promotions, loyalty to better-known brands and more.

Financial managers understand the impact of Profitability and Market Share. But concepts such as Customer Satisfaction and Customer Retention are softer items and tend to be treated as lesser by those managers. Yet, the long term success and growth of a brand is highly dependent on them.

Customer Satisfaction doesn’t appear on a balance sheet. It can’t be measured in dollars and cents. It’s measured by the customer’s feelings about a brand. Does the brand deliver its promise? Is it a good value? Does it bring status to the owner? Is the customer generally happy with the product? Customer Satisfaction begets repeat purchases, loyalty, word-ofmouth advertising and, of course, long-term profitability via Customer Retention. Customer Retention, the final measure of marketing success, is closely tied to Customer Satisfaction, Profitability and Market Share.

A satisfied customer is likely to remain loyal to a brand, thus enhancing market share over the long-term, as new customers are acquired. Retained customers increase the profitability of a brand. In the course of acquiring new customers, retained customers’ purchases can be counted on for continued profit performance.

It’s widely known that it’s five times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep an old one. Makes you wonder why marketers don’t generally invest more in Customer Retention, doesn’t it?

Few business organizations focus on all four elements of marketing success, probably because they’re difficult to balance and manage as separate items, yet they’re strongly interdependent.

The four elements of marketing success are reasons enough for financial managers and marketing managers to gain a better understanding of one another’s’ disciplines and work toward the common good of their companies.

****************************
Mark Levit is managing partner of Partners & Levit Advertising and a professor of marketing at New York University. For more information call 212.696.1200 or visit http://www.partnerslevit.com

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