Entrepreneurship » Manage Personal Development

Publish Your Book

Administrator — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 09:50:33 +0000

How does a person bridge the enormous gap between a manuscript and a book? There are three options: trade (commercial) publishing, subsidy (vanity) publishing, or self-publishing.
Commercial publishers are the so-called “giants” in the industry. Forty-five percent of all sales are monopolized by five major publishers today: Unfortunately, they’re so big they no longer hear the voice of the little person. Continuing corporate mergers and take-overs compound the problem. Unless you are famous (or infamous), your manuscript has little chance of making it through the corporate front door. And even if it does, this can be more of a curse than a blessing. Trade publishers typically offer a $2,000 to $10,000 advance against royalties. Yet industry statistics show that only one in 10 books ever earn back that advance. That’s a 90% failure rate! It means you’re unlikely to ever get any more than that paltry initial payment.
Those who sign with commercial houses have no guarantee their book will be properly presented to the public. A disproportionate chunk of advertising dollars is spent on authors with established track records or well-known names. We hear many horror stories about authors who make media appearances to promote their work . . . yet customers can’t find their books in bookstores.
In desperation, many novices turn to subsidy (vanity) presses. Beware! Here the ink hits the paper only when the author underwrites the cost of the entire venture. But despite the investment, the author is expected to sign away most rights and receives only a partial royalty for books sold. Plus the vanity publisher’s name on your book stigmatizes it, causing it to be shunned by important reviewers and booksellers. Marketing efforts by vanity houses are dismal to nonexistent. Most Print on Demand (POD) companies fall into this category.
Self-publishing is a viable option for many. This “do-it-yourself” method places you in complete control of the entire process. Critical decisions concerning the title, cover design, editorial content, marketing, and distribution are made by you—not by some executive sitting in a remote New York office. Yes, you invest in your project. Done properly, however, this is a prudent investment in your future.
In the past ten years, overall quality in the industry has skyrocketed. Well-edited manuscripts, eye-catching covers, and high-tech marketing techniques are the norm. Privately published titles typically command respect—and profits—for their authors. Proactive authors selling and promoting into nontraditional markets can be very effective.
Here’s the approach many savvy people are taking today: They self-publish initially and promote their book to success. Then they leverage this successful track record by “allowing” a trade publisher to buy the rights to their proven product. This way they have the clout to command a higher advance and can negotiate more favorable terms. By removing the risk for the commercial publisher, you put yourself in a more powerful position. Success can be yours. Self-publishing your book is often the profitable alternative.
Many dramatic success stories have left their imprint on the entire self-publishing movement. Such was the case of Louise Hay, author of a phenomenally successful line of books, who chose self-publishing to launch her works. She began with a 48-page staple-bound edition of Heal Your Body; her second venture, You Can Heal Your Life, captured the #9 spot on the trade paperback best-seller list for 1988! Her books and resulting tapes and seminars have helped hundreds of thousands to discover the pathway to well-being. And they’ve helped Louise to wealth.
Consider the example of self-publisher Ted Nicholas. His How to Form Your Own Corporation Without a Lawyer for Under $50 started its journey with $5,000 borrowed from a life insurance policy. The result? Over 800,000 copies sold to date. Entrepreneurs of America, a service for independent business people, is just one of his latest spin-offs. Capitalizing on his direct mail wizardry, Nicholas published The Golden Mailbox, a how-to guide for selling books through the mail.
The classic career counseling handbook, What Color Is Your Parachute? originated its climb to best-sellerdom as a self-published title. Author and clergyman Richard Nelson Bolles eventually sold the rights to Ten Speed Press, where the book continues to move at a rate of 300,000 copies a year. The total number of copies sold so far is over five million!
These dramatic success stories have left their imprint on the entire self-publishing movement. Today, more and more people are deciding to publish their own books and keep all the profit!

Junk Mail: Make Big Money

Administrator — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 10:10:47 +0000

Junk mail
Direct mail is often referred to as junk mail because most of it is thrown away by the recipient. In fact, only a small amount of direct mail advertising is read by the consumer. A typical scenario is a consumer gets his mail from the mail box and starts glancing over each piece. The mailers he has no interest in (which is most of them) are immediatly thro
wn into the trash. The ones of interest are kept and read.

When a direct mail campaign is sent, only ½ to 2% of the mailers are read, the rest are trashed. How can advertising be effective when almost all of the recepitants don’t look it? Simple, mail a large amount to get a large return. I’ll show you how in a minute

The goal of direct mail advertising
The goal of direct mail advertising is to get the recepiant to read it and Act, meaning go to the phone and call the business, or to the businesses’ website and order the product, or to actually go to the business and buy the product advertised.

The design of the direct mail piece
The design of the mail piece is critical to the success of the mail campaign. The direct mail industry has done more research on what causes people to respond than any other medium. They know which colors work the best. They know whether a post card or letter work the best. They know which kind of headline and copy works best, (in advertising and publications the text is called copy.)

The kind of design used for a direct mail piece depends on who the target customer is and what you want him to do. Do you use post cards or a letter? Will one color of ink or four color process (full color) work best? What kind of paper should it be printed on? What should the headline and copy say? What offer will the mailer give? How do you want the recipient to respond? These are all critical elements that will affect the success of the campaign.

Write the advertising copy to one person not to the group.

The mailing list is critical
The most critical element of a direct mail campaign is the mailing list. You must have an up to date list of addresses, phone numbers, or e-mail addresses, to which you are mailing. In most cases you can get a good list from either a list broker or a direct mail company. (You can find both in the yellow pages) You don’t buy a mailing list, you rent it. You pay for the list each time you mail to it.

The list must be clean
That means it must be up to date with the most correct addresses and without duplicates or names that are not in your target list. You must depend on where you get the list for its correctness. You can rent lists with names and addresses, with phone numbers, e-mail addresses, or all of them. E-mail lists cost the most.

How many names can you rent for a campaign?
Mailing lists are rented in groups of a thousand. Often there is a minimum amount of 5,000 names. The cost is based on a per thousand amount such as $25 per thousand etc. You can rent any amount of names from 5,000 to millions.

An example of a direct mail campaign
For our purposes here I will not go into all the details of the process but you will get the idea.
1. We are selling men’s high end retail clothes; Cherry’s Hot Digs.
2. We decide we will mail to 25,000 males in a four zip code area.
3. The target customer is men age 25 plus, average income of $70,000 a year plus, middle to upper management, lives in affluent zip code areas of the city, etc.
4. We decided to advertise a special group of expensive fine wool sweaters at a 50% discount.
5. We decide to use post cards rather than letters for a variety of reasons.
6. We write a compelling headline and copy to get the attention of the reader and add attractive photographs.
7. We have the printer print the post cards
8. We rent the mailing list in the target zip code areas. (Cost is $40 per thousand names)
9. We deliver the printed post cards and the list on a CD to a direct mail company.
The direct mail company addresses, applies postage and mails the post cards.
After about three days customers start to respond and we get a response rate of 2%.

Two percent of 25,000 is 500 customers. Of those let’s say three hundred customers buy and are also sold additional items for an average sale of $250.
Total revenue for the campaign is 300 respondents X $250 = $75,000. Subtract the cost of the mailing, approximately $5,000, and you have net revenue for the mailing of $70,000. Not bad for a two percent response rate.

Protected: Ent. Graduate Call 4-29-09

Administrator — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:53:35 +0000

Protected: Ent. Graduate Call 4-22-09

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Protected: Ent. Graduate Call 4-15-09

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Protected: Ent. Graduate Call 4-8-09

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Protected: Ent. Graduate Call 3-25-09

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Protected: Ent. Graduate Call 3-18-09

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Protected: Ent. Graduate Call 3-11-09

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Ent. Division Podcast 3-9-09

Administrator — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:27:07 +0000

In today’s podcast we talk about the new Personal Transformation Coaching program that will launch in April. We cover topics like the Law of Attraction, and a few of the classes that are upcoming in March.