Book Marketing Matters™
Brian Jud's free, bi-weekly ezine dedicated to helping you get your fair share of sales in special-sales (non-bookstore) markets, and sell more books profitably
Volume 14, Issue 10, Number 328 May 11, 2015 |
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| | Greetings!
Here is your May 11 edition of the Book Marketing Matters special-sales ezine by Brian Jud. It contains regular columns with tips from Dan Poynter, John Kremer, Guy Achtzehn, Rick Frishman, Eric Kampmann, Paulette Ensign, Judith Briles, Tonya Evans and Roger C. Parker. The guest columnist in this issue is Carol Topp.
This newsletter is sent by subscription only. Please pass this information along to people you feel may benefit by it. If there were any problems with this delivery, please let me know. If you prefer to have this sent to you as a pdf, please reply with "pdf" in the subject line or body copy. If you no longer wish to receive this -- or if you received it in error -- please reply with "Remove" in the subject line. All of us at Book Marketing Works wish you success in your book-marketing efforts, Brian Jud Click here to view this newsletter as a pdf document |
(The Association of Publishers for Special Sales -- formerly SPAN) | | APSS Custom Consulting Programs
Choose from among 10 different sessions covering
all phases of selling books to non-bookstore buyers - Sell more books to more buyers in lucrative, non-competitive markets
- Become more profitable selling in large quantities
- Minimize -- if not eliminate - returns
Are you getting your share of book sales in the $16 billion non-bookstore market? Now you can, with personal coaching customized to your needs, goals and titles. APSS can help you develop opportunities in unique market niches, contact buyers and negotiate large-quantity, non-returnable sales. You will find new ways to sell more books to schools, associations, corporations, military buyers and government agencies that need books just like yours. You will also learn how to create a profitable distribution network to retail buyers such as discount stores, warehouse clubs, airport stores, gift shops and many specialty stores. Find out how to get your books into more book clubs and catalogs. APSS offers consulting services for your needs and budget, on an hourly or project basis with professionals who are experts in their fields. For more information go to http://bookapss.org/customconsult/APSSconsults.htm |
Will You Be at BEA? Get a One-Hour Consultation And Sell More of Your Books
| | If you will be at BEA in May, meet with me and Guy Achtzehn for an hour while you are there. During that time you will learn how to sell your specific book - not books like yours -- in large, non-returnable quantities. We will give you names of prospective companies and tell you how you can contact and sell your books to them. And, we will show you how to find even more potential buyers, and how to make the initial contact with them. If you want a script to do that, we can develop one for you while you are there. The price for one hour of coaching is $99. Here are the remaining starting times we still have available, and these will go to the first who sign up for them. Thursday, May 28: 10:30, 1:30 and 3:30 Email Brian Jud at BrianJud@bookmarketing.com to reserve one of these times. |
| We can sell your books to non-bookstore buyers -- non-returnable | | Do you want us to sell your books?
Commission-based special sales. Non-returnable. We pay shipping
We get about 3,000 hits per month  on the ESP search engine. Most of the titles in our program receive some action on a regular basis. We cannot show them all, but here is a list of the direct inquires for which we send sample books. We usually customize them with the customer's logos or with a tip-in insert page. www.premiumbookcompany.com |
Notes From the Front Lines (Excerpted - with permission - from the Book Publishers' Handbook, by Eric Kampmann, President, Midpoint Trade Books ekampmann@aol.com) | | Inevitably we must face up to the question of "how many books should I print?" If you ask your printer, they will suggest more rather than less because, they say, "your unit cost will be lower." If you ask the author, they will generally push for more because they are going to go out and push their book everywhere. And if you ask your distributor (if you have one), they will return the favor by asking you "how many do you want to print?" Let's face it, fixing on just the right number is not science. Each book is different and requires its own unique set of calculations. But there are a few general rules to follow. First, be conservative. You can always reprint. Second, if your book is aimed at the bookstore market, never print more than six months anticipated supply. If you are reprinting predictable backlist, you might print up to a year's worth of inventory, but remember you are tying up cash. Third, use the sales history of similar books to judge your needs. Ingram's ipage is a great reference resource for such purposes. Finally, books depreciate faster than new cars. If you are forced to remainder, you will do it at pennies on the dollar. |
| | | It is easier to promote one book twice than to write a new book. |
The Cover Story - Tamara Dever (Owner/Creative Director, TLC Graphics. For more information about producing | |  Turtle Town is the first in a series of books for 8- to 12-year-olds. The original cover ideas (from a designer with little book experience) weren't age appropriate, the titles were hard to read, illustrations lacked interest, and weren't conducive to becoming a branded series.
The final cover was inspired by surfing decor and retro posters, giving it a better surfing feel. The title is dynamic and conducive to a series. Because each book will be set in a different location, a faux sticker was included toward the bottom to show where the book takes place. A sign indicating the book's rank within the series is theme-appropriate and useful. The main graphic was compiled using parts of several illustrations as well as stock graphics to make a believable scene and introduce the main characters. Each book will utilize the same style of illustration with the cutout and wood background, but have a somewhat different color scheme.
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| The Book Shepherd - Judith Briles (Judith Briles is the Chief Visionary Officer of www.AuthorU.org. She's known as The Book Shepherd ( www.TheBookShepherd.com), and is the author of 30 books including Show Me About Book Publishing and Author YOU: Creating and Building the Author and Book Platforms. Download podcasts from Judith's radio show, Your Guide to Book Publishing at: http://rsrn.us/youpublish | | Bookstores order books, B&T responds there are none in inventory to the store and doesn't contact the publisher (that's you) that there is/are orders. The order doesn't get filled. Sales never occur. Authors/Publishers are frustrated and pissed and wondering if they've been conned. What to do-if your goal is to build book sales via retail brick and mortar stores, start with a few local. Tell them you are driving buyers to the store-the store must be persistent with B&T if it's their primary wholesaler ... not one or two books. At least TEN ... and if you have to put the order in personally, do it. Get your friends in the area to also request a book from the same store. The store buyer needs to be the pusher from their end. You as the publisher need to be persistent with B&T and request that they get your book(s) into inventory.
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You're On The Air (Deborah Wetzel, morning news anchor and talk-show host on WCBS-FM, New York City) | | People respect those who are discrete and style themselves in a good-mannered way. Over-promoting yourself is a negative on a radio talk show. |
The Very Idea (Editorial by Brian Jud) | | 
Over 500,000 ISBNs were issued last year and most of those authors want to get on bookstore shelves. The problem is, there is limited shelf space available. You may find it more profitable to find non-bookstore opportunities. Here are some of the benefits that could accrue from non-bookstore marketing: Increased sales and revenue. Increase your sales in a marketplace larger than the bookstore market Recurring revenue. Your customers may place recurring orders. Lower acquisition costs. Selling to an existing customer is less expensive than it is to acquire another customer. Lower unit costs. The greater the quantity in which you print, the lower your unit cost will be. Increased profitability naturally follows, since the lower your unit cost the greater your profitability at the same selling price. Less competition. When you make a sales call on corporate buyer
you have their undivided attention.
Less discounting. Buyers usually do not have immediate access to competitive pricing. Fewer returns. Most non-retail buyers do not expect to return books. Negotiable terms. You may increase your flexibility in negotiations since discounts are not fixed. Improved cash flow. Most corporations pay in 30 to 60 days. |
Ideas for Selling to Non-Bookstore Buyers Guy Achtzehn (President of The Promotional Bookstore, offering commission-based sales of books to non-bookstore buyers, guy@msgpromo.com) | Books are considered impulse items in museum stores and should be priced accordingly. In addition, to a low price, buyers look for quality of production and content. The information in a new title is expected to be precise, and it may be subjected to a formal review process. Your submission to the buying authority should include a statement that facts and dates have been checked for accuracy. |
Leadership and Growth Concepts - Tom Hill (Founder and CEO of the Eagle Goal Coach, an organization devoted solely to assisting others find and follow their life's passion. Tom can be reached at tom@tomhillwebsite.com) | Being present is critical to life. Jan-Erik Nyhuus sent this - "No matter where you are or how you got there... you might as well be there." So many of us regret the past or worry about the future, but all we have to really be concerned with is today! That's all we know we have! |
Marketing Planning (Excerpted from Brian Jud's e-booklet, Plan Your Work and Work Your Plan: 461 Tips for Profitable Marketing Planning; www.bookmarketing.com) | You could logically plan different marketing tactics for different segments for the same title. This would be the case if you promoted one title to bookstores with an exhibit at Book Expo America (BEA, May 30 - June 1, 2013), to libraries via Baker & Taylor or by direct mail, and to corporate buyers through personal sales calls. |
Book-Marketing Tips - Roger C. Parker | | Creating an Author Profile Page at Amazon.com. One of the most effective free promotional tools for authors is to create a profile page at Amazon. Any author who has ever registered at Amazon.com and purchased a book can create a profile page containing content that will show up on the pages where their books appear. Author profile pages can be created by all authors who have published a book as well as authors who have signed a publishing contract for their book. The sign-up process involves listing your books and submitting the names and e-mail addresses of several industry sources, i.e., agents and editors. Amazon will contact them to confirm that you are, indeed, the author of the published book, or about-to-be-published book. You can do more than just describe your background on Amazon's author profile pages. You can list your friends or important people and create a calendar. Amazon also provides built-in software for creating a blog. Best of all, you can run an RSS feed from your existing blog to Amazon, so that every time you update your main blog, the Amazon blog will automatically be updated. More important, your profile and blog will appear on each page where one of your books is displayed, greatly expanding your visibility at no cost to you. |
Marketing Strategy
(Excerpted from Brian Jud's e-booklet, The Buck Starts Here: 635 Tips for Creating Successful Marketing Strategy; www.bookmarketing.com) | Positioning strategy (marketing) is not the same as product strategy (publishing), but derives from it. Product strategy creates the physical differences (size, shape, content), and positioning explains the differentiation in a meaningful way to the readers. |
Legal Matters That Matter to Writers (Contact Professor Evans at Legal Write Publications, info@legalwritepublications.com or www.legalwritepublications.com; The information contained in this column is for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you need advice regarding a specific legal matter, consult a lawyer as each case is fact-specific.) | | Copyright is a type of intellectual property that relates to and governs a primary means - artistic and literary - by which our cultural and historical identity is developed, cultivated, and preserved. Intellectual property has been defined generally as "creations of the mind" that are afforded the status of property and thus have value that is capable of protection. Intellectual property is governed by various national and international laws, and generally gives its owner the exclusive right to do or authorize certain things regarding the property. Copyright is just one of a number of different types of intellectual property. |
Booklet Ideas - Paulette Ensign | | You have more than one audience for your topic. That is mostly good news since it means you have more sales opportunities. In a perfect situation it can also mean your audience replaces itself on a regular basis, too, which also means more people for you to continue to serve. Your expertise could be about parenting or is otherwise child related. That means the parents are the first and most obvious audience. However, what about the grandparents, related and unofficial aunts and uncles, guardians, and educators? That's before there is any focus at all on the manufacturers and suppliers of everything and anything related to children and their parents. It is also crucial to narrow or segment your content in some way. That is true regardless of how narrow you already think your topic is. What started off as mostly good news about having more than one audience for your topic now becomes a potential challenge. That challenge is determining which door to enter to reach your people. Which audience is first, which audiences follow, and what ways do you want to approach them? Streamlining the process for yourself so you are productive and successful rather than overwhelmed is a must. Yes, that comes under the heading of "amazing grasp of the obvious," agreed. Making your first entry point moms of elementary school age children identifies a target. Those moms may or may not have more children older and younger. The moms might have siblings who are parents, their own parents, their neighbors and friends who are parents of their children's classmates, and on and on. Once the moms you target like what you've got, they talk about it with all those people and more. Regardless of whether the national birth rate is higher or lower than it's been, people still have babies, which means your audience replaces itself. Depending on how generic your information, you may be able to reach the next generation, using the most current content delivery formats of the time. You may also do revised editions of the information based on the latest thinking and your expanded knowledge. What you thought was one audience for your topic is truly multiple audiences. You get to choose your entry point and the information you share. ACTION - Start where you are, with the information, access, and delivery method that is most comfortable for you. Moms may not be your audience. If you are a baby boomer with information about having a happy and healthy retirement, and you've just gone through the process of creating your own retirement plans, look around to see who else will benefit from your publications. That means the people you know from various parts of your life, whether they are local to you or anywhere in the world. Are there retirement communities and groups in your town? Did you help your senior parents find a place where they would enjoy living? Are there realtors who specialize in helping people who are interested in downsizing? Are there recreational and educational organizations who would find your products useful in marketing to the same people you want to reach? Who else is a likely audience you may not have considered? There are undoubtedly others. |
Guest Columnist - Carol Topp, CPA (Carol Topp is an accountant and author of Information in a Nutshell: Business Tips and Taxes for Writers. She may be reached at Carol@CarolToppCPA.com ) | The vast majority of authors are sole proprietorships with good reason. It is the simplest business structure - easy to start and easy to close. A sole proprietorship is a business with one owner and is popular with writers for many reasons. Here is one. No Lawyer needed to start. Many sole proprietors form their own business without the assistance of a lawyer. I do recommend you hire an attorney to look over any publishing contracts before you sign. I strongly recommend hiring an attorney if you are forming a partnership or corporation because of their complexity. |
Kremer's Korner (Excerpted - with permission - from John Kremer's Sixth Edition of 1001 Ways to Market Your Books. Contact John at http://www.bookmarket.com) | | Most mass-market paperback rights are sold for a term of five years to seven years. Other rights might be sold for the life of the copyright. Others, such as serial rights, are only for one-time use. |
| | | It's essential to remember that the media is fickle. When your story is hot, the media will doggedly court you and lavish attention on you. You will become its best friend, its darling. But when the media feels your story is played out, it will move on to the next hot story so suddenly and fast that you'll feel abandoned and let down. Plus, it rarely looks back. When you deal with the media, you have only a brief window of opportunity, a short period in which to get coverage. So, you better have a plan and be ready to make the most of it. |
Helpful Website of the Week - Adele M. Annesi
(Adele is a freelance writer and an editor with a high-tech analysis firm in Stamford, CT and may be reached at a.annesi@sbcglobal.net) | 
Spreaker.com www.spreaker.com Spreaker enables writers to share content online. You can record a scene from your novel, tips from your business book or a reflective passage from your memoir. Spreaker also sends updates to social networks for live broadcast in seconds from a mobile app or desktop.
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Pam's Book Marketing Tips - Pam Lontos | The media is thinking, "What's in it for me?" They survive on advertising dollars. They have to constantly provide material that people want to read, watch or listen to. The bigger their audience, the more they can charge advertisers. Help their audience (readers or listeners) solve their problems or fill their needs. Know these key facts about your market: Age, sex, lifestyle, profession, problems, and needs. Once you've identified these points, address them when getting publicity for your book. |
Upcoming Marketing Events
| May 14: How to Attend and Exhibit at Trade Shows Successfully By Brian Jud You can reach hundreds --- or thousands - of prospective buyers in a few days at a targeted trade show. The biggest US book-industry event is Book Expo America (BEA) and that will be held this year on May 27-29 in New York City. Even if you do not plan on attending there are ways in which you can use BEA and other trade shows to further your career and sales. Brian will show you how maximize your opportunities there -- or at any local, state, regional or national show. You don't have to pay a lot of money to exhibit - and in most cases you can profit more by not exhibiting. Attend this webinar to learn how to take advantage of many ways to reap the benefits of having all your top prospects in one room at the same time. 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm Eastern Time Sign up at: http://tinyurl.com/k938gyl
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Get Links to All of Jud's
Book Marketing Webinars | I have conducted over 50 webinars that can help you sell more books. Watch and listen as I describe how to increase your sales to non-bookstore buyers, how to get on TV and radio shows, get more publicity, conduct bookstore events, get more reviews and awards and more.Get links to recordings of my 60 - 90 minute webinars.
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Buy Lines -- Free Information | Do you need a jump-start to get your sales moving? If so, consider a one-hour consultation with Brian Jud. Get answers that will ignite your sales efforts. Brian can help you create a quality product, distribute it to markets you may not even know exist, price it profitably and promote it more effectively so you can...
Sell more books
Beat your competition
Become more profitable
Sell in untapped, lucrative markets
Minimize -- if not eliminate - returns
Contact BrianJud@bookmarketing.com for more information |
| Book Lemur - Promote your eBook and get results |  BookLemur connects ebook readers to books and authors and we enjoy finding new authors and books and introducing them to thousands of subscribers. So there are 6,800+ subscribers, and it's growing at about 100 per day!
APSS members receive a 20% discount to promote their titles
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| Sell More Books, Make More Money In Special Sales |  Now Available - the most current and complete resource for increasing your sales and profits in non-bookstore markets.
The ultimate do-it-yourself guide to selling your books in large quantities with no returns. Not just who to contact, but when and how.
By Brian Jud -- $24.95
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| Do You Want to Increase Your Sales, Revenue and Profits? |  A one-day workshop in your office -- customized to your titles -- shows your staff how to make large-quantity sales |
| |  Increase Your Profits with Sales Promotional Items Get your book cover or marketing message on promotional items such as coffee mugs, pens, pads, bookmarks, key chains, shirts, umbrellas or any of hundreds of other promotional products. See more examples at www.bookapss.org/PromoItems.pdf Find out how you can use promotional items to: · Lure new customers · Remind procrastinators to buy · Encourage repeat purchases · Create brand awareness · Boost sales · Create customer loyalty · Attract more people to your trade-show exhibit · Spread word-of-mouth advertising · Have a fun giveaway for book signings and other events Contact Guy Achtzehn at The Promotional Bookstore, guy@msgpromo.com or (717) 846-3865. Provide your APSS membership number for a 10% discount on promotional items
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Contact Information for Brian Jud
| | For copies of all the previous issues of Book Marketing Matters visit www.bookmarketingworks.com/mktgmattersnews To subscribe to Book Marketing Matters click here: I won't share or sell your email address. Discover even more information about non-bookstore marketing by visiting the Special-Sales Tip of the Week at www.bookmarketing.com
Brian Jud now offers commission-based sales to buyers in special markets and several other programs to contact prospective buyers in special markets for you through personal sales calls, customized mailings and telephone calls. There is a program for any budget. www.premiumbookcompany.com Brian is also an author and book-marketing consultant helping publishers market and promote their books to increase their sales and profits. Find rated lists of suppliers to publishers at www.bookcentralstation.com. Brian is a media trainer, frequent speaker at publishing events and host of the online Publisher's Bookstore listing many discounted titles on publishing, publicity, planning, marketing, publishing law, design and writing.
Contact Brian at P. O. Box 715, Avon, CT 06001; (800) 562-4357; brianjud@bookmarketing.com or go to http://www.bookmarketing.com
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I wish you success in your book marketing efforts. There are several ways in which I can help you sell more books more profitably. Let me tell you how by emailing your contact information to me at brianjud@bookmarketing.com. Sincerely, Brian Jud
Book Marketing Works |
| | | Brian Jud now offers commission-based sales to buyers in special markets and several other programs to contact prospective buyers in special markets for you through personal sales calls, customized mailings and telephone calls. There is a program for any budget. www.premiumbookcompany.com Brian is also an author and book-marketing consultant helping publishers market and promote their books to increase their sales and profits. Brian is a media trainer, frequent speaker at publishing events and host of the online Publisher's Bookstore listing many discounted titles on publishing, publicity, marketing and writing. Contact Brian at P. O. Box 715, Avon, CT 06001; (860) 675-1344; brianjud@bookmarketing.com or go to http://www.bookmarketing.com |
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