Article: Published in SPAN Connection Newsletter – Nov/Dec 2001;

(Small Publishers Association of North America)

& ON www.absolutewrite.com - Dec/Jan 2001/2002

 

Make Your First Book a Winner! 

Strategies From a Successful “Newbie”!  

by Peter Bowerman

 

A few months ago – I’ll never forget the day – I was checking my e-mail and I got another book order notification. On my web site I have a little information capture mechanism that asks for name, e-mail address (for future mailings) and where they heard about the book (a good idea for your web site, incidentally…). Her answer? “Everywhere!” Now if that isn’t music to an author’s ears, I don’t know what is. It’s proof that I was getting the job done.

 

That was only the first. I kept hearing different iterations of the same basic theme. One woman wrote: “I first heard about your book on writersdigest.com, then on writerswrite.com and finally on writersweekly.com. After the third time, I figured I needed to see what it was all about.” What does that tell us (besides that I’d been busy…)? That people may very well have to receive multiple impressions before they take action. Very useful information.

 

So, how did I get to this point? After all, I started with just me and the book. No big publishing house, agent, publicist or big promotion/marketing budget. Not to mention virtually no mainstream media coverage. Yet, I still landed three major book clubs – Writer’s Digest Book Club, Quality Paperback Book Club and Book-of-the-Month Club. Plus reviews from (historically self-pub-averse) publications as Library Journal and Booklist. Not to mention a “Full Publisher Contract” - typically reserved for the big boys - from Ingram. And several book awards. How did I do it? The Internet, of course.

 

Exponential Efficiency

The Internet has dramatically raised the bar on productivity, allowing for maximum accomplishment and “reach” in minimum time. In the hugely competitive scramble for attention in the book world, the ‘Net can be the great equalizer for the little guy.

 

So, let’s take my book as an example: "The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency As a Freelance Writer in Six Months or Less" – a step-by-step “how-to” for establishing a lucrative full- or part-time freelance corporate writing business. With all the downsizing of the past decade, Corporate America is outsourcing plenty of writing projects at hourly rates of $50-100+. 

 

OK, so who’s my audience? For starters, how about any and all “wanna-be” writers looking to make a handsome living with their pen? Add seasoned freelancers looking to diversify beyond magazines into higher-paying work. And at-home moms and home-based business seekers looking for a flexible, well-paying career from home.

 

Go to Your Market

To sell books, you need to get reviews. Book reviews are far and away the cheapest and most effective way to build demand and sales for your books. So, to get reviews for one’s book, go where your various target communities hang out. Scour the Internet for web sites, associations (check print version of Gale’s directory), newsletters (Oxbridge Directory of newsletters on-line and others) newsgroups and other writers of related books. Visit these sites, find the “Contact Us” link and make your pitch by e-mail. Make up one standard pitch letter, vary it slightly for your different audiences and “cut ‘n paste.”

 

In the beginning, I was on the hunt for blurbs for my final edition. In less than a week, while still doing my corporate writing work, I lined up close to 25 commitments, not only for blurbs, but reviews, interviews and articles (which I’d write). I was getting responses back in fifteen minutes! Out went the galleys. And then I simply repeated the process, over and over, as my laser-targeted review copy list beefed up fast.

 

Try any URLs that sounds right for your topic. Actual examples for me: writers.com, writing.com, freelancewriting.com, athomemoms.com, homebusiness.com, etc. Find writers of related books through Amazon.com (many have e-mail links) and pitch them directly for blurbs or reviews.

 

Mainstream Media?

Certainly you should pursue mainstream media coverage in addition to your Internet contacts but here are a few caveats. The reality is this: If you’re an unknown author, the chances that a reasonably major-market paper will give you exposure or write an article is slim. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, but just a heads-up. If you do plan to go for it, DO NOT just send out review copies en masse with no personal contact. If you do, you will almost certainly succumb to the Dumpster Factor. The average big-city daily gets 125 unsolicited review copies daily, more like 250 during the holiday season. I was told by someone who worked for one that they literally have a dumpster in the mail room and most of them get tossed, unopened.

 

For starters, forget sending a review copy to the book editor. Unless you’re a big name or local talent, they don’t care. Do however, contact the book editor with info on upcoming signings to go into their calendar and try to get them to include your web address in the listing. As for coverage, figure out what editor would be best for your topic. Does your topic fall into Food, Jobs, Career, Business, Features, Computers, etc.? Contact the appropriate editor and be sure to pitch, not the book, but an angle represented by the book. They don’t care about books; they want to know why the book is relevant now.

 

With my book, of late, I’ve been pitching three things: 1) the tie-in with all the corporate downsizing and accompanying outsourcing of writing projects at high rates, 2) the idea of the book discussing a lucrative direction for all those aspiring writers out there just trying to figure out how to make a handsome FT living as a writer, and 3) the growing trend of people wanting to drop out of the rat race, start their own home-based business and recapture precious quality of life and time for leisure and loved ones, etc., etc.     

 

Your Web Site

A web site is mandatory. Period. It’s the linch-pin of any Internet marketing push. Mine (wellfedwriter.com) has sample chapter, table of contents, reviews, cover art, Q&A, sample radio/TV interview footage and much more. Link to it from every e-mail you send and you connect your market to a wealth of information for nothing.

 

By e-mailing press releases to media (or anyone) you give them instantaneous “click-thru” access to your site and all the things they need to make their job easier (like author pix, cover art, reviews, the interview clips, etc.) which in turn makes it easier for them to say “Yes!” Always add your URL to your e-mail signature going out on every e-mail you send. You’d be surprised at where interest in your title come from.   

 

Assume that most people visiting your site will have headed there deliberately after hearing about the site somewhere, as opposed to stumbling on it. Don’t count on search engines to bring people to your site who initially knew nothing about it. It will happen and certainly cover your bases in that arena but work on building demand and traffic to your site through your marketing efforts. So, given that people will most likely have been steered there by your promotional efforts, keep the site simple by making it easy for them to get in and out. Focus on conveying information in a logical flow and dispense with the fancy (browser-clogging) graphics. If things take too long to load, trust me, they will leave.

 

Go visit my site when you get a moment. Not the last word in web sites, but I think it works. Might give you some ideas. And remember, where it is today is a result of ongoing evolution. You don’t have to have a full-blown site from day one. Grow it.

 

As for the question: “Should I hire someone to create my web site or do it myself?” that depends on you and your relative technical ability and inclination to be a “do-it-yourselfer.” If you love rolling up your sleeves and diving into a new software program, perhaps you have the temperament to do it. You’ll save yourself a healthy chunk of money. If however, you’re a techno-phobe like me and you have a few bucks to spend, or you think you might be able to pull it off but aren’t sure, you’re probably better off hiring someone. The key is to get it done. Web designers aren’t exactly scarce these days, which is driving rates down. At some point, I know I’ll need to bite the bullet and learn how to do this stuff, both to save money and be able to update my site without having to wait on my web guy to get to it. By the way, do-it-yourselfers, word on the street from many web designers is that Dreamweaverâ is the best program.       

 

Raising Eyebrows

I made many of the above contacts with the writing, home-based business and at-home-Mom communities before I even approached the huge trade wholesaler Ingram to be listed in their database. In the marketing questionnaire Ingram requires as part of the application, I listed some 50-60 of these entities and got a pleasantly surprising response: they offered me – one guy, one book – a Full Publisher Contract, offering my title wider distribution.

 

The message they’re sending is clear: we want to work with and will reward those publishers - regardless of size – who are committed, through consistent marketing efforts, to promoting their book(s). Logical, no?

 

The Illusory “Official Publication Date”

By the way, your “official publication date” (OPD) should be very different from your “bound book date” (BBD) – the date you actually have printed books in your possession. If you’re smart, you’ll put three to four or more months between the two dates, giving you plenty of time to build awareness in the traditional media and in your grass roots Internet communities. In the process, you’ll extend the period during which the media will consider your book a “new release.” It’s not uncommon for some publishers to sell out their first printing before their OPD actually arrives.   

 

Get Personal

This next point was driven home for me as I was promoting my Well-Fed Writer seminar recently in Nashville, TN. I had contacted the executive producer of a TV station by e-mail with a pitch to appear on their noon-day show. I’d heard nothing back, so the next week, I tried to reach him by phone and got his voice mail. I checked the station’s web site and found an “office” number listed for the noon-day show. I called, a woman answered, I assumed it was an “office” person. Wrong! Turned out to be one of the hosts. She was very nice, I pitched her, she requested a review copy, I said I’d get it out that day, and as a parting shot, suggested she visit my web site. When I returned from UPS, I found an e-mail saying: “Checked out your site. Looks great - I’m sold! Are you available on ____?” (Are you convinced yet that you need a web site?)  

Whether you’re promoting your book, seminar or both, try as much as possible to reach people personally. I’m certain that I’d have gotten nowhere with that TV station had I not connected with a real human being. Unless your book is so hot that the media is literally beating down your door, if you restrict yourself to impersonal shotgun press releases, it’s liable to yield little fruit. It’s always best to have an actual name. Obviously, few of us have the time to make hundreds of personal phone calls, but the more you can make, the more success you’ll have.

 

When you’re calling, always ask for your contact person’s e-mail address before they connect you to them. If you get their voice mail, leave them a message briefly stating your business and that you’ll be e-mailing a press release to them. That way, instead of being just one more e-mail amidst the spam, they’ll be expecting it when it arrives.

 

The Marketing Boomerang

Do enough marketing and you’ll experience the delightful phenomenon I call the “marketing boomerang.” In the beginning, you'll be contacting publications, web sites, associations, etc., asking if they want a review copy. After you've done a bunch of that, you’ll start getting requests for review copies from people you’ve never heard of or contacted. Finally, you’ll start hearing readers refer to where they heard of your book - publications, groups, web sites, etc. – places which, again, you never contacted.

 

I discovered, to my pleasant surprise, that after I’d achieved a sort of “critical mass” with my marketing, different entities would find my book on their own, go ahead and buy a copy and review it on their site or in their publication without ever even contacting me. You gotta love that. And speaking of sending out review copies…

 

Send Lots of Books

Don’t be afraid to send out LOTS of review copies. I know some books recommend that you really delve into who’s asking for one, on the assumption that there are a lot of “mooches” who just want to score a free book and have no more intention of writing a review than the man in the moon. I’m sure that happens AND I’ll probably still send one out. Even if they are a mooch, if they like the book, chances are good they’ll tell a few others about it and that’s always good. Unless your books are VERY expensive, with lots of color photos etc, don’t be stingy. My books, as far as printing costs go, cost about $1.75  each. Sent book rate adds another $1.75. So for $3.50, you’ve got the very best form of advertising you could possibly have: the book itself.

 

Press Kit Tips

Want to make your press kit stand out easily? Get 250-300 extra book covers printed up when you print your books, fold them in half, staple the bottom and use them as folders. Include a press release, key reviews, news articles, flyers, copies of book club listings/inserts, author bio, and anything else you feel will make a strong case for the book.   

 

Book Clubs

With galleys (your pre-pub version of the book, also known as an “advance uncorrected proof”) in hand, approach the book clubs early. Check Literary Marketplace for a complete listing with contact people. You’d be amazed at the highly specific niches out there. Check it out. And don’t be afraid to shoot high. I landed Writer’s Digest Book Club early enough that I could use it in all my Internet pitches – a phenomenal door-opener. I didn’t even consider the big boys – Book-of-the-Month, Quality Paperback Book, Doubleday – until after landing the Library Journal and Booklist reviews.

 

Once I did, I got a little cockier, sent them on to BOMC and QPB (sister clubs under the bookspan name) and within a month, got the thumbs-up. I remember what the acquisitions editor said: “We’ve just haven’t seen any book quite like this on the market.” Ponder that litmus test when you’re contemplating your book’s subject, title and cover design. Book clubs – and anyone for that matter – want unique, different, distinctive.

 

Shortcut to Big Library Sales

A key to library sales and enhanced credibility in general is to land reviews in such prestigious publications as Booklist, Library Journal, Publishers Weekly, ForeWord magazine, and Kirkus Reviews. They typically want review copies (galleys OK) 90-120 days prior to your OPD, making an even stronger case for an extended period between BBD and OPD. With limited budgets and time, librarian rely heavily on these industry pubs to do their pre-screening for them, often ordering all books reviewed.   

 

Reality check: the chances of getting reviewed in one of these publications are slim. Only 10-15% or less of books submitted to these entities get reviewed. But don’t let odds scare you – go for it. How can you up your chances? Well, some things are obvious: write a really good book – one that will appeal to a fairly broad audience. But as a self-publisher, there are a few things you can do to stack the deck in your favor...               

 

·         Your Cover

You’ve heard it before; you’re going to hear it again: don’t skimp on your cover. Remember: 50,000 books get printed each year. Those people considering your title for purchase, distribution or review look for reasons to cull the herd. The cover is the no-brainer. Spend the money to get yours professionally designed (DON’T hire your cousin who’s artistic…). Can you barter services with a graphic designer? I traded writing for design services with a professional graphic designer, who will need copy for her web site and marketing brochure.      

 

Think long and hard on your title and your cover. As for the title, brainstorm a bunch of ideas and run them past people. Think clever and effective. Visit bookstores with your graphic designer and scan the shelves in your genre for titles and cover designs that catch your eye. Figure out why they do and try to capture what works. Just as important as a good title and cover design, I assert, are…

 

·         Four-Color Galleys

I remember having a lively and positive phone chat with a review editor at Booklist. She’d received my galley (but didn’t have it in front of her) and asked me nonchalantly who my publisher was. I should have simply given her the name of my self-publishing entity, Fanove Publishing, and spoken of it as separate from me. But she caught me flat-footed and instead, I mumbled, “…me.” Long pause. “Oh really…well…we rarely if ever review self-published books.” Yet, they still did. 

 

Fact is, a lot of self-published books have gotten reviewed in Booklist and the others. What makes the difference? Well, again, create a good book, in both form and content. And “form” includes four-color galleys. Galleys can span the gamut in terms of aesthetics and production quality. They can be downright austere, with typed black-and-white covers or even as primitive as F&G (folded and gathered) pages. Or they can look identical to the final version. 

 

If you’re Stephen King or Tom Clancy, your galley could probably show up on a stack of cocktail napkins and they’d be fine with it. OK, a stretch perhaps, but the point is, as self-publishers we’re already behind the eight-ball with the review publications. Overcome their institutionalized reluctance to review self-published books by making your book look like anything but a self-published book.

 

Push for the Bookstores?

Some of the most successful self-publishers rank bookstore sales near the bottom of the scale in importance. Don’t let your vanity get the better of you and be so anxious to get your books into the bookstores until you’re sure people will be looking for it. By all means, approach Ingram and Baker & Taylor (the big library wholesaler), get listed on their databases, and make it easy for the bookstores and libraries to get their hands on it. Once you’re listed with them, anyone can walk into a bookstore, request the book, and the store can order it.

 

If you’ve created the demand, and that demand drives enough people to walk into enough Barnes & Nobles or Borders asking for the book, I promise you, they’ll find you, order in larger quantities and start stocking the book. Of course, they’ll always order through the wholesalers or a distributor, never directly from you. If you push your book into the big chains before you’ve established a strong and enduring demand, you’ll end up with a ton of returns up to a year later, in any condition, for a full refund.   

 

Typical return rates in this business are 25-30% and I've heard no small number of horror stories of rates as high as 60%! My return rate through nearly 15,000 copies? So low it boggles even my mind: about 2%. 

 

Excellent Ebook Economics 

Pursue the ebook market. It’s a no-brainer. You send a file, ideally in a PDF format (though most of the companies will handle the technical details for you, so a Word file will often suffice) and the company loads it up on their site. No books or no inventory to worry about and you get checks every month. How much sweeter does it get? I got my book on writersweekly.com (division of booklocker.com) and it ended up as the #3 best-selling ebook in 4Q2000 (#24 overall for all of 2000). For a list of ebook publishers, click on www.ebookconnections.com/epublisher.htm.

 

E-book sales will naturally drive hard copy sales. If someone likes your book – and especially if it’s a how-to or reference that they’ll want to keep handy – chances are excellent they’ll want their own “hold-in-their-hand” copy.   

 

Be a Goodwill “Machine”

What do I mean by that? If you provide an e-mail address somewhere that your readers can use (I have mine on my web site), answer all your reader e-mail – and with more than one-line answers. Address their questions. Give them advice. I promise you, they’ll be blown away that they got an answer at all. Give them some real attention and you’ll have a friend for life. And what do friends do? They talk. The writing community and most communities for that matter aren’t that big and people share good experiences. Getting a reputation as a nice, generous and accessible author is a very good thing.

 

Hire a Consultant

As a naïve first-time, self-publishing author, one of the best things I did was hire a professional publishing consultant with 40+ years in the industry. He suggested the Writer’s Digest Book Club (that alone has paid for his services many times over; they’ve ordered 2000 copies). He’s been this over-my-shoulder presence throughout the whole process. And worth every penny.

 

Hire Out Distribution

If someone does a good job, I believe in acknowledging them, so yes, this is a plug. BookMasters, Inc. printed my books and is handling all fulfillment, from the one-book buyer to the Ingrams, B&Ts, and Amazons of the world. They do all shipping, invoicing, even collection.

 

For sales made through the BookMasters toll-free number on my web site, I charge customers $4 shipping and handling (on a $19.95 book). BookMasters charges me about $5.75 (including book rate shipping). A small price to pay for the convenience. And since in that scenario, I’m netting over $18 on a book, I can afford to offer special discounts to different groups or during different periods. If I offer, say, free shipping, a $4 savings, I net $14, still much better than my net on sales to wholesalers, distributors and Amazon.com (less than $9). 

 

I can’t imagine trying to manage all this myself. And I promise you, if you tried, you wouldn’t save very much money – certainly not enough to justify the hassle. They do this very well, so let them. You’ve got enough to mess with.

 

Keep It Up

While I sent out about 100 review copies right after getting my finished books, a week doesn’t go by that I’m not sending out at least two or three more. Always be looking for more contacts in your target communities. A book is far and away the cheapest and best form of advertising out there. Don’t be stingy. And remember: You can’t do it all. Pick and choose your battles. Good luck.

              

Peter Bowerman of Fanove Publishing is the self-published author of The Well-Fed Writer: Financial Self-Sufficiency As a Freelance Writer in Six Months or Less. Visit his web site at www.wellfedwriter.com and reach him at bowerman@mindspring.com.

 

The book has achieved the following milestones:

 

·        Book-of-the-Month Club selection - Winter/Spring 2001

·        Quality Paperback Book Club selection- Spring 2001

·        Writer’s Digest Book Club selection - Summer 2000 (second best-selling Featured Alternate in more than two years)

·        Second Place: ForeWord magazine Book of the Year Awards (Career category)

·        Finalist: Publisher’s Marketing Association Ben Franklin Awards (Best First Book)

·        Honorable Mention in the Writer’s Digest National Self-Published Book Awards

·        Positive reviews in Booklist, Library Journal, ForeWord magazine, Midwest Book Review and many others

·        Nearly 17,000 copies sold (as of 2/02)