TOPICS
HOW WE WORK
How Lean Marketing Press Works With Authors (click to enlarge)
Using the principles tht lie at the heart of our Lean Marketing system, we work rapidly, effectively and systematically. While old publishers may take years to get books to print, we take weeks. Then, once the book is in print we give it a massive push in the right direction. We’ll support you to promote your book and get involved directly when it makes sense to do so, but the success of your book wil also be down to how much you put into it too.
AUTHOR FAQ – FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
We charge nothing for our time, effort and dedication to publish books we have accepted, although we do expect, and help, authors to work hard to promote their book once it’s in print.
We won’t charge you a penny for the time we invest to get your book published.
Unlike other so-called publishers who are nothing more than vanity publishing service providers in disguise, we pride ourselves on working in partnership with authors who have an idea worth pursuing.
The plus side is obvious. If your manuscript is chosen, you’ll get all of our support FREE OF CHARGE and you’ll be able to rest easy knowing it’s in our interests to make your book sell.
The downside to us offering our service FREE OF CHARGE is, that if you’re just some joker looking for FREE marketing support or if your manuscript isn’t what we’re looking for (in other words we think it won’t sell well!) then we won’t be able to help you out.
We currently reject 97% (that’s not even a 1 in 20 chance) of the submissions
we receive. We’re not playing a numbers game. We’re looking for the right stuff!
We pay 20% Royalties on the profit of your book and this goes up to 40% when your book has reached pre-agreed sales targets.
Traditional publishers might pay you 5% if you’re very lucky and very special. But they certainly won’t be likely to do a whole load of promotion if you’re new. They simply can’t afford to because they’re playing a big numbers game.
You’ll find many service providers (pretending to be publishers) who’ll offer you similar royalties to us, but here’s the catch. You had to pay them up front and they’ll do little more than list your book on their shamefully anonymous website in the way of promotion. You’ll get a handful of sales, but remember, most of them aren’t interested in selling your book to anyone but you!
Because we’re not in the business of ripping people off we only succeed when our authors sell books. So you’ll be sure to get 20%-40% of a lot more with us!
In case you were wondering – at present, we pay royalties quarterly.
There isn’t a catch. But I’ll tell you the major difference between us and the people who think they’re our competitors right now.
Self-publishing companies (people who want you to pay them) typically only ask for non-exclusive rights to your work. This makes sense. After all they did nothing to help you create it and they’re only really interested (although they’ll tell you otherwise) in what they get paid by you, the author.
The fact that they’re not interested in your intellectual property to me suggests, that they don’t value it. And if they don’t value it there’s probably a good reason. Maybe it’s because they weren’t really planning on making their money by selling your books.
We do value what you’ve got however. As with all proper publishers our contract asks you to sign over limited exclusive rights to your intellectual property for a minimum of 5 years.
By the way, if you’ve got a great book that’s selling well with an existing POD or Vanity Publisher or an ebook that’s selling well and you’re now looking to move up to the next level then you could be what we’re looking for…
We can’t make guarantees but we’ll do whatever we can to help.
If you’re running a consulting business, trying to get higher paid speaking gigs (or any speaking gigs), running a training business or coaching business that needs a boost or hoping to raise your profile as an authority on your subject then having a book published with us will help you build kudos.
A published writer has instant AUTHOR-ity! Seriously, when we wrote our first book, people started treating us differently. Other authors would talk to us on the phone. People wanted to interview us. Our speaking fees doubled overnight. You can’t underestimate the power you get from being a published author.
Plus, if you sell time for a living, the additional passive revenue created by a well-promoted book will be a boon to your business. But, if you’re planning on writing the next best-seller (although we do have them) and retiring off the royalties of just one book – you’ll need a bit of luck (or to write a few more) as well as our help.
Right. Now just in case you didn’t already know, the following services we offer don’t cost you anything. We’ve actually stopped selling our time so we can concentrate 100% on our authors, but believe me when I say that if you were paying us, it would cost you well over £10,000 for what we do…
Here’s a list of some of the stuff we’ll do right up front (a complete plan of action will be given to you if your submission is successful):
- Title Development (a carefully crafted title that sells your book)
- Cover Design (covers that actually sell – not clipart rubbish)
- Copy-editing and Improvement
- Typesetting
- Illustrations, Charts, Graphics, Photographs
- A Listing In Our Lean Marketing Press Bookshop
- Access To Our Affiliate Programme (An Optional Service where you get an army of affiliates selling your book for a share in the profit)
- Press Releases Written & Submitted To Local, Regional & National Press
- eZine Management
- Help Eliciting Testimonials
- Help Eliciting A Foreword
- Promotion To A Growing List of 11,000+ Potential Buyers
- Support & Encouragement Every Step of The Way
- Your book promoted in other Lean Marketing Press titles
- And Much More…
- Assign ISBNs (vanity publishers charge anything from $99 upwards for this!)
- Preparation for Print
- Distribution – making your book available to all bookshops as well as on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones etc.
- Print Management and Setup
- Bulk Order Management
- Shipping, Handling & Accounts
We’re looking for experts first – writers second. However, we’re a small publisher and that means our editors’ time is stretched so we expect you to deliver a high standard of work and will return a book with notes if it’s not up to scratch.
But, and it’s a big but, we judge the potential of a manuscript on its quirkiness, uniqueness, our ability to sell it, the value of the information provided by the author and your ability and willingness to sell it.
One thing that sets all our books apart is this…
Our authors all have got muddy boots!
Muddy boots? Yes! They’ve all been there. Done it. Got the tee-shirt. They got their hands dirty and waded into the brown-stuff. These guys and girls really know their stuff – and that makes us very proud to be working with them.
So, we’re far more interested in the state of your footwear than whether you scored an A+ in English!
Actually yes! We’re the “listening publisher”.
If you have a great idea then send us the synopsis.
If we think it’s a bad idea we could save you some time by talking you out of it. If it’s fantastic we’d be thrilled to turn it into a marketable book for you.
I must say now though – if you haven’t got much further than the idea stage you’ll be in the queue behind authors who’ve got a finished manuscript. We promise to read every single enquiry – as I said, we’re the “listening publisher”.
You can try! But we’ll push back!
It’s only happened three times so far, but even authors who have made thousands from our efforts have made the mistake of treating us as a supplier to be pushed around. We don’t accept this attitude and these pushy authors found themselves, very quickly, without a publisher or a book to sell.
All our successful authors are honest, hard-working appreciative of the skills we bring and willing to work in partnership so we can all succeed together.
We build relationships based on trust and mutual respect. We’re in it for the long-haul together but it doesn’t work without the author’s input.
I’m sure you don’t like to be pushed around and neither do we. So, if you’re planning on being a primadona then please go to someone who’ll be getting paid to put up with you!
A BRIEF HISTORY…
Since 2004 Lean Marketing Press has helped experts, coaches, consultants, trainers and professional speakers generate an additional passive income from writing and selling books. Our approach is simple – to create value where there was just an idea and SEND authors money while producing high quality books for discerning readers. As well as paying authors unprecedented royalties, Lean Marketing Press supports them in leveraging the additional AUTHOR-ity generated from their writing to improve their business success.
Before Lean Marketing Press, since 1997, we’ve been helping people use the Internet to reduce marketing cost and increase sales/new business. We were very successful on behalf of our clients and have seen many startups grow to be profitable big businesses with our help, guidance and support.
When we were “selling time” for a living we doubled in size every year until at one point we had premises in the centre of Birmingham and a team of 11 techies, designers and marketers. We hated it! And soon realised we didn’t go into business on in order to be anyone’s boss. Then things got tough – more competition, less business and generally less money around to spend on “web-stuff”. So in 2001 we made the painful (but necessary decision) to make everyone redundant, get rid of the premises and stop “selling time” completely to focus on turning our knowledge into products where we could get paid multiple times for a single effort.
As we turned our business fortunes around we developed Lean Marketing, ran a year of training days (Lean Marketing Masterclasses) and wrote and self-published The Gorillas Want Bananas (in about 3 months). The book was so successful, requiring a reprint just months after release, that we decided to focus on publishing books full time.
So we set up Lean Marketing Press to provide authors (often small expert business owners like us) with our services up front in return for a big (unprecedented by other publisher’s standards) cut in profits. A win-win!
WHAT WE’RE CAPABLE OF
What We Typically Do for Authors – At No Cost
- Professionally Edit The Book
- Proofread The Book
- Typeset The Book & Include Charts/Graphs/Illustrations
- Design The Cover & Jacket Artwork
- Set & Agree Pricing Strategy
- Write All Sales Copy
- Help Author Elicit Advance Testimonials by Distributing Review Copies
- Create a sales page at www.bookshaker.com and also handle ebook sales
- Do Advance PR To Local, National & Targeted Press
- Setup and Manage Opt-in email List, Blogs and Other Marketing Tools
- Typeset and Distribute Special Reports, Articles and Other Marketing Material
- Get the book in print using POD (Print on Demand)
- Sort ISB, Barcode etc.
- Sort Real World Distribution – to places like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Waterstones and Traditional Booksellers
- Promote The Book To Our Lists
- Handle Sales, Delivery & Accounts
We’re sending our authors regular quarterly royalties, often well in excess of £1000, while simultaneously helping them raise their profile to attract more customers, increase their fees and make money while they sleep.
