Another Kindness of Strangers Tour milestone: I’m in Murcia, Spain, courtesy of my publisher, Debs Jenkins of Lean Marketing Press.  It’s the first visit to a country that is not the US or the UK, but it won’t be the last.

After running thither and yon, it’s good to find a place I can just sit and relax and let the jet-lag seep away, and this veranda—with a stunning view of the Sierra de Carrascoy mountains—is just the place.  The only down side is I have to be careful to keep out of the sun.  My pale northern European skin doesn’t tan very well, it just goes pink, then peels and I’m back to fish-belly white again.

Debs, on the other hand, is looking good.  Even though she’s a Brit she’s been here long enough to acclimate and has a nice, healthy glow about her.  She also speaks passable Spanish, or what sounds like passable Spanish to me.  For all I know she could be speaking Klingon and telling me it’s Spanish.

I plan on spending a few days here.  Since Lean Marketing Press didn’t front the tour (you have no idea how much this virtual travel is costing me) I can at least impose on the CEO’s hospitality as long as I can get away with it.  I kid, of course, Debs is being very generous with her time, her food, her beer, her tequila…

One of the things that came out of this visit, however, was the reminder that this tour is supposed to be about selling my book, not me sponging off of other people and generally enjoying myself; it’s work.  This conversation came about after I helpfully pointed out that there wasn’t any Corona left in the fridge.  So, okay, back to work: BUY MY BOOK! BUY MY BOOK! BUY MY BOOK!

Can I have another Corona now?

I think I’d better get some sleep; this jet-lag is making me a tad cranky.  And Debs told me that after I get some rest, and if I promise to behave myself, she’ll take me on a tour of the nearby village market and introduce me to some of the locals.  She even promised to teach me the traditional Spanish greeting so I can try out in town.  It goes something like this: “Soy un idiota, me golpeo con el pie.”

END TEXT

Would you like to participate in the
2009 KINDNESS of STRANGERS TOUR?
Visit the Tour Page to sign up or to view the latest Tour updates.

Michael Harling is an American author living in the UK
undertaking a virtual world tour via the kindness of strangers.
Tour Page: http://www.lindenwald.com/thetour.htm
Book Page: http://www.lindenwald.com/booksale.htm
Home Page: http://postcardsfromacrossthepond.blogspot.com/

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

GUEST: Kindness of Strangers Tour – Sunny Spain

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How To Survive, Stay Alive and Perhaps Even Thrive at Your First Book Fair

Will I Go To A Book Fair Again?

Yes. Enough said!

My Favourite Bits

1. Meeting other publishers – this was by far the best part of the fair for me. It can get quite lonely when you’re running a small business. I’m sure I’ll remain firm friends with all of the small / medium size publishers on the IPG stand that I had the pleasure of meeting.
2. Meeting the scary buyers – and realising they are only human (well most of them) and that even if they don’t like your titles it doesn’t mean they’re bad, just not right for them!
3. 

   Our author, Jo Parfitt, at The Lean Marketing Press shelves

   Meeting some of our authors – whilst email, skype and facebook can make you feel like you know someone (and some of those facebook photos can make you feel like you know someone a little too well!) it’s only in the flesh that you can get a real feel for a person. Jo Parfitt (www.joparfitt.com), Rintu Basu (www.thenlpcompany.com), Alison Clark (www.buteholisticbreaks.co.uk) and Nicola Caircross (www.themoneygym.com) all worked hard, had fun and helped me build the Lean Marketing Press brand – well done guys!

4. The IDEAS generated – at the fair and afterwards I’ve been full of ideas. What if we use this? How can we take advantage of that? How will that impact us? What do we need to do next? The synergy from a big trade fair like this can’t be beaten.
5. Learning from others – complacency can set in when you’re running a small publishing business (or a large one, I’m sure). It was great to see what our peers were getting up to.

What Would I Do Differently?

Well there are so many things it’s hard to know where to start.

1. Planning – I would start much earlier, take advantage of LBF & IPG marketing opportunities.
2. I would take more people – and give them specific goals & accountabilities. I really didn’t have enough time to visit all the stands I wanted to see, meet all the people and I never even got near a seminar room!
3. Timing – I would stay for the full 3 days. You cannot get it all done in 2 and a bit days – take advantage of the whole timespan, including all the stuff that happens on the Sunday prior to the show, which I didn’t see until after I’d booked my flight!

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

Book Fair Virgins (part 4)

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How To Survive, Stay Alive and Perhaps Even Thrive at Your First Book Fair

So What Did I Learn?

Debbie Jenkins in Spanish Embassy in London with Shirley

1. That the Spanish Ambassador is watching The Pirates of The Caribbean DVD.
2. That 3 bottles of Spanish Embassy champagne on top of a concoction of painkillers isn’t good for you.
3. That Al Murray (the Pub Landlord) is married.

Seriously, here are a few specific things I learnt at the 2009 London Book Fair, that might help you…

E-Books

Whilst the sale of e-books is a growth area – not many small publishers  (nor some of the larger ones!) know very much about them!

We’ve been selling our books in PDF format for the last 5 years (as I proudly demonstrated on my Sony e-reader) but our knowledge was out of date and we were missing lots of tricks!

Prior to the London Book Fair I had investigated the different formats and processes, and my meeting with the Waterstones.com buyer helped clarify what I needed to do next.

Yvonne Barlow (www.booklinethinker.com) sums the process up really well:

“From our pdf – we have to convert the file to xml so that it streams through an e-reader without breaking pages. Several companies do this conversion – I liked Aptara who offer to convert text-only pages for 0.15p per page (although, I understand that there are companies in India that do this much cheaper).

“Pages with illustrations are much more expensive. The xml converts the file to ebook style – as in epub – or mobipocket for US markets. Overdrive are the distributors of ebooks – so I guess they are the people who ensure territorial rights are maintained. Large UK retailers will only use Overdrive as the distributor.”

Waterstones.com use Overdrive.com as their supplier of e-books. However, Overdrive appear to be very busy (at least a 6 week wait for approval)!
If you’re not keen to wait you can use someone like www.smashwords.com to get you started. Their reach is smaller, but at least you can start selling your e-books, whilst waiting for Overdrive to get back to you!

Marketing

This seems to be one area where all publishers are looking to learn more. Using resources like www.ipg.uk.com and www.PublishingAcademy.com we can share best practice, try out ideas and learn from the success (or otherwise) of others.

Materials

Emma Barnes (www.snowbooks.com) has developed software that “automagically” makes your catalogue from data in ONIX format. They’re certainly worth investigating. BooksoniX (www.booksonix.com) also offer a complete datafeed solution based on the ONIX standard. We’ve just signed up and will be taking advantage of all thier features, watch this space.

Bookshops

Big chains have rules and procedures. Read them. Follow them. I don’t know how many times I counted people who didn’t sign NDAs with the big bookstores before their meeting. All this meant was that most of their 15 minutes was spent filling in paper work!

Right’s Agents

Well this is a big bag of worms! I had quite a few meetings with rights agents. None of those meetings were arranged through the London Book Fair site (as no one responded to me through that). I contacted people individually prior to the event and had meetings on the IPG stand (you need to book the tables in advance).

Selling foreign and co-edition rights is something we’ve not pursued in the past (probably due to naivety), so this area was all new to me but I had some positive meetings. So, watch this space for progress!

Publishing Industry Suppliers

It’s easy to fall into a false sense of security and stick with the same ways of working, your usual suppliers and the same methods of publishing. This can be dangerous for your business, leading to stagnation (not innovating), over-reliance on one supplier (what if they go out of business?), missed opportunities and ignorance. The London Book Fair offers a great way of seeing all the new innovations, checking methodology and meeting alternative suppliers.

So, would I go to the London Book Fair again? I’ll tell you in my next post and share some useful planning tools and checklists to make it easier for you.

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

Book Fair Virgins (part 3)

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How To Survive, Stay Alive and Perhaps Even Thrive at Your First Book Fair

At The London Book Fair

The week before the fair I was involved in a minor car crash, which meant I had to wear a neck brace and take a concoction of fairly strong and possibly hallucinogenic (was Paul Daniels really there?) painkillers during the fair itself.

Now whilst this meant I was quite unforgettable (short, blonde and wearing a neck brace tends to get your remembered) I was also a little spaced out. Perhaps next year I’ll just go for a pirate’s eye patch!

Anyway – here are my tips for when you’re there!

1. 

   Parties – go to every party you’re invited to and gate crash those you’re not! (That’s my advice for life as well as book fairs.) They are great opportunities to network, make friends and meet people who are otherwise fully booked during the “working” day.

2. Make other people feel comfortable and help out – this is especially important if you’re sharing a stand. Bryony Doran (www.bryonydoran.com) was a great help to me, telling people what we published whilst I was off chatting up short magicians – “not a lot” – I might add!
3. Share information and resources – publishing is a great business to be in, none of us are in competition. I really enjoyed sharing snippets with Yvonne Barlow (www.booklinethinker.com) and Ann & Peter (www.petanpublishing.co.uk). And we all enjoyed playing with my Sony e-reader!
   
4. Make the most of the meetings – be prepared for meetings with buyers or suppliers. Have marketing materials prepared, be specific with your questions, be punctual and succinct, respect!

Book Fair Follow Up

I waited 3 weeks till after the fair before I followed up with people. This was to give them time to recover from the madness of the book fair (and time for me to recover), before bombarding them with more questions. Some actions will need to be completed much faster than that!

1. Send polite emails thanking people for their time and reminding them of any actions outstanding. This is where the neck brace was very handy: “I was the one with the neck brace…”
2. Follow up on any tasks you promised – send those books, make the networking connection, send the rejection letters…
3. Debrief any staff or accomplices – thank them and ask what they thought.

Review

This is also a good time to review your goals, understand what went well, what could have gone better and determine how successful the event was for you – overall.

Planning For The Future

Based on your success you can now start planning for the next book fair or event. Make notes of everything you learned, what worked, what didn’t. Put tasks in your calendar and remember to give yourself 6 months to get ready.

In the next article we’ll look at specific lessons learned and what I’ll do differently next time!

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

Book Fair Virgins (part 2)

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How To Survive, Stay Alive and Perhaps Even Thrive at Your First Book Fair

The London Book Fair 2009 was my first time.

Of course, I knew the bigger publishers went to the fair. And I knew that all the suppliers would exhibit at the fair. And from all accounts, the scary buyers from bookshops would be there too! But would my small publishing business gain any benefit from exhibiting there?

Being a Lean Marketer exhibitions are usually way down on my list of marketing activities, often consigned to the “waste money” category of recreational marketing. So to make it into a “must do” activity I needed to do some thinking and planning.

I had goals for this fair – I wanted…

• to better understand the right’s buying process
• to meet some of our authors (I work remotely from a cave in Spain)
• to network with other small publishers
• to meet the scary buyers!

So, using our Lean Marketing Detox Tools to determine if a marketing activity is worthwhile  I spent a little time calculating the costs of achieving these goals and the “pain vs gain” for different approaches. My options were:

1. Go to the London Book Fair
2. Do everything online (some of my goals couldn’t be achieved this way)
3. Split the tasks over the year (this would have involved several trips and meetings and would take a whole year)
4. Do nothing at all! (very little effort required but wouldn’t help achieve any of those goals!)

At the end of the exercise it was a no-brainer, I was going to the London Book Fair! You can get the complete set of Detox tools for free by clicking the image below…

Pre-Fair Planning

The sooner you start planning (I suggest 6 months in advance) the better. I had 2 months to get everything ready, and this just wasn’t enough time. Whilst I’m a strong believer in Just In Time Marketing (hey, we made that term up, so of course I believe in it!), planning for the London Book Fair had my nerves jangling as I worried I’d be showing buyers a scrappy photocopy of our catalogue and sleeping in a wheelie bin!

Deciding on what stand to book can cause you to have heart failure when you see the pricing structure. There was no way our budget would stretch to even the smallest space. I needed a more competitive solution.

Fear!

My overwhelming concerns about exhibiting at the London Book Fair ultimately boiled down to fear!

1. Would I waste our small marketing budget by going to the London Book Fair?
2. Would I look foolish talking to buyers, suppliers and other publishers?
3. Would I get lost in London (well, that was almost a dead cert!)?

The Independent Publishers Guild

I love the IPG – www.IPG.uk.com. I wasn’t a member until I decided to exhibit at the London Book Fair. Whilst researching online I found that the IPG “sublets” stand space to their members. Fantastic, we could book a shelf, get the assistance of the IPG and have loads of meetings arranged for us. Plus, we get regular newsletters and updates on current issues. And if we were in the UK we’d be able to go to meet the buyer meetings!

The IPG set up the stand, receive delivery of your books and marketing materials, put your books out on the shelves, arrange meetings with buyers, run around and generally take care of all the little things. They are a super gang, and I’d like to thank them for all their hard work!

The only drawback is that stand space can be cramped and desks and chairs are at a premium. The party was good though!

Marketing Materials

I had our catalogue stored on pen drives and a bookmark sized business card enclosed in a silver envelope – with some sweeties. Hopefully these stand out when people are going through their mountain of materials when they get back to the office.

Many of the publishers commented on my “business cards”, which were ½ A5 portrait shaped bookmarks. Joe Gregory designed them – and here’s what they looked like…

You can use your local printer but we used www.vistaprint.co.uk – because they’re fast and relatively cheap!

What Books To Show

Deciding what books to take when space is at a premium can be tricky. If you’re a one-book publisher, then it’s probably best if you take that book! Otherwise my suggestion is to take your best sellers and most recent titles (unless you have a specific plan).

Arranging Meetings and Planning my Time

There appears to be a kind of hierarchy or class system in play in the publishing business. I hadn’t been aware of this until I tried to arrange meetings. I was obviously well down the pecking order and was rather put out about it. None of the people I contacted through the London Book Fair meetings system even replied to me. I found this rude and surprising.

I was even more dismayed when I realised how many people requested meetings with me that I hadn’t replied to!

In my enthusiasm for arranging meetings that suited my agenda I neglected basic business etiquette. I hope I’ve now contacted everyone and made amends. Perhaps karma will ensure I get responses from those people I contacted!

In the next article we’ll look at what happened when I was there and some lessons learned!

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

Book Fair Virgins (part 1)

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The dates are 20th – 22nd April 2009.

Debs

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

Meet Debbie at the London Book Fair…

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The book is already attracting great praise on Amazon and it’s packed with useful tips, advice and ideas for marketing any small business. Take a look at the list of freebies you’ll get here… www.brightermarketing.com/bonus.html

The launch celebration will only run for one day though, so follow the instructions below now to secure your freebies and place in the draw:

1. Buy the book here… (delivery is free to the UK)
2. Once you’ve done that visit this page and enter your Amazon order number, email address and the special password  “bonustime” to download these ten amazing bonuses with a combined value of over £100
3. Keep an eye on your inbox to see if you won a free 1-to-1 consultation with the authors. They’ll be doing the draw within 24 hours which is why this offer is time-limited so you’ll know within 48 hours of buying the book if you won.

I chose to publish Joanne and Siobhan’s book personally and am sure you’ll benefit from their advice which is why I can recommend you buy it now.

Important: If you receive an email about this more than once then congratulations – you must be well connected! You see, the authors have asked a few of their other trusted friends and colleagues to spread the word too so, if you see this email once, twice or more it just means your networking in the right circles!

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

Buy This Marketing Book Today & Get These Freebies

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————————–
FEBRUARY 2009
————————–

Monday 02 February
Buddy Holly died 50 years ago

Thursday 05 February
20 years ago: Launch of Sky Television

Friday 06 February
Queen’s A ccession Gun Salute, Green Park & Tower of London

Sunday 08 February
Grammy Awards, Los Angeles
British Academy (BAFTA) Film Awards

Thursday 12 February
Abraham Lincoln born 200 years ago
Charles Darwin born 200 years ago

Friday 13 February
Unlucky Day: Friday the 13th

Saturday 14 February
St Valentine’s Day
25 years ago: Torvill and Dean won Olympic Gold

Wednesday 18 February
The Brit Awards: Earls Court, London

Friday 20 February
Gordon Brown is 58

Friday 20 February – Tuesday 24 February
London Fashion Week: Autumn/Winter, London

Saturday 21 February – Tuesday 24 February
Rio Carnival, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Saturday 21 February
Robert Mugabe is 85

Sunday 22 February
The Academy Awards (Oscars), Los Angeles

Tuesday 24 February
UK: Shrove Tuesday

Saturday 28 February
Miss Great Britain 2008, London

———————
MARCH 2009
———————

Thursday 05 March – Sunday 08 March
Crufts Dog Sow, NEC, Birmingham

Thursday 05 March – Sunday 15 March
Geneva International Motor Show, Switzerland

Monday 09 March
Queen attends Commonwealth Day Observance Service

Wednesday 11 March
UK: No Smoking Day

Wednesday 11 March – Friday 13 March
TUC Women’s Conference, Scarborough, North Yorkshire

Thursday 12 March
25 years ago: Start of nationwide Miners’ Strike

Friday 13 March
UK: Comic Relief Red Nose Day
Friday 13th Unlucky Day

Sunday 15 March
100 years ago: Selfridges opened in London

Tuesday 17 March
St Patrick’s Day
Royal Television Society Programme Awards 2008
1 year ago: Paul McCartney and Heather Mills divorce

Friday 20 March
Spring Equinox

Sunday 22 March
UK: Mothering Sunday

Sunday 29 March
Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race
Motor Racing: F1 Australian Grand Prix
Start of British Summer Time (Clocks Forward One Hour)

—————–
APRIL 2009
—————–
Wednesday 01 April
April Fool’s Day
UK: Basic State Pension Rises to £92.25
Inheritance Tax Threshold Increases to £325,000
UK: TV Licence Fee Rises 3% to £139.50

Thursday 02 April – Saturday 04 April
Horse Racing: Grand National Meeting, Aintree

Sunday 05 April
Motor Racing: F1 Malaysian Gran d Prix
Palm Sunday

Thursday 09 April
Maundy Thursday

Thursday 09 April – Friday 10 April
Jewish Festival of Passover

Friday 10 April 2009
Good Friday: UK Bank Holiday

Sunday 12 April
Easter Sunday

Monday 13 April
Easter Monday: UK Bank Holiday

Wednesday 15 April
20 years ago: Hillsborough Football Disaster

Monday 20 April
Boston Marathon

Tuesday 21 April
20 years ago: Start of Tiananmen Square Demonstrations, China

Tuesday 21 April
Queen’s Birthday (83)
Worldwide Holocaust Commemoration Day

Thursday 23 April
St George’s Day

Sunday 26 April
Flora London Marathon
10th Anniv death of TV presenter Jill Dando

—————
MAY 2009
—————

Sunday 03 May
2nd Anniv: Madeleine McCann disappearance in Portugal
One year ago: Boris Johnson became London Mayor
BUPA Great Edinburgh Run
Polish National Day

Monday 04 May
30 years ago: Margaret Thatcher became British Prime Minister
Football: FA Women’s Cup Final
May Day Bank Holiday

Friday 08 May
VE Day
UK Film Release: Star Trek XI
25 years ago: Opening of Thames Barrier

Tuesday 12 May
60 years ago: Lifting of Berlin Blockade

Saturday 16 May
Eurovision Song Contest – Grand Final, Moscow

Thursday 21 May – Sunday 31 May
The Hay Festival 2009, Hay on Wy e, Powys

—————–
JUNE 2009
—————–

Thursday 04 June
20 years ago: Tiananmen Square Massacre, Beijing, China
UK Local Authority Elections
Mayoral Elections
European Parliament elections

Wednesday 10 June
Duke of Edinburgh is 88

Wednesday 17 June – Sunday 28 June
Edinburgh International Film Festival

Wednesday 17 June
Falklands Memorial Day: Annual Service of Remembrance

Sunday 21 June
Prince William is 27
Summer Solstice
UK: Father’s Day

Saturday 27 June

2 years ago: Gordon Brown became British Prime Minister

Sunday 28 June

New European Union Passports: Fingerprints required

—————-
JULY 2009
—————-
Wednesday 01 July – Sunday 05 July
Henley Royal Regatta, Oxfordshire

Saturday 04 July – Sunday 26 July
Cycling: Tour de France

Saturday 04 July
10 years ago: Marriage of David Beckham and Victoria Adams
USA Independence Day

Tuesday 07 July
Unveiling of July 7 London Bombing Memorial, London

Wednesday 08 July – Friday 10 July
Politics: G8 Summit, Rome

Tuesday 14 July
France: Bastille Day

Thursday 16 July
40 years ago: Launch of first USA manned moon mission

Wednesday 22 July
Various Venues Worldwide: Total Solar Eclipse

Saturday 25 July
100 years ago: First Cross-Channel Flight

Friday 31 July
50 years ago: Cliff Richard first Number 1 record – Living Doll

———————-
AUGUST 2009
———————-

Tuesday 04 August
US President Barack Obama is 48

Thursday 13 August – Sunday 16 August
Golf: US PGA Championship, Minnesota, USA

Friday 14 August – Sunday 06 September
Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh

Saturday 29 August – Sunday 30 August
Rugby League: Carnegie Challenge Cup Final, Wembley

Saturday 29 August – Monday 31 August
Notting Hill Carnival, London

Sunday 30 August – Monday 31 August
Knebworth Classic Motor Show, Hertfordshire

Monday 31 August
August Bank Holiday

—————————-
SEPTEMBER 2009
—————————-

Friday 11 September

September 11 Commemorations, Ground Zero, New York

Tuesday 15 September
UK: Battle of Britain Day
Prince Harry is 25

Thursday 17 September
60 years ago: First NATO Meeting, Washington

————————
OCTOBER 2009
————————

Wednesday 14 October
Hollywood actor Errol Flynn died 50 years ago

Thursday 15 October
Sarah Ferguson is 50

Sunday 25 October
End of British Summer Time (Clocks Back One Hour)

Saturday 31 October
Halloween

————————–
NOVEMBER 2009
————————–

Monday 02 November
50 years ago: Opening of first M1 section (Watford to Rugby)

Tuesday 03 November
New York City Mayor & City Council Election

Wednesday 04 November
1 year ago: Barack Obama elected 44th President of the United States

Thursday 05 November
Bonfire Night: Guy Fawkes’ Day
100 years ago: Opening of first Woolworth’s shop in UK (Liverpool)

Sunday 08 November
Remembrance Sunday: Queen at Cenotaph Service

Monday 09 November
20 years ago: Berlin Wall Stormed and Part Demolished

Wednesday 11 November
Armistice Day

Saturday 14 November
The Prince Of Wales is 61

Monday 16 November
50 years ago: The Sound of Music Opened On Broadway

Saturday 21 November
20 years ago: Start of live TV coverage of Commons debates

Monday 30 November
St Andrew’s Day

———– —————
DECEMBER 2009
—————————
Thursday 10 December
Nobel Prize Awards, Oslo

Tuesday 15 December
25 years ago: Band Aid released ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’
70 years ago: World Film Premiere of ‘Gone With The Wind’

Monday 21 December
Winter Solstice

Tuesday 22 December
20 years ago: Reopening of Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

Thursday 24 December
Christmas Eve

Friday 25 December
Christmas Day

Saturday 26 December
Boxing Day

Saturday 26 December
5 years ago: Over 170,000 killed by Asian Tsunami

Thursday 31 December
New Year’s Eve

If you have more dates to add then put them in the comments section below.

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

2009 Dates

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1. Don’t tell us your book is for everyone or anyone – we can’t market a book to everyone!

Along with this we don’t want to hear phrases like “This book is for…
… all business owners
… everyone who wants to get ahead in life
… anyone who wants to be happy
… anyone between the ages of 25 and 65
… kids
… parents of kids
… anyone who was ever a kid
I think you get our point.

2. Don’t tell us it’s unique unless you’ve taken a field huge steps ahead and no one in the whole world has done anything like this before – that’s unique.

Tell us what’s different – it doesn’t have to be unique but it does have to be good and different.

For help with points 1 and 2 read our book Brand Power, which will be out soon.

3. Tell Us There ARE Other Books In This Genre – That’s Good!

If there are other books it means there’s a market and as long as you’ve written a great book then we’ll be able to sell it.

One way to check if your target market exists is to have a look at what magazines exist for them. If you find trillions of magazines, with a nice high price tag, it tells you two things: 1. people in your target market can read! 2. they spend money on reading! Both conclusions sound facile, but this is the truth – you need people who are prepared to spend money to read what you write, otherwise, don’t write it.

4. Don’t Try To Be Funny Just Be Yourself – advice from my Mom

If you’re not funny then please don’t try to be, really, you’re great just as you are. We want you to write naturally and with feeling. If you are funny, then that’s great too.

My mom’s other advice was “Don’t try to be clever, just be yourself” – so don’t try so hard to use big words or clever phrases!

Write for my mom!

5. Don’t take offense if we say no.

We will wherever possible give you some feedback on your submission. It will not be personally directed at you – it will be about your manuscript and our suitability as the publisher.

It may be blunt. It may be a short email, with what we think is valuable advice. This advice is free. Delete it if you don’t like it, we don’t mind!

Don’t take it personally and don’t give up. And remember we reject 97% of applications, so you’re in the majority!

6. Finally, check what books we want to publish before submitting!

Please don’t send submissions of your drawings of faeries, ghosts or goblins. Don’t send submissions of poems, children’s books or conspiracy theories. We will not be interested in publishing them.

And for everyone worried about making a submission, we’re nice people really – follow our rules and we’ll get back to you quickly with a decision!

Debs & Joe

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

Thinking Of Submitting a Book Idea? STOP… read this first

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All our books are distributed by all the wholesalers and distributors that bricks and mortar bookshops use, as well as being published in the main catalog where bookstores choose new releases for stock. So yes, our books are available in all the major and most minor bookstores. If you go into your local Borders you probably won’t see our books on the shelves but they will be able to order them for you.

However, we focus our selling on Amazon (by far the best source of sales) and online versions of the major retailers.

Here are some of the reasons why we don’t focus on bricks and mortar:

1. Traditional bookstores expect a minimum of 55% discount on a sale or return/destroy basis, with 90+ day payment terms – just to put a book on their shelves. This figure and terms are even worse for supermarkets and WHSmiths. If we focused on these stores, in order to be profitable, we’d have to pay our authors 1-3% royalties like other publishers instead of our generous 20-40%.

2. Many bookshops have no centralised ordering process – Borders, when we pushed hard with them for a couple of our author’s books for example, said they make decisions on everything that they consider “long tail” – ie everything except for the next John Grisham, JK Rowling etc. – at local branch level so we’d have to “sell” to each store individually. Well we’d prefer to use our effort to create demand with target readers instead. This focus on the marketing effort that gets the best result stems from our Lean Marketing approach – see www.leanmarketing.co.uk

3. When you do agree to bricks and mortar store’s terms you will have to pay (a lot) to get any decent in-store positioning to make sales worthwhile – see this article in the Times – http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article669160.ece

So, for us, using our publishing/royalties model, we think old-style bookstores are a risky, and unprofitable, business.

Now, here is why we prefer online bookstores:

1. Most online shops will accept 35% (25% is possible but you end up having availability issues) on a firm sale basis. Basically, once they order stock in, we get paid and it’s up to them to sell the stock. This massively reduces our exposure to risk. We don’t have thousands of books out in bookstores speculating that the shops will sell them (paper profit), that could be returned at any moment, in usually poor, unsellable, condition.

2. Neither us, nor the author ever have to handle the books (which will involve extra cost to post and pack) as it all gets done via the distributor/wholesalers – which typically increases profit by about £1.50-£2.00 per book on top and means no need to store/insure stock. We did it this way for our first book and I can tell you 5,000 books takes up some space until it’s all sold!

3. Most importantly, as pro-active marketers, Amazon allows us to ethically “hack” the system to increase the numbers of people buying the book, reach the top of bestseller lists, improve visibility, make the book more desirable and to steal traffic (we share how to do all this with our authors) from bestselling books by celebs and massive budget publishers.

4. Online also has a search engine that means you’ll come up for people specifically looking for “YOUR KEYWORDS” as opposed to hoping they’ll see the spine of your book on a shelf shared with anything to do with “YOUR CATEGORY”.

5. Also, as I already said, to raise your book’s visibility in offline stores you need to bribe them… http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article669160.ece

6. Finally, Amazon is the “killer app” for book buyers and they’re only likely to get better – stats are hard to find but try these…

North American Sales 2007 (Books, DVD, Music, coffee)
$4.68 billion Barnes&Noble
$4.63 billion Amazon (first outsold Borders in 2006)
$3.41 billion Borders/Waldenbooks
$477 million BN.com

My maths isn’t great but that gives Amazon sales of well over a third of the $13.2 billion market – and they don’t sell coffee! I also think Amazon will be top of this list by end of 2008 (April 09 will be when these figures come out) based on the following…

North America Growth Figures – 2005-2006 and 2006-2007
+23%(06-07) +15%(05-06) Amazon
+9%(06-07) -1%(05-06) BN.com
+4%(06-07) +2%(05-06) Barnes&Noble
-0%(06-07) -1%(05-06) Borders/Waldenbooks

Notice also that BN.com is growing faster than the traditional stores too.

So in summary, we focus sales where the customer is easy to find, where they’re looking for your book, where you don’t have to pay to be seen and where the author makes the most profit.

Post from: Leanmarketingpress.com

Should You Focus On Selling Your Books in “Real” Bookstores?

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