If you are expecting book sales that will require mailing single copies, have your printer make a mock up of your book with the actual papers and page count prior to printing, and then weigh it. Then add an envelope and a mailing label -- and any other collateral items you are considering including in your orders. This is operations, my friends. And operations can make or break a publishing company (or any other type of company for that matter). Does it really matter?
Challenge: We completed a project wherein 75% of the books were sent out to individuals one at a time. The book weighed 15.2 ounces, but with the envelope, bookmark and label, the final weight was 16.1 ounces. That meant that rather than paying $2.41, he was paying $2.82 per piece. (see Media Mail pricing sheet). With a margin barely at $4 per book when he arrived, that was a pretty significant difference. Prior to working with us, my client had paid for the whole second pound on each package because of one stinking 10th of an ounce. In this case, he was already using the lightest weight envelope and a regular mailing label, and my client liked the papers used in his book, so we didn't want to change that. Did we have an option?
Solution: On the next printing, we cut off 1/8th inch off the height of the book -- and that did the trick. There are creative solutions to nearly every problem, and this was a great fix for a potential profit hog. In our case, the buyers didn't even realize anything was different, and my client's profit margin rose over 10% per sale.
Moral of the story: Consider how you will be selling and fulfilling your books, and make the shipping operation part of your initial planning process. Make sure your shipping costs reflect the actual weight of the book, and that you have thoughtfully considered whether or not your buyer values that extra fraction of an ounce over saving a little on shipping. It could be the difference between making a profit and losing money on books sold, depending on the buyer's terms.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
What Makes a "Good Contact"?
I was talking to a few people upon my return from BookExpo, and found myself saying "I met a couple great leads and a few good ones." But now, I'm thinking "What makes them a good lead?" Are they saying "I made a great contact" after meeting me at the show?
It's not just the connection at the show that makes a "Good Contact," it's the relationship that buds at the show, and then blossoms with care and nurturing after the show.
Just like any other type of relationship, a "Good Contact" requires give and take, too. It requires trust on both parts and integrity on both parts. And you need to plan how to handle your new relationships from the early stages so they are able to grow. At CMI, we plan what we are doing with contacts before we go to a show or networking event. Sometimes you are the one getting the contact; sometimes you are the contact. You have to decide if the relationship is something you need and want in your professional life. Here are the questions that you should ask yourself:
Set your own list of non-negotiables in the contacts you make -- and be aware that others are also doing the same (you hope). The most difficult part in the networking relationship is looking at yourself in the mirror and asking "Am I a good contact?"
For more great information on networking, read Jeff Beals' book Self Marketing Power.
It's not just the connection at the show that makes a "Good Contact," it's the relationship that buds at the show, and then blossoms with care and nurturing after the show.
Just like any other type of relationship, a "Good Contact" requires give and take, too. It requires trust on both parts and integrity on both parts. And you need to plan how to handle your new relationships from the early stages so they are able to grow. At CMI, we plan what we are doing with contacts before we go to a show or networking event. Sometimes you are the one getting the contact; sometimes you are the contact. You have to decide if the relationship is something you need and want in your professional life. Here are the questions that you should ask yourself:
- Is this going to be a one-way relationship, or are there reciprocal benefits?
- Do we have something legitimate to offer each other in our businesses or is it not really a perfect match?
- Do the benefits of this relationship outweigh the costs of nurturing and maintaining it?
- Am I willing to share my network with this person?
Set your own list of non-negotiables in the contacts you make -- and be aware that others are also doing the same (you hope). The most difficult part in the networking relationship is looking at yourself in the mirror and asking "Am I a good contact?"
For more great information on networking, read Jeff Beals' book Self Marketing Power.
Monday, May 30, 2011
BEA and IBPA Book is Closed for 2011
It was true at Publisher's University, and confirmed at the Book Expo: Self Publishing is evolving...quickly.
Turning the page to the future of books, the Publisher's University seemed to be all about Amazon. They are seemingly taking over the world. They were everywhere at Pub-U. Yes, Amazon is important, no critical, for any self publisher's toolbox. But it's only one tool - okay maybe 10 tools, but still. Today's DIY publisher needs to be forming a platform, sharpening their focus, and needs to be tightly edited and well formatted and designed.
My presentation at Pub-U was all about how to work with publishing services companies; starting with hiring professionals for editing, cover design, interior layout, and other publishing duties, to evolving our mindset to serve the customer. Much of my presentation covered "orientation" in the growth and evolution of self publishing -- product, production and customer orientations. It's a concept right out of college marketing texts, but fits perfectly with the publishing e-volution.
Product Orientation - In the infancy of modern self publishing, authors found that they could get their work published and pushed out to the public with little regard for the customer. What they had to say, they had to say ... and "everyone" should buy it and like it. They published with the product foremost in their minds because they could do it, no matter the cost to them financially, nor the cost to editorial quality.
Production Orientation - The next major evolutionary step loomed in the production and printing advancements in the self publishing industry. Virtually anyone could publish their product and push it through to the public easier than ever. Thus the technology drove much of this era in publishing.
Customer Orientation - Now that over a million books are being published (and countless others are being produced that the general public never even sees), the customer has finally become a critical piece in the mix. For the first time, the customer's editorial, quality and content needs are a factor in what authors are writing. In addition, the way in which the customer consumes the book is also driving how the publisher produces their book. It's finally the way it should be.
Hopefully the current customer orientation will never change. With the customer in the mix as the major element driving publishing, the industry is bound to flourish.
Turning the page to the future of books, the Publisher's University seemed to be all about Amazon. They are seemingly taking over the world. They were everywhere at Pub-U. Yes, Amazon is important, no critical, for any self publisher's toolbox. But it's only one tool - okay maybe 10 tools, but still. Today's DIY publisher needs to be forming a platform, sharpening their focus, and needs to be tightly edited and well formatted and designed.
My presentation at Pub-U was all about how to work with publishing services companies; starting with hiring professionals for editing, cover design, interior layout, and other publishing duties, to evolving our mindset to serve the customer. Much of my presentation covered "orientation" in the growth and evolution of self publishing -- product, production and customer orientations. It's a concept right out of college marketing texts, but fits perfectly with the publishing e-volution.
Product Orientation - In the infancy of modern self publishing, authors found that they could get their work published and pushed out to the public with little regard for the customer. What they had to say, they had to say ... and "everyone" should buy it and like it. They published with the product foremost in their minds because they could do it, no matter the cost to them financially, nor the cost to editorial quality.
Production Orientation - The next major evolutionary step loomed in the production and printing advancements in the self publishing industry. Virtually anyone could publish their product and push it through to the public easier than ever. Thus the technology drove much of this era in publishing.
Customer Orientation - Now that over a million books are being published (and countless others are being produced that the general public never even sees), the customer has finally become a critical piece in the mix. For the first time, the customer's editorial, quality and content needs are a factor in what authors are writing. In addition, the way in which the customer consumes the book is also driving how the publisher produces their book. It's finally the way it should be.
Hopefully the current customer orientation will never change. With the customer in the mix as the major element driving publishing, the industry is bound to flourish.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Book Expo America and NYC -- Here we come!
Keeping it light and easy this year on our way to BEA. First stop Saturday: DIY Conference (if our flight is on time.) Sunday: Brunch with a client, and then off to the first day of IBPA - Publisher's University. Monday: Into Javits by 7am for networking, then presenting with Amazon's CreateSpace guru Jon Fine on how to work with a publishing services company, and then meetings, meetings, meetings. Monday night: Ben Franklin Awards. Tuesday: It's off to the races at BookExpo, starting off the day with a rights agent to explore what our clients have been up to... then off to meet with distributors and printers, catalogers and buyers.... and finally, meet with the CEO of Baker and Taylor about a few things that are on my mind.
We're out there advocating for our clients nationally. Many of our clients are advocating for their platform all around Nebraska and in many places nationally. It's a crazy weekend and a crazier two days to follow, but I'm SO EXCITED!!!
Thanks to my AMAZING staff for pulling everything together, and to my wonderful family for putting up with my passion for the independent author. We have some really cool tricks up our sleeves for finding real business for y'all! We'll be reporting regularly here on this blog... stay tuned for news!
Lisa
We're out there advocating for our clients nationally. Many of our clients are advocating for their platform all around Nebraska and in many places nationally. It's a crazy weekend and a crazier two days to follow, but I'm SO EXCITED!!!
Thanks to my AMAZING staff for pulling everything together, and to my wonderful family for putting up with my passion for the independent author. We have some really cool tricks up our sleeves for finding real business for y'all! We'll be reporting regularly here on this blog... stay tuned for news!
Lisa
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Utilizing Publishing Services Companies
I'm preparing my presentation for a program in New York with Amazon CreateSpace's VP of Marketing. My job is to talk about using the "new tradition" of publishing. In the initial stages of deciding the direction of my presentation, I planned on talking about Amazon and their print-on-demand division, CreateSpace, as the main players to get you where you need to be. I do believe that they are an important and very major player in any new hybrid publishing endeavor, but they aren't the only option. I like them especially because you own ALL the rights to your book (not just the copyright --you want publishing rights too.)
My plan at IBPA is to soak up all I can about all of the upcoming publishing avenues for our clients and other publishing friends. At BookExpo, in addition to it being the biggest book show in the world, we have appointments set up with our foreign rights agent, the press room, a distributor, a couple of ebook companies, five printers, and two catalog buyers. Two days at IBPA, and one rockin' day at BookExpo.
I'll be writing a lot about different publishing options over the next few days, blogging about our trip to New York, and bringing new information from IBPA's Pub-U, and BookExpo.
If you are so inclined, you can still register for both:
Pub-U May 22-23
BookExpo America May 24-26
Stay tuned!
My plan at IBPA is to soak up all I can about all of the upcoming publishing avenues for our clients and other publishing friends. At BookExpo, in addition to it being the biggest book show in the world, we have appointments set up with our foreign rights agent, the press room, a distributor, a couple of ebook companies, five printers, and two catalog buyers. Two days at IBPA, and one rockin' day at BookExpo.
I'll be writing a lot about different publishing options over the next few days, blogging about our trip to New York, and bringing new information from IBPA's Pub-U, and BookExpo.
If you are so inclined, you can still register for both:
Pub-U May 22-23
BookExpo America May 24-26
Stay tuned!
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Tracking Your Time
There are a lot of reasons to keep track of your time. As I get older, I realize how much I got done in the weeks prior. But as a publisher, it helps me analyze where my company is spending time - and whether or not we are spending our time where it matters.
From 2004-2009, I used massive spreadsheets to help keep myself organized and to help my company track billing. At billing time, I wanted to drive my car into a wall most months. By then, I had three employees and each one of them would unknowingly write a different description of what they were working on. One would enter in Business Cards, the next one Biz Cards and another 2 Sided Bus Cards -- but that doesn't sort very easily to tell me they all spent time doing something with a business card for a client. I tried protocols, but there was inevitably a misspelling here or there and I missed a lot that way too. Billing took me 40-60 hours a month!
Then in January of 2009, I instituted three new things: A task list called Checklist by Task Solutions and its counterpart Task Anyone, which sends notices to individuals to whom I assign tasks. We have sort of outgrown it at this point, and I'm searching for another more flexible solution to it -- but it worked well for me when I had only 100 or so tasks to track. I'll continue to use it until I find something equally user friendly and cost effective for our task lists that are more than 2000 tasks long.
The third item I purchased and put in place was Standard Time. It is a time-clock oriented piece of software that has things compartmentalized by the person assigned to the task, the client and the project on which we are working. Each project is broken down into subcategories and then down to tasks within those categories. For example, a string might look like this:
KELLY W. (Client in purple here)
Book 1 (Projects in royal blue here)
Publishing Compliance (Subcategories are in red)
Purchase ISBN (Tasks are in black)
Apply for LCCN
Join IBPA
Category Research
Pricing Research
Design
Front Cover
Back Cover/spine
Interior
Product Feature development
Illustrations
Photography
Index
Diagram album
Marketing/PR
Press Release
Sell Sheet
POP Display
Book Launch Party
Facebook Updates
Distribution and Sales
Baker & Taylor set up and maint.
Amazon updates
Amazon sales
EBook
Programming
Design
Upload
Marketing
Facebook Updates
Coupons
Each time a person works on something, they are able to specify exactly which thing they are working on simply by clicking a clock-like icon and then selecting the task as the project tree expands from that simple click. Expenses are noted in the same way. For example, let's say someone spends $45 on their company Amex card printing sell sheets. They just expand the tree until they see the sell sheet category under Marketing and PR, and then enter the amount and the payee. When reconciling the Amex bill at the end of the month, I know exactly what the charge was for. And for billing I run reports to tell me by client, project and employee what we worked on how many minutes it took. (You can set parameters to always round up to five minutes, or fifteen minutes, etc.) There is also a feature that lets you link to Quickbooks or bill directly from the program.
This type of program is quick, inexpensive, and very effective. I researched several and found this one more than served my needs. (The only thing I wish I knew how to do is write my own reports for it; currently I use the pre-existing ones that come with the program with the various filters that allow me to customize them for me.)
Check this out: Standard Time, and talk to Warren Peacock.
From 2004-2009, I used massive spreadsheets to help keep myself organized and to help my company track billing. At billing time, I wanted to drive my car into a wall most months. By then, I had three employees and each one of them would unknowingly write a different description of what they were working on. One would enter in Business Cards, the next one Biz Cards and another 2 Sided Bus Cards -- but that doesn't sort very easily to tell me they all spent time doing something with a business card for a client. I tried protocols, but there was inevitably a misspelling here or there and I missed a lot that way too. Billing took me 40-60 hours a month!
Then in January of 2009, I instituted three new things: A task list called Checklist by Task Solutions and its counterpart Task Anyone, which sends notices to individuals to whom I assign tasks. We have sort of outgrown it at this point, and I'm searching for another more flexible solution to it -- but it worked well for me when I had only 100 or so tasks to track. I'll continue to use it until I find something equally user friendly and cost effective for our task lists that are more than 2000 tasks long.
The third item I purchased and put in place was Standard Time. It is a time-clock oriented piece of software that has things compartmentalized by the person assigned to the task, the client and the project on which we are working. Each project is broken down into subcategories and then down to tasks within those categories. For example, a string might look like this:
KELLY W. (Client in purple here)
Book 1 (Projects in royal blue here)
Publishing Compliance (Subcategories are in red)
Purchase ISBN (Tasks are in black)
Apply for LCCN
Join IBPA
Category Research
Pricing Research
Design
Front Cover
Back Cover/spine
Interior
Product Feature development
Illustrations
Photography
Index
Diagram album
Marketing/PR
Press Release
Sell Sheet
POP Display
Book Launch Party
Facebook Updates
Distribution and Sales
Baker & Taylor set up and maint.
Amazon updates
Amazon sales
EBook
Programming
Design
Upload
Marketing
Facebook Updates
Coupons
Each time a person works on something, they are able to specify exactly which thing they are working on simply by clicking a clock-like icon and then selecting the task as the project tree expands from that simple click. Expenses are noted in the same way. For example, let's say someone spends $45 on their company Amex card printing sell sheets. They just expand the tree until they see the sell sheet category under Marketing and PR, and then enter the amount and the payee. When reconciling the Amex bill at the end of the month, I know exactly what the charge was for. And for billing I run reports to tell me by client, project and employee what we worked on how many minutes it took. (You can set parameters to always round up to five minutes, or fifteen minutes, etc.) There is also a feature that lets you link to Quickbooks or bill directly from the program.
This type of program is quick, inexpensive, and very effective. I researched several and found this one more than served my needs. (The only thing I wish I knew how to do is write my own reports for it; currently I use the pre-existing ones that come with the program with the various filters that allow me to customize them for me.)
Check this out: Standard Time, and talk to Warren Peacock.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Perceive
The final entry in the WAKE UP Marketing Strategy is all about Perception, but this is really just the beginning of the real work of marketing your book with solid information about your target audience!
P = Perception
Always remember that as an expert in whatever you have written, you are probably very much like your prospective customer. Just like you, your customers immediately perceive the things they see, hear or experience. Perceptions are technically nothing more than what a person recognizes and understands -- but that's all marketing really is.
All along in our analysis of the WAKE UP psychographic marketing strategy, we have been talking about locating your target audience through their beliefs, values, habits and interests. These can not be easily manipulated by a marketer; however, a person's perception of something can be controlled by skillfully crafted and placed messages. Your packaging, your marketing, and any other tie-in to your book should honestly and effectively convey a message that results in the perception you are aiming for.
There's perception, and then there's reality. The reality is what your book will provide to the reader -- from the format, to the words you've chosen, to the distribution strategy that you selected. It's your skills, your story, your life, your expertise, and then even your delivery of all of those things in a form you can share that are the reality. It's the things you have chosen in your publishing program that make your book what it is. But does the reality of your product match the same as your customer's perception of your book? It needs to be totally in sync to maximize your effectiveness.
Consult with your Watch Group again to gauge their perceptions of your marketing messages.
Now the real work begins.....
P = Perception
Always remember that as an expert in whatever you have written, you are probably very much like your prospective customer. Just like you, your customers immediately perceive the things they see, hear or experience. Perceptions are technically nothing more than what a person recognizes and understands -- but that's all marketing really is.
All along in our analysis of the WAKE UP psychographic marketing strategy, we have been talking about locating your target audience through their beliefs, values, habits and interests. These can not be easily manipulated by a marketer; however, a person's perception of something can be controlled by skillfully crafted and placed messages. Your packaging, your marketing, and any other tie-in to your book should honestly and effectively convey a message that results in the perception you are aiming for.
“It is one of the commonest of mistakes to consider that the limit of our power of perception is also the limit of all there is to perceive.” ~ C. W. Leadbeater
Consult with your Watch Group again to gauge their perceptions of your marketing messages.
Now the real work begins.....
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