So you want to publish a book and do not know where to start?

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So you want to publish a book and don’t know where to start?  The good news is this isn’t a problem but means you are completely normal and just like everyone else. How can you possibly know where to start if you are doing something you have never done before and therefore don’t know what you don’t know about it.

As such I decided to write some quick tips to help you out. The key thing you need to know is you must start with the end in mind. In other words line up why you want to publish a book with how you plan to distribute your book and the rest of the process can flow from there.

Why are you publishing a book

I want to fulfil a dream – you must distribute your book yourself as there is no greater way to get satisfaction from publishing books then to be meeting your target market on a regular basis and seeing the changes you book has made in their lives.

I want to earn a passive income – you must distribute your book online as this is the quickest way to get the highest  financial returns with the least amount of ongoing work involved.

I want to gain credibility – you must distribute your book via bookstores as this method only works if media attention is involved and if the media is talking about you and your book so is everyone else.

Where to start for each process

Self Distribution – this only involves your time and you can set it up for free. Organise to speak for free anywhere you target market will be in return for being allowed to sell copies of your book afterwards. You can design and print your own order form to be completed by customers on the day and if you promote your events via social media there will be no marketing costs involved either.

Online Distribution – this has the highest set up costs but the lowest ongoing costs. Start with what you can afford eg. a template (customed designed to match the branding of your book), a content managed website (so you can edit it yourself) and a shopping cart (to automate the selling process for you). You can grow the functionalities of your store from the profits it brings in.

Bookstore Distribution –  this has no set up costs as such but a low returns on investment so it’s a numbers game. You might only get $1-$2 profit per copy of your book sold but if you move 5,000 do you care? The trick to this choice is to take it slow supplying low volumes of your book to stores so they sell out encouraging them to re-order as re-orders have higher volumes then initial purchases and also have lower return rates.

If you would like more information on the other 6 stages of the publishing process and how to create your customised publishing plan to get your from where you are now to where you want to be click here.

BORDERS IN LIQUIDATION!

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For those of you who aren’t aware Boarder’s US went into liquidation on Friday. This put Borders and Angus & Robertson in Australia also into liquidation (as they recently merged and were owned by the same conglomerate).

QBD is viewed by industry as what is referred to as a ‘discount store’ in the lines of Kmart, Big W and Target which means as far as book distribution goes Dymocks is now the only major bookstore nationwide and gives them the monopoly of the industry which will change everything.

The media says it is end of bookstores as we know them and everyone will move to selling books online. I suspect it will be more like a price war as Dymocks can control the industry as whole forcing independents to do as they do to stay in business.

This means 2 things for anyone currently or about to begin distributing your book.

Firstly for those of you using bookstore distribution I recommend the following:

1. Contact any Borders or Angus and Robertson store who currently stocks your book and offer to do a book signing, author’s talk etc. in order to move stock. They will more than likely like your support and get stock transferred from all other stores for your event.
2. Get media exposure as there is no better time than now for a published author then when what has just happened is so recent, relevant and newsworthy. I mentioned in an earlier email that I was working with Dale Beaumont this year so for anyone wanting to get along to his profile accelerator (goes though how to milk media attention for all it’s worth) respond to this article asap as I need to get final numbers to him by the end of the month in order to get any of my customers their special price for this event.

Secondly those of you believing what the media said and wanting to go online and skip bookstore distribution altogether here is what I recommend:

1. Ask me for more details about our new web solution (we were about to launch but now are express finalising). It was designed as an unstoppable marketing tool to allow people to get the better results than bookstores in relation to sales, profit and credibility by combining both self and online distribution.
2. Pre-order a book we were about to release by one of our author’s Luke Ross whose book is on exactly what is happening in the US at the moment and how it will affect us here in the near to immediate future and how to protect yourself against any negative effects. It seems what he teaches is already taking place so we can’t get the book out fast enough (and yes his book will also be for sale on our new web solution once it launches but I wouldn’t wait till then to order it as a book on what is happening to the book industry at the moment will go out of stock very quickly).

Don’t look at these changes (however drastic) as reason to panic but I encourage all of you to use these changes in industry to your advantage (using the techniques recommended above) to sell even more copies of your book then you ever have before.

To purchase Luke’s book to learn how to protect your book, yourself and your family for any other changes the US will send our way click here.