How to Become a Bestselling Author

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It seems to be the question of everyone’s lips these days and to be perfectly honest with you in Australia this is pretty easy to achieve with our lenient standards of only 10,000 copies required to be sold before maintaining this status for life. New York in comparison requires you sell 10,000 copies a week just to maintain that status.

Of course some people still think that is a lot so get caught up with the rumour of 5,000 copies, created by one self publishing educator trying to bulk sell their package from stage, who stated you can put best seller on the cover once you’ve sold 5,000 copies (false advertising aside) as that will allow you to quickly and easily move the other 5,000 copies.

Other people thought if they purchased 10,000 copies themselves they could have that status so filled their garages with boxes and boxes of unopened books they still can't move. The rule however is sold, which is defined by a purchase from anyone other than the author or publisher, but then people after hearing this definition started selling contributor books to their contributors in bulk trying to bend the rule this way.

Then moving to the digital world an Amazon best seller is based on per category sales and defined as the top 40 in any category at any given time where people are obtaining the status quickly and easily by moving bulk copies of a free book in a matter of hours after it is released and then taking a screen shot to claim that status in all future marketing. Then there are those people who won’t associate with you unless you are a best-selling author and so the snobbery of travelling in those ‘it’s all about me’ circles begins. But I ask you with all the rumours going round and everyone trying to achieve it (and doing so by the various ways of cheating the system) what is bestseller status really worth.

If you ask me people are going after the wrong thing. Do you just want the 15 minutes of fame from being a best-selling author which is here today and gone tomorrow or do you want the ongoing success of being a published author with your credibility not being derived from the volumes of books you sold over a given period of time but from the quality of the content of your book and how that affects peoples’ individual lives on an ongoing basis.

What I mean by that is don’t get caught up in the hype and underestimate the power of the content of your book in attracting your ideal customer to you time and time again. Publishing a book to profile you as the expert in your field turns the 80/20 rule, where 20% of clients take up 80% of your time (and vice verse) upside down and does so as early as the prospecting stage so those time wasting potential clients now spent $25 to discover they are not your ideal client instead of wasting your time requesting quotes they don’t plan to go through with. Better yet your ideal customer spends that same $25 to pre-qualify themselves as your target market, turning marketing from a traditional business expense to a profit generating exercise and getting you a financial return from the life of these clients much higher than 10,000 book sales. Having high calibre clients pay to find you time and time again instead of you wasting your hard earned money paying to find them is something every serious business owner should aspire too.

For more information on how to enter the publishing industry by publishing a book cashflow positive to profile you as the expert in your field click here.

Whose hands are you putting your reputation in?

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That’s right these days everyone wants to publish a book to become known as the expert in their field and as a result publishing service providers are popping up everywhere to meet the demands of the changing market.

As a self publishing educator I heavily recommend every business owner do just that particularly with changes to industry like the digital age meaning things can now be done quicker and cheaper and all run in a cahsflow positive manner meaning you never need put any of your money down. That’s right you can actually publish a book in 2013 with no set up costs and no ongoing costs by using print on demand methods to ensure you are paid before your books are ever printed and pre-sale techniques to fund the setup process.

Then you have the digital book which of course has no ongoing costs which makes the tool of a book when marketing your business a no brainer for any business owner as with the increased credibility of being a published author. With no money down and the ongoing profits turning marketing your business from a traditional business expense to a profit generating exercise any serious business owner would be very foolish not to be getting involved.

But of course therein lies the problem as with so many people wanting to do just that the business of publishing a book has become just that a very profitable business with new providers opening up every day. The problem is people are so focused on keeping up with the Jones they are going with the first provider who approaches them instead of checking them out first.

I am not saying you need to necessarily shop around as no one likes a penny pincher who goes for the quote that was a few dollars less (and then regrets it afterwards when they find out the money they saved was because cuts were made in either the customer service or the quality of the product) but what I am saying is that when you think you have found whoever you want to work with check them out first. What previous books have they published? or more importantly how many? What are their previous success cases? or more importantly have they been open long enough to have any?

As a so called dinosaur of the industry in comparison to those providers that opened up last week, I can tell you that you need to find somebody who you click with, who has the same values as you and will look after your book in the same way as you would whether they being doing every stage of the publishing process for you or educating you on how to run the whole publishing process yourself.

They need to be about your success not about the money as if you think of your book like having a baby – anyone can help you carry the project to term, anyone can help give birth to your project and celebrate at your book launch, but if you place your baby in the hands of someone who is here today and gone tomorrow who is going to help you raise this child to ensure your books ongoing success when publishing is no longer a fad for all but only the successful books are left after standing the test of time?

What is your credibility as a person, author, business owner etc. worth to you and whose hands are you placing it in for both the short and long term?

To learn more about what you need to know before starting any publishing project take a look at the following resources:

Live Training – http://www.thepublishingqueen.com/seminars.html
Video Training – http://www.overnightselfpublishingsuccess.com

What is Penguin House?

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It has been proposed for a while but with the information catching the media’s attention over the last few weeks I suspect the merger is already taking place. That’s right ‘Penguin’ and ‘Random House’ are combining their operations to become the largest publisher worldwide and that will give them the monopoly of the market. The question on most people’s lips just like the Borders bankruptcy last year is - what does this mean for the publishing industry?

I have heard some say ‘it’s too late for the publishing industry seemingly set on self-destruction’ and others say ‘publishers struggle to find profits in the digital age’. From personal experience I can say this is 100% true as being an independent publisher and distributor I have seen in the last 12 months alone 99% of our work move from large offset offshore print runs (done purely to get an extremely low print price per item to battle the low wholesale rate of bookstore distribution so this process can run cashflow positive) to print on demand services meaning books are being released without printing any copies and each copy sold is printed only after it is paid for. While this technique has been around for a while it had previously been price preventative but now you can produce books this way that can cost not even a dollar or two more then your large offset offshore price and with no wait time and no capital outlay people are quite happy to reduce their profit margins by such a little amount.

So it is true that publishers are struggling to make profit with all these changes going on and it may be too late for the traditional publishing industry but not for self publishing. Actually it is the growth of the self publishing industry and power’s desire for self empowerment and to maintain control of their own publishing experience (becoming their own publisher and now most recently their own distributor) that has allowed this change to take place. Why give the rights of your books away if you don’t need to?, Why give the financial returns of your hard work away if you don’t need to? or more importantly why did people need to? The answer was previously they didn’t have the budget to launch a book themselves nor the knowledge on how to do so successfully and that’s what everyone wanted the services of a traditional publisher to do.

I have no doubt as the monopoly ‘Penguin House’ will do a great job of this but my question for you is - do you really need them? With digital books having no production costs and print on demand books having production costs funded by sale price after purchase the upfront costs of producing a book are quickly diminishing and the ongoing costs are already extinct. All you need is the correct education on how to do everything in the easiest, most efficient, most economical and most effective ways before you start and the days of needing a traditional publisher are long gone.

Traditionally the average book costs around $20,000 to produce but if you halve that cost by doing as many parts of the process as you can yourself (thus why it’s called self publishing), half that price again by doing the remaining steps in the easiest, most efficient, most economical and most effective ways as just mentioned and fund the reminder with somebody else’s money by pre-selling your book before it releases self publishing a book truly is as easy as 1, 2,3.

To ensure you have the correct education before you start I recommend the following educational resources:

1. Cashflow Positive Book Publishing Seminars
2. Pre-Sale Accelerator Publishing Retreat
3. Overnight Self Publishing Success Mastermind Coaching Program

Have a look at each and work out which is going to get you the results you want the quickest and run with that.

What to do with a flooded market place!

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Well my advice might sound too simple to be true but all you need to do is stand out from your competition. The real secret is not what to do but how to do it and the answer to that is not straight forward as there are many different ways you can stand out from your competitors whether you are entering a new market for the first time or have been in one for many years.

Actually some of these secrets I have already revealed to you in previous articles but some are brand new. In case you have missed any I will summarise all into 3 short easy to remember points.

1. Learn how – if you don’t learn more about your target market, yourself and your product how can you make sure the three are in tune? The easiest way to stand out from others in what appears to be a flooded market place is to remove all water from the equation so to speak so you stand out like the proactive ‘purple cow’ we have all heard so much about in a paddock full of black and white grazers. You must be the one who has bridged the gap between yourself and your customer by creating a quick and easy way for them to find you instead of charging at them ‘bull like’ with your sales pitch which is sure to fail or worse musing around the paddock waiting for them to find you. Learn who the crowd (both your potential customers and competition) is first to ensure you are equipped to stand out both from them and to them.
   
   
2. Plan first – once you have learnt all of the above how do you plan to financially achieve this? My advice is wherever possible do everything cashflow positive which involves techniques such as funding your marketing with someone else’s money, charging before you fulfill etc.You don't want to fund any of the marketing costs yourself to find your ideal customers anymore than you want to be chasing them for payment after your product/service is delivered. Never spend more money then you need to and never spend it before you make it.
   
   
3. Keep accountable – once you have the above 2 steps in place you are ready to basically be an overnight success in any market place except that you are still missing one vital thing - that is accountability. So many people learn what they need to, find a way to finance it and then never even complete step 1 on their plan, others get part way through but never complete the process and worse still some complete the whole process and then never do it again. Simply put – start, don’t stop and repeat what works time and time again. If for whatever reason you can’t keep yourself accountable (which we all struggle with these days so don't think you are alone on this) seek the services of a good coach – they will be work every penny they cost you based on the money they will help you make you otherwise never would have had.

For more information on how to learn what you need to in order to use a book to bridge this gap click here.

For more information on how to run the process cashflow positive click here.

For more information on the kind of coaching we recommend click here.

Recycle your marketing to promote your book time and time again

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Do you want to know how to widen the audience of your media attention? Well the secret is to recycle your marketing to promote your book time and time again. What I mean by that is capitalising on an event by marketing before, during and afterwards - all at not cost to you!

Media attention is one of the easiest kinds of events to do this with. You promote the event beforehand on social media which profiles both you as the expert and the station/publication doing the interview which results in 2 things; firstly more people listening in or reading the article and secondly favour with the host or journalist so they are more likely to invite you back or do a repeat story.

Then of course you do the actual interview giving the people whatever they ask for eg. be available based on their schedule (not yours) happy to start late, run overtime etc. anything they require to make their life easier. Don't openly promote yourself (unless they ask you too which then yes you always put in a plug for you and your business) but focus on providing invaluable information; firstly because you will get a longer segment but secondly because then you have something worth recycling.

Once you have that invaluable product it about syndicating it, that is getting it out to as many people, as fast as possible for as long as possible, those who are your target market that is and the best ways to do that is as follows. Step 1 - Get a copy of the coverage and upload it to your website, Step 2 - write a blog post that ties into that so you can direct people to it, Step 3 - send a newsletter out to notify people about the blog post and Step 4 - promote the blog post on social media.

None of these techniques will cost you anything other than your time but the results from this will be invaluable to you and whatever you are promoting (your book, your business etc.) as you have now got 3 lots of exposure for the one piece of content in 4 different mediums some which are short lived but others will allow that marketing to last forever.

Let's look at a quick example of this based on the radio interview I attended yesterday. Scroll down if you would like to listen to any of the 4 segments that the interview ran for, a brief synopsis of each is underneath.

Radio Northern Beaches Segment 1 – 9:09 mins

• The power of the ‘expert in your field’ credibility book – attracts your ideal client to you time and time again while transforming the lives of those who otherwise wouldn’t have heard of you time and time again
• The importance of ‘pre-selling’ your book – selling your book before it exists online via your webstore and getting media attention at the same time
• Current ebook prices + formats – what different prices work for each of the different distribution methods and what different formats work for each of the different reading devices

CLICK TO LISTEN

Radio Northern Beaches Segment 2 – 8:20 mins

• Children’s ebooks – what’s the best process to take for this target market and how to profile your book
• Steps to successfully publish your book – the similarities and differences between the printed and ebook and which stores to use to sell each to keep up to date with the latest technologies
• The importance of marketing – the kind of returns you can expect if you correctly market your book opposed to just distributing it and how your book can be a business in itself

CLICK TO LISTEN

Radio Northern Beaches Segment 3 – 7:35 mins

• What is a publishing retreat – picking The Publishing Queen’s brain about the nitty, gritty of your book and learning how to pre-sell with live results
• Project management for the writing process – how to write a book in less than 7 days and the secrets about how to express getting your book out of you opposed to the myth of creating a polished product overnight
• How to ‘pre-sell’ your book – the 3 ways and what to do with each

CLICK TO LISTEN

Radio Northern Beaches Segment 4 – 7:07 mins

• Why are people currently buying more nonfiction then fiction? – a cheap way to overcome whatever you are currently struggling with paying for a coaching session verses you profiled as the expert they should go to for the coaching when/if they choose to
• How to craft the title of your book – what makes someone pick your book up and how to capture their attention in a few short seconds
• The current highest selling areas

CLICK TO LISTEN

For more information about the Cashflow Positive Book Publishing seminars mentioned throughout click here

For more information on the Pre-sale Accelerator Publishing Retreat mentioned throughout click here

Seasonal Deadlines and Sales Opportunities

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We all hate deadlines and we all love sales opportunities yet at the same time sometimes deadlines are good as they put us under pressure to achieve results and sales opportunities are bad as we can miss out on them by not being adequately prepared.

The ideal combination is therefore having a deadline for every sales opportunity so you are always prepared as I find the amount of pressure you put you put yourself under is proportionate to the results you don’t achieve eg. a little pressure gives big results but a lot of pressure gives little results. Which deadlines however tie in perfectly with sales opportunities? – the answer is seasonal ones as they do this for you naturally without you needing to link the two together. Whether it’s tying your romance novel release in with valentine’s day or your 10 top parenting tips with mothers or father’s day there is no season more valuable to an author regardless your genre of book than Christmas.

The biggest misconception however when it comes to Christmas is that Christmas sales are made in December – this couldn’t be any further form the truth. In reality the last minute rushed sales are made in Dec but the real Christmas purchases are made in November with the early bird shoppers trying to avoid the Christmas rush making their purchases as early as October. If you want your books to be in stores for these months then you really need to be thinking 3 months ahead eg. July for October release, August for November and September for December for a few reasons.

Firstly stores decided which books they will stock from your distributors catalogues 3 months ahead, secondly when stores order more books then you have in stock (as we encourage printing small quantities regularly when running your publishing process cashflow positive to keep your initial investment as low as possible) it gives you time to reprint and thirdly in the case that this is the first time that you have printed your book it allows you to pre-sell your book (in a channel where this traditional was not possible so that you have an idea of how many to print before the print run) but also to give you plenty of time so you don’t need to rush that print run (ie. adequate proofing, shipping and leaving room for error time) as nothing goes wrong when you leave time for it too and everything always seems to go wrong when you rush or express things.

In other words when the 1st of July comes around and people start planning their Christmas in July celebrations that is when you should start planning for your Christmas sales as well. So given the date at the time you are reading this article what do you need to do today to ensure your Christmas deadlines for this year are met? Think about your self distribution, online distribution and bookstore distribution. Think about your pre-sell and think about your printing. Think about the specifics of your book and what format your target market would like to buy or receive their Christmas presents in and then begin putting those thoughts into practical steps of action.

If you have any questions based on the specifics of your book email them through to me and I would be happy to answer them for you.

The Power of The Third Book

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Everyone wants to publish a book these days and there are two ways to publish a book; traditional publishing vs. self publishing. Being I teach and offer services in self publishing I am obviously a little bias as to which to choose however people still come to me for both.

I have people approaching me very against traditional publishing saying they want to control their own process and make sure the product is exactly as they want it to be and need their hand held the whole way through the process like a traditional publisher never would and then by the end of the process they decide self publishing is too much work so they will traditionally publish their next book.

Then I have the exact opposite approach and people come to me saying they are disgusted with how little marketing their traditional publisher did on their first book and complaining about how much work they had to do themselves and how they would have been better off self publishing and keeping the rewards from the process.

I find it very interesting that it doesn’t matter how you publish your first book the number of people that switch to the other method to publish their second because they are not satisfied with something. The question is what are they not satisfied with?, are they upset with the process, the outcome or the fact that they didn’t get what they expected in either simply because they didn’t know what to expect.

I love the power of the third book as after trying both methods they always come back to self publishing. Whether they tried it first and then didn’t like the outcome so went traditional only to decide they preferred the outcome of self better or whether they started with traditional changed to self and enjoyed the difference so much that decided to stick with it is irrelevant people always come back.

I don’t have a problem with traditional publishing, it’s just not for me. If you can handle rejection after rejection until you are one of the small 5% accepted and you don’t mind someone taking your book and turning it into what they want instead of what you did and organizing everything for you so you are told when you need to go where and talk to whom to get the media coverage round the release then go for it. It is of course cheaper as they might take control of your book and your life but in return they do take care of the costs for you as well. If however you would prefer to be in charge or your own process, have you book looking how you want it to look and being promoted and selling where you want it to sell then maybe self publishing is the way for you. Remember however to save 2 books down the drain when the marketing doesn’t go the way you want it to try to make the right decision the first time around.

How do you know what that correct decision is for you? How do you know what to commit to? Well ask yourself this… either way you are going to need to be involved in the marketing of your title (as with either method if you don’t get regular media attention your books don’t move in stores – and the media want to interview you not your publisher), do you want someone else to do everything for you and tell you what to do and when in return for a small royalty per sale or do you want to do things yourself so you can choose what you do and when and get a higher return per sale therefore not needing to sell as large volumes to get the same financial results. Self publishing is called ‘self’ publishing for a reason so if you don’t have time to involve your ‘self’ then don’t go down that path however likewise don’t get tricked into thinking traditional publishing will fix this problem as your time will still be involved in marketing as everyone wants to speak to the author not the publisher. At the end of the day if you don’t have time to commit your ‘self’ to your publishing in some way or another you need to seriously question yourself as to why you are publishing a book in the first place.

For more information on what is involved in marketing your book to help you make this decision check out our Cashflow Positive Book Publishing seminars and webinars.

Cashflow Positive Book Publishing

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People keep asking me what exactly is ‘Cashflow Positive Book Publishing’ so I thought I would release an article that explained it in more detail.

Firstly it works best if you are a business owner and you are publishing a book as to get credibility as the expert in your field but wish to use it as a marketing tool on an ongoing basis so you can get paid to market (instead of paying to market) your business at the same time. The strategies will work for any book but at the end of the day a cashflow positive publishing, distribution and marketing process based solely on the sales of a $20 book is never going to be as valuable to you as the ideal $20,000 client it can regularly send your way.

Basically it works like this. Firstly if you publish a book on the same subject matter as your area of expertise (ie. what you do for a living) then all publishing and distribution costs become an instant tax deduction – in other words all sales become pure profit! That may be nice but depending on both the costs of your publishing project (which will vary from book to book based on size of book, printing specs, distribution channels used etc.) and your current available capital there may be a shortfall between the two. This is where Cashflow Positive Book Publishing first comes into play as it shows you how to bridge the gap between the two by financing the production and distribution costs out of someone else’s pocket – that’s right you claim the cost on your tax but someone else pays for it; almost sounds too good to be true! The secret is pre-selling your book (ie. that is selling your book before it is printed, designed or sometimes even written) and to do this you must start with the end in mind and market before you start.

How can you ensure the success of your book before you put pen to paper? Simple market first! If there is not a demand for your book don’t release it as otherwise you will have wasted a lot of time and money only to be left with a garage full of boxes upon boxes of unopened books and wondering what you did wrong. If this is sounding like you don’t stress as one of the best things about Cashflow Positive Book Publishing is you can start doing it at any time and make up for the mistakes of your past ( which only occurred in the first place simply because you didn’t know what you didn’t know before you started) however saying this it is always best to begin cashflow positive marketing before you have even put pen to paper so you don’t get any of the unneeded heartache from any time or money accidently wasted.

There are seven stages in the publishing process and distribution is traditionally the 7th but if you want to publish your book Cashflow Positive start with the end in mind and always do it first. Whether you want to distribute your book yourself, online, in bookstores or a combination of all 3 you can begin preselling your book today and that isn’t even the best part. Throughout the whole publishing and distribution process your book sales won’t only fund the cost of your publishing process for you but they will be turning the 80/20 business rule upside down in the process. You will have heard the expression ‘20% of your clients take up 80% of your time’ (and vice versa) but publishing a book fixes this issue for you too. You can’t control who buys your book but what you can control is how every sale works for you. Those time wasting prospects/clients no longer take up your time with their silly questions as their first point of contact is not to speak to you on the phone or in person (as the credibility that comes from having published a book shows them your hourly rate is too expensive for this) but instead of taking up your valuable time with no intention of buying (or worse purchase your cheapest product/service and then harass you for the next 6 months about how to use it) they pay $20 to purchase your book and read how to do it themselves so you no longer need to be bothered by them.

Better yet (and this is the really juicy part of Cashflow Positive Book Publishing) your ideal client pays the same $20, reads the same book and qualifies themselves as wanting to work with you so then approaches you to begin the process as they have already built a relationship with you through your book and have confirmed you are the only person they want to work with and you haven’t even met them yet. That’s right your ideal client approaching you time and time again excited and ready to begin work with you and you did nothing on an ongoing basis to achieve this. You are now truly getting paid to market (and not paying to market) and that is the icing on the cake of Cashflow Positive Book Publishing. With your ideal client being attracted to you on a regular basis you will never again need to spend money marketing your business but will continue to get paid a $20 spotters fee (instead of from you to someone, from your ideal client to you) time and time again. This is Cashflow Positive Book Publishing at its best but seriously it is just pocket money compared to the dollars these high quality, prequalified prospective clients will bring to your business over the complete period of time you service them for.

To find out more about which no cost marketing techniques need to be applied to begin this process for you, your book and your business today click here for more details on my next Cashflow Positive Book Publishing seminar/webinar.