Let me put this in perspective for you.

THE PROFIT-LOSS EQUATION IN BOOK PUBLISHING

It is a financial matter of profits and losses. The book publishing world is much different than what many of us believe it is or that we believe it should be.

The average publisher will only print 1,000 copies of a book. They do this because the average book will sell an average of 400 or 500 copies.

When a publisher takes on a new title, it is a real gamble. Publishers are gambling that the books they take on will generate sales of 1,000 copies, and on rare occasions, they can hope for a book to sell a full 5,000 copies.

The book that sells 100,000 or one million copies is extremely rare.

With more than 100,000 books being printed every year, fewer than one percent of those books will see sales in the range of 5,000 or more copies. Every publisher has hopes that one of the 1,000 books every year that will sell at least 5,000 copies is one of the books sold through their publishing house. These are the books that will help the publisher to make a real profit this year.

One publisher told me that he lets his editors take care of the full book editing and development process. And, he said that he will not even pay attention to the book, until the book sells 5,000 copies. Only then will he consider reading the book himself and cranking up his marketing department to try to sell the book to a wider audience.

So, here it is in a nutshell. If you are a new book author, and you would like to see your book get some serious attention from your publisher and the public, then you need to step up to the plate and promote your book in such a way, as you can ensure that your book will sell 5,000 copies or more.

These days, most publishers will put up single webpages offering each of their books to the public. As a writer of the book, you should not believe that this page will be a well-written, well-optimized page on the internet.

Don’t fool yourself… The webpage where your book is offered generally will not get great rankings in the search engines for the keywords relevent to the topic of your book. Additionally, the sales copy will not be set up in such a way as to give much confidence to your potential buyers.

Print book publishers don’t do a good job building online promotional materials for a book, until they put their best people on the job. And, the publisher will not put their best people on the job until they believe that they have a winner in their stable.

As a writer, if you want your book to be anything more than a dust-catcher on your own shelf, you need to learn to be a book promoter also.

HOW TO SELL YOUR FIRST 5,000 BOOKS

As a book author, there are three basic steps that you will want to undertake to promote your book online.

1. Set up a domain website,

2. Promote your book with articles,

3. Promote your book with press releases.

In this article, I am going to take a look at how and why you will want to consider each of these steps.

1. SET UP A DOMAIN WEBSITE

Yes, you need a “domain” website. A free page on Geocities.com or Freeservers.com will not instill confidence with your potential customers. Let’s face it, the most important marketing consideration for any product or service to be sold on the internet today is to build the “trust factor”.

A person, who is being asked to take out their wallet, wants to know that they will get what they have paid for. Free sites cannot be traced to anyone in particular, and commercial websites on the free servers are considered in general to be owned by the fly-by-night outfits on the internet.

We have to give our potential customers the confidence they need to buy products and services from us. And, in order to give our potential customers confidence, we must be willing to spend a few of our own dollars to set up a website.

You can actually register a domain for less than $20 in most cases. Hosting for that domain can be picked up from hundreds of web hosting companies for as little as $10-$20 per month.

On your website, you want to tell readers about your book and why your reader might want to buy your book. On your website, be certain to also ask your reader for the sale, and give them a link where they can buy your book.

Including testimonials and book reviews on your website, will also help you to build interest and trust with your readers.

Sometimes, it can pay dividends to hire a web designer to design the visual template for your website, and to hire a sales copywriter to write your sales copy for the book.

One thing to keep in mind is that not all web designers can write good salescopy, and few copywriters make good web designers.

When you can afford to do so, you should seriously consider hiring a professional to do the tasks necessary to build a nice website and to put good salescopy onto your website. Great web designers will also help you by building your e-commerce system, so that your readers can buy directly from your website.

The professionals do not have to be really expensive. Both can usually be found for a couple hundred dollars. Of course, you could pay more, but you can still find some good people at these rates.

2. PROMOTE YOUR BOOK WITH FREE-REPRINT ARTICLES

Free-Reprint Articles are informational pieces designed to educate the reader about something of interest to the reader.

In an article, your goal is to talk about some topic that is related to the topic of your book. You don’t actually want to sell your book inside the body of the article. Instead, you want to use your article to introduce your readers to concepts that might be covered in your book.

When you reach the end of the article, you want to include your About The Author information (often referred to as your Resource Box). Keep your sales material in your Resource Box, but keep in mind that your goal is not to sell your book in your Resource Box. Instead, your goal is to use your Resource Box to get the reader to your website, then use your website to sell your book.

Many people ask if article promotion will work for them. This is what I tell them.

The ability of an article to produce results for you will depend on your article. The internet is still a democracy in that people will make the choice for themselves whether or not they want to use your article.

Some articles get lots of reprints, some do not. The average outcome is about 40-50 backlinks and multiple publications in ezines.

Poor articles still get an average of ten reprints. Exceptional articles generate in excess of thousands of reprints. The results really do rely upon the article.

(One client of mine has one article that generated more than 5,000 reprints in two years time. This same client has written more than 100 articles. He is a well-known article writer and this fact does help his ability to generate more mileage from a single article.)

Just as important as the article itself, is the author resource box. The article is the vehicle to get your resource box seen. A good resource box offers just enough information to inspire the reader to visit your website to learn more about your book. A good resource box also offers a strong call-to-action to get the reader to your website. Let your website do the selling, but use the resource box to get the reader to your website.

Also, you really should consider doing more than one article over a longer period of time. For example, six articles over six months. Each subsequent article puts your name in front of the publishers who will use your articles. Name recognition will help your overall ability for getting published.

3. PROMOTE YOUR BOOK WITH PRESS RELEASES

I always recommend a two-fold approach to any book promotion. 1) reprint articles related to the topic of the book. 2) Press releases distributed through a system such as http://www.prweb.com.

Press releases are different from an article. A good article will have an educational or informational slant to them. A good press release will be designed more as a news story. A good press release has the most noteworthy news in the first paragraph, the second most noteworthy information in the second paragraph, etc.

Additonally, the press release will provide a telephone number for news reporters to contact you for more information concerning your story, so that they can build their own news story from your information.

Although the premise of a press release is so that a reporter can learn enough to build their own news story, you have to remember that their schedule is tight as well. Build your press release in such a way that it can be used as THE news story. Many people will take your press release verbatum for their own use. They might take only the first paragraph, and then they might take the whole thing.

Build your press release with the hope that it will be used in full. Build your press release with the thought that the reporter may only use the first paragraph.

Be prepared to receive phone calls to answer questions about your topic. And, be prepared when no one calls.

I have sent out more than a dozen press releases myself. I have seen those press releases read thousands of times and used hundreds of times. And yet, no one has ever called me for more information.

IN CONCLUSION…

Book promotion should not be viewed as a one-time event. If you take the idea that I will try this once to see if it works, then you might as well save your time and money and not even try at all.

Promotion is an ongoing process. Nothing will happen until you do something. And then you will need to keep doing something to keep open the possibility of something happening to your benefit.

You need to build up a momentum, and then just keep on running.

You are more likely to get published and to sell books if people recognize your name. And, one-time out will not allow anyone to get to know you.

Book authors who can build up a promotional momentum for their book are very likely to find their first 5,000 sales. And as a general rule, once you have crossed that threshold, your publisher will be more than happy to help you to keep that momentum going.

Author’s Note: This article was originally published here.

Editor’s Note: Article previously published here.

…

If you want to learn how to make article marketing effective and profitable for the promotion of your online business, you will be able to locate several article marketing training guides at http://WritingPuzzle.com/ If you are looking for an article syndication service company to help you promote your online articles, explore http://thephantomwriters.com/ which has been providing article marketing services since 2001. Bill Platt is the owner of both of these web properties.

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Technorati Tags: book, publishing, Bill Platt, online

A friend of mine recently experienced a scammer’s attempt to get into his wallet. I warned him of the danger, but he wanted his new girl to be real, so he was willing to remain optimistic through the entire process.

Don’t get me wrong, I do not have a problem with optimistic people, especially since I live an optimistic life, even myself.

Through the entire process, my friend would call and ask what I thought of his interactions for that day. I tried not to be too critical of his potential new love, but I frequently cautioned him to look for red flags in her story.

Here is a short list of the Red Flags you should be aware of when seeking a date online:

Many of these red flag items should not be viewed as absolute signals of a fraudulent flirt. But, when red flags start piling up, you should be fully aware of the very real potential of someone trying to scam you.

If you see any of these red flags, but you wish to remain optimistic, figure out what you think the bait-and-hook will be, and then make sure that you don’t fall for it when it comes to you.

If an online lover requires you to spend money or give them money, then you need to notify the dating website where you met this person, so that the dating website can kick that person off the website.

My friend was seeing red flags left and right, and yet he desired to remain positive. I told him what the bait-and-hook would be, and he continued forward optimistically. Then on a lark, he put a sentence from his lover’s first email into Google and discovered a word-for-word documentation of all of the emails he received from his girl on a website called: http://www.RomanceScam.com

My friend did not have to play the game until the bait-and-hook was offered. Instead, he was able to see well ahead of that play that his girl was sending him a series of form letters that she (or he) uses with many potential marks.

Fortunately, my friend was able to see the light before his phony girl got into his wallet. And hopefully, since you have now read this article and you are now aware of what is going on out there in the online dating world, you will not get taken to the cleaners either.

Author’s Note: This article published here.

…

Lance Metzger writes about relationships, offline and online dating. Our no strings attached dating site has become a popular online adult dating destination, due to its large membership base of people looking for relationships of all kinds. Learn more at: http://www.nsadatingsite.com/

Read more articles written by Lance Metzger

Technorati Tags: online dating scams, online scammers, Lance Metzger, online scams

SIMPLEOLOGY

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Allergy Self-Help Cookbook

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Oftentimes, a frenzied pace takes over our days as we frantically attempt to squeeze chauffeuring two children to three different after-school-activities, grocery shopping, a stop at the ATM machine, picking up the shirts at the cleaners, returning library books, and a mad rush to ship a package before the Post Office closes. Simultaneously, we are fielding phone calls from seven or eight important people and an additional dozen callers of lesser degrees of prestige. Text messages and emails cause our Blackberries to beep nonstop as we juggle the lifestyle of a busy 21st-century parent. Does it have to be this way? Does everything have to be rushed? When do we get a chance to slow down? Despite the vast array of time-saving devices throughout our modern homes (I can count four on the kitchen counter alone), we find our time scarcer than ever before. Check out the free 30 tips on time saving: 30 Free Tips from the Creating Hours Book

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Productivity

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Howard Johnson Inn and Suites

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