Suzy B Software 2/Suzy B Software CD-ROM 2 (1994).iso/extras/textfile/sellbook/sellbook.txt

Text File | 1995-04-27 | 20KB | 410 lines

HOW I NET AT LEAST $1,000,000 FROM EACH OF MY "HOW-TO" BOOKS;
WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO SO YOU WILL, TOO!

By Dr. Jeffrey Lant

As I write, I'm looking at a book called Chicken Soup for the
Soul. Written ("and compiled") by author Jack Canfield and Mark
Victor Hansen it's one of the 50-60,000 (that's thousand) "how-
to" books published this year. And there are lots more booklets
that bring the total of longer-than-article-length "how-to"
publications to a staggering sum.

In other reports -- and in my book HOW TO MAKE A WHOLE LOT MORE
THAN $1,000,000 WRITING, COMMISSIONING, PUBLISHING AND SELLING
"HOW-TO" INFORMATION -- I've discussed why so many of these
publications fail from the readers' point of view, why, that is,
they just don't work as "how-to" productions. Today, however, I
want share the reasons why they don't work from the authors'
standpoint, why the vast majority of their authors fail to become
rich from what they know and publish... which is, let's be
candid, probably the principal reason why most writers produce
"how-to" materials in the first place. Towards this end I'm
dedicating this report to authors Canfield & Hansen who daringly
confessed to me that they expected to sell 1.5 million copies of
their $12 book. Between you and me, I'm willing to bet a dollar
they don't sell even 1% of their exalted goal... thus failing to
meet their bloated income objectives.

#1 Select A Growing Market

The first key to getting rich producing "how-to" materials is to
make sure you're catering to a large and growing market. When I
cast my eye over my shelved packed with "how-to" creations, I'm
staggered by just how narrow many of these books are. Just how
rich can you get, anyway, producing product for people who want
to start laundromats anyway? (I kid you not; I'm looking at a
booklet on this subject as I write.)

If you want to get rich, harness demographics to your chariot.
If the number of people you're aiming at is relatively small and,
worse, shrinking, you're going after the wrong market.

Problem is, how do you get the information you need about
current and future market size? This isn't so difficult. Lots of
people in lots of professional associations and government
agencies are interested in just where sectors of the nation are
heading. Your job is to link up with the people who are doing the
bean counting and stay abreast of their work. If you've never
done research before, check out Finding Facts Fast by Alden Todd.
Or go to your local library and discuss what you need with your
reference librarian. I've never understood how anyone could
succeed in publishing "how-to" books without having a good friend
at the reference desk.

Note: making sure your market is large and growing is only part
of the part. You've also got to ensure that you can get easy
access to them. Thus, if a market is growing but you cannot
access it easily, it's no market for you. Let's go back to the
poorly named Chicken Soup for the Soul, subtitled "1 Stories to
Open The Heart And Rekindle The Spirit. Can you tell from the
title, or subtitle, who the audience is for this book? Can you
deduce whether this audience is large and growing? Equally, can
you deduce just how to get easy, continuing access to this market
so that they'll hear about your book more than once and therefore
have a higher likelihood of buying it? On all counts, the answers
are NEGATIVE!

If you want to net a million bucks on each of your "how-to"
publications, you need clear demographic information and equal
clarity about your ability to access this market in an organized,
continuing way.

#2 Resolve To Work With This Market For Life

The problem with most "how-to" authors is that they are fickle.
They select a subject. Publish something. Wait for the big
results that never happen. Then jump to something else... that
produces the same disappointing results. I've seen a lot of this
in the over 13 years I've been milking this business. Now let me
tell you something about me: all my "how-to" books are still in
print and each year I continue to draw predictable sums from the
same kinds of people I was selling to... THE FIRST DAY I BEGAN IN
THE PUBLISHING BUSINESS! In other words, I selected my fields
wisely, crafted my products carefully, targeted my markets
surely... and have never looked back!

People who really make money in "how-to" publishing (and there
are lots of us) publish perennials. We are not looking for the
big score (although, God knows, we wouldn't turn the bucks away);
we're looking for a predictable return on investment. The
equation goes something like this: we take our intellectual
capital and assemble an information product. We take this
product, and other resources, and invest in accessing targeted
markets. From these markets we expect to get a reasonable,
predictable, and, as our marketing expands, growing return.
Voila!

We are not interested in producing a one season "smash." We are
willing to work with our defined markets year in, year out. In
short, we have made a lifetime commitment.

#3 Produce A Work Of Disproportionate Value

At all times, but especially in an age of economic problems like
ours, people want VALUE. People continue to have all the wants
they usually have... but they either have less money to cater to
them... or they are much more careful about doing so. That's
where you come in.

The "how-to" product you produce must be a work of value. It
must, that is, deliver precisely what your client-centered title
says it will. It must be packed with immediately usable
information; it must provide names, addresses and phone numbers
of helpful sources. It must save the reader/client time, money,
aggravation, frustration. It must, in short, DELIVER.

By this standard, a large percentage of "how-to" publications
are a joke. Instead of telling you how to do the thing in
question, they tell you what you should do... and leave you
scratching your head for the crucial details. This isn't what the
genre should be all about... but it is what the genre is about,
in far too many cases.

Let me be blunt with you: you are going to make yourself wealthy
and famous in "how-to" information to the extent you anticipate
just what your reader/client wants... and go out of your way to
deliver it... AND MORE! I've tried like the dickens over the past
many years to hammer this message home to "how-to" writers.
Nonetheless, I continue to get such publications every day where
the author has failed to understand what the reader wants and
needs... and has certainly failed to provide it.

Publications without intense reader value not only ensure reader
anger and disappointment but failure in all ways for their
authors. YOU MUST BE DIFFERENT!

Read over the information you've provided. Does it provide
details the reader doesn't know? Are you acting as a disembodied
information authority merely providing general guidelines... or
as a consultant guiding the reader step-by-step through the
process of achieving what he wants? One way ensures your
failure... the other your paramount success.

#4 Price It Accordingly

People pay for value. That's why there are luxury cars, luxury
houses, luxury trips, luxury foods, luxury health care... and
luxury everything else. Not surprisingly these luxury items have
a higher price tag than items of less perceived value. It should
be the same with your information products.

Take Chicken Soup... It sells for $12. Now look at the prices of
my books. They start at $24.95 and go up to $50... for paperback
books! Most are priced at $39.95. What's going on here? Just
this...

My operating philosophy is simple: Always provide reader/client
value. Always charge a fair price for it.

Yet take a look at the prices of most "how-to" books. They are
priced below $20. Their publishers, I imagine, have priced them
thus thinking they would make up in volume what they lose on any
individual sale. This is fine if you expect a large bookstore
sale where such thinking makes sense. However, the vast majority
of "how-to" books never make it into bookstores... and almost no
"how-to" booklets.

Pricing your product this low ensures that you cannot use direct
mail for the sale.. unless you have an item that you are sure you
can sell to catalog houses. In short, you've severely limited
your options.

Personally, I prefer to pack a product with real value and raise
the price as high as possible, building in sufficient margin so
that I can use all available means of marketing to approach my
prospects, not just once but several times.

#5 Start Selling As Soon As You've Got A Publication Date

However you slice it, publishers is a rich person's game. If
you're an author in association with a publisher, you need
resources to keep alive while you're completing the great work;
if you're a publisher, you're going to have to dish out a bundle
for your printer before you see much revenue. From the vantage
point of the person using publishing to get rich, this situation
is intolerable. That's why you need to start selling your product
as soon as possible; from as soon as you've settled your
publication date, or not less than 90 days preceding publication.
The objective, of course, is plain: to get as much cash into the
deal as early as possible. This is only possible, however, if you
are absolutely certain your product will be ready at the
announced time.

If you've the kind of person who venerates deadlines and meets
them religiously, then you should start selling your product as
soon as you know when you'll have it in hand. To spur sales,
offer your prospects a discount if they'll buy now... and be
patient for a little while. Keep the focus of your marketing
communications on reader benefits... and make sure they know the
special price you're offering is one of them.

#6 Mine The Work For Other Products, Including Booklets, Special
Reports, Audio And Video Cassettes

One crucial mistake too many "how-to" authors and publishers
make is that they gamble all on one product... one book, one
booklet, one audio cassette. This is ridiculous! As every wise
entrepreneur knows, it's better to spread the risk around several
products... especially several products you can market
simultaneously to the same designated group(s) of prospects.
Thus, take my fund raising book DEVELOPMENT TODAY: A FUND RAISING
GUIDE FOR NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS. It's made up of individual
chapters on raising money from foundations, direct mail, special
events, the government, etc. Each of these subjects is of
interest to some portion of my target market. Thus, it makes
sense to spin off complementary products from the body and
substance of the main product... AND SELL THEM EITHER BEFORE THAT
PRODUCT IS AVAILABLE OR SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH IT.

Your object must always be to absorb as much revenue as you can
from your targeted markets. Your one product can gather so much;
complementary products will gather more... or may at least gather
something from a prospect who would not otherwise buy. Moreover,
by marketing these products -- all directed, mind, to the same
market -- at the same time, you are reducing the cost of
marketing any one. This is just good sense.

#7 START WORK ON YOUR NEXT "HOW-TO" PRODUCT ASAP

Time after time I've been visited by authors of "how-to"
products who are pleased as punch at the work they've just
finished. They sit in my living room and preen themselves on
their success. I'm indulgent, because I know that in 9 cases out
of  they'll fail to give the correct answer to my insistent
question, "So, what are you working on now?" All too often I get
just a blank look in response as if they thought they had now
finished. No way!

People who make million dollar fortunes from "how-to"
information keep pushing. There are very good reasons for this:

## the first product you write is hardly likely to be your best.
Practice does make perfect;
## the second product you create enables you to market not just
that product... but the preceding one... as well as all the
products drawn from the preceding one and the second one, too
## people buy from you when they trust you... and they are more
likely to trust you when they've seen more about you. This is
only likely to happen over time.

For these reasons, run, don't walk to your computer keyboard
after you've given yourself, say, a week's relaxation between
products. Indeed, if you're smart, you'll use some of your
intellectual down-time during the production of the first product
to play with ideas and sketch out outlines for your second,
third... or thirteen product. Remember, you've made a lifetime
commitment to your field... and its prospects.

#8 Start A Dealer Program

With the best will in the world, you can't sell all your
products personally. Not even marketing wizards like me can do
it, so don't even try. You'll make more money if you enlist the
marketing and sales services of lots of other people, and one way
of doing this is to create your own dealer network.

Keep in mind there are lots more sales people in the world --
including those who want to make money selling information
products ... than those who are apt at producing them. You can
benefit from this fact, but you have to succeed in two things:
creating a meaningful dealer program and locating dealers to sell
your products

  -- Creating a meaningful dealer program

A meaningful dealer program consists of providing your dealers
with substantial discounts, client-centered marketing
communications, and marketing tips. Discounts must begin at 50%
and may go as high as 80% depending on the number of your
products the dealer is buying. Client-centered marketing
communications consist of space and classified ads, cover
letters, catalog sheets, etc. Marketing tips will include where
and how to advertise your product, how to handle telephone sales,
how to sell your products in catalogs, and in such specialized
situations as workshops and trade shows. In other words, you'll
think through just what your dealers will need... and you'll give
it to them!

  -- Locating dealers to sell your products

Locating dealers is not so difficult.

## Check out the ads in opportunity seeker publications.
## Advertise for them in such publications.
## Use card decks (like my own Sales & Marketing SuccessDek) to
generate dealer inquiries.
## Make sure to include a line on all your sales materials like
"dealer inquiries welcome."
## Get yourself listed in "Wholesale Book Sources & Moneymaking
Book Selling Ideas" and dealers will find out! $15 postpaid from
Selective Books, Box 1140, Clearwater, FL 34617.

In short, hustle. Dealers can make you rich if you keep
soliciting for them... and think through just what they need...
and provide it!

#9 Build A Catalog

My quarterly Sure-Fire Business Success Catalog is now forty
pages and contains hundreds of items. But it wasn't always so
hefty. I started with a single back-to-back 8 1/2" x 11" page
without about  items. Over the years I've continually invested in
my catalog... not just producing it, but building it, like a
house with new rooms. You do the same.

Once you've made a commitment to 1) a given market or related
group of markets and 2) the production of "how-to" products for
your prospects, it's time to start producing a catalog, building
a house list and producing regular income from your customers.

In the beginning, your catalog may have only one of your own
products. Your goal, however, should be to displace other "how-
to" products as you produce your own similar items. Despite the
money you must invest in producing your own products, it makes
more economic sense to do so instead of selling other peoples'
products.

Don't be afraid to start small as I did. What matters is that
you make a start... and have an objective. If it takes you ten
years to realize it, fine. Just keep at it. Remember, you are not
playing a seasonal game; you are playing for life and for the
substantial rewards of deriving regular income from your own
customers.

Note: Don't be afraid to sell services in your catalog. I make
substantial sums by selling my copywriting, speaking and other
consulting services through my catalogs. These produce tens of
thousands of extra dollars for me yearly. Frankly, I've never
understood why most people think catalogs are exclusively for the
same of products by mail. I'd rather sell a $1,000 consulting
contract via my catalog than a $44.95 book. Well, actually, I'd
like to sell them both... to the same person. So should you!

# Invest

A major study completed in the summer of 1993, estimated that 76
million US households, or nearly 8 out of , will have less than
half the money they need to retire in comfort. Eight out of ten!
These numbers have stayed consistent now in many studies over
many years, and they alarm me profoundly. I long ago resolved
that I wouldn't be in this hapless mass of down-at-heel aged.
That's why I invest a considerable portion of all the money I
make, taking revenues and turning them, via the options available
to the self-employed, into future comfort and security.

When you start producing "how-to" information products, it's
time to get savvy about investment. You need to take a good hard
look at your lifestyle... and figure out how to turn the revenue
you're going to get from your products into both present and
future comfort. Note, present and future. This means...

## staying constantly abreast of the federal pension options
available to you;
## contributing the maximum amount you can, as early in the tax
year as possible;
## not allowing yourself to postpone, procrastinate or provide
spurious excuses why now isn't the moment to contribute;
## reviewing investment options with your "risk tolerance" in
mind;
## understanding that no "how-to" product can ever be considered
successful that hasn't funded part of your pension and retirement
income.

Last Words

Over the course of the years, I've known lots of "how-to"
authors. Many, like Canfield and Hansen, are ingenues who make
themselves foolish by boasting about all the money they'll make
without having a clue how that'll happen; (remember, they told me
their thin little book would gross at least $18,000,000... but
I've never seen a single article or ad about it, ever!)

I prefer another course, a more certain course. Many years ago
Dan Poynter, that wise fellow, told me he produces books like
Kellogg's produces corn flakes... selling regularly to a constant
market. I never forgot the remark or its significance. Years
later, I see people like Poynter... and many others... living by
this rigorous regimen, selling predictable amounts of information
products, reaping predictable income... just like Kellogg's. Just
like, I might say, Lant, too. Unlike big talkers like Canfield &
Hansen, who should be taking chicken soup themselves for the
illness which assails them.

****************************************************************
************

Want to make money from information products? Get a copy of Dr.
Jeffrey Lant's HOW TO MAKE A WHOLE LOT MORE THAN $1,000,000
WRITING, COMMISSIONING, PUBLISHING AND SELLING "HOW-TO"
INFORMATION (552 pages, $44.95 postpaid). Use his book THE
UNABASHED SELF-PROMOTER'S GUIDE to get free media attention for
your product/service (365 pages, $39.50) and MONEY TALKS: THE
COMPLETE GUIDE TO CREATING A PROFITABLE WORKSHOP OR SEMINAR IN
ANY FIELD (308 pages, $35 postpaid) to make extra money through
talk programs. Get all three and a FREE year's subscription to
his quarterly Sure-Fire Business Success Catalog by calling (617)
547-6372 with MC/VISA/AMEX or writing 50 Follen St., Suite 507,
Cambridge, MA 02138.