£50,000 to get a book on recommended list – Sunday Times – Times Online: “BRITAIN’S biggest bookseller is demanding payments of £50,000 a week from publishers to get books on its supposedly impartial list of “recommended” reads in the run-up to Christmas this year.
The WH Smith scheme is the most expensive in a range of confidential deals being operated by retailers to promote lists that consumers believe are based on independent assessments of a book’s quality.”
A spokeswoman for WH Smith confirmed last week that publishers paid for endorsements. “The publishers present their books to us and we present our packages,” she said. “The purpose is to drive sales for customers. We negotiate who takes the places in the adult gold scheme which is over- subscribed. This is standard across the book industry.”
Speaking at BEA this week
“What I see is an industry that has embraced and gone through much change, consolidation for sure. An industry that is controlled still in great measure by physical processes and analog content. An industry where there is a lot of understandable angst about traditional business models, and lot of effort being expended to protect those traditional business models.”
Fiorina warned that resistance is futile. “Everything I know about business and technology after 25 years tells me that businesses that resist technology inevitably fail.”
My cross promotion partners and I have made another BEST SELLER.
Here’s one of the emails I used to tell them how to help.
——————————————————-
I promised to tell you how to use out book
promotions to the best benefit to your own
SELF PROMOTION publicity.
We will be talking about the current
promotion, so make sure you’ve been to
http://BookForMoms.com at all the pages.. sign up and buy a
copy of the book. It will help whether you
are a working Mom or just self-promoting.
Now for the 7 things to do:
1. Sign up for
http://ZeroCostPromotions.com
cost is in the name ZERO.
This is the single best way to build a list of
targeted subscribers.
You can advertise and cross promote with
other programs.. but wait until you have
an offer that is getting good response
here.
2. Build your credibility with the other
PARTNERS by participating fully. It’s very
embarrassing to talk to an author when you
haven’t bought a copy of their book.
Even the BIG NAMES are impressed when you
introduce yourself and mention that you
have bought/read their books.
And I love to hear about the books you’ve
bought when we meet
3. Add a review or “Listmania” list on
Amazon. There’s no need to put a review on
every book.. but if it’s in your genre,
it’s good to have your name there.
Make sure you have reviewed the top books
on your subject, and all of your PARTNERS
books. Never say anything bad, and NEVER
say “I haven’t read this book..”
Do put your name and a few words about who
you are in the reviews. And make sure your
Amazon PROFILE is up to date.
You will not see a lot of traffic from
this but the people who are interested
(your BEST prospects) will look at
these… and recognize your name.
I try to do one each time I visit Amazon.
4. Put an entry in your blog.
You do have a blog, don’t you? If not, go
to BLOGGER.com and get one. Takes about 15
minutes.. and it is ZERO COST
A simple entry with “here’s my review” or
“I just told my list about” can be added
in a couple of minutes.
Blogs are checked often by the search
engines if you include links to new pages
on your web site, you’ll get indexed
quicker.
5. Issue a Press Release.
I did today.
http://www.dailywarren.com/a/go.php?c=momspr
just a few hours, 17,267 accesses, and
I was #1 at Google News for “book
marketing” searches. Just announce what
you’re doing, and add keyword rich
information about you and your web site.
I’m still getting search rank on releases
on some after months.
6. Seek out new partners
I get asked several times a day if I’ll
promote some parters products. But I’ll
bet YOU DON’T
Think about it.. there are 3091 PARTNERS
on my mailing lists. Every category of
mailing list imaginable. Most are not
overwhelmed with projects.
Start small, contact 1-2 to do a cross
promotion. It can be as simple as each of
you sending an email to your lists with a
suggestion that they look at the other
one.
Practice THE LAW OF RECIPROCITY. Do the
partner a favor… not just “can I get a
commission?”.. soon you will have a list
of your own partners, and expert
credibility when speaking to large
partners.
A sale is nice.. a relationship is better.
7. Spread the love
Did you know that MOST books are sold as
gifts. A gift is a universally accepted
item of value.
If you are giving away your own book,
great. but someone else’s book has a HIGH
PERCEIVED VALUE.
No matter what the title, there is a
friend, relative, client or business
associate that will enjoy getting it.
(even if they never read it.. books are
funny that way)
I’d love to see you buy 10, 50, 100 copies
of each book I promote. Of course, I know
you can’t always use these as gifts.
However, you can give the gift of the
promo to others. The same FEELING is
invoked by recommending a good book.
Not every book will change a life. But
MANY stories are told of a single book
that was a turning point.
And when you share books, you will be well
received when it comes time to sell your
own book.
I’ve used ALL OF THE ABOVE in promotions
and publicity for myself an clients. Each
works, and each is SCALABLE.. you can do
more or less based on your time and
finances.
Get started now.. go to this site now:
http://BookForMoms.com
Warren Whitlock
Marketing Results Coach
#1 Bestselling Author and book marketing expert
warren@marketingresultscoach.com
PS. When you have a book coming out, let
me know. I will be happy to provide a
bonus gift for your promotion, and “spread
the love” to others.
PPS. I’ll be anxious to hear about your
successes using BRIEFCASE MOMS as your
springboard to more publicity.
You’ll like the book and what it teaches.
and that’s just the beginning!
WSJ.com – Latest Books, Boiled Down: “The surge of new titles motivates readers strapped for time to look for summaries, says Michael Norris, Simba’s senior analyst. ‘The sound-bite culture — folks who don’t want or have time to read a whole book — has helped the industry to quietly flourish,’ he says.
Often, reader services offer a link if a reader wants to purchase the book. John Fayad, who heads Business Book Review LLC, an Atlanta-based service that summarizes business books for $145 a year (discounted for groups), says that his service’s research shows that up to 50% or more subscribers buy a book after reading a summary. Business-book summaries appear to be the most popular genre. Business Book Review, serving individual and corporate clients, was started in 1983 in print form. It shifted to the Internet in 2001, and its readership has climbed to almost 500,000 subscribers, Mr. Fayad says.
Maj. Moore says reader services help him decide whether a book is interesting enough to buy. ‘Is it well thought out or is it just fluff?’ he says.
Since subscribing to Capitol Reader last year he has saved hundreds of dollars by purchasing just three books after reading more than 50 book summaries, he says. ‘My wife would go crazy if I went out and bought all those books.'”
I’ve just come back from Matt Bacak’s Marketing Madness in Atlanta.
He had me talk about out promotion that made The Ultimate Lead Generation Plan a #1 best seller the day it was released.
I spoke for an hour.. but the answer it simple. We had hundreds of partners through our cross promotion site
The partners who gave a quality gift, with a great presentation. (with 207 offers, the copy was very important) got hundreds of leads, and many have reported direct sales results.
Find out how you can get free subscribers for your mailing list at http://ZeroCostPromotions.com
