When People Ask Why They Should Buy Your Booklet, How Will You Answer?

You’ve got a fantastic idea for a booklet and you just know it’s going to be a top seller.  Great!  But, you need to ask yourself one question.  Why would anyone want to read your booklet?

What’s In It For Me?

No matter what kind of product a business has on the market, the question people will always ask themselves is “What’s in it for me?”  In other words, they want to know why they should consider purchasing that product.

In the case of your booklet, the answer should be somewhat obvious.  The answer is that your audience is receiving information that they want or need.  Your job is to make sure that the information truly is what they want or need.

Why It’s Not About Price

Most of the time, when a product doesn’t sell it isn’t because of the price – unless it’s too low.  If you price your booklet too low nobody will believe the information inside has any value and they won’t be inclined to buy.

When a product doesn’t sell, it’s usually a marketing issue.  Either the market isn’t interested in the product (because they asked themselves what’s in it for them and they couldn’t get a satisfactory answer), or the company selling the product isn’t marketing it properly.  Both of these issues can be solved with a little research.

Do Your Homework

It’s important to do your homework before you write your booklet.  You must be able to answer the question, “Why should I read your booklet?”  Think of a person from your target market.  Imagine that person in your mind and hear them asking you that question.  What will you tell them?

Whatever your answer is, begin with that and work from there.  As you go you’ll find many reasons why people will want or need your information.  Even after your manuscript is finished and your booklets are printed, you’ll continue to discover answers to this question.  Those answers will help you with both your marketing and writing future booklets.

People have choices when it comes to your booklet.  They can buy it, they can buy something else, and they can buy nothing at all.  By asking yourself why people would want to buy your booklet (as opposed to buying something else or nothing), it helps you create a booklet people will want and you will be able to market it successfully.

To your riches!

Kim

PS: Don’t forget to click on one of the links at the top right of this page to subscribe so you never miss a single, important post!  Remember, it only takes one idea to start the riches flowing to you!  Also, if you like this post, please share it on del.ic.ious, StumbleUpon, or the social website of your choice.  Thanks!

How To Get Your Market To Snap Up Your Booklets Like Hotcakes

Do you value your writing?  Do you believe your booklet is or will be of value to someone?  Knowing your work has value is an important step in your getting from an idea to the actual sales of your booklet.  But, there is something that is even more important than what you think about your booklet, and that is what your market thinks of it.

Is Your Booklet Too Personal?

It doesn’t matter how good you think your booklet is, if your market doesn’t think it’s good or doesn’t believe it’s for them, your booklet won’t sell. If you’re writing about a passion you have, and you’re writing about it from a very personal perspective, you may not be able to reach your target audience.

Everyone has their own unique perspective of any given situation or circumstance.  But, we also share some similarities within a given situation or circumstance.

For example, consider two brides preparing for their wedding day.  Each will have unique circumstances regarding what they want and can afford for their wedding, who will attend, the date, time and place for the ceremony, etc.

If you were going to write a booklet about creating the perfect wedding, and you wrote the booklet about your own experience, it might be difficult for your audience to relate.

Make It About Them

Now let’s take our example above and rewrite it from a wider perspective.  Instead of writing about your own experience, you might write that booklet based on your experience, but with alot more wiggle room.

In other words, your bookelt isn’t so tightly written that it’s only about your own narrow perspective.  It leaves room for your audience to come up with ideas of their own and glean something from your writing that’s personal to them.

Your booklet shouldn’t be about your perfect wedding or even your idea of what that should be.  Your booklet should help the bride come up with her own idea of what the perfect wedding is for her. You should give her plenty of food for thought and ideas, perhaps a page or two for writing those thoughts and ideas, maybe some budgeting tips, and ideas for romantic places for having the wedding and/or honeymoon.

The Sad Truth

The wedding booklet example above is an extreme example, but it illustrates the point.  When you create a booklet it should be all about your audience – their needs and wants, not yours.  You may have some wonderful insight regarding your topic, but you must be careful to tailor it to your market rather than writing solely from your own perspective.

That isn’t to say your perspective won’t color your writing.  It will and it should.  You just don’t want it to be so strong that nobody can relate to it.  Nobody cares about your writing more than you do, and the sad truth is that people won’t buy your booklet because it’s good. People will buy your booklet because it’s about them in some way.

Consider the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.  The stories are a work of fiction, and the circumstances were not real, so why were the movies such a hit at the box office?  Yes, marketing did play a huge role in that, but there have been plenty of well marketed movies that didn’t fare so well.  So, what was it?

It was the audience’s ability to relate to the characters.  We may not be going through the exact same circumstances but we feel the same emotions. Watching the main character with his friend, and seeing the bond between them and how courageous they both were gives us hope for our own circumstances.  It’s something we can relate to.

In the same way your audience needs to be able to relate to your booklet.  They must believe it was created just for them. When they do they’ll snap your booklets up like hotcakes!

To your riches!

Kim

PS: Don’t forget to click on one of the links at the top right of this page to subscribe so you never miss a single, important post!  Remember, it only takes one idea to start the riches flowing to you!  Also, if you like this post please share it on del.ic.ious, StumbleUpon or the social website of your choice.  Thanks!

An Easy Way To Make A Sales Pitch

Have you created more than one booklet?  Do you have a series of booklets, or several related titles?  Would you like an easy way to tell others about them?  Why not create a booklet about your booklets?

Your booklet about your booklets would be like a mini catalog.  You might have a small photo of each booklet inside, and a short write up about each one.  You could also include other information, such as comments from important reviewers or customers who have purchased from you in the past.  And of course, you’ll also want to include ordering information.

Creating a booklet of all your titles allows you to have something in hand to give to people when they ask you what you do.  It also shows people, at a glance, exactly what you have to offer.  When you meet people face to face, if you simply give them a website address, chances are they’ll never go to that website.  But, hand them a booklet and they’ll look through it – especially if your titles are of interest to them.

Haven’t written more than one booklet yet?  Scale this idea down and do a simple flyer, with all the same information you would put in your mini catalog.

Having information to hand to people allows you to tell them exactly what you want to about your booklets and your business.  Often, you’ll find you’re caught on the spot and you only have a few seconds to get someone’s attention and interest.  When you create a booklet about your booklets, or a flyer, you have the opportunity to sit down and think about what you want to say to people about how your booklet can help them and why they should buy it.

The next time you have to think fast on your feet – don’t.  Hand them a booklet or flyer instead.  They can read it at their leisure, and you’ll get to make a sales pitch instead of an elevator speech.

To your riches!

Kim

PS: Like this post?  Please share it on del.icio.us or StumbleUpon.  And don’t forget to click on one of the links at the top right of this page to subscribe so you never miss a single important post!  Remember, it only takes one idea to start the riches flowing to you!

How To Uncover New Avenues For Booklet Sales

Once you have a completed booklet, you’ll find that things begin to happen for you in ways you could not have anticipated.  Such was the case for me over this past weekend.

I have been focused on selling my gluten and dairy free booklets to doctors.  On Saturday, I met a lady who owns a health business.  She is focused on many different areas of health, such as diet and skin care and aromatherapy, but they are all related to staying healthy naturally.

During the course of our conversation I happened to mention my business, and she asked me what I do.  When I told her about my booklets, she became very interested.  She has a website for her business and would love to provide a link from her website to my booklets.  Links are good, although there are better ways to make money.  But the real gem here isn’t the link or the possibility of a sale to this lady.  It’s the possibility of a new market that I didn’t see before.

When you have a booklet in the marketplace, you should always be looking at things from a big perspective.  What can this sale lead to?  Where’s the bigger money?  When you do this, you’ll uncover new possibilities, new directions to go in, and new avenues for sales.

This is the second time that someone has given me a new possible market for my booklets.  When you keep your eyes and ears open and look at things from a larger perspective, the same thing can happen for you!

To your riches,

Kim

PS:  Like This Post?  Share it with a friend!  And don’t forget to click on one of the links at the top right of this page to subscribe so you never miss a single, important post!  Remember, it only takes one idea to get the riches flowing to you!

PPS:  My new website is nearly finished!  I talked with my coder today and he’ll be uploading it tomorrow!  Stay tuned…

How To Market Your Booklets The Easy Way At No Cost

Have you been wondering just how you’ll build your booklet business once your booklet is ready for market?  Here’s a little marketing secret for you.  Every booklet you create will market all of your other booklets, as well as other products and services you may have to offer.

Two Booklets Are Better Than One

When you have one booklet on the market, you’re pushing that booklet hard to get it sold.  You’re doing all of the work.  By having two booklets, you’ve created leverage.  You don’t have to work so hard because each booklet sells the other one.  The more booklets you create, the more leverage you have.  Here’s how this works.

Imagine you have created a booklet that tells stay at home moms how to make extra money.  You’ll have to do some work to get that booklet into the market place.  But, what if you created a second booklet for stay at home moms on how to be more frugal?  What if the second booklet told those moms how to save money?  Certainly each customer who purchased your first title would also want the second one.  You won’t have to work nearly so hard at getting the second title sold.

Ten Booklets Are Better Than Two

Now imagine you have ten such titles, all related to finances for stay at home moms.  Perhaps, in addition to your making and saving money titles, you have created a booklet about saving on college tuition, and another about frugal family vacations, and so on.  Each booklet is like a little salesman working for you to sell your market on your other booklets.  When they like the first one, they will be happy to purchase more.

Good Content + The Right Market = Booklet Sales At Zero Marketing Cost

This is how you build a booklet business – by creating leverage so you don’t have to work so hard.  Someone sees one of your titles and they want more.  It’s as simple as that.  As long as your content is good and properly targeted, one booklet can and will sell the other titles for you.  This is the best marketing leverage you could have because it costs you nothing to market this way (you would have created that second booklet anyway, right?).

As a booklet author, you should always be thinking of ways to leverage your marketing.  The easiest way to do this is to let your titles market each other.

To your riches,

Kim

PS:  Like this post?  Share it with a friend!  And don’t forget to subscribe by clicking on one of the links at the top right of this page to subscribe so you never miss a single important post!  Remember, it only takes one idea to get the riches flowing!

Your Booklet Questions Answered

Is the idea of writing a booklet new to you?  If it is, you may be wondering whether you can make as much money with a booklet as you can with a book.  You may be thinking that you won’t receive the same noteriety and amount of prestige with a booklet as you would with a book.  And you may be wondering who would buy a booklet anyway?  Everyone buys books, but who buys booklets?

Let me put your mind at ease.  First, you most certainly can make as much money with a booklet as you can with a book.  In fact, you have the opportunity to make even more.  Booklets are everywhere.  You see them at the check out in the grocery stores.  You get them handed to you at trade shows and health fairs.  Doctors and dentists give them to their patients.  Schools give them to students.  In fact, just about every company or institution on the planet uses a booklet in one form or another.   And people are happy to receive them.  People are also happy to buy them directly from you when you’ve got a well niched topic that is marketed properly.

There are more booklets in circulation today than there are books, and that is saying alot because there are thousands of books to choose from on Amazon.  But, books are generally not produced in as large a quantity as booklets are.  If you’re an author selling booklets only to individuals, you may not stop to realize that there are companies printing booklets in the hundreds of thousands of copies, and some even print in the millions.

So yes, there is a ton of money to be made in the booklet category of writing.  And, because few authors take advantage of it, it’s quite easy to break in and make a killing.

Second, you most certainly can and will receive the same noteriety and prestige writing a booklet as you would with a book.  I must admit that when I began my own booklet adventure I wondered about this myself.  But, I pursued it anyway because I could see the money on the table and I cared far more about making a lot of money than I did about my ego.  But, I’ve found that writing a booklet does give you the same expert status and prestige (whether you want it or not!).  Nobody has ever looked at one of my booklets and dismissed it as something of lesser value because it was smaller than a book.  In fact, I’ve found that people want my booklet even more because it isn’t a full length book.  They want the facts in an easy to read, consice manner.  They appreciate that they don’t have to read through tons of material to find what they really need.  And, the businesses I deal with also appreciate my booklets because they are small.  This makes them easy to distribute to consumers.

Third and last, as to who buys booklets, businesses buy a great many of them but the public will buy them as well, as you can see from the booklets offered at the grocery store checkout on a regular basis.  There are also booklets being offered to consumers in bookstores.   The truth is, anyone who wants your information or who wants to distribute your information will buy your booklets.  My own booklets have sold to both individuals and corporate institutions.

Booklets may be a new idea to you, but they are an idea worth looking into and considering.  There are millions of dollars in the booklet trade and those millions are being shared by a handful of us in the industry.  Wouldn’t you like to have a piece of that pie?

To your riches!

Kim

PS:  Like this post?  Share it with a friend!  And don’t forget to click on one of the links at the top right of this page to subscribe so you never miss a single important post!

If You’re Not Willing To Do This, It Could Cost You Big

You’ve got a message to get out to the world.  It burns inside you like a roaring fire.  You’ve decided to do a booklet, and you’ve got everything all planned out.  You know what you’ll write, who your market is, and how you’ll sell your booklet.  Good for you!  But, before you get into this too deep, may I offer you one little piece of advice that will keep you from falling flat on your backside and missing out on untold riches?  It’s simply this: be flexible.

As a booklet author, you don’t want to be too ridged in your plans.  Yes, you must have goals and you must do your best to carry them out, but your plan for reaching those goals must be flexible so you can weather whatever comes your way and make necessary changes as they are needed.  Let me give you an example.

Let’s say your booklet is completed and on the market.  You’ve got a quantity buyer on the line.  He likes your product and he wants to buy 600,000 copies.  But, there’s one small catch.  He wants to make some changes to your booklet.  He wants to change the inside from black and white to color.  He wants to add some advertising for his own company inside.  He wants to pull your byline off the front and put his company name on there.  What do you do?

With this many copies and this much money at stake (at 600,000 copies every penny is worth $6,000 and every nickel is worth $30,000) there is only one thing to do.  Give the man whatever he wants (with the exception of your copyright unless he’s willing to ante up ALOT more dough)!  Would you really let your ego stand in the way of a huge payday?  Not me!  Byline be damned!  I can’t eat off my ego, but that big, fat, beautiful check will certainly buy alot of groceries and pay the bills for some time to come.

This is what I mean by being flexible.  There are things ahead of you that you can’t see right now.  There will be decisions to be made, and you’ll have options to weigh.  Nothing in any business is ever cut and dry.  So make your plans, but be willing to change them or side step when you need to.

To your riches!

Kim

PS: Like this blog?  Tell a friend!  And don’t forget to click on one of the links at the top right of this page to subscribe so you never miss a single important post!

Lousy Sales Page. Crappy Sales Copy. Hideous Booklet Cover. And It Sold!

This morning when I checked my email I was shocked to see a message from Paypal telling me that Lulu had sent me money!  I was shocked because my Lulu page, just like my facebook page and my ning page, has been badly neglected.  I’ve got one product there, and it’s one I only promote as an afterthought in light of my new series, which is being promoted to a much more profitable market.

I had all but forgotten my account even existed at Lulu.  I had planned to go back in there, someday, and fix it up or delete it altogether.  But, I’ve had more pressing matters to attend to with my national promotion coming up for my new trio.

When I created that Lulu page, I was new to everything – booklets, marketing, and even Lulu itself.  I really had no clue what I was doing.  The sales page is lousy.  The sales copy, pretty crappy.  The cover for the booklet, hideous.  AND IT SOLD!!!

There’s a big nugget of gold in this for you, and here it is.  Get out there!  Try.  Don’t worry if you don’t know what you’re doing at first.  You’ll improve.  But, you’ll also make some sales along the way!

You’ll never be ‘ready.’  You’ll never know everything there is to know to do it perfect, and even if you did life happens and things change.  Then, you have to start over again anyway.

So go on.  Just do it.  Write it.  Produce it.  Get it out there.  Do your best.  It will sell!

To your riches,

Kim

PS: Like my blog?  Tell a friend!  And don’t forget to click on one of the links at the top right of this page to subscribe so you never miss a single important post!

Let Your Booklets Do The Selling For You

Here’s a quick tip for you.  If you have more than one booklet that you are selling, why not cross promote them and let them sell each other?

This is easily done by listing all of your other available titles on the back cover of each title you have so that people will know what else you have to offer.  It’s a good idea to keep all the titles you list in the same genre or of the same theme – such as all titles related to weight loss or all related to parenting – as whoever is interested in one of your titles may be interested in related titles as well.

By listing your other available titles on each title’s back cover, you’ll be allowing your booklets to do the selling for you!

To your riches,

Kim

PS:  Like this post?  Share it with a friend!  And don’t forget to click on one of the links at the top right of this page to subscribe so you never miss a single, important post!  Remember, it only takes one idea to get the riches flowing to you!

Never Say Never

A while back I made a bad decision and I want to share it with you so you don’t make the same mistake.  I foolishly decided not to market one of my titles to a particular market segment because I didn’t feel they would be interested.  They were not my main market for the booklet, and I based my decision on information I had gathered from a similar market.

I realized just what a foolish decision this was when I was contacted by a company within the market I had decided to ignore.  They were interested in the booklet and requested more information.  This has now opened my eyes to the possibility that there may be more riches in this market than I previously thought.

Let this be a lesson to you, too.  Never say never, because you just never know.  You can’t know whether a particular market will be interested in your title until you’ve marketed to them directly.  You may have no luck with one market, and find that a similar market brings you many sales.

Within every market lies rich possibilities.  The key word here is possibilities.  Nothing is certain.  But, if you ignore a market before giving them a chance to buy from you, you’ll never know whether that market holds riches for you or not.

To your riches!

Kim