1. Think new. Try to come up with fresh ideas that haven’t been done before. People like to try new things. New ideas can excite people more than ideas that have been done before even if they were successful. If you and your networks can’t dream up something new, use your creativity to give old ideas a new twist
2. Think inclusively. Create ways to bring people together in a way so enjoyable they will tell friends about it before and after the event.
3. Think big. Look at the promotional oppor…
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Added by David Hancock on April 2, 2009 at 3:44pm —
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The biggest worry of the year for book publishers has been answered, as Borders appears to have been granted another 12 months to sort itself out. Leading shareholder and lender of last resort Pershing Square has extended their $42.5 million term loan to Borders until April 1, 2010.
But Pershing has once again won big concessions for that extension: The "put" option to buy the Paperchase chain (which Pershing never wanted to own in the first place) will expire, and the big grants of 14.7 millio…
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Added by David Hancock on March 31, 2009 at 11:32am —
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One of the qualities common to successful nonfiction books is simplicity. They are based on simple ideas compellingly communicated by their titles, their covers and their marketing. So make your ideas clear, compelling and promotable, but keep them simple.
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Added by David Hancock on March 30, 2009 at 2:52pm —
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In their earnings conference call with investors, Barnes & Noble noted that "inventories declined $155 million or 11 percent compared to last year." They say they were able to "improve inventory turns to the highest levels in our history" and indicated "our in stock percentage of being in stock on key titles and back list did not suffer at all" as a result. Other supply chain improvements "resulted in reduced purchases from book wholesalers which of course carry lower markups." A good portio…
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Added by David Hancock on March 24, 2009 at 9:45am —
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1. Create books, products and services that you can market with pride and passion.
2. Remember that you are in the service of your ideas, your books and your readers.
3. Establish an annual marketing budget that reflects your belief in the importance of marketing and enables you to carry out your promotion plan.
4. Devote the same time, energy and imagination to promoting your books every day that you devoted to writing them.
5. Foster and sustain warm, giving relationships with your networks.
6…
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Added by David Hancock on March 23, 2009 at 12:12pm —
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Apple previewed the many changes on the way in the next version of the operating system (version 3.0) for the iPhone and iPod Touch. (Apple says there are now about 30 million devices running this OS). Notably for publishers, Apple will now allow the sale of App Store content from within a paid app.
SVP of iPhone software Scott Forstall said at the preview, "We've been listening, and some developers say there are other business models they'd like to support, such as subscriptions. Like magazine…
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Added by David Hancock on March 18, 2009 at 12:26pm —
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Your creativity—your ability to use your imagination to create new ways to promote your books—will impress publishers because they show little creativity when they promote their books.
Large houses publish hundreds of books a year, so they can’t devote enough time or money to creating the most effective marketing campaigns for every book they publish. Even the big books that receive far more attention than the rest of the list are victims of the cookie-cutter syndrome. As each book winds its wa…
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Added by David Hancock on March 17, 2009 at 4:55pm —
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Every book is four businesses:
1.
an enterprise that creates a product or service
2. a marketing business that sells what it produces
3.
a service business that understands that service is whatever customers want it to be
4.
a people business that makes the first three possible
The larger the business, the harder it is to establish and maintain personal relationships with customers, suppliers and employees. Although they may be poor in capital, entrepreneurial authors can be rich in human…
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Added by David Hancock on March 10, 2009 at 8:30am —
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What are the characteristics of an entrepreneurial author as opposed to a traditional author? Entrepreneurial authors differ in twelve ways:
1. Traditional authors use as big a budget as possible; entrepreneurial authors substitutes time, energy and imagination for money.
2. Traditional authors are geared to big audiences; entrepreneurial authors, to laser focused niches with a big dream but not a big bankroll.
3. Traditional authors measure effectiveness with sales; entrepreneurial autho…
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Added by David Hancock on March 6, 2009 at 10:28am —
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Amazon has launched their free app that makes all books available Kindle readable on the iPhone/iPod touch as well. Officially the company still sees mobile as best for short reading on the go. VP in charge of Kindle Ian Freed calls it "a great companion device for customers who are caught without their Kindle" and echoes ceo Jeff Bezos's line from Charlie Rose that iPod reading is ideally suited towards when you are "in line at the grocery store." But they hope it's such a mediocre companion th…
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Added by David Hancock on March 4, 2009 at 12:14pm —
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The United States is in the midst of an entrepreneurial explosion, one of the most hopeful signs for the country’s future. As an author, you are an entrepreneur. Every book you write is a separate enterprise with its own fate and its own reckoning that balances income against expenditures. For entrepreneurial authors, the only business criterion that counts is profits.
Marketing is anything done to sell a product or service and maintain relationships with the people who make the business possib…
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Added by David Hancock on March 3, 2009 at 5:40pm —
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Publishers have been experimenting with promotional free downloads of books and worrying about the risks of electronic piracy, but there has been precious little data and analysis to work from. For the past eight months Brian O'Leary at Magellan Media has partnered with Random House and O'Reilly Media to rigorously study the "impact of free distribution on paid content," which meant examining both giveaways and unauthorized peer-to-peer distribution. The ultimate objective is to develop "a model…
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Added by David Hancock on February 13, 2009 at 12:19pm —
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The first thing you’ll notice about being a Entrepreneurial Author is that your goals will be different from the old-fashioned goals of a non entrepreneurial author. An Entrepreneurial Author is flexible, innovative, unconventional, low in overhead costs, dependent, interactive, generous, enjoyable, and profitable. The goal is to stay that way.
Look at the authors all around you. If you can’t see many, it’s because they are not Entrepreneurial Authors; instead, they’re buried in work, rarely co…
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Added by David Hancock on January 12, 2009 at 8:25am —
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Today, there are more authors than ever, but few true entrepreneurial authors. If you are contemplating the life of an author, the way of the entrepreneurial author is the path you should follow. If you are already an author that is the direction in which you should evolve.
Entrepreneurial authorship did not exist for your parents or for your grandparents, because the path has only recently been blazed. Technology and enlightenment have marked its way. The Puritan work ethic of your ancestors h…
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Added by David Hancock on January 4, 2009 at 4:49pm —
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An Entrepreneurial Author is an author who sees their book royalties as a small bonus for writing a book, but not the reason for writing a book.
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Added by David Hancock on July 7, 2008 at 8:34am —
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Six facets of thinking like an Entrepreneurial Author
