Recap of PMA University

May 29-31, 2007

New York, NY

“Allow for serendipity.” Those were just three of the many useful words uttered by Robin Bartlett during the preparatory webinar for first-time attendees to PMA University.  In order to maximize the benefit of the generous PMA-U scholarship awarded to me by IPNE and PMA, I committed to take Mr. Bartlett’s words of wisdom to heart. So despite the more technical education I received and highlight below, never downplay the significance of each day’s opportunities to expand one’s network—planned or otherwise.

By attending a cross-section of courses at the university, I deepened my understanding in several key functional areas, which I now share with you.  First, and as you are aware, many titles have a great opportunity to achieve significant sales outside of traditional trade bookstores.  To pursue these sales, SIGs (special interest groups) should be identified and targeted.  Due to the ever-increasing ubiquity of technology in everything we do, both the development and identification of SIGs becomes easier each day.  No longer restricted by geography, finding your SIG allows you, as a publisher, to:

 

·        Find the people that are going to be interested in the things your authors have to say.

·        Market to your customers in an efficient and cost effective manner.  After all, each person you reach through SIG marketing is far more likely to be interested in your book than an individual that happens to be standing in the bookstore.

·        Establish perpetual and constant prices, while enabling the book to live longer.

·        When done right, participate in a lucrative part of publishing.

Piqued your curiosity?  If so, you may now wonder the best way to identify your SIGs.  Here are some key steps:

• Review the Thompson Gale Encyclopedia of Associations (online or at your public library’s reference desk.)
• Google
  • Make sure you do your searches correctly. For example, use quotes and the singular form of key words, such as “cookbook.”
• Google Booksearch
  • Look inside other books, as some reference books in your genre may have associations listed.
• Yahoo! and another search engines
  • Don’t rely solely on Google, as each search engine does things differently and you may find different resources as a result of the same keyword search at different search engines.
• Read those trade magazines! Go all the way through them–even the classifieds may help you to identify targets.

For many IPNE members, line extensions based on the content of our titles have the opportunity to be as profitable as—or even more profitable than—our core business of selling books. After all, we are each ultimately information providers.  While many folks will always prefer and enjoy our content in book form, stay aware of the growing and profitable demand for that same content in different formats.  I had the opportunity to see first-hand how this was done by three people who have successfully “been there and done that.”

Perhaps most compelling were the stories and advice shared by one of these experts, Paulette Ensign, who shared with us her perpetual profits from her approximate 3,000 words of content titled “101 Ways to Organize Your Business Life.”  Over the years, she has successfully licensed this nearly identical content numerous times in the form of booklets and card decks for significant financial gain.  Her rules of thumb for the market identification of such content are:

·        Do not focus on selling to end users.

o       Instead, focus on selling lots and lots to single buyers who want to reach your end users.

·        Smile! There are no returns.

·        Start thinking in terms of how you can make 250,000 nickels, instead of $5 a few dozen times.

·        Remember the bonus: once out there, the booklet—or card deck—will help sell your book.  In other words, it is as though you are getting paid to do marketing instead of paying to do marketing.

IPNE publishers should consider whether profitable line extensions such as these are possible for their titles.  With rare exception, they probably are.  If so, note Paulette’s magic formula for developing a tips list:  “One sentence started with a positive (what to do) verb followed by not more than two sentences describing why and how.”  Does that formula sound familiar? It should.  It’s the same definition of a sound bite!

Meeting the leading online book retailers, including Amazon.com, barnesndnoble.com, and Google was very educational.  Of course, Google isn’t a true retailer, but they still have an impact on what sells. How much?  It’s impossible to say, but here are some facts that more than reminded me of their importance in the bookselling landscape.  Google owns the search marketplace, with a majority of all searches worldwide conducted via Google.  In addition, 2/3 of book buyers research their purchase online before buying it offline. Add to that the purchase of 13-15% of all books online and you can quickly see the importance of Google on book buying decisions.

Google’s main opportunity for publishers is it’s free Booksearch program. (Note that although this program is still in beta, it is clearly a major initiative, evidenced by their prominent exhibit at BEA.)  By signing up for the Booksearch program, Google makes your book’s content available for the world to search. This obviously increases the chances that your book will be found—and hopefully purchased.  If someone finds your book, your participation in the Booksearch program allows you to list your website first as a place to buy the book in a detailed page that includes the search results from the relevant passage of your book.

To help combat piracy and copyright concerns, Google disables the copy and print functions, displays the pages in a lower resolution, and makes sure that users are unable to search or read more than a set percentage of your book at any one point.

The barnesandnoble.com representative emphasized these key points for IPNE members to consider:

• Best sellers make up less than 5% of their total sales
• Perhaps more so than their bricks and mortar stores, the online group is always eager to work with the independent publisher, as they have unlimited shelf space
• They currently work with over 10,000 vendors, receive one million visits a day, have one million titles in stock, and do $450 million in sales annually.

The Amazon representative provided a useful overview for how publishers can positively impact their sales on Amazon. Activities whereby publishers can influence their sales include the providing of:

1. Accurate bibliographic information
2. Availability of inventory
3. Cover art and other images
4. Product details
5. Participation in Amazon’s “Search Inside” program
   1. By doing so, prospective customers will be able to see a great cover shot, view interior content, and see a great detail page
6. Book description
7. Author information
8. Exclusive content
   1. Including the possibility of videos
   2. Amazon Connect program – if the author is part of it
9. Product reviews

Like our publishing peers around the world, another key area of opportunity for many IPNE publishers is the achievement of effective public relations.   Each of our authors owns a piece of the pie (their niche) in the context of bigger media issues.  Your goal (and that of your author’s) needs to be to now expand what they can talk about within the area of expertise.

Now how do you do that?  First, watch the news.  Then, think about the different spin on the same story you can talk about to different audiences. What’s your take the day after the story breaks?  Think broader than the content the author can provide in a book.  Rather, make sure to be eduatainment—a cross between education and entertainment.  It’s critical to think like a producer or editor and to be able to answer the question “Why you?  Why now?”  After all, that will be what is going through the mind of whomever you are pitching.

Since your goal is to captivate 80% of any show’s audience, it will sometimes make sense to pitch the author as an expert, not as an author. (Some radio/TV producers are reluctant to bring authors in.)  Then, after the interview, offer some books. Don’t give away books unsolicited, but if you’re on the show or there’s an opportunity for a giveaway, be generous.

Remember, word of mouth marketing is huge.  However, it is slow and viral.  Be patient and persistent, for once it catches on, the results can be tremendous. 

There’s one additional thing I am compelled to share with IPNE members, particularly those unable to attend this year’s university.  There was quite a bit of buzz about a book called “The Long Tail” by Chris Anderson   I haven’t read it yet, but for a book to keep coming up in class after class and in random conversations with so many others can’t be a coincidence.  Rather, it’s probably serendipity, like all my wonderful and typically quite educational interactions with the many PMA and IPNE members I spent quality time with over three great days in May in New York.