Stop Selling Your Books: 6 tips for selling the benefits of your books to marketing professionals

And start selling ways in which corporate buyers can use your book to help them sell more of their products. Here are six ways in which corporate marketing professionals could use your book to increase their sales:

1) Coupon. Manufacturers may offer a dollars-off, in-pack, on-pack, or near-pack coupon entitling the bearer to a discount on your book. For example, a pet food company might include a coupon in a bag of dog food (in-pack) for a discount on your book about dog care.

2) Premium. When used as a premium (an item given away to attract, retain or reward customers or to motivate employees), a product may be offered at a relatively low cost (or free) as an incentive to purchase a particular product. If the pet-food manufacturer mentioned above included your dog-care book inside the package – instead of a coupon for it – your product would be considered a premium.

3) Prize. A high-priced or high-valued book might be offered as a prize in a contest or sweepstakes. The basic difference between the two is that contests are games of skill and/or intelligence, while in a sweepstakes the winner is determined strictly by luck. Since sweepstakes are games of chance, it is illegal to charge an entry fee. Contests usually charge an entry fee.

4) Patronage award. Low-priced items (such as booklets) might be given way with each purchase of a minimum quantity of some product, or as a reward for visiting a website. It is considered a continuity program if these are given as a series. An example is to encourage return visits to your site about cooking by providing a cookbook in sections to be collected as a complete book over a period of time.

5) Self-liquidator. When a book is sold at a price low enough to entice buyers, but high enough to cover its cost, it is being used as a self-liquidator. Many supermarkets use this tactic to allure shoppers to buy more at their stores if customers may purchase a book at a discounted price with a minimum purchase of the stores products. Other industries may find this a valid promotional tool, too.

6) Samples. Businesses may use your items to give to customers or the general public at no charge in order to build goodwill and website or store traffic. Hammermill Paper Company purchased over 5000 copies of Paulette Ensign’s booklet 110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life as a premium for their sales representatives to leave behind with prospects after a sales call. The only change to which Paulette had to accede was to allow Hammermill to print the booklets on their paper to serve as a sample.