Your business model is the result of the decisions you have made to generate sales, earn revenue, and manage risks. The business model of choice for most authors and publishers is to sell books through book retailers (bricks and clicks) and perhaps to libraries. This choice is usually made because "it's the way we've always done business," rather than a calculated decision based business, competitive and market analysis.
You are familiar with the process of selling books through bookstores, bricks and clicks. But there is another way to sell books, and it could be more profitable for you. That is special-sales marketing -- also called non-bookstore marketing or non-traditional marketing. It is the process of selling books to buyers other than through bookstores.
Marketing consultants stress the need for long-term planning, five years or more into the future. But a question we frequently get is, "How do I make it to the long term without short-term revenue?" The answer is to create a series of short-term wins that together lead to positive long-term success. Here are Ten Ways to Generate Short-Term Revenue to Fuel Long-Term Growth.
As a publisher, you are responsible for producing a quality product at all levels: writing, editing, design, printing, customer service, and marketing (pricing, promotion, and distribution). Poor quality -- whether in product and service -- can destroy a publishing venture over time. Negative word-of-mouth communication, whether in person, in blogs, in discussion groups and forums, or through social media spreads quickly and is difficult to overcome. While you cannot control what others say about you on these media, you can control the source of their pleasure or discontent by maintaining high levels of product and service quality.
My last article asked four important questions about your content's brand and how it's positioned. Let's build on that with four critical factors you need to consider as you look to extend or reinforce your brand:
How do you create an atmosphere in which you can sell a large quantity of your books? You make a planned, professional, sincere, well-supported and delivered presentation of your recommendation to solve their marketing problem.
Very few publishing brands, in fact, mean much to consumers because publishers traditionally promote their authors, not themselves, as brands. But that approach and perspective needs to change. When a publisher's brand is indistinct, it diminishes the value that publisher brings to the books it publishes.
When selling books through bookstores, you sell one book to each consumer. You never know who they are, so there is no possibility of a repeat sale. One of the benefits of selling books to corporate buyers is that you cannot only sell many books to one buyer, but you can generate repeat sales from them. Here are Ten Tips for Generating More Sales From Fewer Buyers.
There are times when every organization needs to take a step back and make sure their brand conveys the right message. This is particularly important for an industry like publishing, which has experienced several years of disruption. Here are four questions leaders and brand managers should ask themselves from time to time:
In the familiar world of trade sales, publishers know that they must give books to reviewers and as samples to get on television and radio shows. These exist in the world of non-traditional sales, too, but here there are additional reasons to consider giving books away in special markets as an investment in future revenue.
