Self-Publishers Can Profit from Book Club Sales

Book clubs can be an important sales outlet for the self-publisher. It is true, though, that with the exception of block-buster bestsellers, the income from book club sales, though very welcome, may not be as great as one might wish, but the added visibility selection by a book club brings can be even more valuable than its immediate cash value.

The first book club was founded in 1916 by Albert Boni, Harry Scherman, and Maxwell Sackheim. Called “The Little Leather Library,” It was one of the first attempts to mass-market inexpensive books in the United States. Selections were limited to public domain classics. Though quite successful for a time, this venture failed after a just a few years of operation. “We just ran out of sufficiently popular classics to reprint,” Scherman explained.

But nothing that he learned running the Little Leather Library was lost. Of its three founders, Albert Boni went on the found the Modern Library, which, when acquired by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer, became the bed rock of the Random House imprint. Harry Scherman, a specialist in mail order marketing at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, tried again to sell books by mail, and this time he succeeded, founding the Book of the Month Club in 1926. Since that time book clubs have become a permanent part of the bookselling scene.

In the early years, the selection of a title as the Book of the Month became a literary event in itself. Other book clubs soon followed, catering both to general readers and to niche market readers. There is the Doubleday Book Club, the Literary Guild, the Quality Paperback Book Club on one side and niche market clubs like the Military Book Club, the History Book Club, the Writer’s Digest Book club on the other.

   Since most successfully self-published books are niche market non-fiction, the specialized book clubs are your most likely outlets. I have two books with clubs. The first, How to Publish Your Poetry, was bought by the Writer’s Digest Book Club. The club bought a thousand books at roughly double the production costs and also paid a royalty on copies sold. These royalties, paid two years later, amounted to $4,000. The book, rewritten and published as Poet Power: The Practical Poet’s guide to Getting Published (or Self-Published), is still going strong and is a steady backlist seller. My other book club sale was to the Doubleday Fireside Book Club (Doubleday Direct), specializing in books about the arts. This club bought a Williams & Company title called An Actor’s Business. Again, this purchase produced a modest net profit to us of $5,000.

         When you submit a title to a book club for consideration give them a call (or an email) first and ask for their guidelines. In most cases you should send a cover letter, a sheet with any blurbs or reviews you have gotten and promotional plans. If you are sending unbound galleys or bound galleys with no cover art, include a thumbnail of the cover you are going to use. My advice: submit everywhere. Act on impulse. Value hunches. It can’t hurt and could bring in a chunk of very welcome cash.

        You will note that many book clubs share the same address. This is because there has been much consolidation in the business. BMOC operates many other book clubs, as do Doubleday and Time-Warner.



How to Give a Successful Poetry Reading (and Sell Books)

Ninety-five percent of all books of poetry are sold at poetry readings, and that is where you will sell most of yours. For a poet, self-published or otherwise, readings are not only desirable, they are essential. Readings are—or should be—full-scale, carefully planned performances at which you and your work are the stars. Unfortunately, these powerful marketing events are often poorly planned or not planned at all, and that is a great waste.

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Niche Market Goldmines

I started a new publishing business some years ago with a Mac Plus, a Laser Writer and two used desks. Just four years laser my company was grossing nearly $800,000 a year.

I was publishing NCEast, a regional magazine; the North Carolina Travel and Tourism Guide, Welcome to Wilmington, a slick four-color newcomer'sguide to this major metropolitan area; Homebuyer's Handbook, a real estate buyer's guide; Washington and Beaufort County Magazine, a city magazine; and Renter's Helper apartment directories in nine mid-Atlantic cities. Earlier I had published the Mecklenburg Gazette, a weekly newspaper, and Dollarsworth, a free circulation shopper.

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A New Niche Market Magazine: Step-by-step

Sometimes I do things just because I want to. That’s pretty much why I am publishing my new magazine, Literary Savannah, starting in September. I know there is a readership, but is there an advertising market? Maybe, maybe not. A stroll through the Yellow Pages tells me that I will have to sell a good third of likely advertisers, plus bring on board some sponsors – people and companies who will buy space just to support the magazine. Since the magazine will be great promotion for other parts of my business (book design, editing, typography, and consulting) it will only have to break even to meet my needs.

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My new "Self Publishers Bible: A Handbook for Publishing Entrepreneurs" is now out and available.

My new Self Publishers Bible: A Handbook for Publishing Entrepreneurs is now out and available. I have worked on this book for years and crammed it full of writing and publishing trade secrets learned over a lifetime in the business.

The Self Publisher’s Bible: A Handbook for Publishing Entrepreneurs answers completely and authoritatively the questions posed almost daily by newcomers to the business of publishing.
But this book does much more than that.

• Arranged in encyclopedic format for easy use, the personal and anecdotal style of this book, growing out of the author’s own experience, invites browsing into areas that many readers may not even know enough to ask about.
  Especially useful are the lengthy entries on secondary profit centers that can spell the difference between success and failure in home-based, entrepreneurial publishing. This discussion is unique to this book
  Also unique are the entries on specialty book projects with fast turnaround and very high potential for substantial, quick profit and the discussion of the profitability of advertising-based periodicals well within the capabilities of self-publishers.
  The Self-Publisher’s Bible targets not only those readers who want to publish a single book but those who want to convert their publishing enterprise into a sustainable, income-producing, home-based business.

Read sample pages in a free download by clicking here.

To own this book call 912-352-0404 for a $5 discount and free mailing,  or click here to buy from Amazon.

Finding Your Niche: Pt. 2

Part 2 of a Two Part Article:

To find  a niche in your own city or town, start with what I call a “census of niches.” This is a technique for identifying all the niche market possibilities that exist there. After you do this, you evaluate each niche to see how it matches the seven-point checklist.

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Finding Your Niche: Pt. I

Targeting a viable niche market with an advertising-centered publication can be an almost certain formula for profit so long as you understand what a viable niche is and recognize one when you see it.

A viable niche for the home-based entrepreneurial publisher is one which matches this seven-point checklist:

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Book Publishing: Where the Money Comes From

Publishing is a crazy business that few of us would be in if we did not simply love it. Still, even lovers have to put food on the table and buy new school clothes for the kids. So here are some things I have learned about generating income in this business.

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How to Turn $38 a Month into$38,000 a Year

Never neglect to profit from secondary profit centers. They can bring in big bucks with no increase in overhead and often underlie real success in your niche market, home-based publishing company.

Below is the wording of a half inch display ad I run in the Yellow Pages (the real ones) of my telephone directory. The cost is $38.50 per month:

WILLIAMS & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
Trade Books • Private editions
Book Packagers • Family and Regional History
www.Pubmart.com  www.PublishingEntrepreneur.com
1317 Pine Ridge Drive Savannah, GA 352-0404

This half inch ad is quite visible, since the yellow is dropped out and, unlike the ads around it, it appears white against a the yellow background. This single ad generates a net income of thirty to forty thousand dollars a year from my secondary profit centers of editing and publishing private editions, memoirs not meant for the trade, personal poetry collections, and consulting for other self-publishers. Many inquirers want me lead them through the process of book editing, design, and publication.

The revenue generated by this little ad makes it possible for me to live my life solely on my words-and-books work without having to rely on income from some other job to buy groceries and pay the rent. The same is true of many other publishers of my acquaintance. A cross listing appears under “book printers.” I have found that most people who need and want the services I list in my ad have little idealittle idea where to get them. My ad solves the problem for them.

I answer every call personally and am happy to explain the steps involved in getting a book edited and produced, sometime spending fifteen or twenty minutes answering a call. I give lots of what some might consider free advice. A large number of these calls are converted into sales.

Brand New Niche?

Of niches there is no end. Just when you think that you have exhausted the possibilities in your city or town a new and totally unexpected niche emerges.

This is what happened when Dye Scott-Rhodan, of Hilton Head Island, SC, and owner of Dye’s Gullah Fixin’s restaurant, decided that the time was right for a digest-size publication to celebrate the Gullah heritage. Her niche: the rapidly-growing interest in the island culture of the Gullah people.

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