Small Business Blog

Posts Tagged ‘Sell’

Did you know there are about 1.5 million books in print at any one time in the United States alone? Furthermore, there are over 195,000 new titles published each year in this country.

Many aspiring authors feel their book would be lost in the sea of books already in print? May I be honest? That feeling is correct if you don’t target your potential book readers well.

To write your book to stand out in a crowd, you must write it for a targeted audience interested in your book’s topic. Identifying a (niche) targeted audience is really hot in the marketing world right now and rightly so.

Simply put, to target a niche market or audience in your book’s topic area: Identify a problem/solution and research your competition. Then develop a different approach. With all the books in the world on your topic, it’s not enough to know the solution. You must present the solution in a different way than existing books do.

Develop a way of making your book different. You need a different viewpoint, a niche, or a different spin on perhaps the same information. Examine the problem again. Look at the solution your book solves with the goal of coming up with a way to present your knowledge differently than existing books.

Here are several ways you can do this:

1. Market Segment. You can develop a niche by focusing on an occupation, sex, or age group, i.e. Lose 14 Pounds in 2 Weeks: A Guide for the New 30 at 40, Lose Weight Safely Before, During and After Pregnancy.

2. Experience Group. You could write a book for people experiencing the same thing at the same time. For example, Fit at Forty: A Exercise Guide for the New 30 at 40 or Newbie Mothers Eating Healthy.

3. Broadening Market. Consider appealing to a broader market: Lose 14 Pounds in 14 Days: A Guide for Working Class Men & Women.

4. Focus. Attack a big problem by emphasizing a particular tool or technique that you have experience with. For example, show how heart attack survivors can lose 14 pounds in 2 weeks by eating only fish, white meats and walking 10 miles a day.

5. Program. I love this one. Base your solution on the way you solve a large problem by breaking it into steps, i.e. Write Your Best Book Now: A 7 Step Program for book writing.

6. Expertise. Base your niche on your market’s previous experience with a topic, for example, “The Last Business Book You’ll Ever Need!”

7. Goal. Organize your existing information around benefits of achieving the goal: Free Again, Healthy Again!

8. Affinity. Perhaps you have a relationship with a high visibility organization that has benefited from your ideas. You can reframe your knowledge by leveraging off your association: The Bank of America Financial Program or the Southern Methodist University Weight Loss Program.

You might notice in each one of the above examples of the same market, the contents of the book would probably be the same! The books would contain the same basic ideas, suggestions, tips, etc. For example, all the books about diets would probably stress the importance of eating right, choosing the right foods in right portions and daily exercise. Yet, each book presents a different viewpoint targeting a different market.

Be bold; have no fear about approaching the same subject as existing books. Focus in on your unique ideas and viewpoint. Remember, according to the writer of Ecclesiastes, “There’s nothing new under the sun.”

Even, Bernice Fitz Gibbon said, “Creativity often consists of merely turning up what is already there. Did you know that right and left shoes were only thought up only little more than a century ago.” So start today; make your book different, make it count and make it yours. Write your significant book to stand out in the crowd and sell.

Looking for internet book marketing tools that are practically hands free? Add these three tools to your arsenal and you’ll be certain to sell your book.

Internet Book Marketing Tool # 1 Website Marketing

Possibly the most critical tool for a self published author is your website. A well optimized web site, meaning that people searching for your information can find it quickly and easily via the search engines like Google or Yahoo, means targeted traffic and customers are led directly to your book.

A well written landing page that captures email addresses and sells your information can sell thousands of books. Add a few pages of free content that provide immediate benefit to your reader and credibility to your status as an author and you’re well on your way to becoming a ‘profitable’ self published author.

As a self published author, your website can offer a variety of pages to their visitor including:

• Ezine/newsletter subscription

• Free Articles and/or short stories

• Bio

• Sales page

• Links to stores

• Shopping cart to purchase directly from the website

• List of appearances/promotions

Internet Book Marketing Tool # 2 Ezine Marketing Magic

Ezine marketing is not only a great way to build your opt in list, it is a fantastic tool to sell your book, your information products, and any affiliate products that you choose to endorse. Additionally, it provides you with a constant means of communication to your target market and the ability to provide them with quality information that will benefit their lives. The time saving aspect of this tool is that you don’t have to struggle to come up with content. You’ve already written your book. Pull one or two useful paragraphs from your book, round it out, and you have an ezine article!

In addition to publishing your own ezine you can contribute to other relevant ezines, just make sure that you provide a link back to your own website and product line. You can also purchase inexpensive ad space in relevant ezines to market your book. For example, if your book is a small business book, you can purchase ad space in other small business newsletters and link directly to your website.

Internet Book Marketing Tool # 3 Rave Reviews

Reviews are the proof to others that your book is worth the money it costs. Reviews can be used in your publicity package, in your press release, on your book’s back cover, on your website, and even on your business card. They are a valuable and economic expert marketing tool. Visit our website or click on the following link to learn more about secrets to getting rave reviews.

Internet book marketing doesn’t have to be an all consuming struggle. It’s true that the more time you spend marketing your book, the more you’re going to sell. But why not use a few tried and true marketing tools that drive traffic and sales to your book with little or no work from you?

There is an ongoing myth that the online digital photography business is available only to US citizens. Our photography business book explains just how anybody from Alaska to Australia can successfully start up a photography business.

First and foremost I want to say that this is not true; however, I need to add that the typical consumers of stock photography are from the US due to the large amount of Internet users as well as the high demand from advertisers and marketers for images of objects, animals, scenes and a variety of other items that are not found inside the USA.

If you do a simple Google Image search you can see the variety of subjects that are being photographed and solicited for sale. While you may see a huge variety please pay particular attention to the quality of the images as many will never be accepted by a Stock Photography site simply because the quality is poor. You may also notice which sizes are available to upload, this is important to know prior to submitting your image as you will want to make sure you have proper sizes. Beware if you are resizing your image that you may lose quality which could result in your image being rejected.

The distinction between poor quality versus high quality is not that large of a leap however simple mistakes must be corrected prior to actually submitting your image for sale. This section is discussed in great depth in the photography business book that will help you to sell only quality photos.

Ideally photos have not been edited with photo editing programs such as Photoshop. While these programs are great for resizing and cropping you will lose quality each time you open and work with the photo. The goal, therefore, is to take the perfect photo without the need for any editing.

The best thing about this opportunity is that it can be done by anyone, anywhere. All that is required is an Internet connection, a digital camera, a computer and an Internet connection. Combine quality with an interesting subject matter and soon you will be able to sit back and watch your bank account increase.