The Old Days Are Gone

The Good Ol' Days Are Gone

As a new, perhaps self-published author, you must understand something and understand it fully if you are to achieve any measure of modern-day success:

The old, archaic systems for marketing and publicizing books are dead. At the very least they are quickly dying out.

For now, in the modern environment of e-marketing, it is possible for the author of any
well-written book to bypass these ridiculously prejudicial systems totally and to take one's
campaign directly to the public at large.

You, yes you, can construct your very own bookstore at no cost, from pieces of electronic code,
and create traffic through that store that will number in the millions.

(I apologize. This will be quite a long post as it will lay out for you all the reasons I believe you need to accept this now. Future posts shall certainly not be so long. Bear with me for a time. . .)

We have seen this happen in countless established old-school markets, most recently in the investment world (my old stomping grounds). Nowdays it is only grandpa and grandma who actually go to all the time, trouble and grief to call and make an appointment with the opulently rich, slick-haired stock broker sitting in his top floor office across town, drive over, sink into
the leather chair and make some insignificant little trade. The modern investor now plops down in front of the computer in his or her pj's, click - click, six bucks and logged off.

This eventually became a joke among us poor abandoned middlemen. As investment counselors, as we collectively found ourselves 'all dressed up with no one to talk to'. It was not funny at the time, but certainly it is now.

It was simply longer necessary to grovel before us, the self-important brokers. In the old days, I made upwards of six grand on a hundred thousand dollar trade. That six grand came out of the hapless clients pocket and went directly into mine.

When it all went south, there was a great weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth from us middlemen. Nonetheless, happen it did.

Those good ol' days are gone. With them has gone the middleman. In no area is this fast becoming more true than in the world of book publishing.

The Fairy Tale

If you are like most self-published authors, you most likely, however innocently, have believed in a fairy tale. For you believed that once that perfect piece - your book - had at long last been ‘put to bed’, the final semicolon placed just so, everything oh-so-perfect, that the rest was just handing the thing off to the marketers, sitting back and waiting for the sales to come rolling in.

However, perhaps by now you have come to realize that this simply no longer happens. You have certainly come to realize, however reluctantly, that what you perceived to be the end of the road is really just the beginning of a new journey . . .

You must now become a self-marketing specialist.

In this brave new arena, there IS no middleman.

Under the old systems, the odds were stacked decidedly against you. They still are and perhaps to an even greater degree. Thousands upon thousands of books are published every year. Yours is but one little tiny one among them. This is a little disheartening and more than a little frightening, isn't it?

I am going to teach you how to self-market and self-publicize your book.

What will be presented here will show you some innovative ideas regarding how to present your child unto the world without spending a fortune and without using the middleman. However, common sense dictates that you most certainly will not find every idea available to you. No indeed.

I will NOT cover specifics regarding getting listed here or there or obtaining an ISBN or the best options for printing or getting your piece on Amazon or anything of the kind. This information is available to everyone and is covered in great detail very well all over the place. There are tons of great books and free resources that will very effectively walk you through these processes. There are very experienced people out there on the boards. Getting your book out there is now the easier part. Managing to get people to actually BUY the book once there is the difficult part.

This is also the most important function in the equation.This is NOT common knowledge, and it is some of these techniques I will illustrate here.

The middleman of days gone by has been replaced by the modern-day consultant. This means that the potential profit ratios, YOUR potential profit ratios, have gone through the roof.

I will not teach you how to BUILD a car; I am going to teach you how to DRIVE the thing. I will teach you the secrets to self-marketing and self-publicizing your new book, regardless of where or when or how or why you may choose to make it available. Then, once you learn how to drive, we are going to learn to race.

The ideas presented here are an attempt to show you how to create a massive marketing and publicity campaign on a very small budget, on your own, and to take that campaign DIRECTLY to the public.

You can be a part of this and take advantage of it. Or you can be left behind.

Self-Marketing.

Throughout the last 3 decades I have had the opportunity to work with some of the top marketing consultants in the country. From the very beginning, I incorporated their methods into my own.

I internalized the best of the best they could offer me. I systematically experimented with everything they offered and began to consistently use what I found to work. My career at the time depended on my ability to produce verifiable results - not theory.

Numbers - not excuses.

I have continued to this day to use these ideas and methods with great success. I have built two very successful magazines and one successful marketing agency, among other things. I have helped hundreds build their own businesses. I consult with start up magazines and book authors.
The fields of endeavor are diverse, but the methodology remains the same with a few tweaks. I mention this to impress upon you that I do know a little about many things, but I really know only one subject very well . . .

Self-Marketing.

When I first entered the self-publishing arena I knew nothing of the marketing of books. As I found myself joining others in writers groups and meetings, I began to realize that very few writers have had any kind of training at all in regards to marketing. They had a marked tendency to fall back on old, outmoded but safe ideas that did not really produce the effects
they desired:

Numbers. Sales.

For many authors, the word marketing is a four-letter word. This is because it brings to mind an image that we naturally reject. The very word has a somewhat negative feel. People are simply tired of being bombarded with unwanted marketing messages coming at them from every direction – from newspapers stuffed with flyers to mailboxes stuffed with junk mail to inboxes overwhelmed with spam.

This is not marketing. It is intrusion. We all have things we wish to buy. However, as a general rule, we never wish to be SOLD something.

For our purpose here I shall define self-marketing as: The ability to communicate clearly, DIRECTLY TO THE PUBLIC, the idea that we have a product our potential client either wants and/or needs, and is willing to take action to acquire.

If you are an author it will be best for you to face the facts right now – you MUST market. If you are self-published you will have no choice but to self-market. And even if you get lucky and land that big pie-in-the-sky deal at that big publishing house, you are going to be surprised to find that that mega-publishing house is going to require YOU to market your book.

There is simply no getting around this most basic of facts.

Marketing. Books out the door and off the shelves.

I cannot tell you the number of absolutely wonderful books I have read - the kind of book that
makes the hair stand on end and creates a shiver down the spine - that have sold just a few
hundred copies! This is not lack of writing skill. No indeed. This is lack of marketing skills. They got sadly lost in the quicksand of traditional book marketing.

The Good News

Take heart! Yes, the field of book marketing has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. What used to work no longer works in many cases. Again, with the advent of the Internet, every single rule has been thrown out the window! Even the publishing companies, the old school, know-it-all-big-boys-on-the-block, have now at times found themselves scampering wildly about, trying to figure out what to do next. The Internet stores are destroying traditional bookstores . . .blah . . . blah . . . blah.

The middlemen have come to realize that it is possible for a single individual sitting in a cabin off in the wilds of Idaho somewhere to take the publishing field literally by storm; with no help or company backing whatsoever! It has been proven time and again that deep pockets are no longer a prerequisite to publishing success. This, my friend, is one of your greatest advantages.

You can not only survive here - you can thrive here!

Take the old stand-by, the press release as an example. In the ‘good ol’ days’, the writer would send a press release to a newspaper, announcing the birth of their new creation. The editors would look down through their magnifying readers at the release and, using their executive position, give the thumbs up or thumbs down, effectively helping to create or possibly helping to destroy the career of the hapless, well-meaning writer.

Or perhaps the formerly all-knowing, self-important, uppity almighty Reviewer Of Books would
find no pity in his or her heart for the innocent penman and would literally, out of jealousy, spite or otherwise, tear the work to proverbial pieces, summarily ending the hopes and dreams of anyone foolish enough to put their work in harms way.

Well, no more.

For now, the independent writer can bypass this archaic system totally, if they desire, and take their work DIRECTLY to the public. If the author has taken the time to do his or her own homework, he or she can succeed IN SPITE OF the obstacles that are, quite simply, no longer obstacles.

Take heart! For the ideas required to accomplish this feat of modern-day marketing are available to anyone. Yes, even you.

I think the best example of this is a young man I spoke with recently who makes literally tens of thousands of dollars per month marketing an ebook! He accomplished this on his own, with no outside help whatsoever.

Here is another that might surprise you:

http://smartmarketinghabits.com/?p=13

Certainly this is not what you will be attempting to accomplish (assuming these unverified second party numbers to be correct). Nonetheless, the opportunity is there and it is real. By now you have most likely come to realize that the old, outdated and archaic systems of the past may not be the path you wish to tread towards self-marketing success.

There is a very important point that you must understand here. As a matter of fact, were I able to impress just a single point upon you here, that point would be this:

The quickest road to marketing success is not found in marketing. It is instead found in the
ability to create PUBLICITY!

Publicity

THE INTERNET AFFORDS YOU THE OPPORTUNITY TO BYPASS THE OLD SYSTEMS UTILIZED IN THE PAST AND TO TAKE YOUR MARKETING AND PUBLICITY CAMPAIGN TO THE PUBLIC DIRECTLY.

Have I said this enough?

Now, you will not get far by merely attempting to market, to sell your book. As I mentioned, this is because people are quite frankly tired of the glut of marketing messages they are hit over the head with every day.

People are spending more and more and even more time on the Internet. It is fast becoming a way of life. The Internet affords people the opportunity to find WHAT they need quickly, without being assailed by commercial after commercial! Television is fast being replaced by the
world-wide web. People have come to see these interruptive marketing messages as intrusive and are reacting negatively, now that there is another choice available.

While many people have come to detest marketing messages, they still love a good story.

Therefore it is urgent for you to understand that the key to getting good response to your book
is to learn to create publicity.

Anyone can buy an ad. The consumer understands this now. They have come to mistrust advertising. But, if you and your book are seen on the evening news, or on the front page of the local newspaper, the consumer believes you have earned the right to be there somehow. This leads to TRUST, the key element in selling any product or service.

Take a moment to look at what Jerry Simmons, retired V.P and Director of Field Sales for Time Warner Books has to say on the subject:

http://www.freepublicitygroup.com/TopTenSecrets.html The quote is near the top of the page.

You do not have to hold a Master’s Degree in Electrical Engineering to turn on a light. You simply hit the switch and get the light. Likewise, you do not have to hold a Master’s Degree in marketing to successfully self-market a book. In my long career I have attended hundreds of educational classes and seminars in regards to marketing. I have taught many more. In every case I have managed to condense the hours and hours involved in each down to just a set of simple rules or group of techniques. This is precisely what this blog will attempt to do.

You don’t have the time to ingest a library full of unnecessary information if you wish to start being successful right now, today. You certainly do not have to bow before the almighty keepers of the gate.

Here is a simple illustration. In NLP, we use a theory known as modeling. Let us say you wish to learn a skill such as running a wooden lathe. You could approach this in two ways:

a. You could read about the subject. Take classes. Take tests. Study theory. Spend years in education. You might then actually turn on a lathe. Get used to the tools. Study some more. Experiment. Try new things. Eventually, after a few years you might be able to turn out a fairly well-formed wooden bowl. OR

b. You could be paired with the finest operator of wooden lathes in the place. He would show you step-by-step precisely and exactly how he does it. The tricks. The nuances. Do this. Do that.

In example A, you could spend years educating yourself and still not be able to perform.

In example B, you would not exactly know everything, but you would most likely be able to perform as well as the world’s top expert. Beginning tomorrow.

The style of this blog is based on modeling. I will show you step by step how to be a master marketer beginning the moment you finish reading this.

When we have completed this process, you will have gained the same amount of information yo would have gained had you read ten books on self-marketing, or attended months of classes or seminars. Period. The due diligence in regards to these techniques has been done for you, by thousands of professional self-marketers in the real world. Everything you need to know is right here, right now. Do it first. Study it all in detail later, if you wish.

If you manage to stay with this until the end, you shall become what you believed you could never be: a master self marketer.

That is a wonderful thing. For no one will ever believe in your book to the degree YOU believe in your book. No one will ever have the passion YOU have for it. And no one could EVER market and publicize your book the way YOU can market and publicize your book.

The bell has rung. Let us begin . . . .

Leia Mais…

Free Advertising VS Free Publicity

This blog will demonstrate how anyone can create a massive publicity / advertising campaign using free publicity tools and techniques. Further information and free articles can be found at the Free Publicity Focus Group website at www.freepublicitygroup.com.

Here is a question:

Would you rather:
a. spend $200 on an ad that no one has any interest in reading OR
b. spend $0 on an ad that EVERYONE wants to read?

The answer is very obvious. But, believe it or not, many people just cannot see the sense in using option B.

Everyone is selling something - might be a product, a service or perhaps just your knowledge. Regardless of what you are selling you only have so many tools with which to work. I have said this before and I will say it again:

Free Publicity = Free Advertising

assuming the publicity is positive. You can easily create any amount of publicity for no out of pocket cost. You must of course pay for advertising. This is why learning to think like a publicist, rather than trying to advertise your product or service will pay off in ways and amounts you simply cannot imagine.

You must understand something and understand it fully - People are TIRED of advertising messages. People, as a rule, find them intrusive. They skip over them or fast forward through them or hurl them in the trash or simply ignore them. The old days (and the old ways) simply do not work anymore.

However, people still love a great story. They love to read about others. They are heads over heels in love with free information.

This is bad news for advertising professionals, but great news for publicists.

Free Publicity = Free Advertising

However, free publicity, COMBINED with creative advertising, will blast you, your company and your product into the stratosphere of marketing success. If you are advertising exclusively, you are concentrating only upon the smaller side of the equation.

I am now going to say two words:

Britney Spears
You saw a picture in your head when I said those words, did you not?

Britney would have to pay 100 million dollars a DAY to buy the same publicity she gets every day for free. Granted it is negative publicity. But I would venture to say that 90% of people on the planet recognize her name. This is why famous people hire publicists. To get famous. (Of course I would not want to be Britney's publicist). Now I will say two more words:

Ella Stipowicz

See. No picture. You have no idea what Ella might look like. Or even if Ella really exists. Ella has no publicist.

When I was very young, fresh out of high school, I joined a rock and roll band. We drew huge crowds, but were not really that good. We drew the crowds because of the band's name. When we played a gig, the club owner was forced to publicize our name on the sign outside the club. The sign looked like this

Saturday Night - Free Beer

This was a publicity stunt and this worked great until the club owners tired of explaining to their huge crowds of new customers that there was no free beer. Eventually we were literally forced to change the name of the band and so we did. Now the signs said:

Saturday Night - Naked Girls

Again, huge crowds. Still not very good musically.

Free Publicity = Free Advertising

On the Free Publicity Focus Group website I make the statement that anyone, anywhere can create a marketing campaign to rival any corporation in America for little or no money by learning how to create free publicity. Anyone can do this. You can do this.

I have worked with some of the top corporations in America in their marketing divisions. I have worked with some of the highest level marketing consultants in the US. I have sat across the desk from thousands of business owners whose goal was to get their message out there. I have never been complacent. To this day I still sit and wade through 40 newsletters a day, looking for some new idea, a fresh technique, some cutting edge piece of creativity. Frankly, I am appalled at what I see and what people will fall for.

Not only do I read about these things - I actually test them personally. If a technique works, I incorporate it into my stable of strategies. If it does not work, it is simply tossed.

So, from this point on, think of this blog and my website, Free Publicity Focus Group, as personal resources to gain training to become a publicist. Learning how to create publicity is what I intend to teach here in this new and improved blog and on the website. So here is lesson One, from Book One, Chapter One, first line of the first paragraph in the book entitiled 'Publicity 101'.

'Advertising pulls money out of your wallet and does not work well anymore. Publicity pulls ideas out of your head and works very well'.

Now - where do you think YOUR efforts should be concentrated?

More at http://www.freepublicitygroup.com

Leia Mais…

Free Advertising VS Free Publicity

This blog will demonstrate how anyone can create a massive publicity / advertising campaign using free publicity tools and techniques. Further information and free articles can be found at the Free Publicity Focus Group website at www.freepublicitygroup.com.

Were I able to impress a single fact upon the mind of anyone wishing to be successful in selling any product or service in the marketplace, that fact would be this:

Free publicity is the singular key to marketing success. Regardless of the product or service you are attempting to market, this is fact.

You are really up against it when you look at the sheer numbers of competitors for that sales dollar YOU are trying to get your hands on.

Little ol' you, with your little ol' computer, will be competing with corporations who spend millions of dollars per year to advertise and market the exact same product you might be selling.

You will never be able to outspend them.

The corps employ buildings full of experienced salespeople and marketers.

You will not be able to outwork them.

They have roomfuls of analyists on board whose function is to get market share. They have the connections. They have the experience. They have the systems. They have the procedures. They have the contracts in place. Forget it.

You will never be able to outmarket them.

But you, with the help of that single computer and some good information, it is possible that you can . . .

out-think them.

The Internet brings an entirely new opportunity to the small to mid-size marketer, in that it is no longer necessary to follow traditional METHODS to achieve success. It is no longer required that one jump through the well established hoops to achieve the goal. The Internet allows the marketer to go directly to the consumer. We all know this. This is good news. However, there is another even more important problem here.

The Internet is unregulated. This can work greatly in your favor. Or it can kill your efforts.

Any 10 year old on the planet with an html editor can set himself up to look like a major international corporation and offer to sell you products and services. If there is one point I wish to make here it is that most of the methodologies and marketing 'information' you will encounter on the Internet is, in a word, bullshit.

Everybody it seems has the latest, greatest idea. Everyone will show you charts and graphs and numbers and supposed facts in an attempt to lure you in. You may fall for this because you are inexperienced. You may fall for this because it seems so logical. You may fall for this for any number of reasons. In any case, you are, quite simply,

falling for it.

If you really wish to achieve the all-new American dream, the dream of making a really good living while sitting in the comfort of your home or virtual office. you will need to be armed with FACTS.

The FACTS are what I am going to give you here. Here is Fact 1:

If you can create massive amounts of free publicity through TRADITIONAL, well established and acceptable channels, your IMMEDIATE and LONG TERM success is virtually guaranteed. If you cannot, you will fall short of the goal. Period.

Oh yes, granted, you will make SOME sales using the homespun techniques of the 10 year old in Idaho, or the guy who made a hundred sales in a day using some sales letter he sent out to his opt-in marketing list he bought from someone else. No offense here to anyone. Everyone is doing the best they can do using what they have. You can experience a little success using these methods and ideas. But you will never achieve true, long lasting success.

To achieve that goal, you will need to play with the big boys. And you will need to learn to out-think them. You will need to learn how to steal their thunder.

You can ride on the coat-tails of those who have developed these channels and take advantage of their work. You can use the ESTABLISHED channels in creative ways. Wouldn't it be wonderful if the newspaper ran a story on you that was picked up by the wire services and ended up running all over the country? For FREE? How about radio? TV perhaps?

The old, established marketing channels are old and established because they work. They work extremely well.

Guess what?

You do not have to spend $500 to buy a newspaper ad. You can have it for free.
You do not need to spend $275 for a 30 second spot on TV. You can have it for free.

You CAN do this. Believe it or not, armed with the FACTS, it is far easier than you think.

Free Publicity = Free Advertising. Publicity is not advertising per se, as publicity can be positive OR negative. So let's restate this by saying:

Free POSITIVE Publicity CREATES Free Advertising. Massive amounts of it. No cost basis whatsoever.

And so now I will present you with Fact 2. You will want to memorize this one.

To create massive amounts of free publicity (aka free advertising), you need simply to:

Start thinking like a publicist.

For a publicist is nothing more than a master of creating . . . you guessed it

Free publicity.

More at Free Publicity Focus Group

Leia Mais…

Free Publicity

This blog will demonstrate how anyone can create a massive publicity / advertising campaign using free publicity tools and techniques. Further information and free articles can be found at the Free Publicity Focus Group website at www.freepublicitygroup.com.

Leia Mais…