Five years ago I was a professional speaker who desperately needed my own book. After each presentation, members of my audience would come up to me and ask if I had a book or tape for sale. The need was obvious. The market existed. All I had to do was write a book and bring it to my audience. This is how my first book was born.
I wrote non-stop for two months and finally wrote and illustrated it with my own original cartoons. The question I was facing now was who would be chosen from thousands of publishers to bring my masterpiece to the eager and waiting crowds. After many introductions to numerous publishers and many rejections, I finally found one who agreed to publish my book. The problem was, they couldn’t do it for about a year and a half. I would receive 20% of the retail cost of each copy sold and would have to do most of the promotion myself.
This arrangement was simply not satisfactory. He needed the book asap and wanted to receive more than 20% of every copy sold. It was then that I decided to enter the world of desktop publishing and started Lifeline Publications.
Five hundred copies of were printed as proof and I sold them all during the year as “back room” items in my speeches and seminars. Since I wasn’t traveling talking 365 days a year, I wanted to have my book available for purchase seven days a week, whether I was speaking or not. I asked my webmaster to create a store for me and connect it to my talking website. I was in business.
With well-chosen and well-targeted advertising, online and offline, I began receiving orders in my mailbox and via email. As sales increased, so did the number of items posted to my store. I currently have a total of nine information products, manuals, books, tapes, and special reports available for purchase.
In my first year as a publishing mogul, I sold 300 copies of my products online-only and another 100 offline. Add these sales to my talks and you can see that I was working as a self-publisher. The orders seem to increase in number every month.
Writers are no longer dependent on the acceptance and approval of publishers and publishers. By using the Internet, as well as offline classifieds in popular magazines, you can take your writing directly to a broad and enthusiastic market. People are always looking for information on how to do it. In fact, the most searched articles on the Internet are information products. So if you research people’s needs, wants and interests, write to satisfy them, you will sell effectively.
Desktop publishing is simple and cost effective, especially if you print on demand. You do not print a copy of your product until you receive an order for that product. By doing this, you avoid the cost of having 500 more printed copies having to find storage space in your already cluttered basement.
If you have the typo and have received enough reject sheets to wallpaper a bedroom, try posting it yourself. When that first order comes in, you’ll feel great satisfaction and a surge of self-confidence that will inevitably lead to more sales. You will be on your way to conquering the world of desktop publishing. GOOD LUCK!
