Five years ago I was a professional speaker in desperate need of my own book. After each performance, 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. Thus my first book was born.
I wrote nonstop for two months and finally had him write and illustrate my own original cartoons. The question now facing me was who would be chosen from thousands of publishers to bring my masterpiece to the eagerly awaiting crowds. After many submissions to numerous publishers and many rejection notices, I finally found one who agreed to publish my book. The problem was that they couldn’t do it for 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 as soon as possible and wanted to receive more than 20% of each copy sold. It was then that I decided to enter the world of desktop publishing and started Lifeline Publications.
Five hundred copies of Proof were printed and I sold them all during the year as “back of the room” items at my speeches and seminars. Since I wasn’t on the road speaking 365 days a year, I wanted to have my book available for purchase seven days a week, whether I spoke 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 online and offline advertising, I began to receive orders in my inbox and by email. As sales increased, so did the number of items listed in 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 alone and another 100 offline. Add these sales to my talk sales and you can see I was working as a self-publisher. The orders seem to increase in number every month.
Writers no longer depend on the acceptance and approval of editors and publishers. Using the Internet, as well as offline classified ads in popular magazines, you can get your writing directly to a wide and eager market. People are always looking for “how to” information. In fact, the most searched items on the Internet are information products. So if you research people’s needs, wants, and interests, then write to satisfy them, you’re going to sell effectively.
Self-publishing is simple and profitable, 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 hard copies plus having to find storage space in your already cluttered basement.
If you have the typing error and have received enough rejection notes to wallpaper a bedroom, try posting it yourself. When the first order arrives, you will feel a great satisfaction and a surge of self-confidence that will inevitably translate into more sales. You’ll be on your way to conquering the desktop publishing world. GOOD LUCK!
