Thursday’s profit tip for authors

The e-book pricing strategy that Michael Hyatt has adopted for his two Writing a Winning Book Proposal e-books is ideal for just about any author or information marketer selling electronic information products over the Internet.

Here’s the strategy in a nutshell: you can buy either Writing a Winning Fiction Book Proposal OR Writing a Winning Nonfiction Book Proposal for $19.97 each…

…OR, you can buy BOTH for just $29.94–and save $10!

Creating a credible and compelling e-book offer

Here are some of the advantages to this e-book pricing strategy and its implementation on Michael Hyatt’s Leading with a Purpose blog:

• Simplicity. One for $19.97, two for $24.94 is a easy to describe and easy to remember. A $10.00 savings appears significant.
• Logical and complementary. The offer makes sense; it’s definitely not a “spend more than you intended on something you don’t need, in order to save money” situation. Writing is writing, and it’s entirely logical that, at some point, nonfiction authors may consider writing a fiction book, and fiction authors may want to write a nonfiction book. Plus, since writers tend to be friends with other writers, you can always share the other e-book with a friend.
• Credible. As you can see when you visit Michael Hyatt’s site, the page projects a professional image, one that’s light-years away from the typical bonus piled on bonus, testimonial-filled sales page. (Don’t you think there’s something unconvincing about $49.95 e-books that come with $495.00 worth of bonuses?) Michael allows the authority of his blog posts, the description of the e-books contents, and his position as Chairman and CEO of Thomas Nelson publishers to sell the quality and insider-perspective of his e-books.
• Visual reinforcement. The tasteful design of the front covers of the e-book, characterized by lots of white space, a restrained use of color, and careful typography, further reinforces the credibility of the offer.

Profiting from technology

Obviously, an offer like the above wouldn’t make sense with conventional physical products, i.e., printed books that needed to be sent via the postal service or couriers to the buyers.

However, in the case of electronic products like e-books, the incremental cost of distributing a second PDF file is negligible, creating a win-win situation for both buyer and seller.

The big question

The question, of course, is what are you doing as an author or information publisher to increase cash flow by creatively pricing bundles of e-books and other electronic information products? Are you taking advantage of the Internet to offer buyers attractive savings while increasing your profits and cash-flow without destroying the credibility of your offer? Does the idea make sense to you? Share your experiences, ideas, and questions below, as comments.

Wednesday’s promoting tip for authors

If you have questions about planning and writing a nonfiction book to build your personal brand and driving business success, here are 11 detailed articles to help you make the right book marketing and promoting decisions.

Visit my Author’s Journey series page on the Active Garage blog. Under the Promoting subhead, you’ll find links to 11 articles I wrote to help business owners and self-employed professionals gain a new perspective and detailed advice about marketing and promoting nonfiction books.

Marketing and promoting topics include:

• Evaluating your current online visibility.
  
• Create an online hub for marketing your book
• Choosing the right incentive to build your e-mail list
• Use Tip Sheets to market your book
• Use one sheets to sell books and build your profits
• Tips for using teleconferences to launch your book
• Building your network & obtaining pre-publication quotes
• Using video to market and sell your book
• Speak your way to book publishing success
• Building lasting relationships with your readers
• Creating a marketing plan for your nonfiction book

If you don’t find what you need…

If you don’t find the answers to your nonfiction book marketing and promoting questions on my Active Garage’s Author’s Journey series page, submit your questions about marketing and promoting nonfiction book as a comment, below. Or, you can submit your book marketing question to me via e-mail. Note: if you’re just starting out planning your book, here are 7 articles about planning your book.

Tuesday’s writing tip for authors

Yesterday, immediately after reading a New York Times review of Roy Peter Clark’s new book, The Glamour of Grammar, I visited the local Borders and purchased a copy.

Subtitled, A Guide to the Magic and Mystery of Practical English, The Glamour of Grammar is an excellent companion to Roy’s previous book, Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer.

During the last 2 years, I’ve devoted several Published & Profitable blog posts to Writing tools, including Must Reading for Authors and Blueprint for Writing Success.

Style

The Glamour of Grammar is a fascinating, easy-to-read book about a detailed topic that usually invites boredom and yawning. A great deal of the credit goes to Roy Peter Clark’s writing style which is close and immediate; he understands your instinctive dislike of rules and pedantry.

He also knows how to write with a twinkle in his eye–and a pun on the page. The book is like an impromptu conversation between two writing colleagues who are passionate about the need for clear writing.

Organization and format

Like Writing Tools, The Glamour of Grammar is based on 50 short chapters organized into 5 sections. Topics build upon previous topics in a logical progression from micro to macro:

• Part One: Words. Words begin with the smallest units of meaning, sounds, letters, an symbols; these turn thoughts into language.
• Part Two: Points. As Roy Peter Clark wrote, To work together, words need help. They need connecting words, and they need punctuation.
• Part Three: Standards. Standards are important not from an academic, or “right,” perspective, but from a practical one: language requires conventions–i.e., informal agreements–so ideas are not confused or distorted.
• Part Four: Meaning. Writers and speakers must not only choose the right words, but accurate communication rquires that words be organized into the appropriate sentence formats.
• Part Five: Purpose. The final section–which I haven’t reached, yet–discusses the importance of using the power of writing and speaking for positive, rather than negative, goals.

Practicality on every page

Roy Peter Clark is an academic associated with the Poynter Institute, an influential media training and watchdog group. But, in the Glamour of Grammar, he writes for everyone; everyone who wants to use written or spoken words to convince, engage, entertain, inform, motivate, or persuade.

He doesn’t dwell on the “musts” of writing from a “standards” perspective; The Glamour of Grammar focuses on why sloppy writing simply doesn’t work as well as careful writing.

The hundreds of writing tips shared in The Glamour of Grammar are important, but more important is Roy Peter Clark’s emphasis on standards not because they “right,” but because they’re accurate, effective, and efficient.

I’ll be returning to The Glamour of Grammar again, but I wanted to let Published & Profitable friends and members know that, over the weekend, another valuable book about writing has been published and it’s worth everyone’s attention. Also see:

• Interview discussing writing for Twitter & Facebook
• View the table of contents and read an excerpt
• List of Roy Peter Clark’s articles on Poynter Institute blog
  

Monday’s planning tip for authors

If you have questions about planning and writing a nonfiction book to build your personal brand and promote your business, here are 7 articles to help you make the right book planning decisions.

When you visit the Author’s Journey series on the Active Garage blog , you’ll find links to 7 tip-filled articles I wrote to offer business owners and self-employed professionals a new perspective and detailed advice about planning nonfiction books.

These 7 articles address the planning planning questions

Each topic addresses a specific question about planning a nonfiction book, including:

1. Does writing a book make sense for you?
2. How can I target the right readers for my book?
3. What should I write about?
4. How can I research my book’s competition?
5. What’s the right publishing alternative for me?
6. What’s the best size for your book?
7. Who can help me write my book?

An invitation

If you don’t find the answers to your planning questions on my Active Garage’s Author’s Journey series,  submit your questions about planning a book as comments, below. I’ll do my best to answer them. Or, submit your questions about planning a book to me via e-mail.

The following words about the state of trade book publishing and author marketing were written by best-selling Lee Child.

Lee wrote them for the Introduction to Killer Year: Stories to Die For…from the Hottest New Crime Writers, which he edited.

Lee wrote the following 3 years ago, but they’re even truer today:

“…no one expects you to care that the publishing biz is in dire straits. But to appreciate the spirit in which this collection of stories came together, it helps to understand something about the publishing industry at this point in time.

With margins low, distribution costs rocketing, limited or no marketing budgets for all but the top 15 percent of titles, and little major media interest in all but the biggest authors, book sales drop a little more each year and fewer and fewer authors can live off their fiction efforts.”

Risk-adverse publishers lead to author marketing

Lee continues:

“Outs has become a risk-adverse industry that more and more puts all of its eggs in the same baskets year in, year out: a few brand-name authors, yet there are more than one thousand traditionally published every month.

These days even some of the biggest and best authors will attest that their job is as much about selling as it is writing, because the support theyy get from their publishers is no longer enough to spread the word among bestsellers, let along readers. Authors hiring outside publicists and webmasters, buying additional advertising, subsidizing book tours, not just talking about marketing but doing something about it…all these things are no longer the exception but the rule.”

Relevance

My intent in sharing Lee’s quotation is two-fold. First, I want to draw attention to Killer Year, Stories to Die For…from the Hottest New Crime Writers, which offers an uncommonly satisfying reading experience. Second, Lee’s final paragraph detailing the marketing tasks which authors must be prepared to undertake is an accurate and concise description of the responsibilites that all authors must be prepared to undertake.

The Directory of Colleges & Universities has added the Published & Profitable blog to their list of the Top 100 Blogs to Improve Your Writing in 2010.

In the Directory’s words:

Aimed at being profitable in writing, this blog is a step-by-step guide in how to make your writing into a book that will sell. Roger C. Parker can take you by the hand and make your book as profitable and as fast as possible.

Published & Profitable joins other Top 100 Blogs to Improve Your Writing, such as CopyBlogger.com, Bob Bly’s blog, Maria Schneider’s Editor Unleashed, Seth Godin’s Blog, Writer’s Digest, Writing Tools from the Poynter Institute, and Michael Stelzner’s Writing White Papers.

Check out the full list of Top 100 Blogs to Improve Your Writing in 2010. You’ll undoubtedly discover new favorites. And, thanks to the Directory for including Published & Profitable!