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Booklet Tips From Paulette

Writing, producing, and promoting tips booklets for marketing, motivating, and making money.

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Drinking It Up

" Some students drink at the fountain of knowledge- others just gargle."

I have no clue where this quote came from since it had no annotation were I read it. However, it did resonate for me when thinking about the many people who I am fortunate in knowing throughout any given time period in my business.

Have you been swishing around in your mouth the idea of doing a booklet, and have not yet swallowed the sweet nectar moistening your tongue? (oh this metaphor is just too terrific. I'm holding myself back now.) Does it taste so great that you can't wait to fill your glass with more? Or are you worried it tastes too good to be true, that the after-taste will be less wonderful?

The flip side of this is that you have the ability to provide your booklet readers the opportunity to sip from your fountain of knowledge. They can then decide, after they gargle a bit, how much more they would like to drink! You, of course, have an endless supply in your fountain, all that they could want and then some.

Drink up, everyone. This is a Good Addiction all around.

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Monday, January 30, 2006

TMI - Too Much Information

You are brilliant at what you do and your depth of knowledge parallels 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Your challenge is to write less. You want to give the entire world all the best of what you've got and you just aren't sure how to pull it all back.

Put yourself in the shoes of the reader who is somewhat new to your subject area. How would you feel, as a first-line approach, to have alllll that information coming at you all at once? I'm talking every tidbit, every nuance, every connection about all of what you know in your field. Your intention to be helpful, instead, turns into a burden to the person you're wanting to help, and they can't get away from you and your knowledge quickly enough. Not at all what you had in mind, is it?

The beauty about writing a tips booklet is being able to give people information a small bit at a time. When they are ready for more, you will, ideally, have more to give them. It'll be through a series of booklets or by expanding your product line into other formats that support a more in-depth treatment of your expertise.

Think about how you feel when anyone in your life gives you more information than you wanted about anything. Isn't the tendency to shut down rather than be receptive? Write that booklet so you can start someone on their lifelong journey of wanting more of what you've got to give them.

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Monday, January 23, 2006

Start Generic

No matter how much knowledge you've got in your area of expertise, or how much credibility, or how long you've been in your field, the first (and maybe only) booklet must be as generic a presentation of your information as possible. Why do I say this? It's because you can always go into more depth in content or in a particular industry when someone commissions you to do so. However, it's much harder for your booklet buyers to relate to your content when it's been customized or goes in-depth too quickly.

You can feel like you're a race horse being held back by writing a generic booklet first. I promise you it's the way to go. It'll give you much more leverage to make many more sales going that way. And you'll still have plenty of room to expand in subsequent products you create. Holding back now will pay off big time going forward.

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Creative Use of Craig's List

Have you looked online at www.Craigslist.com , lately?
Thousands of opportunities in dozens of cities for you to post things at no cost to you.


Be creative. List your workshop. List your book (or booklet) in multiple cities. Look for a freelance job. Create opportunities for yourself.
Examples using the
Los Angeles Craigslist page:
Under "For Sale"
Books
Under "Jobs"
Writing/Editingtv/film/video
Under "Community"
ClassesActivitiesArtists
Under "Gigs"
Writing
Under "Services"
CreativeEventSm Biz Ads

Thanks for this goes to Jeffrey Bowen is today's issue of his ezine found at
http://www.pubinsider.com/pages/6/index.htm

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Booklets Coming to Washington

How to Sell 1 Million Copies of Your Info Products to Corporations
Paulette Ensign, Expert Facilitator and Tour Guide

Tuesday, May 16, 2006
9 AM – 5 PM
Washington, DC

Yes, I'm coming to Washington, DC in May, which is really right around the corner.

And I'm bringing you a very special event, as you can see from the above title. It's a different combination than anything I've done before. You're going to love it. The all-important details are a mere mouse-click away.

While I promise to show you how to make lots of money when we're together, you'll also see how much you can save way before that by reserving your place now so other things won't get in your way and before we sell out the limited number of seats.

There's some wonderful goodies I've got for you that you won't find anywhere else. Curious? I'm sure you are.


Mouse your way right over to the details now at http://www.tipsbooklets.com/bbb_2006.htm

By the way, since the initial emailing of this event went out yesterday, several people have asked if I would come to their city, including the Boston area and the Sydney, Australia region. Conversations have begun to explore making that happen. Please contact me if either of those places would work for you or if you would like to open a conversation about my coming to where you are.

See you in May in Washington, DC or some other time in your back yard!

Paulette - have suitcase, will consider traveling
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Booklets Have Legs

It's not at all unusual to send a sample booklet to the head of marketing at a corporation and find that the person never got it ( or thinks they never got it). Even with all the mail going through the postal system inside and outside that corporation, the booklet most likely DID arrive at its destination and the envelope it was in DID get opened.

Then what happened to it??

Here's some probabilities:

* The gatekeeper (aka the secretary) opened the envelope, liked the booklet, and never passed it on to the intended person.
* The same gatekeeper opened the envelope, left the booklet sitting on his/her own desk, and someone else came by to look at it, inadvertantly walking off with the booklet.
* The booklet did get to the intended person, who took a glance at it, thought it interesting, and immediately got distracted to something else, leaving the booklet sitting in an ever-growing pile.
* The same scenario of the booklet sitting on the intended person's desk, when some guest to that work area spotted the booklet, picked it up to look at it, and inadvertantly or otherwise walked off with it.

And on and on and on.

You phone the intended person to do your follow-up, to hear "I never got your booklet." Your ideal response: "I'll be happy to send you another one. Look for a purple envelope. Let's talk next week."

In the meantime, the inadvertant 'borrower' of the original booklet loves it so much that you get a phone call wanting to know how much it'll cost to buy 5,000 customized copies of this great booklet they found somewhere, where they can't remember. You give a price after you get all the necessary details, and you've now made two sales to that same corporation.

Good thing that booklets often have legs.

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Friday, January 13, 2006

Make it Easy

How easy is it for people to do business with you? No, I really mean it. Do you have prospective clients jumping through hoops before they can write a check or enter their credit card information to get the great booklets you've got that are just what they want?

You would be correct if you said this blog entry is in reaction to an experience I had today. After a conversation with a wonderfully high-powered bright capable successful person about ways we could do some joint ventures, I went to that person's web site and could not believe the hoops I had to jump through in order to get up to the start line! My hunch is the person wanted to be as thorough as possible and, in my opinion and experience, went to overload. I almost bailed from the process several times. Granted that I am a very bottom-line person. However, there's lots of other people like me who I am sure would respond the same way.

This is so different from other experiences I've had, where making a payment was no more than 2 or 3 clicks from my arriving at a site, or getting a mailing address and the complete amount to send a check.

Make it easy for people to do business with you. Look at the experience through their eyes and see what you see.

Until next time,
Paulette - who is about to review her own site through new filters
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Thursday, January 12, 2006

Passive Income

Booklets are passive income -- NOT. They are income that allows you to make money without having to be a certain place at a certain time each and every day. They are income that gives you creative flexibility to grow more products from them.

They could look like passive income when you get an order from someone who received a copy of your booklet from someone else, and wants to know how they can order a large supply from you for themselves. That is about as close to truly passive income as booklets get.

Otherwise, it is most definitely required that you do SOMETHING to let your world know that your booklets exist. Does it have to be a difficult and time-consuming effort? Nah, it really doesn't. There are so many ways to 'drip' on the people who want to know what you've got.

You can distribute information articles to the many online article directories, with a reference to your booklet in the Resource Box at the end of the article. You can talk with clients you already know to let them know about your booklets. You can do the same with colleagues. You may be very surprised to know that many of my colleagues bought booklets from me early on. They thought it was easier than writing their own, and they liked what I had to say. You can tell your family and friends about your booklet. That, too, might surprise you to learn how many of those folks can introduce you to buyers or be a buyer themself!

So think twice about just how passive any of this is or can be. And then go have a good time making lots of sales.

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

How Much is Enough

Last night I did the first in a series of three teleclasses on the phone. There were lots of people on the call, many of whom already have had exposure to my work. They've heard me speak, bought my materials, or consulted with me. Some have been long-time followers of my work, and, for one reason or another, were not yet ready to make any purchases of time or product. The title of the teleclass was even the name of the publication that a bunch of them had previously bought. So why did they take an hour out of their day (actually evening) to go back to the well one more time?

Some of them thought there might be something new that I'd say. There is always that outside chance that I would. Others are merely enamored of my work (thank you thank you). The rest understand that it takes more than one exposure to the information for it to begin to sink in. Yes, an amazing grasp of the obvious, yet an easy thing to forget. A few people sent me emails saying exactly that, thanking me for reinforcing what they had read in my stuff or heard me say out loud.

How this fits into the work you are doing is this: People need to be exposed to your expertise multiple times and in multiple ways before they even begin to truly benefit from it. When you get concerned about the possibility of repeating some pearl you've already shared, do it anyway. Think about how many times it's taken YOU to absorb something, even when you had a very high interest level in the information.

Present your knowledge repeatedly and in various methods. Make it short, e-l-o-n-g-a-t-e it with more narrative in another kind of product than a tips booklet, record it, write articles about it, and on and on.

I am not suggesting you deceive anyone into thinking it's new information by having a new title or cover on it, when it's the same ole same ole. I am merely suggesting you put your information into different forms and continue marketing it.

Until next time,
Paulette - who sometimes wonders why you don't know what I didn't tell you.
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

Yesterday and today I saw two of the ugliest booklets I've seen in a long time. I know I just wrote about how much format matters just a few days ago. This is so pressing that I couldn't help myself in writing about it so soon again.

I would never tell the clients their booklet was ugly in those words. However, these clients' booklets were among the worst I've seen, no question about it.

From what I understand, in one case, the client truly loved the graphics selected for that booklet, in spite of advise given by vendors working with the client. In the other situation, the client had no clue at all that the booklet needed to go beyond a Word document at all, with zero graphics in the manuscript.

What's the big deal about all of this, especially when I am the loud and strong advocate of simplistic design of booklets? Even though the booklets are completely different than books that get sold in retail environments, where the cover truly counts, appearance does still make a difference.

Amateurish graphics or no design at all truly detracts from the wonderful expertise shared in the words of the booklet. Many people cannot get past the formatting, period. They will be so pulled by the presentation that the brilliance gets completely lost in the shuffle. More people are visually attracted than any other learning style from everything I've ever heard or read or experienced. If that's the case, then you owe it to yourself to have a graphic designer do a good job of making the words look good on the page. It is false economy to do otherwise, and can most definitely keep you from making sales.

If you do not already have a professional (or even personal) relationship with a good graphic designer, then contact ours. You'll find them listed at http://www.tipsbooklets.com/vendors.htm Sometimes they have a lot of work to do so you may need to wait a week longer, and sometimes they treat themselves to a vacation. However, they are fabulous people and know what to do at prices that are quite reasonable. Contact them now.

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Monday, January 09, 2006

Who Writes Booklets?

Ever wonder who else writes booklets? Since writing my own in 1991, it's never ceased to amaze me who it is who writes booklets. For awhile it looked like it was mostly speakers, consultants, and personal or business coaches of every persuasion and topic. Those people still do write lots of booklets. However, a small sampling of what I've also seen is a:

* Rabbi
* Truck driver
* Plastics packager
* Pharmacist
* Dentist
* Massage therapist
* Professional organizer
* Stay-at-home mom
* Product inventor
* Realtor
* Trolley tour operator
* Engineer
* College professor
* Freelance writer
* Athlete
* Book publisher
* Musician
* Interior designer
* Lawyer
* Accountant
* Chef
* Web designer
* Animal behavorist
* Published book author
* Financial planner
* Chiropractor
* Actor

and more. If you didn't recognize yourself in that list, remember I said this is a small sampling. And there is always room for more. Have you been thinking about doing a booklet with all those sound bites you've gathered about something over the years? What stops you? Let's talk about getting your great stuff out into the world, to people who want and need what you've got.

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Friday, January 06, 2006

Format Matters

Rarely a day goes by without my seeing a new booklet from someone. Most of these booklets have fabulous content, expertise that was hard-earned by the author, information that is highly-useful to lots of people in the world.

Then it comes to the presentation of the material. As fabulous as the content is, I am often amazed by the corners the author is willing to cut when it comes to literally a very few hundred dollars to have a graphic designer make the words look good on the page. The is false economy at its worst as far as I am concerned.

The difference between the author producing a Word document as the finished product, and a well-designed layout done by a professional graphic designer is lite years apart, not even in the same universe. It makes a world of difference in the opinion of the buyer as to what your information looks like, and can absolutely be the difference between making the sale and not making the sale.

It need not be fancy, and certainly not 4-color with lots of graphic images. It does need to sit well on the page, with good spacing of the type, readable fonts in both style and size, a decent amount of white space, and some simple graphic elements. Most authorsI know (myself included) have strengths in other areas than graphic design.

And templates look like templates. Period. Even if you decide to sell your booklet from the final PDF output of a graphic designer and don't ever get it printed, do yourself justice by having a graphic designer lay it out for you.

There are some excellent people I've worked with for quite awhile. You can contact them directly. Their information is found at http://www.tipsbooklets.com/vendors.htm

Until next tme,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Easy No-Cost Promo

Over the years, I've made many sales because people read about me and my work in someone else's book. I'm literally in dozens of people's books. And that's happened in a variety of ways. One of the ways has been by staying alert to queries seeking people's stories. Such queries get posted in many places like discussion boards, forums, and in specific ezines.

A few weeks back, I passed along to you a new resource published monthly by Dan Poynter. In it are a lot of book queries just like I mentioned. In case you didn't subscribe to it, you'll find Publishing Poynters Marketplace posted/archived at
http://parapub.com/getpage.cfm?file=/news.html You may not find something that's a match for you this time. Keep watching and you may well find something ideal for you later on.

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Wednesday, January 04, 2006

Comfort Zones Kill

There's been a theme running through client conversations lately, whether they are author clients or bulk-buyer booklet clients. The best way I can generalize that theme is a statement of "It's What I Know," or "It's Where I'm Comfortable."

As you see in the title of this post, I have taken the statement one step further. In fact, comfort zones DO kill. They kill enthusiasm, discovery, abundance, joy, and lots of other fabulous things in life.

I have heard this comfort zone tune from authors who only know a particular market for their products and are nervous about venturing into new areas to sell what they've got. Or they know only one method of selling their products and can't imagine going into other ways of selling, ways that are often hugely more lucrative.

The same comfort zone message comes from bulk booklet buyers who have been marketing and advertising their business in certain ways, ways that wouldn't include booklets. Their previous methods may no longer be working as effectively or at all, yet it's what they know. Their comfort zone is killing revenue.

The best suggestion I can make is to start by taking a small step out of that comfort zone. test the waters, do it a little bit at a time. All of a sudden, you realize you've shifted course dramatically yet not joltingly. You're in a new place, a place that will eventually become a new comfort zone. Begin the process again to stay alive and moving forward.

Until next time,
Paulette -- who has had three careers so far and moved 4 time zones at once because it was the next indicated step
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

When I'm Ready

It's such a kick to observe human behavior. At least I enjoy it, anyway. That includes mine as well as those around me. In the past few weeks, many people clamored to spend money for all kinds of reasons as you well know. Much was spent on gifts for others - T'was the season. There was also money spent as a gift to the spender, either for tax deduction purposes (get the deduction in before the end of the calendar year) or because it came under the heading of 'long overdue' or some other reason. I had orders come in based on all those reasons. There was a deluge of orders today, in fact, as people are getting back into the swing of post-holiday business.

Some of the reasons I particularly love are framed something like this: "I read about you in a book I bought about 5 years ago. I wasn't ready until now." Or "I heard you speak about 8 years ago and have been thinking about doing a booklet ever since." Or "Someone sent me a copy of your booklet 4 years ago and I've been meaning to buy copies of it for a marketing campaign I want to do, and the timing just wasn't right." Do you recognize yourself in any of those?

The moral of the story? It's basic business sense: It's vital to keep on keeping on, since there is no way to know who will be ready when. It can be tough to do business forecasting based on such delays. It's a good thing there are people who make quick decisions, or we'd be out of business way before now. The best that can be done is to keep on marketing, keep on promoting your business, stay in front of the folks who are highly likely to want what you've got, when they're ready. Seize and create every opportunity you can to let people know what you've got that can enhance their lives, whenever they are ready.

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com

Monday, January 02, 2006

Selling to Libraries

Your booklet and your book could be ideal to sell to libraries, which can, in turn prompt large-quantity sales from people who see your publication there. Here's a first-hand report of success from a member of a discussion group I'm on:

"I've used many methods to try reaching libraries over the 9 years I've been publishing. Waging an email campaign caused sales to libraries to skyrocket. It was time consuming. I put together a short sales pitch with links to more complete details about the book. Then I searched the internet for email addresses of the people in charge of acquisitions for library systems and even individual libraries and sent them direct emails. I was amazed at the orders that rolled in. Email works. Just spend the time to locate the email address of the current buyer for libraries. If you're marketing across the country for a book that has appeal globally, focus on the library systems. Do a search for each state (i.e. NY library systems) and email the acquisitions people for each of the systems. It will still be a large number but it works."

Thanks to:
Sue Freeman
www.footprintpress.com
www.displaystands4you.com

Until next time,
Paulette
http://www.tipsbooklets.com