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Booklet Tips From Paulette

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

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Write, Re-Write, Write, Re-Write, Wrong

Yes, you want your booklet and any other information product you develop to go out into the world written and produced as well as you can possibly create it. However (and this is a big however), there comes a point of diminishing returns. You can write and re-write and edit and write again, and never get it out into the world at all. There's a line in there somewhere between attentiveness and perfectionism. Let me share a little secret with you: It will never be perfect, even when every "i" is dotted, "t" is crossed, and the punctuation and spacing and everything else are exactly as intended.

Why? Because you are bound to come up with yet another great idea to add or something you want to embellish or, or, or. That's what thinking, intelligent people do, and you're certainly among them!

Put that additional brilliance into a different booklet or a different edition of the one you just wrote. Get yours out there, now!!

Until next time,
Paulette - responding and reacting to a client conversation I had yesterday. You know who you are :-)
www.tipsbooklets.com

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Tuesday, August 26, 2008

How-to's Need How To

'Had an interesting conversation today with a booklet author who wrote some booklets and has yet to own any of my materials. As I was suggesting he get my flagship product, "How to Promote Your Business with Booklets," the person on the other end of the line made a comment more meaningful than I think he may have realized at the time. He commented that so many of the "gurus" give the "what" and not the "how" in the things they sell. I assured him the product I was recommending is all about the "how."

However, he unwittingly made the point that's so crucial for booklet authors to bear in mind as well. The best thing you can do in writing your booklet is to tell the reader how to do whatever it is you're suggesting they do. Merely telling the reader "what" to do falls very short of being as useful as you can be. By then giving a sentence or two about "how" to do it, you've probably made a friend and client for life!

Until next time,
Paulette - grateful for the simple reminder of how to write a useful how-to
www.tipsbooklets.com

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Thursday, August 21, 2008

Booklets and Your Core Business

What's your core business and how do booklets fit into that? You may be a speaker, consultant, coach, or therapist, focusing on a particular niche or some related niches. The booklet serves as a marketing tool for you and can also be a direct source of income if you decide to sell it (in bulk, of course).

The booklet could be the beginning of shifting the balance of your business from primarily or solely a service-based business, exchanging time for money, to selling more products, to maybe ultimately being a completely product-based business or part product and part service.

Or you may have decided that booklets are your entire business, and that it works for you to create many different titles, either on similar topics or on completely unrelated topics.

There's no right answer other than whatever the right answer is for you. And what may be the right answer for you today changes and becomes a different right answer somewhere down the road. Just ask yourself the question periodically about what your core business is and how booklets fit into it. That'll keep you on track no matter what the answer.

Until next time,
Paulette - whose core business has morphed a few times
www.tipsbooklets.com

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Yes, You DO Have Contacts for Bulk Booklet Sales

During a client consultation this week, we explored where the booklet author would be marketing her newly published booklet for large-quantity sales. The client has had a private practice for a long time since leaving a corporate position. While we were on the phone together, she wrestled with what contacts she truly had. Then an email arrived from her last night. I have obviously changed the names of the specific organizations she has referenced. Otherwise, it's all her words.

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Thanks for the consultation today. I must tell you that my head has been spinning all day since then, mostly in positive ways.
With the large-scale thinking you encouraged, I connected some dots. For example, I was employed for 14 years by XYZ Systems, owned by ABC Company. Eleven of those were as one of their Regional Department Heads for the southern tier of the state and Staff Supervisor of one of their facilities. I have good connections there and they would be a good prospect to explore, I would think.
I am already beginning my list for our next talk!

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I suspect there will be no keeping her down now that she realizes she truly does have contacts after all, which is a Good Thing.

Until next time,
Paulette - who has yet to find a booklet author who has no contacts
www.tipsbooklets.com

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Thursday, August 14, 2008

A Giver or a Taker?

Are you interested in taking money from your booklet clients or giving them something that will make their life more, better, or different? As basic a question as that is, and as obvious as the answer may be, it's something that keeps many booklet authors stuck during the sales process.

When you approach a buyer from the perspective of giving them a tool that enhances their business and or personal life, the notion of asking someone to buy something from you just doesn't look the same anymore. You're not asking them to do you a favor by buying something from you, or taking their money. You're not taking time from them. You are giving them a valuable item in exchange for money. You give them product. They give you money. No one is taking anything from anyone. You are giving to them and they are giving to you.

Until next time,
Paulette - who loves the giving process
www.tipsbooklets.com

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Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Do It Differently

Booklets lend themselves to being "different." After all, it's not a book, yet you can be an author. It's not a manual or workbook, yet you can tell the reader what to do. It's a great chance to publish without waiting for anyone else to say you can or to change what you want to say.

You can sell lots of your booklets or any other format of your product to a single buyer. That's not typical of what many people do with their published products. You can create an entire product line in different formats from expanding and/or contracting one single publication. Also not typical of what many people do with their published products.

Your title can be something other than "101" of something. That is a common approach to how-to's. You can do it differently.

You can come out of nowhere, a total unknown, without a "platform," formal education, a bank account, or even a track record and be hugely successful because you've decided to be and are choosing to do what you say you're going to do, regardless of anything or anyone.

You can do it differently. I dare you.

Until next time,
Paulette - whose above stream of consciousness has been prompted by multiple sources this past week
www.tipsbooklets.com

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Thursday, August 07, 2008

Product Plans

"Are ya like me?" as late night talk show host, Dave Letterman, is fond of asking. So anyway, are ya like me, that the idea of a "plan" can be somewhat of a foreign concept? It's not that I don't plan. I just tend to typically do short-term planning in lots of things. New idea in the shower implemented by noon of the same day is frequently my idea of a plan.

Did you plan to create an entire product line based on your booklet when you decided to write a booklet? I didn't, yet that's how it turned out.

Or did you plan to create a whole line of different booklets on different topics when you started your first booklet. That's how another booklet author has been developing her booklet business. I have the feeling that wasn't what she was originally thinking when she did her first booklet, though I may be wrong about that.

It's easier now than it's ever been to have a peek into someone else's crystal ball to get ideas of ways to go. There's no right way, either. The only right way is the way that's best for you. I like to do things once and leverage them as many times as possible. It's what keeps me interested. Other people find their juices flow by tapping into different topics, some of which are related to each other, and others not at all.

What's your plan?

Until next time,
Paulette - currently involved in long-range planning of 6-8 weeks for launching something new
www.tipsbooklets.com

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Tuesday, August 05, 2008

How Successful Is This Booklet Author?

"It seems as though every "guru" has their hand out, and we are subjected to an endless attempt at prying our hard-earned money out of our wallets with little value."

The above quote is from one of my ezine or blog subscribers this week, in response to a short survey I'm doing to prepare for a new service that will be launched in the next month or so. I have no idea who wrote that feedback since the survey is anonymous. While I confess to some mild curiosity about who wrote the comment, it was the comment itself that was more interesting to me. I wish I knew how to actually pry money out of someone's wallet. It makes for a fascinating visual, doesn't it?

First, it seems the author views me as a guru, I think. The people I consider to be gurus have been around for awhile, have some results to show for their longevity, have often gone through some very lean times yet found their own way out of it through trial and error in many cases, and package their experience so others can benefit. I don't have the feeling that this writer (above) has a plan to be successful while he or she sees those of us who are in such a negative way. I do see a strong commitment to complaining, though.

Second, this above writer always has the option of unsubscribing from my ezine and the mailings of anyone else who is one of those money-grubbing gurus out there.

Third, as for value, well, like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder. It is quite true that people buy products and services that seem to have no value to them. I'm sure there are products and services where that's actually true. I also know I've had clients tell me they never opened the album of the home study course they bought from me until years later. Yup, hard for that to have value, I agree.

So how successful a booklet author are you? What are you going to do about it? And when? (That "and when?" question is for a different booklet author who has spent the past 2+ years including this morning saying her booklet will be coming to me soon for editing.)

Until next time,
Paulette - the pervasive action figure who can't find her crowbar at the moment
www.tipsbooklets.com


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