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Booklet Tips From Paulette

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

Friday, November 28, 2008

What Assuming Gets You

It's fascinating to see the results that happen from assuming something in business. Think about these possibilities, and how they have turned out for you.
  • A particular market is who wants a particular tips booklet topic.
  • A certain price is the ideal price for a booklet.
  • You believe the best time to reach a decision maker is ...
  • It's necessary to have a whole product line to sell any booklets at all.
  • There are credibility requirements for an author to sell a particular booklet
And on and on. Quite simply, whatever you believe, you are very likely to be right. :-) Consider what happens when you approach any of the above beliefs with an open mind, or at least an awareness that you may have made a limiting assumption. You will probably experience something other than what you thought was going to happen, and collect evidence to the contrary from where you started.

Until next time,
Paulette - with note to self about assumptions
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me on www.Twitter.com/pauletteensign

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Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Tips for Tips Booklet Authors

This week brings you two instantly useful resources to catapult your tips booklet business. Both resources also happen to come from tips booklet authors. The first is a list Pam Perry posted on her blog. She shares an excellent list of ways to utilize my newest and most favorite online resource, Twitter. Are you following me yet on Twitter? http://www.twitter.com/pauletteensign Thanks, Pam, for sharing the excellent suggestions! And thanks, John Kremer, for posting Pam's list in your ezine today.

http://bookmarket.ning.com/profiles/blogs/101-ways-to-rock-and-be-rocked

The second is a link to a 30-minute recording where Susan Friedmann is interviewing me about creating a niche. Susan has had great success with tips booklets in her own business over the years, as well as other formats of her information. Thanks for a great interview, Susan.

Have a listen:
http://www.wsradio.com/internet-talk-radio.cfm/shows/Riches-in-Niches-Radio.html


Until next time,
Paulette - grateful for the wonderful sharing that happens
www.tipsbooklets.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com

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Thursday, November 20, 2008

Tips Booklet versus Booklet

Do a Google search on the word "booklet" and then do a Google search on "tips booklet" and see the difference of what comes up. And do each as both singular and plural, too. Yes, there are various forms of booklets out there. It's important for you to determine which type you'd like to create, and how you'd like to be found. All booklets are not created equally. Far from it, in fact. And they can and do serve different purposes.

Tips booklets are the ideal "how-to" for situations and learning styles that demand quick answers to real challenges. They are best for personalities and learning styles that are very bottom-line oriented. A more narrative and more fully illustrated booklet can be useful for people and circumstances requiring more explanation, more process, more "make-nice."

There's no reason you can't create both types of booklets and see which one has greater demand in your market, and which style you prefer to do.

Until next time,
Paulette - staying true to my bottom-line self
www.tipsbooklets.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
Follow me: http://www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

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Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Write to Answer a Question

Over the weekend, a VP from ClickBank.com presented a highly informative seminar for a group in which I'm involved locally, the Publishers and Writers of San Diego. Among the many interesting things he said, one of them jumped out at me. Among the best-selling digital products sold through ClickBank.com are those that answer a question. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. It often starts with a Google search that leads someone to a product available through ClickBank. Apparently one of their best sellers is a ebook about how to attract more hummingbirds to a garden. That starts with a Google search of "how do I attract more hummingbirds to my garden?"

Think about the problem that your booklet solves. The key words of the Google search will lead your client to your booklet, whether it is sold through your website, tipsbooklets.com website, ClickBank.com or anyplace else!

Until next time,
Paulette - rethinking some positioning of some current products
www.tipsbooklets.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com

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Thursday, November 13, 2008

What's the Value of a Booklet?

A tips booklet author asked for input today about assigning a value to a booklet. Not a price, per se, but a value. The author is participating in a joint venture where the booklet would be a gift. The originator of the venture wanted to assign a dollar value to this gift.

The author and I were both in a quandary, and really came to no conclusive answer. Value is such a subjective thing. Over the years, tips booklet authors have sold single copies of their booklet for as little as $1 and as much as $29 and more. Yes, the same size tips booklet, too.

The variation comes from several things. Here are just a few:

* How proprietary the content
* The self-esteem of the author
* The expectation within a particular industry
* What else accompanies the booklet

And that list is far from exhaustive.

Then there's the matter of, quite literally, what the content contributes to someone's life. One tip may have saved someone money or provided an idea to make them more money. One tip could have been information that saved a life or improved the quality of a life. These are certainly not extreme examples, either.

In the days when I was a professional organizer, it was often a challenge for a corporate executive or a business owner to feel comfortable spending a lot of money to bring in a professional organizer to set up a well-running filing system. It's amazing how the point of view changed because that same executive was able to find the single piece of paper that had the crucial details of a major deal, because the filing system worked well!

So what's the value of a tips booklet? To borrow the phrase from Mastercard, "priceless."

Until next time,
Paulette - pondering the possibilities
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.Tipsbooklets.com
www.CollectionOfExperts.com

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Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Too Much is Too Much

What do business marketing and food have in common? Probably lots of things. The first that comes to mind is that too much of either can really leave a person feeling crummy and not enjoying the experience they otherwise enjoy a lot.

Balance, it's all about balance. Food is good (or at least I think so), until too much has been consumed in too short a time. Marketing and publicity and promotion are good (or at least I think so) until the scale gets tipped too far and it becomes a grind rather than a fun creative journey.

That also brings this to booklets. (c'mon, you didn't really think there would be no tie-in, did you?). If you've been following this blog and the tips booklets work for any period of time, you know that less is more. Have small bites of information, packaged in a small booklet (16-pages-ish) so your readers can digest the information without feeling awful, overloaded, overwhelmed, or like it was too much.

Like you (and me) with the business marketing and food, you'll have your clients wanting to come back for more, because they feel great and it all tasted good!

Until next time,
Paulette - keeping today's blog entry easy to digest
www.PublishingProsperity.com (did you join yet?)
www.tipsbooklets.com

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Thursday, November 06, 2008

Making it Easy

A theme has shown up this week worth sharing with you. It's been about how easy it is (or isn't) to do business with a company, and the results that come from that ease or lack of same, whether it's the booklet business or any other kind of business, large, small, or in-between.

I watched someone go from "I don't have time for that" to "Let's do it" within a matter of minutes this week when she realized how easy I was making it for her to participate as an organizer of a Collection of Experts booklet. And within a few short hours, the orders started coming in to my office for people who want to be in that booklet.

At least 3 other people went through a similar process in some part of my business this week. Either they didn't want to do an online credit card transaction or they weren't sure how something connected with something else. And the last one was about a promotional interview, where I offered more than the person requested, and had it in his email inbox while we were still on the phone.

The rewards kept showing up each and every time. And these people all know they will get similar treatment moving forward with me.

The flip side of that is the stress involved in dealing with a particular vendor right now. It will take me a whole lot of effort to identify and move my that piece of business activity to a new resource. However, with each passing day, I am getting experiencing more reasons to create the time to do just that.

It was very different when I ordered some product from another vendor, who ended the phone call with "You can now scratch that off your to-do list for today. We've got it all handled for you." Yes, he was completely right about that.

How easy are you making it to do business with you? While my inclination is frequently to streamline things and have people be as self-sufficient as possible, these have been important reminders to me that we are people, first and foremost. As humans, that extra touch, the extra care is, indeed, rewarded many times over and well worth it. I know how much I enjoy it when someone goes the extra mile. Now I invite you to do the same.

Until next time,
Paulette - grateful for the reminders
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me weekdays at http://twitter.com/pauletteensign

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Tuesday, November 04, 2008

Twitter and Booklets

Twitter.com is my newest and most favorite online communication tool, almost more than email. (I said almost). It's probably my most favorite for the same reason that tips booklets appeal to me. They are both quick, easy, and to the point. They suit not only my personality but the personalities of lots of people who are wired like me, who are not drawn to lots of explanation and background and posturing and tons of make-nice before getting to what there is to say.

This approach appeals to a certain segment of the world's population, surely not everyone. So Twitter (and booklets) become the ideal starting point to build relationship. It's not the end-all-be-all. It's the starting point. Little snippets - teasers - are placed in a limited number of characters on Twitter. The writing style I've advocated for years with tips booklets suggests a short form of communication, too.

For the people who want more, there must be (and is) more. The Twitter snippets often include URLs to whatever "more" is. I've made sales as a direct result of "Tweets" in which I placed some URLs. With tips booklets, people have come back around to want more products, services, or both to go beyond the booklet.

Twitter.com and tips booklets -- the perfect match for fast-paced, results-oriented folks like moi.

Until next time,
Paulette - who you can follow at http://twitter.com/pauletteensign
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.Tipsbooklets.com

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