Keeping Your Booklet Business Afloat Without You

One of my favorite weekly ezines is published by www.SpeakerNetNews.com A recent issue had an article in it by a Professional Speaker that was a great reminder worth passing along to you, whether you're a speaker or not. It also reminded me of the years I was a Professional Organizer, and the value of emergency preparedness. Here's the article, in full, for your consideration, no, for your action!

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Your business emergency plan — Bill Conerly

A friend who runs a one-person Internet company was in a severe motorcycle accident last month. Intensive care for two weeks, barely able to speak, unable to move one arm, plus lots of internal injuries. No one knew his Web site passwords or his online banking passwords. His wife was not an authorized signer on his business bank account. She didn’t know about quarterly estimated tax payments, and did not know who their accountant is. A network of friends wanted to help keep his business going, but nobody knew how to get started.

I have created an emergency plan, with copies held by wife and my virtual assistant. Key elements include:

• how to contact my Web site consultant, plus all the passwords
• bank account information, including name of the branch manager who knows me personally
• speaker friends who can explain business issues, including Act database questions
• voicemail password
• files of upcoming speeches and client contact information
• other speakers I recommend to substitute for me, and their contact information
• bookkeeping files: where I keep unpaid bills, invoices outstanding, and a person who can help with QuickBooks
• business insurance information

I also stay off motorcycles.

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Until next time,
Paulette - who is updating and expanding a list like this that was started years ago

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Booklets - What's Average?

The following email arrived this week. It echoes others of the past:

What is the average length of time for generating income with booklets and any clues as to what the average income is for someone writing and selling booklets? Should I be able to make 6 figures without pulling my hair out and working 60 hours a week?

Very simply, my reply:

There is no such thing as average, I assure you. I've had booklet author clients accomplish zero and others accomplish many zeros, in all kinds of time frames.

Until next time,
Paulette - who has yet to meet a person or situation that is "average"

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Booklet Ideas from Useful Ezines

Like you, I get lots of ezines. And also, like you, I unsubscribe from many of them when realizing they are not applicable.

Here's a few that stand the test of time and continuing providing ideas, one way or another, that contribute well to booklets:

Brian Jud's bi-weekly Book Marketing Matters
http://www.bookmarketingworks.com/mktgmatters.asp
 
John Kremer's weekly Book Marketing Update
http://www.bookmarket.com

Dan Poynter's bi-weekly Publishing Poynters
http://parapublishing.com/sites/para/resources/newsletter.cfm

SpeakerNet News weekly
http://www.SpeakerNetNews.com

Joan Stuart's weekly Publicity Hound
http://www.PublicityHound.com

Marcia Yudkin's weekly Marketing Minute
For a free weekly marketing tip, subscribe: 
http://www.yudkin.com/markmin.htm

Any others you'd like to add to this list? You can do that by leaving a comment. Be sure it's relevant, though, or it will evaporate and go poof!

Until next time,
Paulette - bringing you helpful resources

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Overcoming Obstacles with Your Booklet

You have obstacles with your booklet. You may or may not view it that way. However, you do have obstacles. Here's a few that some people have, in no particular order.

• Creating an overall plan for product development
  
• Choosing a topic
• Getting started writing
• Completing the writing you started
  
• Overcoming opinions of people in your life
• Overcoming your opinions of your expertise
• Choosing design and print vendors
• Planning how to market and sell
• Creating a price for single and multiple copies
• Licensing partial, full contents,languages, formats
  
• Reaching your buyers

As you look at that list, there are probably some entries that seem easier to you than others, and that you don't even view as an obstacle. There could be things not included here that are bigger than life for you.

The point of this? Like many things in life, you have choices of what to do yourself, what to outsource to someone else, what order to do things, what to include in your process, how long to take, and, bottom line, how you feel about any of it. What you see as an obstacle, someone else sees as easy or interesting or approachable. Look at that list again and make some choices about what you want to do. Is it an obstacle or an opportunity?

Until next time,
Paulette - with obstacles in different places than yours

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Booklets - The Best Addition for Service Businesses

In the past week I've learned about several coaches, consultants, and speakers who have had major health challenges or other emergencies in their life. These things distracted them from their service-based business for the short term or permanently.

There are many reasons to create information products, among them being flexibility. You can capture 3500 words of your expertise into a product you can sell/license as a download or as a printed product. And selling them in bulk to companies and associations can bring you even more income than your services in many cases.

So whether it's about tweaking your business to better match your audience during the economic shift we're in, or whether you want to plan for the future before it plans itself for you, do a booklet and do it today. Imagine a company placing an first order for 10,000 or 50,000 booklets or more and you didn't have to get on a plane or schedule ongoing telephone calls or deliver a new customized project that took months of your time. Booklets and their spin-off formats can do that for you. Let's get started -- TODAY

Until next time,
Paulette - who adores getting orders like that, and who still does while teaching others the same

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Booklets - The Curse of Many Ideas

Whether you're struggling to narrow your booklet content to 3500 words or you're looking for the ideal starting place to sell your booklets, your best bet is to focus first and expand later. You've heard it said that when you think everyone is your market it means no one is your market. That's true for your content and for your marketing activities.

What many booklet authors seem to overlook is that you can always do more later. Your 16-page booklet can be expanded to larger products that go into greater depth than a booklet. Or you can do a series of booklets on other aspects of your expertise.

Your marketing can start with one industry or specialty and go on to others after that. You have more to gain than to lose by doing this. Those opportunities will still be there later. And if, per chance, they're not, then they probably would have disappeared anyway! People need to see themselves as your ideal client for them to be comfortable investing in what you've got. Too many choices means confusion means no sale.

Until next time,
Paulette - noticing some booklet authors sabotaging themselves by being scattered

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Booklet Sales - It's Been a Whole Week

Booklet authors never cease to amaze me. Sometimes it's "good" amazement and other times it's a complete groaner. This week brought one of the latter. Someone who took an in-person workshop I presented earlier this year emailed me to say her booklet was finished and she didn't realize how hard it would be to sell booklets. I continue reading the laundry list of places she sent the booklet, all of which seemed logical for her topic. And then the crowning glory of the email: "It's already been a whole week since I sent the letter and booklet, and I haven't sold anything yet."

Okay, now I know I've been in this business a long time. But really, did you expect to have results from corporate decision makers within a week? I couldn't help myself but to reply with "tell me what you've done after you've tried something that really didn't work."

A week? Sheesh. It's very likely the recipient hasn't even unearthed the envelope that contains the booklet yet in a week, much less thought about if it's something that fits a promo campaign or not and talked to everyone else who has to sign off on it for the purchase to happen. So folks, let's get some reality base here. While corporate sales are most definitely a reality, happen a lot, and can be very lucrative, they do take time. It can be weeks or months. A week? Verrrrry rare.

Until next time,
Paulette - wondering where I neglected to teach this part during that class and in my materials

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Booklets - The Same Yet Different

You may know about Help a Reporter Out (HARO) created by Peter Shankman just over a year ago. It's a free 3-times-daily notice in your inbox of journalists and bloggers looking for people to interview about specific topics. As Peter is fond of saying, he started HARO as a hobby, and within the year it's grown into zillions of subscribers plus usually a single advertiser for each issue. So he's now making some serious money with it, too. You can subscribe to it at http://www.HelpAReporter.com

Then a couple weeks ago, Cathy Stucker launched something similar to what Peter does with HARO. Cathy's service is for bloggers looking for guest bloggers and to be a guest blogger on other people's blog. Same format as what Peter is doing with HARO. You can sign up for Cathy's at http://BloggerLinkUp.com/

Today I read about yet one more version of the same thing, though this time for radio shows and podcasts. You can sign up for it at http://www.RadioGuestList.com

I bring you these three resources for a couple reasons.

• They are easy and cost-free ways to promote yourself and your business
• They are excellent examples of taking a successful model and tweaking it.

You may have done that with my booklet. You saw something that was known to be successful and you tweaked yours in some way for your market, business, personality, or something else.

Notice what's around you to make your own success easier, faster, and less expensive in time and money.

Until next time,
Paulette - fascinated by the creative mind that prompts action for the greater good

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign

Best Booklet Ever Written

The best booklet ever written is the one people find useful. You thought there would be some big announcement following that headline, didn't you? The fact is, like anything else that enhances your life, what you view as the very best thing or experience is the one you think contributes highly to your life in a positive way. There is no real way of knowing how what you have to say will be received by the person reading it. That does not, however, absolve you of the responsibility of sharing your knowledge with the world, starting right now. It could be one tiny thing that is a major "aha," and you may never know.

Until next time,
Paulette - cheerleading you on to bringing what you've got to those who will be thrilled that you did

www.CollectionOfExperts.com
www.PublishingProsperity.com
www.tipsbooklets.com
Follow me www.twitter.com/pauletteensign