Online Booklet a Good Idea

After recently writing about whether your bulk booklet buyers prefer paper or pixels, the following showed up in an Internet Retailer ezine. A savvy booklet author and marketer will see this industry intelligence for the great opportunity and invitation that it is.

The Internet kills off Penney's big-book catalogs

With consumers shifting to shopping online and placing fewer paper orders, J.C. Penney (No. 15) will no longer publish its twice-yearly big-book catalogs. J.C. Penney will shift more resources to the web and smaller specialty catalogs.

Whether you choose to approach the person/department responsible for marketing the primary website activities or go to those in charge of the smaller specialty catalogs, the electronic versions of your content can be used by a company like J.C. Penney in the same ways that they would have used your printed version -- to increase sales! What do you have that could be a match for a company like this? This kind of licensing deal to their marketing department could be huge for you and for them.

Until next time,
Paulette - appreciating how the changing times prompts new twists on old ideas

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

Booklet Becomes Entire Product Line - Great Example

Several years ago, my friend and long-time colleague, Andrew Chapman, wrote a tips booklet about how to get straight A's in college since he had done that very thing - got straight A's! He recently expanded that information to create an entire product line based on keeping a high college GPA and is now focusing on large-quantity buyers and licensees to use a range of formats of his materials as promotional tools.

You'll find an excellent example of how he presents this whole product line at:
http://www.collegestudentmarketingsolutions.com/solutions.html

Andrew also understands the value of joint ventures, in case you have any introductions you'd like to make on his behalf and share in the profits.

Until next time,
Paulette - expecting great results from this for Andrew and everyone else involved


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

Licensing Your Booklet and Other Info Products

Want to "rent" your booklet content out, with your client doing the work and paying you for it? Then you'll definitely want to attend this week's special teleclass session I'm presenting on the telephone.

Thursday, August 6, 7:00 pm Eastern

License Your Info Products and Contents to Websites,Companies, and Publications

Paulette Ensign - lecture with Q & A presented as part of www.PublishingProsperity.com

Granting specific rights to use your content or produce your information product is among the least-tapped revenue sources and ways to extend your message within and beyond your country, at 100% profit.

Learn to leverage the material you've already developed by "renting" it out.

Give your client specifically defined non-exclusive rights to:

• produce your information in the format you've developed it
• use it in English and/or other languages
• benefit from downloadable versions
• re-purpose parts or all of your content in literally endless ways

Discover how you can create it once and make money over and over with your client doing all the work!

Session registration includes mp3 audio recording and PDF text transcript.

Details and Registration

Tips Booklets - Who Turned Up the Volume?

The past two weekends have been unusual. It's been a lot of sensory overload, with tons and tons of ideas. Ok, so it's not possible to truly weigh ideas. That wasn't meant to be literal. Anyway, two weekends of multi-day events about marketing, attended as a student. The good news is the dozens and dozens of new connections (both nationally and internationally, by the way) and ways of looking at what can be done. Lots of "what," with some "how" thrown in.

Yes, I know I shared with you last week about the first of these two weekends. Read on to get the full dosage, though.

It's important to shake things up once in awhile, especially these days. One of several themes going on at these events was the importance, the requirement, of doing things differently than we've done before. It can take a lot to look objectively at what you (and I) do and have done for a long time. After all, I do booklets. That's what I do. Yeah, that's swell. And what ELSE do I do?

Years ago while doing my undergrad degree as a classical musician, the president of the college said "you go to a concert to hear two things -- what you like, and what you don't like." Same reason to get out of the office to events like these two. It's a golden opportunity to see some new ways to do things that I would like, and a great chance to see things I don't like.

I found contacts to explore doing international licensing of my booklet, and maybe act as an agent for some other booklets in that same vein. Another person asked if I was interested in customizing my home study course for two particular industries, in substantial quantity. Uh, hell yes! By the way, I had been all too close to that one for way too long to even see that possibility.

Then the Internet. Some of what was discussed has zero appeal to how I'm constructed and what appeals to me. Oher ideas were ones bearing more investigation because they initially resonated. There were speakers who were more and less appealing in what they offered and how they offered it. I went to one of the events because I wanted to meet some of the speakers whose names had been familiar for many years yet we'd never shaken hands.

If you're wondering whether I've decompressed from all of this yet, it's a resounding NO. Bits and pieces are getting done while savoring several of the ideas I want to implement sooner rather than later.

In a few weeks, I'll be in NYC for the week, presenting some workshops this time. You better believe you'll learn a whole lot more than the last time you were at one of my sessions! Here's the link to sign up today for the NYC workshop. You'll definitely want to be there.

http://www.tipsbooklets.com/nyc2009.htm

Next time you've run out of ideas or into a wall, go to a workshop. Meet some people. Get some new ideas. Then you can figure out what to do first!

Until next time,
Paulette - happy to have gone

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

Booklets Worldwide

Do you view your booklet, business, and life as something that happens within a small range of zip codes or postal codes? It's almost impossible for that to be the case these days, whether you ever come out from behind your computer keyboard or not.

1994 was when I first got online. Within 3 days, a post on a forum jumped out from a guy in Italy. Several thousand dollars got wired directly to my checking account 18 months later to license my booklet into the Italian language. This past December, and again this past weekend, I met two different people from Italy at live workshop events I attended. Because the Italian language license had long expired, I was able to revisit the possibility of issuing another Italian license for that booklet. I have yet to visit Italy, though there are now some people to see when I do. My booklet, however, will be visiting Italy.

The same happened with a Dutch language license of the same booklet. A few years ago someone in Holland heard an archived audio file of an online radio interview I did. The Dutch person emailed to inquire about licensing the booklet into the Dutch language. This past weekend there was a different person from Holland attending the live workshop I attended, allowing us to discuss the possibility of a new Dutch language license for the booklet. While I've had the pleasure of visiting Holland once a couple years ago on vacation, these deals happened or may happen without ever getting on an airplane.

Someone was at the workshop this weekend from Singapore. I was able to make an introduction for that person to a client of mine who also lives in Singapore.

Think beyond, no matter where you are in your process. There's always more -- ALWAYS.

Until next time,
Paulette - open to possibilities worldwide

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

Licensing Your Booklet to Web-Centric Companies

Imagine a sale done completely online, with no product inventory, nothing to ship, no check to deposit, at 100% profit since there is no cost of goods, and not a word spoken out loud between you and the buyer. The whole thing, all online. It is not only possible. It happens every day. And you have the ability to enjoy such experiences for yourself, just as I have.

There are more opportunities than ever before to license your booklet to companies whose business is largely online through their website. The PDF of your booklet can be offered in many of the same ways that a printed hard copy would be in the offline world. Here are a few of the many ways it can be positioned by the website owner to prompt more traffic and more sales:

* Gift with any purchase
* Thank you for subscribing to your newsletter
* Thank you for a referral - to an affiliate, for instance
* Gift for completing a survey or questionnaire
* Gift for opening a new account, buying a specific product, spending a certain amount
* Gift for the first X number of people who send feedback

Are you wondering what sites to approach, how to approach them, and how to structure the financial arrangements? Every deal is different. I have yet to see two licensing deals structured or charged the same because of the variables from one company to the next.

You can identify sites to approach based on your topic, your most favorite, or a Google search on relevant key words. You can also subscribe to a free newsletter I've been getting for ages called the Internet Retailer. It has great info in it about the business side of many large websites, just in case you run out of ideas!

Oh, and when you're ready to do some business licensing your booklet, you'll definitely want How to License Your Booklet for HUGE Profits

Until next time,
Paulette - loving the digital age for doing business

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

Foreign Rights for Your Content

Granting rights to use your content to individuals and companies outside your own country can seem like some kind of magic to you. Not only have I done it myself several times, there's lots of people I know who do it all the time, in both the native language of the author and into other languages than it was originally produced, and both within and outside your own country.

Besides English, my tips booklet is in Spanish, Italian, and Dutch. It has also been reviewed by publishers in many other languages for possible licensing that has yet to happen. The booklet was represented at the annual huge Frankfurt Book Fair a couple of years by Bob Erdmann, the person who will be the Expert Interview for February for www.PublishingProsperity.com

It's really a natural for extending your revenue stream and your reach, for leveraging your content into directions and formats you may never have considered. Right now I am in discussion with someone in Italy who attended a marketing bootcamp I attended in southern California in December. As soon as I heard she was from Italy, I introduced the possibility to her of being an intermediary for licensing deals in Italy. She has already spoken with a few contacts, and we'll see where this goes. The first Italian licensing deal I had was in 1994 when I approached someone online who posted an introduction about his marketing company.

Take advantage of two resources to leverage your content into other languages by attending the Expert Interview with Bob Erdmann on February 5 and by getting the How to License Your Booklet for Huge Profits.

Until next time,
Paulette - encouraging you to leave as little money on the table as possible and extend your reach in the process

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

Booklets, Cats, and the Mail

I got onto the mailing list for a catalog of cat supplies. Not sure how that happened since, although I do share my life with a delightful cat, I don't buy things through mail order for her. Regardless, my booklet brain was in gear as I saw the catalog arrive in today's mail. Several author clients of mine have, in fact, written excellent booklets about cats. If I were any of those authors, I'd be contacting the owners of that catalog to discuss with them the idea of licensing one or more of my booklets to offer as a gift with purchase from that catalog, much like I successfully did years ago with a consumer mail order catalog company.

Go take another look to see what gems were delivered to you today.

Until next time,
Paulette - trolling the mail on a regular basis
www.tipsbooklets.com

Promoting a 600,000 copy booklet deal

One of our booklet authors posted the following onto a discussion list yesterday. And it's not the first of this type of deal for this particular booklet author. What's your thoughts on the question?

===================
I've got a deal in the works for my latest title with a large company
that wants to include it in it's product packaging.  They need about
600,000 copies.  They've already said yes, now it's just a matter of
formalities (them re-designing their packaging to alert consumers to
what's inside, Deciding on a time frame, etc.). 

I really want to take advantage of this opportunity publicity wise,
but  I'm a little overwhelmed as to what to do or how to start.  Since
there is nothing signed yet and I don't have a check, I'm not quite
sure how to proceed.  I want to be ready when the deal goes through
and things have firmed up.

I really need publicity ideas.  I am sure the company I am dealing
with will probably want to do some publicity of their own, and they
have told me that they believe in giving credit where credit is due,
so I will probably be included in some of that publicity.  They had
the option of pulling my name off the cover, but they are going to
leave it on.  So, at the very least I would be promoted as an
author/expert through their packaging, but since they're marketing to
consumers and I market to businesses, I really need to do some of my
own publicity.  

I just need a game plan and an idea of what to do when.  I know about
press releases, newspapers, magazine articles, etc.  But, right now
it's just a jumbled up mess in my head.  If you had a deal like this
that could go through anytime from next week to sometime in January,
what would you do?  Oh, and to complicate things a little further, 
I'm not sure if this company will purchase all 600,000 copies at once,
in which case distribution would be over a one month period, or if
they will do it in spurts - through different distribution centers
across the country a little at time over a few months.

Any ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  I really want
to use the publicity to promote my company and my other products.

=============
Until next time,
Paulette - delighted when clients surpass my own sales results
www.tipsbooklets.com

Renewable Booklet License

A booklet author sent an update last night that not only confirms much of what I've been saying for years. It also put another spin on things, definitely worth sharing with you.

The author sent a pdf of the booklet to a prospective bulk buyer. The department it went to decided they had enough materials on the particular subject. They gave the booklet pdf to their resource center. The resource center is like a library. People can check out materials. The resource center was interested in only one copy, but said the magic word in their email reply - "database."

The booklet author told the contact they could do a licensing deal so they could keep a copy in their database for their patrons to access. The deal would be for one year. The contact liked the idea, and asked if the deal could be renewed every year. Renew? The author hadn't thought of that. What a concept! Of course the answer was yes.

They won't be printing any copies, unless they do it on their office computer printer. So these won't be professionally put together booklets and they probably won't even print off the entire thing. It might be a couple of pages depending on what the patron needs. In many cases, the information won't be printed at all. And, they can't give any idea how many times the information would be accessed. So, that leaves the challenge of coming up with a price for one year's use, regardless of how many copies or how much of this material they print. If their database is available online, the price will go higher for the annual license.

This is a fabulous example of a client teaching an author how to sell to them. I have every confidence in the author to come up with a price that the client will accept. Imagine having a lot of renewable annual licenses out there for use of your PDF, MP3, or autoresponder series. No production on your part, leverage the same effort multiple times, and develop a revenue base for yourself.

Get the licensing package today if you don't already have it. It's a drop in the bucket for the return that's available on that investment. You'll find it at:
http://www.tipsbooklets.com/index.php?page=prodlist.php&p=107&c=12

Until next time,
Paulette - who so appreciates stories like this
www.tipsbooklets.com

Catalogs and Booklets

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a little snippet of an article announcing the fact that the Bloomingdale's, the New York department store that is a division of Macy's, will discontinue mailing its catalog by the end of 2009. It will, instead, focus on its Web-based direct-to-consumer business. Its Web sales have far outpaced its catalog sales in recent years. I also read several months ago that Lillian Vernon Corporation is also experiencing most of its sales from its website. You may know that I did a very nice licensing deal of 250,000 copies of my booklet with Lillian Vernon back in 1994.

So what does all of this mean for you, the booklet author? In my opinion, it gives you multiple opportunities. You can still produce print copies because there will always be companies and associations who will want them. You can also license the digital versions of your material for the website owners (former catalog-based companies) to distribute in the same way they did with your print version.

Get a download of the PDF of this booklet:
* as a gift with purchase
* for the first time you buy from us
* when opening an account with us
* when you sign up for our ezine

And it can switch off to licensing the company the mp3 audio file for the same purposes, or licensing them the autoresponder series of one tip per email so their people get a tip a week or a tip a day from you.

Opportunities, all over the place!

Until next time,
Paulette - encouraged and undaunted by the changes
www.tipsbooklets.com

Where Can Your Booklet Content Go?

You've read about doing an audio recording of your booklet to create another product for yourself. And you know about selling your booklet as a downloadable PDF and/or audio MP3. You've also seen reference to selling your content as fully produced hard copy or licensing it for your client to do all the production. You've even seen discussion about licensing your booklet into other languages, again, with your client doing all the work and paying you for the rights.

Have you ever considered licensing the use of the content for inclusion on product packaging or scattered throughout an online or offline catalog or used in a morning drive-time radio ad campaign or included in the help section of a software package? What about a tip on a tee-shirt or coffee mug or pen or baseball cap? Or tea labels or fortune cookies or calendars or, or, or...?

You start with a booklet. There is absolutely no reason in the world to end with a booklet. And the ideas in the above paragraphs don't begin to scratch the surface of applications for licensing your booklet. Got some more that you want to add in the comments section for this post? Go ahead, don't be shy!

Until next time,
Paulette - who is about to have a few more exciting things in the works
www.tipsbooklets.com