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FIRST DRAFT OF SALESLETTER
Subject:
Shel's Latest Book--and Why Should You Care?
Body:
I'm writing to you because you already own at least one of my marketing books:
Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First, Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World Marketing Without Megabucks: How to Sell Anything on a Shoestring. Because you showed confidence in me (and, I trust, got a ton of useful information from the book), I wanted to give you an advance heads-up on my next book, while you still have a chance to take advantage of the pre-pub special offer.
The book is called Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers--and if you're not an author or publisher, please read the next paragraph. If you are, you're welcome to skip those few lines.
--If you don't have a book: think about having one. It's a very easy way to position yourself as an expert, makes it far easier to get media coverage and speaking gigs, and can be thought of as a very powerful business card--one that you get paid to hand out! In short, it opens a lot of doors (and I can help you go through that process, using whichever of the four publishing models and three technologies make the most sense for you--I explain those models in the book and no-charge supplement).
--If you've already published at least one book (as an author, publisher, or self-publisher), that's great. But just because you build it doesn't mean they'll come. In one recent year, 181,189 books were published just in the US. But only 10 percent of those sold even 1000 copies; many didn't even reach 100 copies. My goal is to help you get those books out of your garage/attic/basement and into the market.
Thus, I've provided...
* Two complete, full-length marketing plans actually prepared for paying customers--and another one available as a downloadable no-charge bonus for anyone who purchases the book
* Seven different types of book-promotion websites, with plusses and minus of each (and several examples)
* Three strategies to set your book apart from the pack and greatly increase the likelihood that your book will be taken seriously
* Twelve ways to promote your book on Google, above and beyond basic search
* Another twelve ways to get the most out of amazon.com
* Two entire chapters on understanding bookstores and making them work
* Four excellent tools to get coverage in the mainstream media
* Eight actual press releases and six media pitches that got attention for books--including one that got coverage in 63 national and international newspapers and other news outlets, among them The Wall Street Journal, Chicago Tribune, UPI, Reuters, the news services of Google, Yahoo, and Netscape, and news media in eight foreign countries--and another that was only sent to 12 trade journals and got coverage in seven of them (including three major feature stories)
* Success stories from at least 41 ordinary authors and publishers and a dozen or so industry experts, highlighting the methods they used to get their books noticed--and sold
* An extensive 16-page resource appendix listing dozens of useful books, websites, publications, book coaches, organizations, etc.
* Five additional chapters in a supplementary e-book that provide extra advice for those publishing their own books--included at no extra charge with every direct-from-the-publisher order
And far too much more to tell you in this limited space. It's been getting great feedback, too--with praises from Dan Poyner (author of the Self-Publishing Manual), Fern Reiss (The Publishing Game), and Rick Frishman (Author 101, Guerrilla Publicity). Publisher Dawson Church of Elite Books said, "If you retained the top three consultants in book publishing, and picked their brains at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, this book is what your notes would look like after a week. I plan to give a copy to all authors, and make reading this book a requirement for any prospective author who submits a proposal to Elite Books in the future." And when I showed it to an executive at one of the large subsidy houses--I was hoping he'd want to buy one for all his authors--he turned around and offered to publish it at no cost!
I originally thought this would be a quick and easy book--that I could just recycle and tweak some of the stuff in my existing Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World. But a funny thing happened: as soon as I started working with it, I realized that after eleven years promoting my clients' books, I know far too much about book marketing and how it's different from marketing other products and services, and that I wouldn't begin to do it justice if I merely worked with what I already had. Besides, things change rapidly in marketing. As just one example, Google didn't even exist when I wrote Grassroots.
So I ended up writing an entirely different book--and taking the better part of a year to do it. Is there *some* overlap? Yes. Certainly some of the overall strategies and concepts are in both books, though with a different spin for the book audience. As far as specifics--as far as I can tell, the only examples in both books are one press release and one letter to the editor.
I've just ordered my advance review galleys and am working with the designer on the final stages before we're ready to send "the real thing" to the printer. I expect to have final copies and fill advance orders sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas, though it won't be for sale through outside channels until March 2007. And, since one of the ways I believe authors and publishers can be successful is by generating orders before publication, I'm offering no-cost shipping to the US and Canada, or $5 shipping anywhere, on all orders received by the end of November. Plus, I'm throwing in a bunch of bonuses from me and also from some of the most respected names in publishing and marketing--six different packages, and you can choose any or all.
Anyone who orders a copy of the final printed book gets the e-book version immediately, with the print book to follow as soon as they're ready.
Rather than expand this already-long letter, I'll let you read all about them at the Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers website, http://www.grassrootsmarketingforauthors.com
Wishing you success and happiness on your publishing journey,
Shel Horowitz
PS--are there authors on your gift list? They might appreciate an autographed and personally inscribed copy (you can get one for yourself, too).
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