But for another of my titles, a how-to on having fun cheaply, it would make no sense to participate. People will come in looking for one small chunk of information–and when they find what they’re looking for, they wouldn’t need to buy the book. Similarly, if I were a cookbook publisher, I wouldn’t participate.

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Marketing & publishing consultant/copywriter, award-winning author of

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People First http://www.principledprofit.com

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* Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World
http://www.frugalmarketing.com /

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Unfortunately, big publishers are still suffering under the delusion that people buy books because [insert publisher's name] publishes books. Sure, signing with a big publisher may get your title carried in bricck mortar books stores, but authors beware! If you’re counting on the cover art to get your book to move from Barnes and Nobles shelves, you’re in for a disappointing ride.

Having worked with authors for many years, when it came time to publish my book, I went the self-publishing route. Why? Because I saw that many authors went the “traditional” publishing route because they expected the publisher to underwrite the marketing efforts on behalf of the book. Imagine their surprise when they learned the bitter truth expressed in this post….

Mike, I love your idea that a publisher actually help the author exercise all the rights inherent in the content of the book by creating audios, seminars, ebooks, etc. Too bad more publishers don’t do that now.

For a discussion of how you can slice and dice rights, see http://www.bookmarket.com/slicerights.htm.

These two questions that Michael posed seem to be the key: “What other ways are there to develop content?” or “How else can I sell content in today’s market?”

All our books (travel guides, at http://www.vivatravelguides.com) begin on the web as community-created content then are filled in and edited by professional editors, and generated and sold via POD or offset print and go thru the traditional distribution channel. Our traditional distributor freaks when we make decions like providing the full contents of books online (ad supported), publishing our URL on the front cover, or publishing our books for free using Google Earth as the reader. What they don’t understand is that we actually make several times more $ from web ads than we do by selling books. But, I guess if all of your income comes from selling books, you don’t want to hear that!

I agree with you. The publishing industry is in flux.

The problem with the publishing industry as a whole is that it’s 30 years behind the times.

This is true for both the technology that runs the various systems in publishing, as well as for the “machinery” of getting a book published (from the way a publisher determines who it’s going to publish, to the retailer’s
way of determining the number of units for a title they are going to put on the shelf, to the way PR firms do PR).

The problem is, when you have an industry so far behind the times, it’s difficult to work outside of the box. If you do, the industry will push back and reject what it is you’re trying to accomplish. So, no matter how good
you are–as an author, PR firm, marketing director, or publisher–there’s a ceiling you reach where, in order to break through, you have stop what you’re doing and find a better way to play within the current confines of the publishing game.

Luckily, you read this blog, and you may even have read Waiting for Your Cat to Bark. If publishers and retailers all read Waiting For Your Cat to Bark, I believe the publishing industry would change much more rapidly than it currently is.

All we can do is keep pioneering within the publishing industry by pushing the “powers that be” to modernization. It will happen someday, and those of us on the cutting edge will be the ones best able to capitalize on the
changes that will occur.

In addition to Future Now, let me recommend two other services on the cutting edge:

Communications: Wizard Academy’s Magical Worlds workshop

PR: Newsroom Confidential

Stay tuned to GrokDotCom. I plan to post often, and I’ll be sure to help you stay on top of the book publishing industry.

Michael R. Drew

I’ve worked with HarperBusiness, and I like them. But what your asking is what you can do to improve book sales, not what your publisher can do. Unfortunately, even HarperBusiness only understands media platforms. Media platforms are easy to understand, and easy to work with, business platforms are not. It takes real work to understand the platform of a business owner/author. Unfortunately, publishers have neither the time nor the energy to invest in understanding your business.

So, your real question is what can you do to sell books yourself. The short answer is do everything in your power to sell your book. The long answer is to sit down, evaluate the business value of the book, and determine how best to integrate the book into your various products and services.

If HarperBusiness were interested in trying something new, I would suggest they work with you to develop and sell e-books, white papers, reports, audio books, teleseminars, workshops and seminars. They could have their editors work with you on developing the content, have their design and production team develop the products/services, and pay you a royalty for the products and some sort of split for those services that required your time. Talk about building a content platform and “making” authors as publishers once did!

If HarperBusiness were to implement this content diversification strategy, they’d find their business much more profitable.

Frankly, if the New York publishers don’t do this, mid-sized publishers will.  New York publishers will either go the way of the dodo, buy the mid-sized publishers, or implement this strategy.

For those non-New York publishers out there, is anyone willing to be the first to start publishing content the way it should be?  If so, you’ll take over the publishing world.  Now’s your chance.
Michael R. Drew

Interesting take. I also think frankly most book publicists need a reality check as well at those same companies and even the independent self-published publicists.

I’ve had remarkable success as a publicist for two different genre business books by reaching out to bloggers and online sites that are in the arena these books cover.

In particular, with one book on management – we’ve had a fantastic response and my story about how we did it on the blogging side is included in the MarketingSherpa 2007 Wisdom report.

More and more the key to anything (and I’ve written about the Net for 15 years) is to consistently repurpose your content. And as well, I would add to consistently target new audiences. The old days of fax blasts, email blasts and just sending a press pack with a book are going, going , gone…

I also write the Must Read Business books blog for allbusiness.com and I can’t tell you how many big publishers send me books that don’t fit within what my topic of coverage is, never follow up on the queries they do send and are non-responsive when I try to contact them. Yet, I’ve interviewed leading authors for the blog!

The key for books to be successful is not for the authors to count on the publishers or specifically a publicist, but for everyone to work together as a team and keep pushing the book out there.

Nettie H.

As you may know, we put the full text of my book “Go It Alone! The Secret to Building A Successful Business On Your Own (HarperBusiness, Nov. 2004) up online for free, ad supported at BruceJudson.com, at the same time the paperback was onsale in stores. Now, I have launched a new blog, Ventures Without Capital.com that extends the ideas in “Go It Alone!” by identifying the relevant low-cost Internet services that can leverage a business on an ongoing basis. VenturesWithoutCapital.com can serve as a platform for an ongoing connection with an interested audience and a base for new, related information products (such as video information and subscription services). So, what else should I be doing? What should I suggest to my publisher that we could be doing that we are not doing?