ZLS Publishing is proud to announce that they have been named-Business of the Month by the writers magazine-From A Writers Point of View. To read the article and find out more about this writers magazine click here:
http://http://fromawriterspovmagazine.com/issue/january-2010/article/business-owner-of-the-month

Yes!

Yesterday, we discussed the difference between digital printing and off-set printing. Today, we will go into further discussion regarding the actual difference in cost.
Option 1: Let’s say you’ve been asked to be a guest speaker with the guest list of 150 people. You’ve made the smart decision to sell your book. The retail price of your book is $14.95. The print cost using the digital print run is $7.50. Your profit is $7.50 per book because you sold your book directly to the customer.
Option 2: After much hard work and searching, you’ve found a buyer who’ll buy your book in volume. They’ve just purchased 200 copies of your book to test how well it’ll do in their stores. They’ve promised to buy 5000 books if the test is successful. The buyer requires a 70% discount, which makes the selling price $4.49. The retail cost of your book is $14.95. Your print cost is $7.50 using the digital model. Your loss per book is-$7.50-$4.49=$3.01.
Option 3: You’ve got a distributor who sells your book to bookstores. The bookstore requires a 40% discount, so their purchase price is $8.97. But wait-the distributor’s commission is 15%, making the discount 55%. The retail price of your book is $14.95. The print cost on a digital run is $7.50. Your loss is $7.50-6.73=$0.77.
So as you can see, digital printing isn’t always the best option in every senario. If you had printed 5000 copies on off set press, the print cost would likely have been $3.00 or less, and if you have colored photos or illustrations, then add another $1.00 to that, making the cost $4.00 per book. Even if you print only 2500 copies, the print cost would be substantially less than the digital print cost.
Some of you reading this, don’t mind eating the loss. If so, that’s great! For those of you who are economically cautious, now you have the tools to make the right printing decision. Let’s not forget that your marketing plan is vital here: knowing your marketing goals and having your plan layed out before decising upon the type of printer to use for your book.
Hopefully, this will have helped you in your decision making process.
Until tomorrow!
ZLS Publishing

It’s September, which also means it’s my birthday! To celebrate my birthday, I am giving away the following specials:

Basic Book Cover Review Package:

• Your book cover reviewed by a focus group of book buyers within one week.
• Professional suggestions as well as focus group suggestions on how to improve your book cover.
• 2 recommendations on book cover artist.
• Attention email sent out to newsletter subscribers, telling them to watch out for your book (Over 4,000 subscribers)

 

September Price: $25   

Platinum Book Cover Review Package

• Your book cover reviewed by a focus group of book buyers within one week.
• Your book excerpt reviewed and a suggested example for you to use if necessary.
• Professional suggestions as well as focus group suggestions on how to improve your book cover.
• 3 recommendations on book cover artist.
• Attention email sent out to newsletter subscribers, telling them to watch out for your book (Over 4,000 subscribers)

September Price-$40    

Basic Book Review Package

• Basic cover review within one week.
• Book review completed within one week after receipt
• Newsletter alert, Twitter alert, Blog Alert
• Tear Sheet provided in PDF form.
• Review posted on any online platform author requests-Amazon, Barnes and Nobles, etc.

September Price-$59

Platinum Book Marketing Package

• Basic cover review within one week.
• Book review completed within one week after receipt-Author and their book will be the book to read of the week.
• Book featured in the following: Twitter, Gather, Myspace, Facebook, Blog, Newsletter, Website, BlackPlanet, LinkedIn, Ning
• Press Release written and distributed
• Tear Sheet provided in PDF form.
• Author interview.
• Review posted on any online platform author requests: Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, etc.

September Price: $85

Writers who sign up for our newsletter and choose the Platinum Book Marketing Package get 10% off.  We will email you your coupon code. 

Current newsletter subscribers get 10% off, we will also email you your coupon code.  

Pay right on our website-Go to Pay here and click in the price you have been emailed, if you are a subscriber.  If you are not a subscriber, then just go to: Marketing Services for Book Reviews, Graphic Services for Basic and Platinum Book Cover Review Packages.

Email your book covers to:

Mail your books to: ZLS Publishing, Book Reviews-255 Orange Street, Suite 207, Albany, NY 12208

Okay, okay, I know what I’m about to say is going to make some people upset but I’ve noticed a trend and I have to say something about it. If you are a writer or an author you will be especially annoyed especially if you have done this foolishness.
Not apologizing!

The writer has a book cover for their display picture. They also have the title of their book as the name of their page. You click on their name especially if either one or both interest you, you go look at the blog to see an excerpt of the book but there is none. You scroll down the page looking for some information about the book but see nothing more than a pretty cover. If you are lucky, they have left a video about their book on their page but if you are anything like me you have no desire to look at a video that is probably laced with bad video editing. You sigh to yourself and say, “Oh well, won’t be buying that one!”

Most writer’s use social networks like Myspace to do book marketing. If used correctly this is a great idea. The problem is that so many writer’s don’t use this correctly. It’s nice to have a pretty book cover, but darn it, I want to read an excerpt as well. You’ve just spent the last two seconds gaining my attention by your book cover, keep my attention by giving me something great to read. Reading your excerpt is going to go much faster than me waiting for your youtube video to download, that might not download, might skip or if I am lucky enough to view it, I might not understand the message or I may think it isn’t a good enough book for me to want to read.

Now, don’t get me wrong having a book trailer because that is the correct term for it, can be cool but what good is a book trailer without a book excerpt? You can’t have one without the other. Even movies have written excerpts about them. Let’s act like we want our book to sell and use any and all correct methods of marketing possible. Now, if you can’t write a good excerpt then you may want to look into paying your editor (granted you have one as some do not) or paying a service to write your excerpt for you.

Now let us say you don’t have a video on your page. There is nothing more irritating than to look for an excerpt of your book and find nothing. I don’t care how pretty you think your book is IF I CAN’T READ WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT I AM NOT GOING TO BUY IT! LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN: IF I CAN’T READ WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT I AM NOT GOING TO BUY IT! I also don’t care if you have pictures on your page with people holding your book and some of them are famous. I can pay anybody to hold my book, that still doesn’t tell me what your book is about.

If you are famous, have a few books under your belt, I’ve followed your writing, you may be able to get away with this foolishness, but for the most part most of you are not famous, I don’t know who you are (neither do my friends) and so because of this ridiculous oversight, you have just lost a customer. Not just one customer, but me, my friends, their friends, etc. Every lost customer is a lost sale. A lost sale is less money in your pocket because let’s be realistic here: Every dollar counts. You can say all day that you wrote just to get published but that is foolishness, you wrote to sell your book, to make money, to quit your day job, pay for your kids education, get out from under debt. You wrote to sell!

So let me say this one more time-WRITE A DAMN EXCERPT! LEAVE AN EXCERPT! LET THE READER READ WHAT YOUR BOOK IS ABOUT. I DON’T CARE HOW PRETTY YOUR BOOK COVER IS IF I CAN’T READ WHAT THE BOOK IS ABOUT-I AM NOT BUYING IT!

Are we clear? I hope so! I’m done venting for the day!

Signing out!