Top 10 Things I Learned A Year Too Late: Getting Your Book Read

A year ago my 5th book was published. You would think that a guy who runs his own marketing and communications firm and once was an editor for a large book publisher before starting his own publishing consultancy would have known better. A little history first...

My first four books were regional best sellers in the travel genre, three of them selling well over 10,000 copies each. My company published the first three; the 4th was published by Rodale Press. We did all the marketing and media relations, and we were extremely successful in acquiring book reviews and radio and TV interviews. Wow! We must be good at this stuff? Not so fast with patting myself on the back. My full-time job was publishing and marketing my books and advising others how to get published.

At the time, my free-lance articles were also appearing in North America's largest newspapers and magazines. I was a relatively well-known travel writer. Not so with my 5th book, a business how-to.

First, my full-time job today is running L&G Business Solutions, a marketing and communications firm not a publishing consultancy. Second, I am not a media relations expert nor do we offer those services. Third, a travel book written by a fairly well-known travel writer is not nearly the same as a business book written by a first-time business writer.The result: How to Grow a Business by Putting People First (aka Lead With Your Heart) did not get the attention it deserved. Last week, I met with a media relations firm to fix that.

Here are the top 10 things I learned a year too late.

1. Lead With Your Heart is a bad title for a business book that is about how to grow a business. I learned this from smart business people who after reading it said something like this: "The book isn't what I expected. It is full of good ideas and case studies. From the title I expected something warm and fuzzy" My publisher and I fixed that a few months ago by releasing a new version entitled: How to Grow a Business by Putting People First.
2. Online isn't all it is cracked up to be. My book is not available on book store shelves, although you can order it through your favorite book store. It is available online at Amazon.com, my publisher and several other sources. I can't tell you how many people wrote or told me personally that they only buy books in book stores. So much for online sources reach to all book buyers.
3. Don't hire an editor to get your manuscript in shape before sending it off to the publisher. The editor assigned to you by your publisher will still have lots of changes and ideas. Having been a book editor, I should have known better.
4. If your publisher assigns an editor who knows nothing about your topic, recognize immediately you have a problem. Ask for another editor.
5. Trust your Agent, and I do recommend having a good agent, but question every detail. Had I done so, I wouldn't have hired an editor nor would I have signed what was an excellent contract but with the wrong publisher for my book. (A note: My publisher has been around a long time and is excellent at what they do. My book is not a good fit for their catalog.)
6. Don't market your own book, even if you run a well-respected marketing consultancy. It doesn't need marketing expertise so much as it does media relations. At L&G we have lots of happy clients and always get results they want and need. The same was true when I was in the corporate world. However, books deserve someone pushing them full-time (and publishers don't market business books unless your name is Welch). Besides, books and authors don't need a marketing firm, they need a media relations firm that specializes in getting books and authors lots of press, including TV and radio interviews.
7. Don't discount your books when you offer them at speaking engagements. If the cover price says $21.95, sell them for $21.95. I lost hundreds of dollars discounting books. (Authors, in the event you don't know, have to buy copies of their books at a discounted rate, once the agreed-upon free books have been provided to them.)
8. Negotiate as many free books from your publisher as possible. You will need them. The media relations firm I just hired wants 75 books, and my free ration was consumed long ago.
9. Don't be afraid to ask your publisher to make changes or for more free books than are allowed by contract. My publisher willingly changed my cover and a number of text pages and gave me additional books at no charge. (They really are a good publishing company.)
10. Don't take a year to learn what smart authors already know.

Don't miss any analysis or free business tips. Subscribe on the left sidebar using the tool that best meets your needs.