How to Publish a Book - Profiting From Author Discounts

Savvy authors know they can earn more profitsadvised many hundreds of other authors on it. I'm
when marketing their book using what I call Thegoing to tell you something that I hope you
Marketer Strategy. In this article I will show you howremember....
to publish a book and maximize your book saleCommercial book trade distribution, relying on
profits.distribution through bookstores, is a situation where
In the publishing industry, publishers, wholesalers, andbasically the bookstores take your book on
bookstores do virtually no promotion of a book. Theconsignment.
author is expected to do virtually all promotion andWhy do I say consignment? Because the bookstores
pay for it out of his or her own pocket.get 90-day terms. In other words, they don't have
This is true whether you publish with a publisher orto pay the publisher for 90 days, but the bookstores
self publish. Because the publishing industry expectsget a 90-day return privilege. They can return your
the author to take responsibility to market the book,books to the publisher anytime up to 90 days after
publishers give authors a generous discount on all thethey get them in the store.
books the author personally buys as an incentive forBelieve me, bookstores take full advantage of that
authors to sell the book through their own talks,return privilege. I have seen authors hit with a
websites, and other promotional activities.tsunami of returned books, starting about day 100.
Whereas first-time authors can be timid aboutIt's not fun at all.
marketing and hope that royalties will take care ofIf an author wants their book to make it in the
them, top-selling authors ignore the royalties and takebookstores and not be returned to the publisher,
full advantage of that author's discount. Why?what the author has to do is as soon as the book is
If you do the math, a 50% discount can be morepublished, engage in intensive book promotion to
than 10 times more money than the average royalty.begin creating awareness of the book in the
On a $20 book, the author pays the publisher $10.marketplace so enough people will come to the
When the author sells that book himself, he takes inbookstores and purchase the books within the first
$20 minus his $10 cost, leaving $10 gross profit --90 days.
which is 14 times more than that $0.72 royaltyNow, what smart authors have been doing for years
example I gave you in a previous article.is they take advantage of the 50% author's discount
It means on every book the author sells, he canthat their publisher gives them and load up their car
more than double his money. That is a significantwith books and set off on a book tour. They do as
return.many talks, media interviews and other promotional
And, if you self-publish, the margins of profit availableevents as they can in which they sell their car full of
are even better. An author can earn 2-10 times yourbooks through back-of-the-room sales.
money with each book you sell.Nowadays, there are internet-based promotional
Authors can use that money to pay for promotingtactics that reduce the need for road trips. But if you
their book in the marketplace. That is especially crucialfocus on bookstore distribution, you need to invest in
if you want to rely on distributing your book throughheavy promotion upfront, creating enough of a buzz
commercial trade distribution, in other wordsin the marketplace, so people will email or call or visit
bookstores.their bookstore to buy your book, and bookstores
On average, it takes about one-and-a-half years ofwon't return them at the end of the 90-day return
successful book promoting for a book to developprivilege.
enough momentum to become a best seller on oneIn this article, I want to show the limitations of
of the big lists, such as the New York Times bestrelying on book store sales and ignoring the Marketer
seller list. However, you only have 90 days - justStrategy when you publish your book. The author
three months - to make it or break it in bookstorediscount and back-of-the-room sales are two
distribution.approaches to earn profits. I can share with you
Believe me, I speak from lots of experience on thismore time-tested strategies and tactics to publish a
subject. I've personally marketed more than 50book that attracts a lifelong stream of clients and
books through bookstore distribution and haveincome.