1. Gaining Visibility for Your Business
Through Publication

2. What Can a Book Do For Your
Business?
Visibility

5. What Can a Book Do For Your
Business?
Credibility: It establishes you as the
expert

6. What Can a Book Do For Your
Business?
An impressive business card to give
your clients

7. What Can a Book Do For Your
Business?
Publishing can be life-changing

8. What Does It Cost?
• Can range from practically free if you do it all yourself
• An average self-publishing package costs about $2100
(ours is a bit less!) and up, depending on what you need.

9. •If you DIY, expect a high learning
curve for book and cover design
•Consider if this is a worthwhile use
of your time
•Remember, the book is important in
making you look good…make sure it
reflects professionalism.

10. What if I’m Not a Writer?
• We have editors with techniques to develop your
content.
• We can take your blog, organize it, and turn it into a
product that you can use for your business.

11. How do you know when
you’re ready
to publish?

12. Are you
Ready to Self-Publish?
• Start with your log line.
• Make sure that you are satisfied with the ending of
your book.
• Is your writing tight?
• Weed out meaningless dialogue, clichés, too many
metaphors, overuse of adverbs, passive verbs, flowery or
bodice-ripper descriptions, and redundancies.
• Can people identify with my characters or the point?
• Proofreading is essential.
• Believe in yourself.
• Do you have time and money to invest in your book?

13. Five Mistakes to Avoid
• Not Using An Editor or Proofreader
• Have Bad Cover Design
• Be Unsure Who Your Audience is
• Charge Too Much For Your Book
• Don’t Have A Marketing Plan

14. What’s the
Process?

15. What’s the Process?
Two Versions
Version 1: YOU do it
• Write the best book you can
• Get feedback from trusted sources
• Format your manuscript in Word
• Design Your Cover with your bio, photo and synopsis
• Upload to a publishing company
• Get a proof and approve it
• Your book will be sent to Amazon at least
• Format your eBook
• Open accounts for Kindle and Nook and upload your books
• Start a blog and a website and social media

16. What’s the Process?
Two Versions
Version 2: WE do it
• Write the best book you can
• Get feedback from trusted sources and our editors
• We format your manuscript and ebook
• We design your blog, website and social media and advise on content
• We design your cover with your bio, photo and synopsis and fit it to the
proper template for your book’s size
• We upload your book for a proof after you approve your final PDF’s
• Get your proof and approve it
• Your book will be sent to Amazon, Barnes and Nobles & the Ingram List
• We give you an interview on The Author Connection, an author radio show
• We do an email blast to announce your book to our list, do a blog post, and
use social media to announce it
• We help you with your marketing plan, arrange blog tours, reviews, and
events
• We can help you crowdfund your book

17. What’s the Process?
Two Versions
Version 2: What you do when WE do it
• Write the best book you can
• Write your blog

18. Your Online Presence
Starts Here:
Your
Website/Blog
& Social Media

19. WordPress
Websites and Blogs
Every author should honor themselves and their writing with a smart-looking,
informative site that makes a reader come back for more. Since 57% people
“talk” online, give them a place to click to find you.
• An author website is the first place a reporter will go when they
receive a press release.
• If an agent reads a stellar query letter, they’ll go to the author
website to read more
• And, without a website, authors would miss the traffic naturally
generated online by people all over the world searching for a book
on a particular subject.
• A good website helps generate sales.

20. WordPress
Websites and Blogs
WordPress let’s you format dynamic templates, combine your blog
and website in one place, and has amazing functionality. Best of all,
you can update your site yourself.
• WordPress.com versus WordPress.org
• Social Media connectivity built in
• Allows for easy installation of video, galleries, and eCommerce
• Premium templates versus free templates

22. Successfully
Building an
Audience

23. Building
An Audience
• You have a shiny new blog. Use tags and descriptions to come up
in searches and enticing titles lure visitors to your site
• Do searches for groups that might be interested in your book and
engage
• Try a blog tour
• Broadcast your blog posts on your social media platforms
• List your book on free sites like Good Reads and Smashwords
• Use simple tools like a business card that shows your book and the
url for your website where it can be purchased. Ditto for
bookmarks. Give them to everyone!
• Offer to do a reading at your local library, book group, or
religious affiliation or create a special event relevant to your book.

24. Building
An Audience
• Capture emails of interested readers on your website with forms
to build an audience
• Lead with an offer to give something for free – perhaps a chapter
download, for email addresses
• Track opens from your website and social media to learn what is
effective
• Use SEO: build your copy by using keywords in it (searchable
terms)
• Make sure your blog is on your website to have your audience
coming to one place
• Make social media links prominent

25. Some Scenarios
That work for
Selling Your
Book

26. Book
Sales
• Sales You Do Yourself locally
• Bookstores
• Online Stores
• Non-retail sales
• Book clubs
• Sales through national wholesalers (Ingram, Baker & Taylor)
• Sales through regional bookstore chains
• Special Promtions (Amazon, Goodreads, contests)
• Speaking Events

27. Book
One Author’s Sales Plan: A Case Study
• Sales made locally
• Bookstores
• Online Stores
• Non-retail sales: Campsites, craft fairs,
historical societies
• Sales through national wholesalers
(Ingram, Baker & Taylor)
• Sales through regional bookstore chains

28. Selling
Your Book
• Most bookstore orders are on consignment or are returnable
• Non-returnable, commission-based sales to buyers in
corporations, associations, schools and government agencies are
available
• Print on Demand is ideal for single orders
• Think beyond the bookstore for large retail orders

29. Book Cover
Endorsements

30. Promote Your Book
Endorsements
Who do you ask to endorse a book or give you a promotional blurb
for the cover?
• These are not necessarily people you respect, but people your
audiences respect, with an emphasis on the different audiences
you’re trying to impress: distributor/wholesaler, bookseller, librarian,
reviewer, conference attendee, educator, reader.
• How do you identify experts/authorities that will be recognized and
respected by your different audiences?
• How do you approach the experts/authorities?
• How do you get each one to praise different aspects of your book
• How do you get comments from satisfied users?

31. The basics of
Book Design

32. Simple Rules of
Interior Design
• Odd and Even Pages
Chapters always start on facing pages (odd numbers) and your book must end
with an even number of pages.
• Bleeds
Photos that are bleeds on the page require the page margins to be set 1/8”
beyond the page size to allow for cutting.
• Bleeds with Color
In the interior gutter, bleeds with color must be blank 1/8” in to prevent the
printing of color ink which might present the glue on a perfect binding from
sticking.

33. Book Cover
Design &
Typography

34. Fonts
What type are you?
• Reflect the feeling of your book: Serif (type with feet) or Sans
Serif
Choosing your font is like picking out clothes. Make sure it’s appropriate for
your book as your clothes would be appropriate for an event.
• Beware of Using : Fonts With Too Much Personality
• Beware of Using : Fonts That Are Not Legible
A A A A A A A

35. Book Cover
Design

36. Simple Rules of
Cover Design
• Make your type big enough to reduce for thumbnails on the web
• Use professional design tools: If you can use Photoshop,
InDesign, or Illustrator, you can do this… otherwise, do not try this
at home! Spend the money and have a professional do it.
•Make sure that your colors, design, and images convey the right
emotion and message for your book
• It’s more than the front: Include your marketing synopsis, bio,
photo on the back and the book title and your name on the spine

37. Simple Rules of
Cover Design

38. Develop Your
Media Kit

40. Fund Your Book
The Crowd-Funding
Option

41. Is Crowd Funding For You?
• Can you make a compelling one minute video?
• Can you write a compelling pitch in 3 paragraphs?
• Can you write a list of effective rewards for contributions?
• Can you put together a social media strategy?
• Can you tweet twice a week for 4 weeks?

42. Develop your audience
and use that to fund your book.
• Collect pre-orders
• Tangibly market and build a buzz around your book
pre-publication
• Raise funds for your publishing and marketing costs
• Build and engage with your reader database, which
can be used for future promotional efforts
• Collect reader data and analytics; know your
audience and how to market to them
• Drive traffic to the sale of your book once it’s
published
• Brand yourself as an author

43. What
Holds You Back?

44. Benefits
• Most authors recover their investment
• Many find their books become a new
trajectory and can open doors to new clients,
speaking engagements and validation as an
expert in their field
• Time is money. You do it yourself, but we can
help.

45. Merrimackmedia.com
978.710.8075
jenny@merrimackmedia.com
Merrimack_Media merrimackmedia http://linkd.in/1iKj2EJ