Want to avoid the slush-pile and give your book the head-start it deserves? Top publishers and literary agents are receiving up to 1000 manuscripts per week. They reject around 95% of these without so much as reading them.So you need to do everything possible to avoid costly mistakes when submitting your work.

Poor Layout and Presentation

Publishers don’t want single-spaced pages in 10 point typeface. They don’t want fancy fonts or coloured paper. You may think it will grab their attention. It will, but for all the wrong reasons.

Use double-spacing and 12 point typeface. Number your pages and include a word count. Put your book title at the top of every page. This will ensure your manuscript looks professional and businesslike.

Failing To Research Your Market

Do a couple of days’ research before sending out your book. Who are the best agents and publishers to send it to? Who is likely to be most receptive?

It’s no good haphazardly sending to every agent listed in The Writer’s Handbook or The Writers’ & Artists’ Yearbook. You need to make your targets as precise as possible.

Sending Out Work Before It’s Ready

If you send your book out before it’s ready, you’ll end up doing yourself more harm than good.

Make sure someone with a credible reputation has read your manuscript before you post it. If possible, get professional endorsement. This means finding a reputable author or editor to read your book. You can then use their comments as part of your pitch.

Getting Bogged Down By Small Detail

Often when writers revise their books, they focus on deleting sentences or tweaking paragraphs. They change colons to hyphens, and full-stops to commas. They get swamped in the small detail.

When revising your manuscript, remember the bigger picture. Ask yourself: is there enough drama or intrigue? Are there enough challenges, conflicts or questions? Are your chapters logically structured? Do you open your book with a bang rather than a whimper?

Pestering

There’s a fine line between pestering and perseverance. Writers sometimes forget that agents are giving their services for free up until the moment that a book is sold. This means they’re covering the considerable costs for staff, time and paperwork, with their own money. This is a tremendous privilege, not an automatic right.

Making a nuisance of yourself by hassling agents – or publishers – is unlikely to result in anything positive. No matter how frustrated you feel, make sure you’re always pleasant and polite.

It can be overwhelming when you first start sending out your book to agents and publishers. As with any new skill, it takes practice and repetition before you get it right.

Remember that few dreams are achieved without massive action. By reading this report, you’ve already taken the first step towards writing a professional pitch.

Are you killing your chances stone dead before your book even lands on an agent’s or publisher’s desk? In all likelihood, you probably are. Top agents and publishers are getting in the region of 1000 submissions per week. They’re taking on less than 5% of these books.

It’s no secret that publishing has changed. Increasingly, publishing houses are led by sales teams with commercial aims. Literary agents have had to adopt these values too. Even professional authors are struggling. Writers have to develop new tactics to keep abreast of these changes. If you don’t, you won’t survive in this unforgiving climate.

If you keep getting rejection letters, it’s time to time to change your methods and learn new skills.

Forgetting Your Reader

If a publishing house is going to the expense of printing your book, they want to know they’ll be able to sell it. It will help you no end if you can show them why your book is going to sell and who they are going to sell it to. What is special about your book? Who is likely to buy it? Why should they choose your book rather than someone else’s?

Weak Sales Pitch

Most authors fail to flag up the selling points for their books. They sometimes use jargon or academic language that only appeals to a small minority.

Try to make your synopsis and introductory letter as accessible as possible. Put some sparkle into your pitch to arouse curiosity or engage interest. If there’s a bestselling book that’s similar to yours, point this out.

Uninspiring Synopsis

Your synopsis is probably the most important page you’re going to write. Get this wrong and you won’t even be allowed on the starting block, let alone allowed to run the race.

Put twice as much effort into your synopsis as any other page in your book. Check out the blurbs on bestsellers to get help you get this right.

Long-winded Submission Letter

Publishers and agents are busy people. They don’t have time to read a long introductory letter detailing your professional career, or telling them that your friends all love your book.

Your submission letter should be no longer than two pages of double-spaced A4. If you can make it shorter than this, even better.

Dull Sample Chapters

Imagine yourself in a room filled with thousands of books. All these books have white covers. There’s little to distinguish them. How would you choose the best one?

Would you read every book cover-to-cover, patiently waiting for the plot to unfold? Or would you skim through the opening pages, tossing aside anything that seemed too ordinary?

Start your book with something startling, memorable, or original. This can be a challenge, a question, or a crisis. Grab the reader’s attention. Make them want to keep turning the pages.

If you’re making any of the mistakes I’ve mentioned, take heart. It’s something that can be fixed. These simple marketing tricks can help you create a pitch that will have agents and publishers clamoring to read your book. You may even be taken on by someone who has previously rejected you.

The average reader spends less than eight seconds looking at the front cover of a book. An agent or publisher spends even less time on the front cover of a manuscript.

Your title has to grab them by the collar, so that they’re compelled to keep reading.

Be provocative

Provocative statements jolt our attention like electric shocks. They make us curious. They make us angry. Most of all, they make us want to read on.
Eg. So You Don’t Want To Go To Church? / So You Think You’re A Great Mom?

Use ‘key words’

Key words grab reader’s attention. However, in the Internet age, here’s another good reason why they’re important. If you’re planning to sell your book online, it’ll help readers to locate your book via subject searches on sites like Amazon.
Eg. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind / Bend It Like Beckham.

Be outrageous

Take a risk. Write without fear of judgment or prejudice. Break boundaries. Challenge taboos. Make people sit up and take notice.
Eg. Sex in a Tent / The Nigger Factory.

Use words that intrigue or arouse curiosity

Books and films offer escapism and fantasy. They provide a chance to experience larger-than-life characters and experiences. A title that hints at a life less ordinary is bound to arouse curiosity and interest.
Eg. The Life & Loves of a She Devil / The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.

Use pictures or strong visual images to provoke your audience

Use the strong words, colours, or sensory images to stir your audience’s imagination. Use a picture or metaphor to get started.
Eg. The Color Purple / Miss Smilla’s Feeling for Snow / Chocolat.

Use alliteration, rhyme or repetition

People respond to words or phrases that are catchy and memorable. This is why pensioners can still recite the nursery rhymes they learned when they were toddlers! It’s why you can find yourself singing along to jingles, TV ads or pop music even though they irritate you! Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they stick in your head.
Eg. Rich Dad, Poor Dad / What To Expect When You’re Expecting.

Try testing titles on your friends and family, then pick from the ones that are most popular. You’ll be a lot closer to sales success than by just guessing.

It’s worth devoting considerable time and energy to getting this right. Remember that many authors and publishers have used this knowledge before you, to turn sales disasters into phenomenal success stories! Your efforts may be rewarded in the same way too.

The Idea

It was January 1995. Muscat, the Sultanate of Oman. Sue Valentine and I sat outside beneath the stars at a farewell dinner for their friend, Susie Evans.

“Look at the palm trees silhouetted against the sky,” said Susie wistfully. “I’ll miss them, but I wish I’d had a cookbook telling me how to cook with dates.”

“I’ll write one!” I said, after all I had written a cookbook before, French Tarts, a decade earlier. French Tarts had been published by Octopus. I thought I knew the ropes.

“I’ll help you!” added Sue, with enthusiasm. A fabulous cook with a PhD in food science, she was the perfect partner.

My mind raced into overdrive. Muscat was a small place, we could target our market easily. Forget finding a publisher, we’d do this one ourselves. “And I’ll publish it,” I added. I did not admit that I had no clue how to do that, but I knew I’d figure it out.

The Plan

In 9 months’ time it would be the Sultan’s Silver Jubilee. With all those opportunities for celebratory gifts and an endorsement, we had found the perfect time to launch our book. It would be out in November 1995.

Sue and I divided the work:

• I would create half the recipes, handle production, form a publishing company called Summertime Publishing, edit it and do all the desktop publishing.
• Sue would create the other half of the recipes, handle local legalities, find a sponsor and organise the food styling, photographs and cover design.

What Happened

Sue found a sponsor, Dateflake (later Tamoor Oman), a factory turning dates into syrup and fibre would underwrite our printing costs in exchange for several hundred gift copies. They would also fund a launch party. The Al Bustan Palace hotel would host a press launch. We signed contracts with local companies MCBS and Al Roya, who would make us legal and do the printing. We did it!

In November, Dates was published.

Dates is On Sale

This is the first edition of Dates…

• We sold several thousand copies in just one year.
• We had tee shirts made that said ‘Make a Date with the Middle East’ and wore them around town.
• A cookbook makes a great gift, so many people bought more than one copy.
• We packaged the book in a basket with a jar of date syrup and a pack of dates to show what a great gift it would make, just before Christmas.
• We organised to have a stall in each of the shopping malls in Muscat, gave away samples of date flapjack and date brownie and sold lots of books.
• We took a stall to the playgrounds of the local expat schools and sold books to the parents as they collected their children.
• We took a stall at Christmas bazaars. We sold hundreds of copies there.

How We Promoted Dates

• We could visit the bookshops and retailers in person.
• Every local newspaper ran our story.
• The English radio station interviewed us.
• We lived in our market. It was easy to target everyone, so we did. But . . .

Sales Dried Up

Just six weeks after Dates was published I was posted with my family to Norway. It was almost impossible to buy dried dates and I was new in town with no network (this was pre-Internet). In 18 months I sold one copy.

Books continued to sell well while Sue was in Muscat, but, a year later, she was repatriated to England. Sales dried up.

Without us there, in our market, actively promoting Dates things went downhill.

Dates is Reborn

In 2003, when I too was living in England, I had a lucky encounter with a man on a train. He spotted I was using a Macintosh laptop and asked me what I did for a living.

• “I’m a writer and author,” I said looking up from my keyboard.
• “I’m a publisher,” he said. “What do you write?”
• “Well, I used to live in Dubai and Oman and . . .”
• “I used to live there too . . .”

Well one thing led to another and it transpired that Zodiac publishing had offices in both the Middle East and England. We drew up in Peterborough just five minutes into our chat and only had time to swap cards before we separated. I held onto his card. Three years later, and after I had published many more books, I recognised that it does not make any difference how good your book is or how brilliant a writer you are. If you can’t target the market easily you’ll have an uphill struggle selling it. Zodiac could be just what Dates needed. I sent them a copy on the offchance that they might like to republish it.

Republished, Relaunched, Revived

In March 2007 Sue and I signed the contract and in May 2008, I travelled to Dubai to attend the launch of the new, updated, Dates, at the Oasis Beach Hotel. It is now on sale in bookshops throughout the Middle East, not just Muscat, as before and elsewhere in the world too, including Harrods.

What I Have Learned

• That you cannot underestimate the importance of being able to target your market yourself.
• That you can sell thousands of copies of book that has local appeal in a small market, like Muscat, if you are THERE.
• If you can find a sponsor to underwrite your printing costs – do!
• Sometimes it makes sense to publish yourself, and sometimes it doesn’t.

Writers are often taken by surprise when they’re asked for a “detailed marketing plan” before a publisher has even taken them on.

It’s a skill worth developing – as many successful authors write their marketing plans before they even set pen to paper.

In Part 1 of my article, you learned how to get started with a marketing plan for your book. Today, you’ll be finding out how to complete it.

Add this extra information to the plan you’ve already created:

Target Readers

List the people most likely to buy your book. (eg. women aged 18-25).
List the types of organizations, associations and clubs that might be interested in your book.
List schools, colleges, universities, charities and specialist libraries, etc.

Potential buyers:

List the types of organizations, clubs and associations that might bulk-buy your book.
List business websites; membership sites; clubs.
List retail outlets (such as Waterstones or Barnes & Noble) and book clubs.
List schools, colleges, universities, charities and specialist libraries.

Reaching target readers:

Suggest ideas for bookshop promotion. (eg. End-of-shelf posters).
Suggest a targeted PR campaign. (eg. a press release for local and national media.)
Suggest a public event you could hold to tie in with your book. (eg. a quiz, a seminar, an awareness day.)
Suggest promotion via social media. (eg. YouTube; Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, etc.)

PR/Awareness Raising:

Offer a free incentive to promote your book. (eg. An MP3; an online interview with the author, etc).
List seasonal events or anniversaries that could tie in with your book. (eg. Halloween; Mother’s Day; Remembrance Day, etc.)

Offer audio extracts or free books for the many sites that offer services and content to your target readers – in return for a link to publisher’s shopping cart.

List some of the organizations, clubs or magazines that may be interested in your book.

Brainstorm ideas for publicizing and promoting your book with a couple of friends. Write down anything and everything you can think of. Try not to censor the ideas or rule anything out. When you’ve finished, set your list to one side for a couple of days before going back to it. You’ll be surprised at the number of great ideas you can come up with when you combine creative energy.

In this detailed and revealing case study, Jo Parfitt shows you how a self-published book can go through many phases as it evolves.

The Idea

By September 1996 I had been living abroad for 9 years and was now living in Stavanger, Norway, after time in Dubai and Oman. My husband is in the oil industry and every few years he gets posted. Now, I love to work too, but not just any work, I like to run my own business. Now, when you keep moving, it means that all your hard work building up a client base (particularly pre-Internet) goes down the tubes and you have to start from scratch in the new location. Still, I didn’t let a little thing like that stop me and by 1996 I had managed to work in a variety of areas, all based on my passions for writing, teaching and sharing what I know to help others to grow. Over the years I had:

• Taught word processing, French, creative writing, desktop publishing and trained others to teach for me.
• Made and sold date chutney, Christmas tree decorations made out of local produce and Dorling Kindersley books.
• Written computer handbooks for mainstream publishers such as Macmillan and McGraw-Hill, a cookery book on dates, called Dates (this presentation has a sister presentation all about that one, too) creative writing anthologies, articles for local and international press
• Run a CV writing service

But it was in Stavanger that I first learned about networking and joined the local expat professional women’s network, called WIN. They were stunned to hear about my success at creating, maintaining and adjusting my portable career to fit both my passion and my location and asked me to be their monthly speaker. So, I did. It was my first, ever keynote speech and I was terrified. The audience, however, loved what I had to say.

Soon after, I realised that I did have something to share that helped and inspired others and the title Career in Your Suitcase just popped into my head.

I had already published the first edition of Dates, in Oman, and had seen how much more money there was to be made when you did it yourself and could target the market easily. I had been an expat for almost a decade and knew what publications expats read and where they hung out. I reckoned I would be a fool not to do it myself. So I did.

The Plan

I would ask the people I knew, who also had an inspiring portable career story to tell, to contribute to my book. Some would write a whole chapter, others I would interview and use as case studies. Good at networking by then, I knew of Laura Westbury, who did cartoons for the Shell spouse newsletter, Destinations. I would ask her to do me a cartoon for the cover. I would edit the text myself, desktop publish it myself, find a sponsor to underwrite the printing costs and pay a designer to create the cover. I’d have a two colour cover to save costs.

I had met an American journalist at WIN, who offered to be my assistant in the project for brainstorming purposes. She had lived in Paris and knew of a conference that was to be held there in March 1998. She would try to get us a slot, running a Career in Your Suitcase workshop together and we would launch the book there.

What Happened

I found a removal company, called Andy’s, to sponsor the print run and gave them 250 copies of the book and a full page inside cover advert in exchange.

In June 1997 we repatriated to England and I continued working on the book there, ready for the Women on the Move Conference deadline.

The Internet had arrived and I was able to liaise with my interviewees and contributors by email.

In February 1998 I printed an initial print run of 3000 copies of A Career in Your Suitcase and stored them in my loft.

The First Edition

This is the first edition of A Career in Your Suitcase.

How I Promoted Career in Your Suitcase

• I sent review copies to expatriate publications
• I pitched related articles to expatriate publications – that I was paid for!
• I pitched related articles for free in exchange for a box about me that included details of the book
• I invited journalists who wrote on expat and career issues to interview me
• I offered the book as prizes in competitions
• I offered myself as a speaker to ladies lunch groups, business networks and expat clubs in England as long as I could talk about the book and sell it afterwards
• I offered myself as a speaker or workshop presenter at HR conferences, expat and entrepreneur
• conferences and events. Sometimes for a fee, sometimes not, sometimes just with travel expenses all allowing me to sell the book afterwards
• I organised, promoted and ran workshops to individuals on topics related to my book
• I gave a free copy of my book to libraries
• I formed a website www.career-in-your-suitcase .com
• I did author signings
• I took a job as editor of Woman Abroad magazine, who bought 200 copies to giveaway to new subscribers.

I Sold Out

It took four years to sell out of copies, marketing it solely myself, without the help of Web 2.0 or online networks. However . . .

What I Learned

I should have paid for an editor – it was full of mistakes

I should have paid for a professional designer – it looked rubbish

The amount of books I sold was proportional to the effort I put in

When you have written a book on your specialist subject people think you are an expert and pay you more money for other things, like training and consultancy. I became the only person to have a book on portable careers in print.

Career in Your Suitcase is Reborn

By 2002, and with the deadline of being a speaker at the Women’s International Networking conference in Lausanne, I had the second edition ready to go.

It was completely rewritten, professionally designed, professionally edited and had a super cover. I filled it with testimonials I had received after the first edition.

I found a wonderful sponsor, again to underwrite printing costs, in the world’s leading spousal career’s counselling service, American, Ricklin-Echikson Associates. I gave them the foreword, an advert and asked one of their best counsellors to write some brand new chapters.

I printed 1500 copies lithographically and started selling. An expat magazine in Belgium, called Away (www.awaymagazine.be) bought 250 copies as a subscriber giveaway.

I started an online newsletter, called The Inspirer and focused on building my subscriber base at every opportunity.

Reality Bites

That bringing out a second edition is harder to promote than bringing out a first. I’d already written and sold all the articles I could think of. Promoting it was hard.

Bookshops do not have a section for expat careers or expats and so it was hard for them to place it. Further, bookshops want at least 35% commission and then, what with the postage and the personal cost of selling it to them, bookshops were not such a good idea unless they were expat bookshops in overseas locations.

That selling on Amazon was great – except that they took 55% commission and I still had to pay to post the books to them.

Changing Tactics

When Career in Your Suitcase 2 sold out I recognised that times had changed. Not only did the book deserve another complete rewrite and to be updated, but the world had changed too. I’d lost faith in bookshops and in doing my own order fulfillment. We’d moved abroad again, to the Netherlands, and I needed to simplify my life. Online was the place to sell books. I needed to use print on demand technology and get someone else to do the distribution. When Lean Marketing Press offered me a contract, to publish, design and distribute my third edition, I jumped at the chance. A Career in Your Suitcase, 3rd ed, was published in May 2008.

Final Learnings

• That you can target a global market through the Internet and social media tools but that being a speaker and getting an online presence and coverage in the press is invaluable.
• That the best place to sell my book is on Amazon, but that I make most profit selling ‘at the back of the room’ – to at least 25% of the audience – and by direct sale. I sell in bulk to careers trainers and coaches.
• Sometimes it makes sense to publish yourself, and sometimes it doesn’t.
• If bookshops and libraries do not have a section for your specific type of book it will be hard to persuade them to buy it.
• If you want to sell a lot of books you have to keep on promoting, promoting, promoting. Belong to online networks, Facebook, Twitter, have a blog and send a newsletter.

That I’m still the only one to have a book on portable careers in print but if I don’t keep on promoting my book it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference.

Want to increase your chances of writing a bestselling book right from the get-go? Here are some tips used by the top 5% of authors.

Many successful writers do considerable research before they even get started writing their books. Much of this relies on having a basic understanding of marketing.

What Sells Books?

So Let’s go back to the fundamentals of what sells. Why do people buy books? Usually, it’s the ‘what’s in it for me’ factor. They buy because:

• they can learn something;
• it helps improve their life in some way;
• it saves them money;
• it solves a problem in their life.

To put it another way, people buy for ‘pain or gain’. In other words, there is a pain in their life that needs solving. Or they think they will gain in some way – either emotionally or financially.

It is worth noting that one of the most powerful motivations in marketing is financial gain. In other words, a reader can justify ‘investing’ in a book if they think it will either save them time or money. The trick is to think how you can apply these principles to your own book. This is particularly helpful for non-fiction, though perhaps less so for novels or poetry.

Your Book Title

A book title is one of the most powerful tools for selling a book. It gives the reader a succinct and clear reason for buying your book. Your title can make all the difference between a bestselling book and a book that ends up on the slush pile. The important thing to remember is to put the benefit for the reader in the title.

Examples might be:

• A book targeted at would-be lawyers – ‘Top Tips For Wannabe Lawyers’ or ‘Want To Be Lawyer? – How To Get There Faster’ (WIFM: training)
• A book targeted at the general public – ‘Top Tips To Cut Your Lawyer’s Fees in Half’ or ‘How To Choose The Best Lawyer’ (WIFM: saving money, problem solving).
• A book targeted at a specific niche – ‘How To Sue The Person Who Injured You’, “The Idiot’s Guide to Getting Divorced’, ‘How To Write Your Own Will’.
• A book targeted at other lawyers – ‘What You Don”t Know About Rival Law Firms’ or ‘How To Become A Partner In Your Law Firm In Less Than A Year’ (WIFM: entertainment/competitive edge.)

These titles are off the cuff and imperfect. But hopefully you can see the ‘what’s in it for me’ principle at work and see why a target audience would want to buy them.

This doesn’t mean that a book has to be solely about the subject matter in the title. This just provides a convenient marketing ‘angle’ for a book so that readers (and publishers, in the first instance) can see the benefits and understand why people would buy them.

Looking at the aforementioned titles, I hope that you can see that some books provide a more powerful motivation for buying than others. Saving money, making money, and problem solving are stronger emotional motivations than entertainment or curiosity, for example.

Market Research

Thanks to the Internet, you can now do comprehensive research into what your readers are likely to be looking for. You can check amazon.com to see if there are any comparative books on the subject. This will help you to identify your unique selling points. Why, for example, would a reader choose to buy your book over theirs? What do you offer that other authors don’t?

Don’t be put off if there are similar books to yours. This shows that there is a market for your subject matter. However, you do need to identify what is special and different about your book to make it stand out.

So you want to write a book? But perhaps you’re daunted by the odds? Believe it or not, there is a way to stack the odds in your favour – though less than 5 per cent of writers seem to know about it. If you want to give yourself a fighting chance, then it’s worth spending the time doing some research before you even write a word of your book.

How Publishers Think

When an agent or publisher looks at a book, they want to know it will sell. It is as simple as that: they want to know your book will make money. I will be blunt: if you are a good writer, if your writing is polished, if you are entertaining and witty, that is the icing on the cake. What matters is whether your book will sell and who it will be sold to.

Consider this – 70% of books published don’t make make a profit or even earn back their advance. This is why you need to stack the cards in your favour as much as possible before you approach an agent or publisher.

The approach 95% of writers take is to write a book and then think: ‘who will I sell it to?’ In fact, a slight shift of thinking is needed. First of all, you need to identify your target readership. Suppose you are a divorce lawyer writing a book. Are you writing for: the general public, trainee lawyers, professional lawyers, for example? Each of these groups of people will have different needs and requirements. They will all read a book for different reasons.

Importantly, once you have identified your specific target audience, you can then understand what their needs are and what motivates them. It also enables a publisher, ultimately, to market your book as they can work out where your readers ‘congregate’ – magazines, clubs, associations, ezines, etc – so that they can target their publicity.

Profile Your Readers

Ideally, once you have identified your target audience, you need to step inside their skin so that you can write a ‘profile’ for them. Are they male or female? What is their social class and level of vocabulary? How old are they? What are their top 3 goals? What do they like reading? Which clubs and associations do they already belong to? Which publications do they read or subscribe to? What are their top 3 frustrations? What makes them angry? What makes them happy?

Hopefully, you will see the merits in understanding your readers as your book can then provide some of the solutions to their problems and frustrations. In essence, you are giving them what they are already wanting or looking for.