Business Bestsellers - An Unachievable Dream?

I just came across a BBC feature article that looked interesting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10928808

The writer, James Melik, looks at the growing number of business books that comprise nothing more than hyped up twaddle and the idea that setting outrageous goals is the key to success.

As a publisher, we don't only see the books that actually make it into print, mainly because of the author's existing fame, we also see the manuscript submissions that promise to make us millionaires with the latest best-seller.

Here are one author's words on the subject; "The best selling copies have achieved even more than 50million copies.. Please check your sources carefully. I dream big and act big so I prefer to work with like minded people, not people that even doubt the sale of a few million copies."

If you are an aspiring author with similarly ambitious goals then please consider that thinking big within some realistic boundaries can help you to focus your efforts and achieve your dreams faster. The goal here is not to do something unthinkable that has never been done before, such as putting man on the moon or climbing Everest, it is to achieve something within the boundaries of what exists today - the worldwide book and ebook market. Books have been sold before, the market is clearly defined and others have covered your subject before you. Even the 'digital revolution' makes only a tiny shift in the industry, lowering barriers to entry and flooding the low end of the market with poor quality self published titles. Of course, in that flood is an occasional nugget of gold too.

The best selling business book of all time has sold around 26 Million copies (http://www.whomovedmycheese.com/SpencerJohnson.html) since 1998 - that's 2 Million copies per year.

Dale Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' has sold just over 15 Million copies since 1936 - 200,000 copies per year.

What Colour is Your Parachute? has sold 10 Million copies since 1970 - 245,000 copies per year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_books

If Richard Branson, Donald Trump or Bill Gates wrote a book on business (which they all have) then readers will say, "Ah! There's someone who obviously knows a lot about business!"

What sells a book is not the quality of the book itself; as with any product, sales are down to how well known the author already is (past reputation) and how much money is spent on marketing the book to get it in front of potential readers (future reputation).

The quality of the book is not what makes someone BUY it, the quality simply makes someone READ it. How many books on your bookshelf are still unread? How many life changing products are in your kitchen drawer unused? How many clothes are in your wardrobe with the tags still on? What makes us buy something is very different to what makes us use it - and recommend it to our friends.

If Richard Branson wrote a book on raising chickens, he would sell some books based on his past reputation because people would be curious, but he would need to invest heavily in his future reputation to prove to people that he had experience in this area and should be regarded as a credible source.

What is it that tells your potential readers that you are a credible source of business information when they could buy Donald Trump's book, or the books of a dozen other self made Millionaires and Billionaires?

Personally, we would not recommend that anyone takes the advice of someone with that big a comb-over. Obviously, he's so rich that people are afraid to tell him how it looks.

To get the kind of marketing exposure and therefore investment that will overcome the problem that not many people have heard about you requires a major publishing house to see a return on that investment. By not seeing your book as an investment that you are selling, but rather a fantastic idea that you are excited and optimistic about, I suggest that you won't get very far with the major publishing houses.

The best advice that I can give you is to watch a TV program on the internet, if your connection speed permits. It is BBC TV's Dragon's Den, and if you look at the reasons that the 'Dragons' invest their money, you will understand how to pitch your book.

A publisher doesn't really care how wonderful your idea is. A publisher is an investor, and any good investor is interested in returns, not potential.

Of course we'd love our books to sell in the millions, who wouldn't? You just need to remember that high sales come at a price...

ebook adventures

We've been working long and hard to get two new ebook formats into production; Amazon's Kindle format and Apple's iBooks format. They're similar but different enough to create a whole host of file conversion problems.

Some of this post is rather technical, which is aimed at anyone who is having similar problems and understands what we're babbling about.

Our first ebook release is The Pitching Bible by Paul Boross. It's a 70,000 word book with around 100 images, so it was quite a challenge to format it correctly.

ebook readers such as iPads, Kindles and a whole host of less popular devices as well as software readers for PCs share a fundamental design principle; they display text. Because the file format used for web pages, HTML, is a ubiquitous and simple text formatting language, it's perfect for use in ebook readers. An ebook is essentially a mini website stored locally on the ebook reader. Whilst Apple's iPad is a complex product capable of displaying many different file formats on its high definition screen, Amazon's Kindle uses e-ink technology. Its power consumption is tiny, giving you enough battery life to last through your summer holiday, but it can only display text and greyscale images.

The majority of ebooks are text only, so support for images in an ebook format is actually quite messy.

Here's the meandering and torturous route that we took to finally get everything working.

First; Amazon. Amazon like to hold their cards very close, so they let you upload a 'raw' HTML file which they kindly convert for you. A helpful hand? Maybe, or another way to look at it is that all Kindle conversions go through Amazon which means that they have total control over distribution and therefore royalties. You can't load an ebook onto your Kindle without going through Amazon. Whilst we could debate Amazon's business practices, from a technical point of view, this ebook was relatively easy to set up. The only downside is that you can't fiddle with the formatting; once it's uploaded, you have to wait for it to be approved before you can then upload a revised file, so if the formatting isn't quite right then it's easier just to leave it alone. Amazon don't make life easy when you're a perfectionist.

Apple's iBooks are far more complex. Apple use a 'standard' format called epub which, apparently, is the future of the ebook format. It's much more complex, so what can it do that good old HTML can't? So far, we can't find anything. It is, however, much more difficult to set up.

We use OpenOffice for the actual writing and formatting, and export the book as a HTML file. Then we used a piece of software called eCub to convert the HTML book to an epub file. Then we used another piece of software called epubchecker to tell us everything that was wrong with the ebook. Finally, a piece of software called Sigil allowed us to make the changes to correct the errors.

We went through about 20 file conversions before realising that the strange and meaningless errors displayed by the iPad were caused by exporting the book from OpenOffice as HTML instead of the more complex XHTML, even though eCub is supposed to convert HTML to epub. An epub file is actually just a renamed XHTML file, with all of the supporting files such as images packed inside.

OpenOffice fills the exported XHTML files with an unbelieveable amount of junk; formatting and styles, peculiar 'span' tags that only contain apostrophes and other miscellany. This creates two problems. Firstly, all of this hidden text doubles the file size. Secondly, the hidden text isn't actually hidden. Whereas a web browser wouldn't display all of the formatting, the iPad displays lots and lots of empty space instead. So, we went through and manually took all of the unecessary formatting out. Perfect!

The next problem was images. We create images for books using Inkscape, a SVG drawing program. Images are output in .png format and imported into OpenOffice. Being lazy, I make the images bigger than necessary and size them in OpenOffice so that their resolution is always more than 600dpi for printing. The problem with this is that when OpenOffice converts the file to HTML or XHTML it exports them at full size with image 'width' and 'height' tags to resize them. On the iPad, the images looked terrible. The first solution I tried was to resize all of the images manually and then take out the width and height attributes of the 'img' tag, however this just resulted in the iPad not being able to display the book at all. So we bit the bullet and re-inserted all of the images back into OpenOffice at the correct size so that OpenOffice would format them at 100% of their original size. In OpenOffice, the images were tiny and most were completely illegible. Yet when exported to XHTML, they all displayed at the correct, glorious size. In future, we'll be creating images at just the right size in the original document.

Once we had the image size issue fixed, we went through the OpenOffice - eCub - epubchecker - Sigil sausage machine again and the iPad opened the epub file perfectly.

So, finally, we have our first working epub iBook. The next challenge is to get Apple to accept it into the iBookstore, so we'll keep you posted with our continuing adventures.

CGW Publishing Provides The Answers To Author's Questions About Today's Publishing Industry

More and more people are turning to publishing to capture knowledge and expertise, using a book to build business credibility. But how can authors get their books to market without being ripped off by publishers who charge outrageous set up fees?

In the past ten years, the publishing industry has changed beyond recognition.

Book production used to be something that only the major publishing houses could afford. They took the commercial risk of printing tens of thousands of copies of a book and in return, they paid the author the most meagre of royalties. However, their marketing strength and control of the market meant that well promoted fiction books sell in the tens or hundreds of thousands and the author makes enough money for it all to be worthwhile.

However, this made the big publishers extremely risk averse. If you had a number one record, a sports career or a TV series, you were guaranteed a publishing deal while authors who weren't already in the public eye would spend years of rejection from one publisher after another.

“Sorry, it's not really what we're looking for at the moment”, meant, “Sorry, you're not famous enough and we'd have to actually work to promote your book”.

Some publishing houses, known as 'vanity publishers' would always take a book, and charge the author the full costs of setting up an expensive offset print run. If your goal was to see your book on your coffee table, this used to be the only option.

Today, Print On Demand has turned the industry upside down. Authors can publish their own books through 'self publishing' channels, or they can turn to a growing number of small publishers who offer them editing, cover design, ISBN registration and marketing services.

Some automated services offer the author no assistance at all, and so the author has to learn all about file formatting, cover design and print setup. The setup costs are reasonable, but the time and effort it takes to get your book to a high standard of production is beyond some author's capabilities or desires.

A number of publishers have entered the market to solve this problem. They will take an author's manuscript, format it, give the author a number of stock cover designs to choose from, set up an ISBN record and guide the author through the entire process.

So what's the catch?

The catch is that they charge up to $8,000 for this service.

At one British rip off publisher, the minimum, do everything yourself package costs £795. You get a stock cover design and up to ten images inside the book. But what if the author needs help in other areas? A cover design of their own? £99. A marketing kit? £219. A fast turnaround of only 2 to 3 months? £399. Press release? £559. Social media profile? £699.

An American publisher charges a simple upfront fee for the author, apparently giving you $20,000 worth of services for only $4,000. And it must be worth every cent because their logo is a coat of arms.

The cost of setting up a Print On Demand book with a printer is about £100. An ISBN number? £10. Cover design and editing? Is that really worth such extortionate fees?

How can they do this? Simply by letting their authors believe that this is the only option. In the past, these would be the 'vanity publishers'. They will take any book and pass on all the commercial risk – plus a very healthy profit – to the author. But without the heavyweight marketing of the major publishers, who own the shelf space in the High Street book stores, your book is unlikely to sell in high volumes, even if you have paid £120 for the publisher to list your book on their website.

Therefore you are very unlikely to recoup the cost of book production through book sales alone.

So what can an author do?

The way to profit from a book is to use it to capture intellectual property. You can sell this as a unit in itself, or you can use it to promote and build credibility in a service business.

Let's say that you have been a corporate manager for many years, and you want to start a service business coaching managers. By writing a book on the subject, you demonstrate far more authority and credibility than all of your brochures and testimonials put together. It's something that you can use to open doors to conferences, corporate opportunities and of course exposure in the business press.

At CGW Publishing, we are honest with our authors, transparent in our pricing and our focus is on helping authors build service businesses. We built a successful management consultancy and established an enviable reputation in a niche training area by writing and publishing five books, and we now help other authors to achieve the same results.

CGW Publishing have published a book which guides authors through the publishing process. Priced at just £7, Write For You, ISBN 978-0-9565358-3-2, is available from all good book stores.

CGW Publishing joins the Green Business Network

We've joined the Tees Valley Green Business Network, and while we might not be saving the planet by cutting down on radioactive waste or toxic gases like some of the other members, we're definitely standing our ground by cutting down on paperwork and recycling where we can.

We can't get away from the fact that books use paper, but at least our author statements, payments, invoices and letters are all delivered electronically and by making ebooks of all of our titles available, we give readers the option of saving a branch or two... although we suspect that the environmental impact of an iPad or Kindle is quite a bit higher than the production of paper and ink.

Latest Reviews for The Pitching Bible Make The Pitch Doctor the Right Prescription For Business

Paul Boross' new book, The Pitching Bible, is getting excellent reviews from the business and media world that prove its value both for entrepreneurs and sales professionals in these tough economic times.

These three reviews, from executives in the media business, demonstrate the broad appeal of the book and also the fact that it has something new and compelling for even the most seasoned and experienced business pitcher.

“I've worked in the media and advertising industry for 30 years, and The Pitching Bible by Paul Boross is the best book on pitching I've ever read. In fact, it's a breath of fresh air for an industry that is having to work harder and harder to get the message across when the answer, in my mind, is in simplicity and impact.

Reading The Pitching Bible is like reading all of the best tips that I've learned the hard way, collected into one easy, enjoyable, insightful read. It wouldn't be fair to call Paul's book common sense; it is uncommon sense – the stuff you know that you ought to know, the stuff that really makes a difference to you winning the business.

Not only is this book easy to read, it's easy to use too. With great examples, clear and practical exercises and beautifully simple checklists, it's a book that you can read from cover to cover and then dip back in to before an important pitch – and if a pitch is worth doing, it's important enough to do it right, with the help of The Pitching Bible.

I'll be recommending The Pitching Bible to all of my friends and colleagues, but not to my competitors, obviously. It really does contain the seven secrets to your competitive advantage.”

Ian Haworth, Chairman and Global Chief Creative Officer, RAPP

“The Pitching Bible is an enjoyable and thought-provoking book that is written with clarity, insight and humour. It takes you on an illuminating journey through the seven secrets of a successful business pitch. Paul Boross explains that he learned the hard way about what does and does not work when pitching. As a consequence he has used his vast and varied experience to create a book that is overflowing with practical ideas and techniques for preparing and delivering a winning pitch.

With subtlety and skill the book challenges the assumptions that the reader brings to it. To support this process Paul regularly offers questioning, reflection and information points for the reader. You are encouraged to work your way through each `secret' and reflect upon your thinking and practice in key areas of pitching. For example, when do you think a pitch actually begins? Who is vital in the process of making you win a pitch, is it you or is it your audience? How is it possible to always remain in control of your pitch? What type of language makes you more persuasive when pitching? Paul Boross offers solutions to every question that he raises. What I like about his solutions is that they are based on real-world experience and have real-world application.

This is an impressive book that actively engages you as a reader. When you finish reading The Pitching Bible you will notice that there is an eighth `secret'...buying a copy of this book will give you a competitive edge when pitching and will help you win more business. I recommend that you buy one.”

Dr. Tim O'Brien, Director of Consulting, Hanover Executive

“The Pitching Bible is a must read for all ambitious business men and women. This beautifully crafted and hugely enjoyable book, from probably the worlds leading expert on the subject, is crammed full with comprehensive and unparalleled authoritive advice on the art and science of pitching for business to optimal effect. The author's findings and persuasive propositions are accompanied by very helpful and often witty explanations, illustrations, exercises, puzzles and personal stories and insights which fully support his advice and add greatly to the appeal of this seminal work.”

Colin Campbell, former Head of Business and Legal at FIVE

The Pitching Bible is available from all good book shops, priced at £14.99.

Published by CGW Publishing, ISBN 978-0-9565358-2-5

Amazon Woes

We've had a running issue with Amazon now for some months, so we're posting our tale of woes in the hope that you'll think twice before putting any of your eggs in Amazon's basket.

Firstly, our books are available through any book shop, anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, Amazon have adopted a very aggresive purchasing strategy in order to buy their way into the online retail market, and they are probably now the most recognised brand as a result.

Amazon dictate discounts and don't actually tell you what discount they're taking until up to 90 days after a book is purchased. They demand bigger discounts than any other retailer, and that is how they were able to buy their way into the book market by undercutting the traditional retailers.

The problem we have is that Amazon tried to order a copy of The Pitching Bible and the order failed because the wholesaler sent it to wrong distributor. The wholesaler cancelled the order without letting either us or the customer know, and Amazon then market the book as unavailable, which is obviously not good for customer confidence.

We contacted Amazon and asked them to correct this information, and they replied that the book isn't available.

We replied that, as the publisher, we're fairly confident that the book IS available.

Amazon replied that the book isn't available.

This little cycle went on for some weeks. It seems that the first hurdle to get over with Amazon is getting them to look at the issue rather than fobbing you off with an automated reply.

The next step was that Amazon took the book off sale altogether! Where it had originally been listed as available to order with an unknown delivery time, now you couldn't even buy it at all! We added a marketplace listing so that we can at least offer customers a way of getting the book.

So, another email to Amazon. I said that Amazon's book data is out of date. They replied by saying that the wholesaler said the book is not available. This infuriated me, as I had also spoken to the wholesaler and they confirmed the book is indeed available.

I sent Amazon the data record from Nielsen who supply ordering data to book stores, which showed the title as available.

Amazon replied saying that they didn't know what my enquiry was about!!

Aaarrrgghhhhh!

I'm getting to the point where I'm going to drive to Slough and physically shake someone upside down by their ankles until they take their heads out of their backsides and actually look at the real time ordering data from Nielsen.

I don't expect this to be resolved anytime soon, so the moral is, please stay away from Amazon. They don't matter, they are a nightmare to deal with, they don't control the market and they don't need your business.

Review for The Pitching Bible by Paul Boross

I've worked in the media and advertising industry for 30 years, and The Pitching Bible by Paul Boross is the best book on pitching I've ever read. In fact, it's a breath of fresh air for an industry that is having to work harder and harder to get the message across when the answer, in my mind, is in simplicity and impact.

Reading The Pitching Bible is like reading all of the best tips that I've learned the hard way, collected into one easy, enjoyable, insightful read. It wouldn't be fair to call Paul's book common sense; it is uncommon sense – the stuff you know that you ought to know, the stuff that really makes a difference to you winning the business.

Not only is this book easy to read, it's easy to use too. With great examples, clear and practical exercises and beautifully simple checklists, it's a book that you can read from cover to cover and then dip back in to before an important pitch – and if a pitch is worth doing, it's important enough to do it right, with the help of The Pitching Bible.

I'll be recommending The Pitching Bible to all of my friends and colleagues, but not to my competitors, obviously. It really does contain the seven secrets to your competitive advantage.

Ian Haworth, Chairman and Global Chief Creative Officer, RAPP

Merry Christmas

Personality

If you are thinking about writing a book, or if you are indeed in the process of writing, pause for a moment and consider your book's personality.

Is it contained within the subject? Your style of writing? Perhaps the cover design or even the paper that the book is printed on?

You might take a dry, authoritative tone, a bright chatty tone or even an uplifting and inspiring tone. But this alone is not your book's personality.

When your reader picks up your book, they are entering into a relationship, a conversation with the author that transcends space and time. The connection is made in the here and now, regardless of how long ago you sat down in front of a keyboard.

The book's personality, then, is this. As the reader engages with the book, they create an imaginary narrator. That narrator is the personality of your book.

The personality of the book is made up of its title, cover design, size, format, paper weight, chapter headings, writing style and possibly more.

Don't worry though, getting it right isn't difficult. Just imagine that you are holding your book in your hand, and feeling just right about it. Perhaps proud, perhaps excited. How does it look? How does it sound? How do you feel about it?

Let all of those design elements come naturally out of the book's personality, and you'll ensure that you always create the right connection with your readers.

Latest Fry results - Jungle celebrities versus Internet marketing experts

Following the interest in our introduction of 'The Fry' as the standard unit of Internet value, we have been researching who would be the best person to invest your social media marketing budget in.

We have compared the Fry ratings of the 13 celebrities to appear in this year's 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here' with the top ten Internet marketing experts, according to Google's search results for that phrase.

You can click on the graphs to see a larger version.

I'm a Celebrity 2010

Internet marketing experts

To compare our experts and celebrities side by side, we have to use a logarithmic scale, because if we showed them on a normal geometric scale, you would see this:

Celebrities v Experts (Geometric scale)

Here's the logarithmic version, so each vertical line is ten times the value of the previous one.

Celebrities v Experts (Logarithmic scale)

So, there you have it. You would be better off investing in 11 out of 13 celebrities than even the most successful Internet marketing expert.

Our selection criteria for the experts is that they call themselves an expert and they are within the top ten names to appear. Interestingly, while there are fewer people calling themselves an 'Internet marketing guru', their performance is no better.

The highest rated 'guru' is still no better than the experts, and the lowest rated of the top three 'gurus' is actually the worst of all, although his rating is perhaps understandable when you see that his website boasts, "His true specialty is his mastery of the Internet as a complete tool".