The Pitching Bible at Number One on Amazon!

... in the Presentations category.

Testimonial from Trudie and Lloyd Thompson

CGW Publishing took us seriously right from the offset, and we have had the best guidance and help you could possibly imagine. We've never done anything like this before and we never in our wildest dreams believed we'd ever write a book, but hey we did and then the search began for a professional to jump onboard and advise us and that's exactly what our Publishers have done.

Christopher is not only knowledgeable but he can read our minds, he knows what is needed and his suggestions have always been brilliant.

 Trudie and Lloyd's book, Dreams Do Come True, is available now from all good book stores.

Testimonial from Paul Boross

"When I was looking for a publisher, it was important for me to find one that specialised in business and psychology books so that they could help me hone The Pitching Bible for the right market. Not only was Christopher Greenaway the perfect editor but his team managed the whole involved process of getting the book to market with dedication and professionalism.

Since publication, the CGW team's focus, creativity and service business expertise has continued unabated and has resulted in The Pitching Bible gliding gracefully up the Amazon charts. I highly recommend CGW Publishing."

Paul Boross, The Pitch Doctor & author of The Pitching Bible

Trudie and Lloyd Thompson to Launch 'Dreams Do Come True' at WH Smith, Manchester Trafford Centre in November

Dreams Do Come True is the new book by Trudie and Lloyd Thompson, telling the incredible story of their 12 year journey through IVF treatment, losing a business and even bankruptcy.

They're currently in discussions with WH Smith in Manchester's Trafford Centre to arrange a launch event, sometime in November 2011.

Their book is at the very final production stages and should be ready to buy within the next few weeks, so the launch event will be very exciting for them, as they are donating profits from book sales to support the IVF unit at St Mary's Hospital, Manchester.

We'll be posting more details nearer the time.

Judge a Book By Its Cover

We're just working on a new book by Ronna Smithrim & Christopher Oliphant on the subject of 'Radical Acceptance', and in trying to work out the book's target market and pricing, I've realised that online shopping has skewed the book market.

I've said before that cover design is important in selling a book, and that designing a cover for print is different to designing one for that little thumbnail that you see when browsing online.

Printing a book is a fixed cost, so the main variable that determines margin is the cover price. A lower price might mean more sales, but not necessarily. This introduces another variable into the equation - the page count.

A book of 100 pages might cost *2 to print, and a book of 500 pages might cost *6 to print. I've used * as a generic currency symbol here.

However, when you look on Amazon, you see that all of the books in your genre are in the range of *5 to *10. Clearly you can't price a 500 page book at *5, because you'd make a loss on each one you sell. But if you price it at *15, you potentially reduce sales.

When someone walks into a book shop and picks up your book, the size of it communicates perceived value. The thicker it is, the more the reader thinks it is worth, up to a point, which is the size at which the reader decides that they can't be bothered to read something that big.

If you want a light holiday read, you don't buy War & Peace.

If you want a 'ten tips to being a great manager' type book, you don't want something that will take you 6 months to read.

And a book on speed reading? How thick should that be?

So I think that what authors - and publishers - are doing is increasing margins by making books smaller. Take half your content out and save it for your next book.

This creates a problem for anyone with a 500 page book - although Amazon does list a book's page count, do you look at it when you're choosing a book? Do you use it to determine the value of a book?

Probably not. You probably just look at the price and assume that all of the books are about the same size...

Review for The Pitching Bible from John Gough

John Gough is widely considered to be the best connected man in TV and media circles worldwide. His networking, knowledge and influence is legendary. If you mention John Gough’s name, one of the first words that are used to describe him is a ‘gentleman’. He is a gentleman in every sense of the word and that is why the great and the good - in an industry known for sharks and charlatans – not only respect him but also hold him in high esteem.

Prior to his successful life in the media, John was a teacher, writer and designer of educational resources for the UK’s major publishing houses and that is why his considered review of The Pitching Bible is very gratifying.

"Often the divide between practise and theory is quite wide. Only a few practitioners who have the gift to empower an individual to improve their performance can communicate the theory effectively through the written word and even more so embody and retain the spirit of how they do it. Paul Boross has done just that.

Paul Boross has been a speaker and mentoring tutor at the Entertainment Master Class since its foundation and has travelled the world with us working with participants from many different cultures. Every time I hear Paul speak my understanding of how I am perceived and how I communicate has deepened. Paul has an exceptional talent that has proven results.

Having read ‘The Pitching Bible’ I am amazed at how effectively the book communicates Paul’s messages about personal performance. It is a true example of how a book can effectively and practically inspire confidence and bring about change in an individual’s thinking. Without doubt if you read the book it will change how you think, how you perform and how you approach your life."

John Gough 
Head of Programme, Entertainment Master Class

Revelation 2011 Survey - corporate politics and hidden agendas

I'm writing on behalf of one of our authors to ask for a few minutes of your time in completing a survey that will form part of research that they're conducting for a new book on the subject of corporate politics, hidden agendas and manipulation in business which is due for release towards the end of this year. It's a thorny subject, and one which I'm sure has touched your career and life in one way or another.

The results will be made available once the survey is completed, and how long that takes depends on the number of responses received, so please share this with all of your friends and colleagues, and also on any other networks or forums that you are a member of.

The survey is completely anonymous, just click on this link to go directly to it:

http://kwiksurveys.com?u=revelation2011

Please also pass this on to as many of your friends or colleagues as you can, because the more responses we get, the more valuable the results will be.

Choosing a CRM Vendor: Best Practices, Pitfalls, and the Myth of the Turnkey Solution by Andrew Schultz

We're proud to announce the forthcoming launch of a new book by US expert author, Andrew Schultz.

He has captured his years of experience in building CRM solutions for his clients into the book.

Getting Customer Relationship Management right is a goal to which any customer focused company aspires. Yet, rather than enabling companies to achieve this goal, the complexity of choosing the right CRM vendor can become a stumbling block to companies trying to deliver excellence in customer service.

With an increasing choice of established, corporate vendors, niche vendors and open source solutions, your decision to invest in CRM is vital in supporting the business information that underpins your delivery of sales, marketing and service excellence to your customers.

In this book, Andrew Schultz shares his expertise on the following subjects:

• CRM: The Illusion and the Reality
• The Fall of the Biggest CRM Vendor in the World
• The 3 Pillars of CRM
• Finding a Solution
• Choosing a Vendor

Having led many CRM implementations as a consultant, and in his current role helping CRM consulting firms and vendors of CRM add-on applications develop solutions relevant to customer needs, Andrew Schultz is a solution architect with deep experience in understanding customer requirements and mapping those requirements to CRM functionality.

In Choosing a CRM Vendor, he shares both his objective advice and the hard earned 'insider secrets' that you will find invaluable in making the right CRM vendor decision.

You can find out more about Andrew at his blog: andrewbschultz.com/blog

Book Review from Jeff Ford, Director of Programmes at Channel FIVE

Jeff Ford, Director of Programmes at Channel FIVE, has sent in this review for Paul Boross' book, The Pitching Bible, which is quickly climbing up the sales charts.

"When I first picked up Paul Boross’ new book, The Pitching Bible, I thought that it was a rather grand title for a book that surely couldn’t teach me anything new. Yet, page after page, I rediscover ideas from a completely new perspective and, for me, that is The Pitching Bible’s real value. It helps me to make sense of the experience that I’ve gained in pitching, and it brings new meaning and new insight into all the things that I know that I should know, and that I know make a huge difference to the success of any pitch. I highly recommend it."

Jeff Ford

An Author's Role in Book Marketing

We publish business non-fiction, mainly, and that is always a niche market. Very few business books sell in large numbers, because not all readers are 'business people' with a need to develop their careers, presentation skills, leadership skills etc.

Therefore, for most business authors, the way they actually make a living from their book is as a marketing asset for their business. People who run service businesses in particular have a difficult time demonstrating value, and a book is a good way to capture intellectual property. There are many ways that a book adds value to a service business.

So our criteria is more like, "Can this book add value to the author's business?"

We look at what the author's business is, what they're doing to market that, where a book would support them, how many they are likely to sell and so on. We turn away books that are badly written, and we do look at what else is in the market. We also look at the author's credibility in their field of expertise.

Our selection process is similar to that of a traditional publisher, but we look at the author's business as a whole, not just their book.

Size of network is not that relevant, actually. We did some research into social media and found that marketing 'experts' advocate the use of things like Twitter, but in reality their use of such tools is misleading at best:

http://cgwpublishing.blogspot.com/2010/12/cgw-publishing-and-absem-announce-fry.html

In terms of a personal network, real people you know, they are probably not the potential target market, so they're not that valuable either. Where they are useful is in building and communicating the author's credibility, but that involves a bit of engagement on their part, which they aren't always willing to give.

We have one author who spends a significant amount of time networking, but a lot of the people he knows just want something for nothing, and when push comes to shove, they shy away from doing anything tangible to help promote the book. However, the biggest jump in his book sales has come about when he delivers a lecture to a special interest group. One of the things that we help him with is publicising what he's doing, which he had never done before, and recognising the value in it. When he delivers a 'free' talk, the deal is that the organisation publicises it and his book and sends an email to all their members with a discount code. That's just one example, of course. The main benefit for him is that the book builds his credibility which gains him more work. We turned his book content into a lecture, and when he delivered it a media festival, he was invited to seven other festivals to deliver the same lecture.

The author is vital in marketing the book, because the book is a mechanism for getting the author's ideas to the reader. Therefore the reader isn't interested in the book itself, they're interested in connecting with the author's expertise, or creativity, or sense of humour or whatever the book is about, and the author's personal credibility is therefore key.

This is why the big publishers see ebooks as a threat, because once we free ourselves of the pleasure of holding a chunk of paper, what we really want is to connect with the author's mind, and the delivery mechanism will evolve to support the way that people live and work.

The size of a network does not necessarily denote credibility. I would say that our decision process involves something like this:

Is the author credible in their chosen subject?

Is their book well written? Is it accessible? Does it convey the right expertise to the right people?

Is the author committed to developing their business, and is there the right business environment for the book to make an impact on their business success?

Is the author looking for a partner relationship that allows us to add value, or do they see the publisher as the dogsbody who puts their work on the shelf?

Ultimately, the success of the book must be a partnership that engages the reader, the publisher, the author and the author's business.