Self Published Bestsellers

Here are some bestsellers you may have heard of that were self
published:
What Color is Your Parachute by Richard Nelson Bolles has sold
over 8 million copies.
ZAPP! The Lightning of Empowerment, created by Bill Byham, is
written for managers about empowering employees. It was so
successful, that employees wanted their own copies! 275,000 copies
sold before commercial publication, with more than 1.5 million sold to
date.
The Lazy Man's Way to Riches was written by Joe Karbo. Using fullpage
ads in newspapers, he attracted sales from all over the world.
Joe's investment was less than $3,000 and he sold nine million dollars
worth -- and it was never in a bookstore!
The One-Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
was self-published this book for their seminars, perfecting it based on
feedback from seminar participants. After sales of 20,000 copies, they
allowed a trade publishing company to turn the book into a bestseller.
"Feed Me, I'm Yours" is a collection of kid-tested recipes. It was
rejected by 49 publishers before author Vicky Lansky decided to selfpublish.
It sold 300,000 copies in the self-published version. Bantam
took it over and merchandized a whopping 8 million more!
Butter Busters, a health reference/cookbook title by Pam Mycoskie,
has sold over 400,000 copies from her one-woman company located in
Dallas.
Consider what Fred Cockfield did. After 15 years as a teacher and
music store owner, he conveyed his methods in a self published book
titled: Power Tools For String Bass. He sold copies of his 70-page book
to customers and students. The book took off creating a buzz in the
music industry.
Attorney John Graham, decided writing a book would help promote his
personal injury practice. Packaged with a beautiful cover design, he
printed 10,000 copies to give away to chiropractors who in turn gave
the complimentary copy to their customers. This became so popular in
the chiropractic community that requests were rolling in for his book,
eventually drawing the media's attention. John admits that the
benefits of publishing a book far exceeded his expectations and was an
extremely profitable way to promote his business. No amount of
investment in space advertising could have yielded him the results his
book created.
Other Publications Besides a Book:
Create Your Own Newsletter
You need to have a regular outlet for all of your great ideas. As you
go through the month, have one document on the computer with the
name of that month’s newsletter. As you get great ideas, keep
dumping them into that file. By the time it comes to doing your
newsletter, you will have most of your ideas stuffed into this computer
document and virtually ready to go. All you’ll have to do is flesh out
the material and put it into some logical order.
I suggest you make the newsletter eight pages long. Anything less
than this amount looks too flimsy. Anything greater than this amount
is too difficult to do on a monthly basis. Remember, if you commit to
doing a monthly newsletter and people pay for it, you have to deliver.
In order to make your newsletter easier to do, you can include a fair
amount of samples of various things and then give your critique on
each piece. Not only is it easier and quicker to do, it is more valuable
for your readers. They would rather see examples and your critique
than just read your brilliant information and advice. Take a look at
Elaine Floyd’s book called Marketing with Newsletters for more
ideas on this important topic.
Your ezine, in whichever format you choose to use, should have
information that's both well researched and documented. It should be
of value to your customers and subscribers... The more information
you can supply the better. The last thing you ever want to do is pass
on misinformation, or outdated information. It can be in any of the
following forms:
Articles- You can feature articles written either by yourself or other online
marketers or specialists in a specific field. Keeping in mind this
should be timely and of interest to the majority of your readers. Try to
feature at least one of your own articles occasionally. This will help
give you creditability as well as recognition in your field of expertise. If
your not up to writing your own articles try to add an editorial
comment outlining the content of each issue.
Special Features- This can come from a number of different resources
and changes in each issue. An example of this type of content would
be "THOUGHT FOR THE DAY" or "TIP OF THE DAY"
Information via Auto responder- This method allows you to reach into
your readers mailbox yet again. The more times your message is put
in front of your subscriber/customer the better. This also gives you a
list of interested prospects for future contact.
Links- All of your content should contain links to more in depth
information as well as corroboration of the information you have just
presented. Also links to other web sites that offer help, software, news
etc.
Advertising- If you plan to use advertising you will have several
options to consider:
• Paid ads- If your subscriber base is small "500" or less, you may
not be able to secure advertisers. If you want to offer advertising
your best guide is to check out what similar news letters are
charging and then set your rates accordingly. For a small newsletter
you may want to run $5.00 ads, affordable for most, and then
increase the rate when your membership grows.
• Free Advertising- You may choose to offer free advertising to your
new subscribers or Barter- You can put forward a barter system for
example, offer free 60 word ad's. to each subscriber that brings in 5
new subscribers. These should be subscribers that you confirm as
legitimate. This can be an easy way to help you build your
membership.
• Another version of this is to get your subscribers to place a link to
an auto responder sample of your newsletter that they give away
from there web-site. Like the following: Profit On-line:You Can Do
It! Get all the home business help online for free in your email inbox
every 2 weeks. For your free report: "How to sell to 99% of
your web-site visitors" and subscription