Amazing observation Derek!

Last year at RUBYCONF, I had the exquisite pleasure of meeting Derek (the narrator).  This is such a great observation from a truly inspirational, bright, and compassionate leader.

Know Your Industry

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."

- Aristotle

Inspiring People who Know their Industry
I get inspired by people regularly...particularly people with vision who can also execute.  As an author, you are an entrprenuer, and it's important to find and surround yourself with people (virtually or phsyically) who inspire you to keep pushing forward.  For me, Dave Williams is definitely one of those people who "knows his industry."  One of his recent articles is a super example of knowing your industry.  When you read his article on Facebook Advertising, you realize very quickly just how much Dave knows about Facebook and advertising.  Heck, I feel like I need to read this article 20 times just to learn everything that is mentioned in here.  If they haven't already, someone will probably write a 200 page book on the same information in the article...it's packed!

Knowing Your Industry
As Larry (my dad) and I have started the marketing planning work for marketing "the book," we have been doing a lot of research on what is going on in the publishing industry.  We are reading 100s of pieces of information about the market, the industry players, how money flows, what innovative authors are doing, the profile of our target market, book reviewers, etc.  There is a knowledge threshold you really need to clear to understand an industry and how to market yourself in that industry - know the book industry in addition to the industry of the market your book is going to go into (e.g. consumer entertainment, motivation, business, finance, psychology, etc.).  Meeting a knowledge threshold is important...and it takes time...but really costs nothing...the cost is a commitment to learn...and some spare time.  Musicians often fail in this area...they love music but they don't pay attention to business.  Music may be their passion, but if they want to make a living at it, they better understand the business side...I am willing to bet that any musician who has more than one platinum hit over the course of a decade has really learned the biz.  Authors...know the industry.

Why is Knowing Your Industry Important?
Because when you are making decisions about where to spend your time and energy, you are trying to optimize the ROI on your efforts (unless you are just writing as a non-profit).  Whether you know it consciously or not, you are constantly processing inputs that direct your energy...you are in a feedback loop.  And, the market is sending some feedback information to you.  Seeing and understanding what is going on in the book industry will help influence and improve your decisions...and ultimately your ROI.

Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but I am just sharing what is going on in our journey of taking a book to market.  As always, feedback, comments, criticism, etc. is welcomed and appreciated.  As well, let me know what ideas or topics you might want to see me cover.  Thank you for reading!

Amazing Book Facts/Stats

Wow, I just got edu-ma-cated.  There is a ton of interesting facts from this link.  Here are some particularly engaging ones...

6 large publishers (in New York)
3-400 medium-sized publishers
86,000 small/self-publishers


2006: The Top 12 Publishers by revenue were:
Reed Elsevier, Pearson, Thomson, Bertelsmann, Wolters Kluer, McGraw-Hill Education, Reader’s Digest, Scholastic, De Agostini Editore, Holtzbrinck, Gr. Planeta.
--Publishers Weekly, August 6, 2007



California has 6X the number of small publishers than any other state. This finding is consistent with surveys of other creative professions, including desktop publishers, web publishers and multimedia designers.

A larger publisher must sell 10,000 books to break even.
--Brian DeFiore, Maui Writers Conference.

A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies. --Authors Guild.

In 2001, consumers purchased 1.6 billion books.
--2001 Consumer Research Study on Book Purchasing by the Book Industry Study Group

2004. “Of the 950,000 titles out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen Bookscan sold fewer than 99 copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. The average book in America sells about 500 copies.”
-- Publisher’s Weekly, July 17, 2006

2007. Chains, Internet dominate bookselling.
Chain bookstores accounted for 33% of unit book purchases in the January through September period.
Purchases made through online retailers represented 20% of book purchases.
Book clubs accounted for 12% of book buys.
In all, the direct-to-consumer (Internet, book clubs, book fairs, other) channel accounted for 35% of purchases in the nine-month period.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6515670.html

Number of books sold online in 1999: 57 million.
--The Standard, October 23, 2000.

2008: MORE BOOKS SOLD ON THE INTERNET THAN ANY OTHER PRODUCT and the number is increasing. Polling company Nielsen Online surveyed 26,312 people in 48 countries. 41% of internet users had bought books online. 58% of those online in Korea had purchased books online. In the U.S., 57.5-million had purchased books online.

On the average, a book store browser spends eight seconds looking at the front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.
--The Wall Street Journal

The library market represents over $5 billion.

90% of the 15,000 public libraries in the US order (some) of their books through Baker & Taylor and spend more than $444 million on books annually.

How much do people like to pay?
28% $5 to $7.99. Presumably they are buying mostly mass-market paperbacks.
19% $3 to $.99
19% $10 to $14.99
19% $15 to $24.99
--2001 Consumer Research Study on Book Purchasing by the Book Industry Study Group

1859: The first self-help book was published by John Murray Publishers. Written by Samuel Smiles, the title was Self-Help: with illustrations of character and conduct.
The self-help book category came into its own in 1936 with the publication of Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Today self-help sales are $538-million and account for one in ten titles sold.
--The Wall Street Journal, December 8, 1998.

64% of book buyers say a book’s being on a bestseller list is not important.
--Publishers Weekly, May 12, 1997, page 13.

Super Article Explaining Forces in Publishing

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-why-online-retailers-will-squeeze-out-publishers-in-the-book-business/

Market Planning for Our Book

"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else."

Sam Walton, Walmart

Do I Need a Marketing Plan?

Marketing plans typically outline a target audience, goals, timelines, the message to the audience, possibly a creative treatment, and the detailed plans and budgets for each tactic in the campaign.  Even as a small company or independent author, it is very helpful to think through these things.  There are a myriad of choices and you need to select only the best things to work on…the ones with the most potential at the least cost (i.e. money or time investment)…you cannot do it all!  No one can.  Picking the first thing that comes to mind is probably risky.  Come up with a bunch of potential ideas; quickly weigh the pros and cons of results and costs, then keep moving the ball forward!

Who’s Our Audience?

Of course, it’s really important to understand your audience, their behavior, and what influences them.  For authors, this means that we have to understand book reviewers.  These are a very influential and passionate segment…we love them because they are typically more passionate about books than anyone on the planet!  Once we know who they are, we need to figure out how to help them accomplish their goals and line our goals up with theirs.

Creating the List of Reviewers

Typing “book reviews” in Google brings up 97,000,000 results and checking adwords shows 368,000  global monthly searches and 201,000 in the US.  So, every month (according to Google), a bunch of searches are done…and adding all related keywords and sub-searches would likely show that there are millions of searches on this topic per month.  It’s our job as marketers to try and hone this list down.  Every marketer has limited time, resources, and budget…one key is finding the optimal way to reach your audience.  Clearly, we cannot address 97 million websites or pretend we can be a top search result for all of these.  We may only have 5 days to spend trying to reach reviewers, and it’s probably better to spend a day getting the best , most targeted, most relevant list possible than 5 days on a random list.

What We are Doing

For our book, we are going to hone our list down by relevance and reach, then balance this list with the cost it takes us to engage with them.  For example, reaching the NY Times might be very difficult and take a lot of energy or money…but reaching the top 10 psychology book reviewers might not be.  Then again, getting on the NY Times review list would probably reach a ton of people and sell a lot of books.  There is always a balance, always trade-offs, and always a time to just do the work and quit thinking about it.

Generating a list of relevant book reviewers is one of my goals for this week.  I’ll probably group and catgegorize the list a few different ways.  Depending on how search savvy and comprehensive you are, this could take you an hour or a day.  Once I get a template that I like, I’ll eventually publish it…please let me know what questions, comments, or thoughts you have on this or if you’d like to collaborate!

So, Let's Talk strategy! (Part 1)

"Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things." - Miyamoto Musashi (1584 - 1645), Japanese Swordsman

"The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do." - Michael Porter

NOTE: This is part one of this article, and parts 2 and 3 will eventually provide more detail.

Strategy Foundations
LJB and I had a super strategy session this morning...and I plan to share a specific info about it in the very near future...but first, I want to provide some foundational thoughts to strategy. At the end of the day, authors want to connect with people and share something of value with the them. In return, profit-oriented authors make money. So, how do we devise a strategy for your work to make money?

Betalkaboutable Strategy #1 - Know Your Freakin' Customer!
Aside from stealing or counterfeiting, the ONLY way to make money is to help people...and get paid for your product or service that helped them. So, you need to know how your work is helping your fellow human. If you've failed to figure this out, keep failing and don't stop...but make sure you learn from each failure! Know your customer better than they know themselves!



Betalkaboutable Strategy #2 - No Sucky Content!
There are a million things you can do to try and make money as "an author," but your content CANNOT SUCK! You have to have a great, talkaboutable product if you are an author (or an artist or musician for that matter). CC and Ann wrote contentrulesbook.com, and it covers a lot of this type of info about content. To disclose, CC is a friend, and he totally knows what he is talking about. Other than that book, I would study any other great authors and any good content out there on the internizzle...study it.



Now, I believe firmly in a concept (and am pretty sure I came up with the concept) called "Return on Content." This is based on the marketing operations measurement work I've done...for example, we invested in white papers at Siebel. Those papers took time/money to make...and some produced way more leads and business than others! The same rule applies to media companies who will shut off a TV show that doesn't have enough audience (as audience = ad dollars). Authors, marketers, media companies, and software companies create a TON of content...it's endless. Where do you focus? How do you maximize the return on the investment in content? Well, first...it really helps to think of your investment of time and/or money in content as something that needs to maximize a return. Then, you manufacture content, measure the return, and optimize it. So, that means you need to get a feedback loop in place ASAP...that way, you know when you are creating good content and you know what metrics you are moving the needle on. If you don't know where to start, you gotta start somewhere! Take a an educated risk.

betalkaboutable Strategy #3 - betalkaboutable!
This should be obvious, but if people don't want to talk about your content, it sucks. If people aren't talking about your content/media/work, refer to rule #1 and #2. In the world of social media, people are in a constant state of talking, liking, twitching, and talking about content as noted here. It's now part of human behavior...if you have great content, people will talk about it...and being talkaboutable leads to sales!

That's it for now! Feedback always appreciated!

Why Are My Articles Worth Reading?

“Information is NOT knowledge” 

– Albert Einstein

The Answer In One Point

The article you are reading right now is written to explain one thing to “digital media authors” – why is this author, Adam Bloom (not the comedian), a qualified, credible source for knowledge about internet, content, and social marketing strategies that I can learn from and use?  If you just want to stop reading after one answer, I’d say, “You should probably read what I have to say because the last company to recruit me was Google.” Otherwise, I appreciate you wanting to dig in a bit more…

Image Source

Credibility Matters

While it is not my intent to come across egotistically in the description below, whenever I read information out there on the internet, I am always curious who wrote it.  Are they credible?  Are they reputable?  Can I trust what they are writing?  In doing research for our own book about stupid corporate decisions, we would only cite credible, valid sources and authors (often on brain science related research) because there is a lot of junk, untrustworthy information out there.  Use of propaganda has been around forever, and even authors and researchers with the best of intentions can mislead or even accidently lie.  So, when there is something important in my life that I am reading about...I always want to know about the author and the supporting facts…and I typically want to triangulate sources and find different perspectives.

My Relevant Qualifications in Three Points:

1) Personally, I am highly motivated to teach on the topic of helping digital authors' and content producers grow their businesses because I make a living from being a “digital author” and “software producer” myself.

2) Professionally, I've produced a lot of successful media/content and associated online programs for well known companies.

3) As well, I know internet marketing and marketing operations measurement really, really, really well...and social media just as well…I’ve spent my career in software and media.

While I haven’t done it yet, numerous people could provide references on these three statements…and I have over 60 recommendations/references on LinkedIn in general.

Image Source

Details on these Three Points for those who want Detail

1) Personal Motivation

- My life coach (at the time), George Fleming, and I reconfirmed in 2009 that my passions are entreprenuership, design, and psychology/learning.  And, in 2011, I am helping to complete, market, and promote a book written by my father that is directly related to these three areas.  I love these topics, they are not work, and they are fun!

- My dad and I have talked about being in business together since I was a kid, and his book has taken 4 years of research to complete.  It is about how the human brain works in corporate environments and why businesses and people often make really, really stupid decisions.  The topic is his passion (and mine), and we are both extremely exicted to share it with others.  By the way, my dad was the CEO of an $800M company for over a decade...and he believes this book will help companies and people more than anything he ever tried or read about.  We've talked to over 100 people about the book, and, literally, every person we've spoken to wants to read it!  Wow, how grateful, joyful, and thankful am I for this opportunity!?!?!

- I absolutely love learning and helping others learn...so, as we come up with strategies and execute programs to promote and market our own book, I will be sharing our thoughts with the world...mainly because I enjoy the teaching and sharing aspects of helping others become more successful.  Also, I love feedback and questions…so, drop me a line!

- My personal mission is basically a “stand” for liberty, life, and happiness (don’t think the cliché…there is a bit more to it ;-)...and I particularly love authors who help people achieve better lives, more freedom, and greater happiness in work and personally.  There is no question why I am here on this planet, and I try to live this every day.

2) Successful Media/Content

- As a web producer, I led the team who launched the first two versions of WebMD for both the consumer portal and the doctor's desktop (back in the late 90s).  Interestingly, I hired their first doctor as a staff writer and our team even did their logo…not to mention that our site worked on all browsers as well as WebTV and Network Computers!  (For you web geeks, this was an SSO webtop before LDAP!)

- As a multimedia producer, I have won two national awards for television programming kits that promoted XFiles and NYPD Blue.

- As a product marketer I have written and/or published numerous, revenue-generating white papers and videos for leading software companies such as Siebel Systems and Unica (now IBM).

- In one of my start-up side projects, I built a web presence that helped a band get their music and media downloaded in over 60 countries with over 1 million downloads (mainly through SEO and social networking).  I’ve also worked closely on programs successful digital media authors like CC Chapman, Julien Smith, Jim Brazell, and countless marketing and media groups in corporate America.  I’ve also achieved (and kept) a #1 and top-5 Google rank for search keywords on several occasions.

- Across companies like Siebel and Oracle, I've led the launch, production, and/or operations of numerous online education (LMS) programs, help systems, community, and support programs.

- While at Podshow/Mevio, I led the planning and execution for social networking, partner programming, advertorial, and advertising in over 20 campaigns for companies like Coca-Cola, GoDaddy, Sony Music/Playstation, Partida Tequila, and more.

- Again, I don’t mean to come off as tooting my own horn, but I make these points because I am here to help other people…and want you to feel confident in what I share…trust is earned, it’s not given.

3) Internet/Social/Marketing Operations

- Socially, I started using IRC chat rooms about 17 years ago...I've been an internet junkie and web professional since then and have seen the “social market” progress from IRC to BBS, then online community forums, and now social networks.  I've launched online communities from scratch several times and run dozens of social media programs.

- With internet marketing, it's very easy to say that I've been involved in over 100 internet or CRM-oriented projects in my career from designing custom online trading systems to implementing and managing web analytics to designing and creating SEO/PPC programs as well as online viral videos and web-based video programming/seminars.

- Since I spent so much time at Siebel, Oracle, and Unica in marketing operations related roles, I am considered an expert in marketing operations and measurement.  As Director of Marketing Operations, I was responsible for measuring the ROI of every piece of content that Siebel Systems had put on the internet along with measuring the return on every dollar of the marketing budget...both Oracle and Unica asked me to help them do the same thing not to mention clients and job opportunities that I have turned down from Lexis Nexis, Microsoft, and others.

Well, hopefully, this sheds some light on my qualifications.

Again, I am here on this planet to help others…and thank you for reading!

Kindly,

ab

OK! The First Product Launched...and Now...

It was an exciting week. Late last year, my consulting work at betalkaboutable.com shifted into development mode...and I've spent almost 6 months doing the work it takes to launch a new business (it's called Xmente, but it doesn't really have a website yet) and Xmente's first product (http://www.swimmingpoolacademy.com).

Now, we are going to shift gears to start marketing a book...more on that soon...but this blog will be covering "insider info" on book marketing and particularly the social angles. We will be sharing our strategies and tactics for other book marketers to consider and benefit from...with our own special twist. But, more on this later.

Until then, cheers!

In Internal Development Mode

betalkaboutable.com is currently in a phase of developing it's own products, thank you for stopping by.

Example: The Human Brain and $15 versus $150 haircuts

In exploring how one of my clients could differentiate themselves in a market that is generally commoditized, this question came to me.  How is it that one hair stylist can charge $15 and another $150 for a haircut?  How is a 10x factor in cost reasonable?  What is so different about these two?

Photo Credit: Luca Doninni Barber's Ecstasy

As a marketer, I began to identify key differentiators and benefits that set these two "hair services" apart.  One could consider that styling, location, time spent, customer service, entertainment factor, quality, reputation, and luxury appeal separate the two services and enable one "haircut provider" to charge ten times more.  As a psychology enthusiast, I know that we are all driven by the way the brain works.  According to the NeuroLeadership Institute, our social behavior is governed by an overarching organizing principle of minimizing threat and maximizing reward.  So, let's look at how each of these differentiators minimizes threat and maximizes reward.

1. Styling - Having the right style, the latest style, the sexiest style.  This can make someone feel relatively more important than others.  It can also garner more compliments and make the person feel better about themselves.  Being a hair stylist who can create or copy the latest "Hollywood hairdo" is worth paying extra for because it "makes me look and feel like" a movie star.  All of these things are highly rewarding to the brain.  A threat would be "being out of style."

2. Location - High end hair salons are often in trendy or high net-income areas.  Being able to say, "I had it done at XYZ Salon in Trendytown" feels good.  It separates you from others who didn't go there.  People will pay more to say you had it done at a certain place or in a certain location.  Even if they don't brag about it, they just feel better knowing that they went somewhere special versus the same shopping center as the Wal-Mart.

3. Time spent - Higher end "hair cuts" tend to be booked in hour increments instead of a 15 or 30 min barber shop.  Of course, if we are talking color, it's much longer.  In any event, there is a value in spending more time with a customer.  Being with someone builds up your relationship with them - the brain senses this as more rewarding.  If you have a first-time client for 15 minutes, you don't get to know them, you don't get to connect with them, and you don't get to share with them.  Smart stylists will even make the first haircut extra-long to "maximize the relatedness" to that new customer.  Related-ness is rewarding to the brain - we are more attracted to people we share more in common with and repelled by those we don't.

4. Customer service - Higher end salons can provide better customer service.  They offer beverages, they know you personally, they invite you to events, and they talk to you about life's problems.  These are all more rewarding to the human brain - we feel more secure, safer, and special.

5. Entertainment factor - Higher end stylists keep you engaged and entertained while working with you.  They don't just work with a shut mouth.  They ask you about your family, the drama in your life, they share funny stories, they engage with you.  You aren't bored, you are entertained.  Again, this reinforces pleasant times, safety, enjoyment.  A hairstylist may not be the best at cutting hair, but if you leave their feeling happy and entertained and joyful of the experience, you are going back...it's too rewarding to feel that entertained and have that much fun.

6. Quality - This one is simple.  They cannot do a bad job.  The cut must look good.  It must be complete.  It must not have errors.  If it does, it is a threat to someone's personal identity.  One botched hair cut or color means a customer is never coming back...and likely complaining to 10 people about you.

7. Reputation - The reputation is built on doing a good job and also doing it for certain people.  Again, status falls into play...it is rewarding to go to the same stylist as a famous or wealthy person...or to go "where the rich go."  It makes you feel special.

9. Luxury appeal - Everyone wants to be "behind the velvet rope" and feel special.  They want to be unique.  They want to be better than others.  They want to be able to afford the best or most expensive of something.  It makes them feel safe, secure, and powerful.  The brain releases chemicals that make people feel positive about what they can afford.

Each one of these differentiators reinforces a very strong element of human behavior and rewards the brain...to the tune of 10x more money.