If you have written your book solely as a business promotional tool, then books store and online sales may not matter much.  My primary goal in writing and self-publishing “How to Master the Media” was business promotion and to have a take-away for participants in my media training workshops.  But as long as I was going through the effort of researching, writing and designing the book’s layout, it was just a few more steps to insure that the book could be sold to the public at large.

I’m glad I made the effort because from time to time I get an e-mail from Amazon.com ordering another consignment of seven-to-ten books.  And from time to time I find a deposit from Amazon in my checking account for sales of the Kindle version of my book.  Now I’m working on an iPad manuscript which will be greatly enhanced with numerous live links to relevant web sites so the book can take advantage of the iPad’s browsing capabilities.

I also sell some copies directly from my own web site, www.masterthemedia.com.  Like John Tantillo, Ph.D., author of the self-published “People Buy Brands, Not Companies,” I don’t have a separate web site for the book.  He gives the perfect rationale for that: “I wanted the book to drive sales to my brand rather than to sell books.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to sell books, but I’d much rather get a consulting assignment or land a speaking engagement where I can sell even more books.  What this means is that I have incorporated the book on my web page, www.marketingdoctor.tv, and have a link to Amazon where visitors can buy the book.”

Dr. Tantillo went with Amazon.com’s Create Space to publish his book.  Create Space may be all the printing and sales service you require.  You can submit your manuscript, get a free ISBN (International Standard Book Number), create a Kindle version of the book and begin selling through Amazon and your own e-store. Using Create Space’s Expanded Distribution Channel, the book will be offered to libraries, schools and brick-and-mortar bookstores. Be aware, however, that if you plan to give out hundreds, or even dozens, of copies of your book for sales promotion purposes, you’ll likely pay more per copy than you will if you go with a printer, as I did.

William Saleebey, Ph.D., is author of three self-published books, the latest being “Connecting: Beyond the Name Tag.”  His book is about power networking; creating strategies and tactics for developing business referrals through networking.  Appropriately enough, he is using networking to sell books.  “I have done three signings since the release of the book in December,” he writes.  “I continually announce and promote events, media interviews and speaking engagements through social media channels of LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.”   Dr. Saleebey also created a web page for the book, which connects to a PayPal page where the book can be purchased, and he promotes the book on his blog.

If you think your book might serve as a text — whether it has been published or self-published — contact schools directly.  I recommend going directly to the teacher of a relevant course, not to a department head. (Finding that teacher at the college level: most of them post their course catalogs online.) “How to Make the Most of Every Media Appearance,” the McGraw-Hill version of my book, had no textbook sales that I know of but “How to Master the Media,” my self-published version was ordered by the Columbia University bookstore in connection with a course and is currently used as a text in a public relations course at George Washington University. I directly pitched the book to the GW teacher and he assigned it to his students.

Here are some additional ways to generate book sales:

Write a blog about your area of expertise and plug the book on each blog entry.  I do that with my media tips and critiques website.

Give speeches and include the cost of a book in your fee for each attendee.  If your book is designed to drive business to your company, you are getting paid to promote your business.

Give speeches for free on the condition that you can sell the book at the end of the address.  (The late Paul Harvey, radio personality and author of a steady stream of bestsellers, honed this to an art form.  Four nights a week he would give a speech — albeit for for a hefty fee.  At the end of the speech, he would retire to the back of the auditorium and autograph and sell copies of his latest book.  That little sideline was sufficiently profitable for him to finance the Lear Jet which flew him from city to city for those speaking/book selling ventures.)

Reach out to the local media.  If you have an area of expertise, chances are there’s a radio show or a newspaper that will have an interest in that expertise.  Volunteer your expertise and, when you’re being interviewed, refer to your book.  (Even if you sell no books, the media exposure — and the citation that you’ve written a book — can help drive business your way.)

Set up book signings.  Booksellers who might ordinarily resist stocking your book, will carry copies if you offer to come in, speak briefly and do a signing.  You will need to publicize the signings, but you can do that virally through e-mails and social networking sites.

Do you need a book publicist?  A budget for a publicist is almost a requirement to get a book published these days.  Publishing houses have outsourced public relations efforts to authors.  A self-published book can benefit from a publicist’s efforts, too, but be aware it can cost you between $1,500 and $2,500 a month.  Now what should the publicist publicize?  If you’re with a publishing house, they are going to insist that the publicist concentrate on book sales.  But if your primary purpose in writing the book was business promotion, then book sales are beside the point and you might want to hire a publicist to promote your business.  The publicist can use the book as a credential to promote your more lucrative real business.  Any book sales you make are coincidental to your real goal: getting new clients or customers.

The two business book writers I’ve cited here, Dr. Saleebey and Dr. Tantillo wrote books less as a direct revenue stream than as a promotional tool, as I, myself did.  If you’re like us, assess the costs this way: A $1,500-a-month publicist using a $4.00 book as a tool generates a couple of $5,000 client fees or consulting assignments.  That’s a wise investment.  A $1,500-a-month publicist generates $1,500 worth of book sales. That’s  a wasted effort.  As in any business venture, you measure success by what brings in the greatest return on investment.

A book can drive customers to a company or enhance a business person’s credentials.  If that’s your primary goal in writing a book, self-publishing may work for you.  It is less time-consuming than finding a publisher.  Last time I wrote about the arduous process of finding a publisher.  Today, let’s look at self-publishing.

John Tantillo, Ph.D. is the CEO of The Marketing Department of America, and bills himself as “The Marketing Doctor.”  He has succeeded in making himself into a unique brand. (Take a look at some of his videos HERE) He self-published the book, “People Buy Brands, Not Companies” because, “commercial publishers … are operating with an increasingly creaky business model.  Fact is, they don’t really know what sells and, sadly, most of the time they don’t know how to sell very well.  With commercial publishing you basically give up control in exchange for them paying you a small amount of money, offering you their ever diminishing prestige.  As a marketer, I found that unacceptable because I don’t believe most commercial publishers would be dynamic and aggressive enough to support my book.”

The biggest down side of self-publishing is that you pay all the costs — writing (if you engage a collaborator), design (if you can’t do your own design), printing and promotion.  But even with a publisher these days, you are still stuck with the promotional costs, the collaborator costs and, if your book requires illustrations, you have to license them out of the publisher’s advance.

I have the unique experience of having gone both the publishing and self-publishing route with one book.  McGraw-Hill published “How to Make the Most of Every Media Appearance” in 2003 and I took back the rights, revised and republished it myself in 2007 as “How to Master the Media.”  I did this principally because as the book’s biggest customer — I was buying them to promote business and also as a take-away in my media training workshops — I was subsidizing McGraw-Hill.  Each book I bought cost me $8.00 and did not count against my advance.  The self-published “How to Master the Media” costs me well under $4.00 a copy.   Is it worth it?  Well, to quote Dr. Tantillo, the branding expert: “Business people spend a lot of money on knick knacks for potential clients, but there is nothing more memorable than being able to autograph your own book – especially if it’s a book that reinforces your credentials and underscores your grasp of the business.  It sets you apart from the competition with relevance and without gimmickry.”

In deciding to take back my book and self-publish it, I enjoyed a number of advantages that other authors might not have.  First, McGraw-Hill had already published the book so I had the benefit of the company’s editorial input.  True, I revised it extensively, but the skeleton upon which I hung the new muscle had been vetted by a veteran editor. Second, because I had worked in newspapers and studied print layout in journalism school, I was able to design my book myself.  A book is not a long essay; creating one requires some layout skills and/or very costly software like QuarkXpress ($500+) or Adobe Indesign ($1,900).  Third, I found a reputable printer, EC Printing.  Some print houses — usually billing themselves as print on demand firms — charge for printing books and then pay the author a royalty based on book sales. In theory, this enables an author to recoup the printing costs.  In actual fact, it rarely does. These companies will print your book and will place it in the listings (albeit not necessarily in the stores) of major chains and with online retailers. But they have a lot of control over your work because they set the sales price, they control the inventory (so you never really know how many books are sold) and they own the ISBN (International Standard Book Number).  That means that for all intents and purposes they own the book even if they don’t own the copyright because you need that ISBN to get a bookseller to list your work.  Whoever controls the ISBN controls the product.  Additionally, POD outfits charge authors a lot more for their own books — usually 70 percent of the list price which they, not you, have set.

If you’re starting out from scratch, here is how to deal with those issues:

Editorial: Your word processing software may catch misspellings and egregious grammatical errors, but there are far more pitfalls awaiting an author than those.  You can hire someone to edit your book for you.  A Google search of “free lance book editors” yielded well over 100 entries.  A free-lance editor will cost you between $15 and $40 an hour, depending on your needs and the editor’s level of experience.  Simple proofreading usually costs about $25/hour.  Writing and re-writing charges start at about $45 an hour and can go as high as $100/hour.  Many of these editors will negotiate a flat rate for the entire job with you so you have a fixed cost going in.  These days, it’s a buyer’s market, since there are so many out-of-work writers and editors.

Design: Most printers offer design services.  They already own Adobe Indesign or QuarkXpress and for a fee will design the book for you. Since I did the layout and interior design for “How to Master the Media” EC Books supplied me with the cover design which, I feel, is far more compelling than the cover McGraw-Hill had done.

ISBN: Get your own.  A single ISBN and bar code (essential if you’re going to sell through Amazon.com or in bookstores) should cost you under $50. You can learn more HERE.

Another tip: Be aware of copyright laws.  If you “write” your book by cutting and pasting together Internet articles or if you pull photos off Google images and plant them in your book, you are inviting a lawsuit.  Many images and documents on the “free” Internet are copyrighted and holders of copyrights can be aggressive about protecting their intellectual property.

How much will your book cost you?  Dr. Tantillo says, “As long as you are willing to roll up your sleeves and be there every step of the way (and this means doing most of the writing), you should be able to produce the book for between $5,000 to $10,000 (no more than $10,000!)”  In my case, I encountered none of those costs, so I paid only for the books printed.   The more books you order, the lower the cost per unit.  For a 5.5 by 8.5-inch paperback of 150 pages with a gloss laminated full color cover expect to pay about $3.60/unit for 250, $3.10/unit for 500 and $2.30/unit for 1,000.  Longer books, like mine (233 pages) cost slightly more.  Your other costs depend on how much you do for yourself and how much help you have in preparing your manuscript.

Finally, be aware that sometimes, established publishers will discover a self-published book, be impressed with it, and buy the rights to reprint and distribute it.  That’s what happened to networking expert William M. Saleebey, Ph.D, with his book “Study Skills for Success.” After he self-published, Simon & Schuster picked it up and republished it.  His second and third books, “Sell Yourself” and the current “Connecting: Beyond the Name Tag,” were self-published.  Dr. Saleebey says he’s glad he self-published.  “I had 100% artistic and content control and reap all of the profits.”

Dr. Saleebey, a speaker and trainer with expertise in the psychological aspects of personal and business networking, mounted an ambitious promotional campaign to sell “Connecting.” You would expect that chore to fall to a self-publishing author, but even if a major house buys your book, the sales promotion burden is still going to fall on your shoulders.

Next time, selling your book.

First things first—come up with a solid idea.

It’s probably best to do a bit of research to find out what Apple will and will not allow in the App Store. Then do some keyword searching—with 150,000+ apps out there, chances are someone else already had your great idea. That being said, if there’s a chance for improvement it could be worth a try.

When we created the Virtual Zippo Lighter App at Moderati, we had the idea long before the iPhone even existed. We did a “rock lighter” wallpaper years prior, and had been in the works with licensing images from Zippo. When we were pitching the app idea to Zippo a couple other lighter apps had just launched. My boss said to me, the thing that’s going to make this one the best is the design. The strategic licensing effort on the part of the marketing department also certainly had something to do with the success of the app.

Okay, so you have a great idea, then what?

Just like any other multi-media design project, you’re going to want to start by making a list of features your app will have. Chances are your list might get a bit long, so remember that “less is more” can be applied to new design mediums. Group features into clusters that make sense, and remove things that don’t really enhance the user experience or add to the final product (just because the iPhone can do something, doesn’t mean your app has to).

With your features listed, next you’ll want to mock up your product and do a bit of UI design.

Taking all the features into consideration, you’ll have to figure out an elegant way for users to actually use the app. Either by sketching on paper or creating simple shapes on the computer, think about how it will function, what users will see first, and what users will click on most. Remember that people are impatient, so it’s best to minimize the number of clicks. When thinking about elements on a page, and the order of things, keep in mind that instinct and learned behavior play a part for the user (for example, “forward” is usually on the right, and “back” is usually on the left).

Then, it’s page-flow time. When setting up your design and how everything will be connected, instead of thinking of it as a website (open-ended, scrollable, kind of limit-less), think of it more like a DVD menu interface (limited set of features that get straight to the point). Unlike a website, your app isn’t going to have breadcrumbs or a URL at the top helping you find your way back, so be sure the user can figure out where they are at all times, with shortcuts to important features. Adding a “Home” button is much, much better than forcing the user to click “back” a good number of times (if it were me, at that point I’d just choose to hit “End”).

Read the full article HERE.

Question: “How will this experiment expand our knowledge of the universe?”

Answer: “So, what we are going to study is…..”

It was so pervasive that a few science and engineering media training participants began every single answer with the word “so.”  They were unaware they were doing it until we played back the interviews for our critiques. One confounded scientist, for whom the critique was a revelation, asked, “Why am I doing that all the time?” At the time I couldn’t answer his question, but now I think I know the answer.  Scientists, by inclination and training prefer to build to a conclusion.  But they know that laymen want a conclusion first, followed by the supporting data.

In fact, during media training sessions I drive home that message using the slogan, “Key Point Up Front.”  In other words, we are asking people to do something counterintuitive: to start with what would normally be the end of an answer.  Normally, when our scientist is building his argument with peers, he lays out his evidence and when he is going to to deliver his conclusion uses flags the fact with the word “so.” Actually, “so,” used this way is layman speak for “ergo,” which in its original Latin meant “because of,” but was adopted as a synonym for “therefore” in 14th century English.  Now when urged to begin with the conclusion, many scientists and engineers instinctively start with “so,” even though they haven’t presented the facts leading up to the conclusion. At a recent gathering I attended, there were a lot of scientists on panels and laymen in the audience and almost every scientist present began many answers with the word, “So….”

Why is this relevant to the business community?  Well, lately I’ve noticed the answer-starting “so” creeping into media interviews with businessmen.  Perhaps they picked up the habit listening to Nobel prize-winning scientists using the word.  Perhaps there is a “so” virus out there.  Whatever the reason, I am hearing more and more “so” answers from more sectors of the economy.

Whether you have talking about dark energy or monetary policy or business opportunities in third world countries, starting answer with “so,” is distracting and annoying.  First of all, the “so” is totally misplaced and somewhat baffling to the listener, since the basis of the conclusion hasn’t been given.  Second, it becomes a cliche like “y’know” and can lead to such overuse that it becomes a distraction — just like “y’know.”

As I pointed out earlier, a lot of perpetrators of “so” responses were totally unaware they were committing the offense.  So (sorry, couldn’t resist) how do you know you’ve fallen into the trap and what do you do to get out of it?

I know of only two ways of catching yourself deploying the inappropriate “so.” Ask colleagues to listen for it — a less than reliable solution — or record yourself in conversations and practice interviews and play back the tapes listening for “sos.” If you are a so-er what is the remedy? Incorporate the sense of the question in your answer.  If you are rephrasing the elements of the question, it’s virtually impossible to begin an answer with “so.” Back to the example I used earlier:

Question: “How will this experiment expand our knowledge of the universe?”

Answer: “This experiment will expand our knowledge of the universe by studying…..”

What about my mandate for getting your key point up front?  Restating the sense of the question doesn’t push the key point all that far back in your answer, AND, importantly, it makes your answer totally self-contained — something the media love.  If they can use your answer without their question, they are a giant leap toward a good soundbite or pull quote.

Toyota Motors is a company that heavily promotes its engineering innovation, production quality and service reliability.  In a haymaker blow to Toyota’s reputation, the company suspended production and sales of eight of its most popular models — including America’s (previously) best-selling car, the Camry.  And now Toyota is recalling millions of already-sold cars worldwide to fix a potentially life-threatening problem: unintended acceleration.

(Disclosure: I have a personal stake in this story: I own a second-generation Toyota Prius.)

This week Toyota began shipping parts to dealers across the country to correct an accelerator problem that could lead to cases of disastrous unintended acceleration.  The Toyota problem is so serious the automaker stopped production and sales on eight of its top-selling models — including the Camry, the best-selling car in the U.S.  The scope of the problem is staggering: I’ve seen stories on the web sites of European, Japanese, South African, Canadian and Israeli newspapers.  Toyotas sold in China have also been implicated.

I always judge a company’s handling of a crisis by what I call the Tylenol Standard.  Back in 1982, Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules were the best-selling over-the-counter pain reliever in the United States.  Then, seven people in the Chicago area died; they had all been taking the drug.  J & J jumped into action with an approach that is taught in business schools to this day.  The company suspended all production of Tylenol immediately.  It recalled the 31 million bottles of Tylenol then on store shelves, destroying all the medication that was returned.  It launched a rigorous inspection of all its manufacturing facilities. And, Johnson & Johnson made top officials readily available to the media where their story was: “We don’t know how this happened.  We will find out and correct it.  Meanwhile, do not use any of our products that you have at home; return them immediately, and report any adverse effects from our medication that you have already taken.”

The company’s response was fast, comforting and took a page from the Harry Truman adage: “The buck stops here.”

As it turned out, the buck did not stop at Johnson & Johnson.  The Tylenol deaths were murders, not the result of accidental contamination.  Someone had tampered with some Extra-Strength Tylenol boxes in drug stores around Chicago. The killer opened the packaging and the bottles, inserted potassium cyanide into the capsules and then resealed everything and put the product back on the shelves.  Police and FBI theorized the killer had a specific target in mind but killed others in order to make his intended victim look like a random casualty in a series of accidental poisonings-by-contamination.  (The case remains unsolved to this day, possibly because the intended victim never took the contaminated drug.)

Within a year, Extra-Strength Tylenol had regained its position as the country’s top-selling pain killer.   Unfortunately, the Toyota brass must have cut class in business school the day they taught the 1982 Tylenol lesson.

Toyota was late to the table with an admission that there was, indeed, a problem and slow with information to the media (and through the media to the millions of Toyota owners worldwide).  This sowed the seeds of confusion and resulted in a serious erosion of trust in the company.

Toyota’s worldwide president, Akio Toyoda, grandson of the company’s founder,  made no statements to the media and no apologies to customers until a crew from NHK, the Japanese TV network cornered him at the World Economic Summit in Davos the last week of January.  This reclusive behavior despite the fact that the issue has gained massive media attention since last August when an off-duty California Highway Patrol officer and three family members burned to death after crashing a runaway Lexus they had borrowed from a dealer in San Diego.  The company’s U.S. president, Jim Lentz, was also noticeably absent from the media until February 1, when it was time to announce the fix.  Then he began a media blitz explaining the problem and the repair, a belated attempt to restore Toyota’s battered image.

But wait, there’s more, as the infomercials say.  If you look at the list of cars being recalled for the accelerator fix (below) you’ll notice that the Lexus in which Highway Patrol officer  Mark Saylor died — a 2009 ES — is not on it.  That’s because those cars — and many other Toyota-made cars, including my Prius — were subject to an earlier recall, back in November, 2009.  In that recall, the Lexus accelerator pedals were shortened so they could not be trapped under the floor mat — the ostensible cause of Officer Saylor’s accident. (For the Prius, I was just told to remove the mat — which I had already done.  It still sits in my trunk awaiting the promised “permanent fix.”

But at the same time as the mat matter was being handled, Toyota was aware that for six years both the company and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has been looking into multiple cases of unintended acceleration and that the mats were unlikely culprits in all of them.  In its autumn response, Toyota tried to sweep the more basic accelerator problem under the floor mat problem.  In fact, in November, Toyota put out a press release misrepresenting the NHTSA’s conclusions about the floor mats and had to issue another press release correcting the first one.  But neither press release acknowledged that unintended acceleration might have been caused by anything other than misplaced or mismatched floor mats.

So there were two problems and initially Toyota tried to conflate the simpler problem (the mats) with the more serious problem (the accelerator mechanism).  The mat recall affected 3.8 million vehicles and despite the fact that NHTSA told Toyota that mat removal was at best an interim solution, no long-term solutions has been reached for many of those recalled cars.  The faulty accelerator affects 4.6 million vehicles, some of which were previously involved in the mat recall (with the attendant danger that owners who addressed the mat problem will now think the entire problem solved.)

Here is a list of the cars in the current Toyota recall.

• 2009-2010 RAV4

• 2009-2010 Corolla

• 2009-2010 Matrix

• 2005-2010 Avalon

• 2007-2010 Camry

• 2010 Highlander

• 2007-2010 Tundra

• 2008-2010 Sequoia