HOW I NET AT LEAST $1,000,000 FROM EACH OF MY "HOW-TO"
BOOKS; WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO SO YOU WILL, TOO!
By Dr. Jeffrey Lant
As I write, I'm looking at a book called Chicken Soup for
the Soul. Written ("and compiled") by author Jack Canfield
and Mark Victor Hansen it's one of the 50-60,000 (that's
thousand) "how-to" books published this year. And there are
lots more booklets that bring the total of longer-than-
article-length "how-to" publications to a staggering sum.
In other reports -- and in my book HOW TO MAKE A WHOLE LOT
MORE THAN $1,000,000 WRITING, COMMISSIONING, PUBLISHING AND
SELLING "HOW-TO" INFORMATION -- I've discussed why so many
of these publications fail from the readers' point of view,
why, that is, they just don't work as "how-to" productions.
Today, however, I want share the reasons why they don't work
from the authors' standpoint, why the vast majority of their
authors fail to become rich from what they know and
publish... which is, let's be candid, probably the principal
reason why most writers produce "how-to" materials in the
first place. Towards this end I'm dedicating this report to
authors Canfield & Hansen who daringly confessed to me that
they expected to sell 1.5 million copies of their $12 book.
Between you and me, I'm willing to bet a dollar they don't
sell even 1% of their exalted goal... thus failing to meet
their bloated income objectives.
#1 Select A Growing Market
The first key to getting rich producing "how-to" materials
is to make sure you're catering to a large and growing
market. When I cast my eye over my shelved packed with "how-
to" creations, I'm staggered by just how narrow many of
these books are. Just how rich can you get, anyway,
producing product for people who want to start laundromats
anyway? (I kid you not; I'm looking at a booklet on this
subject as I write.)
If you want to get rich, harness demographics to your
chariot. If the number of people you're aiming at is
relatively small and, worse, shrinking, you're going after
the wrong market.
Problem is, how do you get the information you need about
current and future market size? This isn't so difficult.
Lots of people in lots of professional associations and
government agencies are interested in just where sectors of
the nation are heading. Your job is to link up with the
people who are doing the bean counting and stay abreast of
their work. If you've never done research before, check out
Finding Facts Fast by Alden Todd. Or go to your local
library and discuss what you need with your reference
librarian. I've never understood how anyone could succeed in
publishing "how-to" books without having a good friend at
the reference desk.
Note: making sure your market is large and growing is only
part of the part. You've also got to ensure that you can get
easy access to them. Thus, if a market is growing but you
cannot access it easily, it's no market for you. Let's go
back to the poorly named Chicken Soup for the Soul,
subtitled "101 Stories to Open The Heart And Rekindle The
Spirit. Can you tell from the title, or subtitle, who the
audience is for this book? Can you deduce whether this
audience is large and growing? Equally, can you deduce just
how to get easy, continuing access to this market so that
they'll hear about your book more than once and therefore
have a higher likelihood of buying it? On all counts, the
answers are NEGATIVE!
If you want to net a million bucks on each of your "how-to"
publications, you need clear demographic information and
equal clarity about your ability to access this market in an
organized, continuing way.
#2 Resolve To Work With This Market For Life
The problem with most "how-to" authors is that they are
fickle. They select a subject. Publish something. Wait for
the big results that never happen. Then jump to something
else... that produces the same disappointing results. I've
seen a lot of this in the over 13 years I've been milking
this business. Now let me tell you something about me: all
my "how-to" books are still in print and each year I
continue to draw predictable sums from the same kinds of
people I was selling to... THE FIRST DAY I BEGAN IN THE
PUBLISHING BUSINESS! In other words, I selected my fields
wisely, crafted my products carefully, targeted my markets
surely... and have never looked back!
People who really make money in "how-to" publishing (and
there are lots of us) publish perennials. We are not looking
for the big score (although, God knows, we wouldn't turn the
bucks away); we're looking for a predictable return on
investment. The equation goes something like this: we take
our intellectual capital and assemble an information
product. We take this product, and other resources, and
invest in accessing targeted markets. From these markets we
expect to get a reasonable, predictable, and, as our
marketing expands, growing return. Voila!
We are not interested in producing a one season "smash." We
are willing to work with our defined markets year in, year
out. In short, we have made a lifetime commitment.
#3 Produce A Work Of Disproportionate Value
At all times, but especially in an age of economic problems
like ours, people want VALUE. People continue to have all
the wants they usually have... but they either have less
money to cater to them... or they are much more careful
about doing so. That's where you come in.
The "how-to" product you produce must be a work of value. It
must, that is, deliver precisely what your client-centered
title says it will. It must be packed with immediately
usable information; it must provide names, addresses and
phone numbers of helpful sources. It must save the
reader/client time, money, aggravation, frustration. It
must, in short, DELIVER.
By this standard, a large percentage of "how-to"
publications are a joke. Instead of telling you how to do
the thing in question, they tell you what you should do...
and leave you scratching your head for the crucial details.
This isn't what the genre should be all about... but it is
what the genre is about, in far too many cases.
Let me be blunt with you: you are going to make yourself
wealthy and famous in "how-to" information to the extent you
anticipate just what your reader/client wants... and go out
of your way to deliver it... AND MORE! I've tried like the
dickens over the past many years to hammer this message home
to "how-to" writers. Nonetheless, I continue to get such
publications every day where the author has failed to
understand what the reader wants and needs... and has
certainly failed to provide it.
Publications without intense reader value not only ensure
reader anger and disappointment but failure in all ways for
their authors. YOU MUST BE DIFFERENT!
Read over the information you've provided. Does it provide
details the reader doesn't know? Are you acting as a
disembodied information authority merely providing general
guidelines... or as a consultant guiding the reader step-by-
step through the process of achieving what he wants? One way
ensures your failure... the other your paramount success.
#4 Price It Accordingly
People pay for value. That's why there are luxury cars,
luxury houses, luxury trips, luxury foods, luxury health
care... and luxury everything else. Not surprisingly these
luxury items have a higher price tag than items of less
perceived value. It should be the same with your information
products.
Take Chicken Soup... It sells for $12. Now look at the
prices of my books. They start at $24.95 and go up to $50...
for paperback books! Most are priced at $39.95. What's going
on here? Just this...
My operating philosophy is simple: Always provide
reader/client value. Always charge a fair price for it.
Yet take a look at the prices of most "how-to" books. They
are priced below $20. Their publishers, I imagine, have
priced them thus thinking they would make up in volume what
they lose on any individual sale. This is fine if you expect
a large bookstore sale where such thinking makes sense.
However, the vast majority of "how-to" books never make it
into bookstores... and almost no "how-to" booklets.
Pricing your product this low ensures that you cannot use
direct mail for the sale.. unless you have an item that you
are sure you can sell to catalog houses. In short, you've
severely limited your options.
Personally, I prefer to pack a product with real value and
raise the price as high as possible, building in sufficient
margin so that I can use all available means of marketing to
approach my prospects, not just once but several times.
#5 Start Selling As Soon As You've Got A Publication Date
However you slice it, publishers is a rich person's game. If
you're an author in association with a publisher, you need
resources to keep alive while you're completing the great
work; if you're a publisher, you're going to have to dish
out a bundle for your printer before you see much revenue.
From the vantage point of the person using publishing to get
rich, this situation is intolerable. That's why you need to
start selling your product as soon as possible; from as soon
as you've settled your publication date, or not less than 90
days preceding publication. The objective, of course, is
plain: to get as much cash into the deal as early as
possible. This is only possible, however, if you are
absolutely certain your product will be ready at the
announced time.
If you've the kind of person who venerates deadlines and
meets them religiously, then you should start selling your
product as soon as you know when you'll have it in hand. To
spur sales, offer your prospects a discount if they'll buy
now... and be patient for a little while. Keep the focus of
your marketing communications on reader benefits... and make
sure they know the special price you're offering is one of
them.
#6 Mine The Work For Other Products, Including Booklets,
Special Reports, Audio And Video Cassettes
One crucial mistake too many "how-to" authors and publishers
make is that they gamble all on one product... one book, one
booklet, one audio cassette. This is ridiculous! As every
wise entrepreneur knows, it's better to spread the risk
around several products... especially several products you
can market simultaneously to the same designated group(s) of
prospects. Thus, take my fund raising book DEVELOPMENT
TODAY: A FUND RAISING GUIDE FOR NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS.
It's made up of individual chapters on raising money from
foundations, direct mail, special events, the government,
etc. Each of these subjects is of interest to some portion
of my target market. Thus, it makes sense to spin off
complementary products from the body and substance of the
main product... AND SELL THEM EITHER BEFORE THAT PRODUCT IS
AVAILABLE OR SIMULTANEOUSLY WITH IT.
Your object must always be to absorb as much revenue as you
can from your targeted markets. Your one product can gather
so much; complementary products will gather more... or may
at least gather something from a prospect who would not
otherwise buy. Moreover, by marketing these products -- all
directed, mind, to the same market -- at the same time, you
are reducing the cost of marketing any one. This is just
good sense.
#7 START WORK ON YOUR NEXT "HOW-TO" PRODUCT ASAP
Time after time I've been visited by authors of "how-to"
products who are pleased as punch at the work they've just
finished. They sit in my living room and preen themselves on
their success. I'm indulgent, because I know that in 9 cases
out of 10 they'll fail to give the correct answer to my
insistent question, "So, what are you working on now?" All
too often I get just a blank look in response as if they
thought they had now finished. No way!
People who make million dollar fortunes from "how-to"
information keep pushing. There are very good reasons for
this:
## the first product you write is hardly likely to be your
best. Practice does make perfect;
## the second product you create enables you to market not
just that product... but the preceding one... as well as all
the products drawn from the preceding one and the second
one, too
## people buy from you when they trust you... and they are
more likely to trust you when they've seen more about you.
This is only likely to happen over time.
For these reasons, run, don't walk to your computer keyboard
after you've given yourself, say, a week's relaxation
between products. Indeed, if you're smart, you'll use some
of your intellectual down-time during the production of the
first product to play with ideas and sketch out outlines for
your second, third... or thirteen product. Remember, you've
made a lifetime commitment to your field... and its
prospects.
#8 Start A Dealer Program
With the best will in the world, you can't sell all your
products personally. Not even marketing wizards like me can
do it, so don't even try. You'll make more money if you
enlist the marketing and sales services of lots of other
people, and one way of doing this is to create your own
dealer network.
Keep in mind there are lots more sales people in the world -
- including those who want to make money selling information
products ... than those who are apt at producing them. You
can benefit from this fact, but you have to succeed in two
things: creating a meaningful dealer program and locating
dealers to sell your products
-- Creating a meaningful dealer program
A meaningful dealer program consists of providing your
dealers with substantial discounts, client-centered
marketing communications, and marketing tips. Discounts must
begin at 50% and may go as high as 80% depending on the
number of your products the dealer is buying. Client-
centered marketing communications consist of space and
classified ads, cover letters, catalog sheets, etc.
Marketing tips will include where and how to advertise your
product, how to handle telephone sales, how to sell your
products in catalogs, and in such specialized situations as
workshops and trade shows. In other words, you'll think
through just what your dealers will need... and you'll give
it to them!
-- Locating dealers to sell your products
Locating dealers is not so difficult.
## Check out the ads in opportunity seeker publications.
## Advertise for them in such publications.
## Use card decks (like my own Sales & Marketing SuccessDek)
to generate dealer inquiries.
## Make sure to include a line on all your sales materials
like "dealer inquiries welcome."
## Get yourself listed in "Wholesale Book Sources &
Moneymaking Book Selling Ideas" and dealers will find out!
$15 postpaid from Selective Books, Box 1140, Clearwater, FL
34617.
In short, hustle. Dealers can make you rich if you keep
soliciting for them... and think through just what they
need... and provide it!
#9 Build A Catalog
My quarterly Sure-Fire Business Success Catalog is now forty
pages and contains hundreds of items. But it wasn't always
so hefty. I started with a single back-to-back 8 1/2" x 11"
page without about 10 items. Over the years I've continually
invested in my catalog... not just producing it, but
building it, like a house with new rooms. You do the same.
Once you've made a commitment to 1) a given market or
related group of markets and 2) the production of "how-to"
products for your prospects, it's time to start producing a
catalog, building a house list and producing regular income
from your customers.
In the beginning, your catalog may have only one of your own
products. Your goal, however, should be to displace other
"how-to" products as you produce your own similar items.
Despite the money you must invest in producing your own
products, it makes more economic sense to do so instead of
selling other peoples' products.
Don't be afraid to start small as I did. What matters is
that you make a start... and have an objective. If it takes
you ten years to realize it, fine. Just keep at it.
Remember, you are not playing a seasonal game; you are
playing for life and for the substantial rewards of deriving
regular income from your own customers.
Note: Don't be afraid to sell services in your catalog. I
make substantial sums by selling my copywriting, speaking
and other consulting services through my catalogs. These
produce tens of thousands of extra dollars for me yearly.
Frankly, I've never understood why most people think
catalogs are exclusively for the same of products by mail.
I'd rather sell a $1,000 consulting contract via my catalog
than a $44.95 book. Well, actually, I'd like to sell them
both... to the same person. So should you!
#10 Invest
A major study completed in the summer of 1993, estimated
that 76 million US households, or nearly 8 out of 10, will
have less than half the money they need to retire in
comfort. Eight out of ten! These numbers have stayed
consistent now in many studies over many years, and they
alarm me profoundly. I long ago resolved that I wouldn't be
in this hapless mass of down-at-heel aged. That's why I
invest a considerable portion of all the money I make,
taking revenues and turning them, via the options available
to the self-employed, into future comfort and security.
When you start producing "how-to" information products, it's
time to get savvy about investment. You need to take a good
hard look at your lifestyle... and figure out how to turn
the revenue you're going to get from your products into both
present and future comfort. Note, present and future. This
means...
## staying constantly abreast of the federal pension options
available to you;
## contributing the maximum amount you can, as early in the
tax year as possible;
## not allowing yourself to postpone, procrastinate or
provide spurious excuses why now isn't the moment to
contribute;
## reviewing investment options with your "risk tolerance"
in mind;
## understanding that no "how-to" product can ever be
considered successful that hasn't funded part of your
pension and retirement income.
Last Words
----------
Over the course of the years, I've known lots of "how-to"
authors. Many, like Canfield and Hansen, are ingenues who
make themselves foolish by boasting about all the money
they'll make without having a clue how that'll happen;
(remember, they told me their thin little book would gross
at least $18,000,000... but I've never seen a single article
or ad about it, ever!)
I prefer another course, a more certain course. Many years
ago Dan Poynter, that wise fellow, told me he produces books
like Kellogg's produces corn flakes... selling regularly to
a constant market. I never forgot the remark or its
significance. Years later, I see people like Poynter... and
many others... living by this rigorous regimen, selling
predictable amounts of information products, reaping
predictable income... just like Kellogg's. Just like, I
might say, Lant, too. Unlike big talkers like Canfield &
Hansen, who should be taking chicken soup themselves for the
illness which assails them.
***********************************************
Want to make money from information products? Get a copy of
Dr. Jeffrey Lant's HOW TO MAKE A WHOLE LOT MORE THAN
$1,000,000 WRITING, COMMISSIONING, PUBLISHING AND SELLING
"HOW-TO" INFORMATION (552 pages, $44.95 postpaid). Use his
book THE UNABASHED SELF-PROMOTER'S GUIDE to get free media
attention for your product/service (365 pages, $39.50) and
MONEY TALKS: THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO CREATING A PROFITABLE
WORKSHOP OR SEMINAR IN ANY FIELD (308 pages, $35 postpaid)
to make extra money through talk programs. Get all three and
a FREE year's subscription to his quarterly Sure-Fire
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