Did you see the front page article in the Media Section of the New York Times last month about subsidy publishing?

When is BooksJustBooks.com  going to offer more book marketing programs to help small publishers sell books?  Offering programs is easy.  Offering programs that work is a bit harder.  I am happy to announce that we have formalized an agreement with Emmy winning news reporter,  talk show host and radio personality, Errol Smith, to offer author interviews which will be broadcast through Reader Radio’s Network of over 10,000 websites.

It was not long after the original launch of www.BooksJustBooks.com that I realized that it did not do any good for us to streamline print production and purchasing for the small publisher, saving hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars on book printing, only to have the next vendor in the publishing process take all their money, leaving the publishing process incomplete.  I make a point of making the same two statements to every small publisher.  The first is, “You will never be able to sell books faster than I can print them”. (Our best selling book sold over 2 million copies) The second is “I am not happy until you reprint”. Reprint day is a happy day for all, especially the publisher.  Up to that point, only the editor, designer, printer and whoever the publisher spent money with on book marketing and promotion are happy.  In far too many cases, a promising title stalls right at the garage the printer delivered it because the author/publisher ran out of confidence, time or money trying to market the book in a cost-effective manner.

Our first endeavor to aid publishers in selling books was the opening of an online bookstore at www.JustBookz.com. The online bookstore, offered exclusively to BooksJustBooks.com customers, helps small publishers sell books on the Internet at a fraction of the cost charged by other online stores like Amazon.  Internet keyword advertising is offered for non-fiction titles at no cost to the publisher other than the percentage charged for actual sales.

The second venture into helping customers sell books was the establishment of a book distribution service called Thor. Thor enables publishers to have titles listed in the Ingram database, making them available to 9 out of 10 bookstores in America.  Royalty checks recently went out to Thor participants for the first quarter of operation.  The good news is that every participant sold books and over 40% sold enough books during that first quarter to cover every dollar invested in registering with the program. Bad news is there are still some problems in the distribution chain that appear to be well beyond anyone’s control. I’ll probably write a whole article on the “Facts & Fantasies” of POD distribution. But for now, for a very small upfront investment, the program is well worthwhile.

This brings us to May 1, 2004 and our alliance with the Reader’s Radio Network.  I first discovered the Readers Radio Network late in 2002.  I was in the process of launching the Publishing Basics Newsletter when I stumbled upon one of the most unique uses of the Internet I had seen to date.  I clicked on an ad for Dan Poynter’s , Self Publishing Manual and instead of the usual sample chapter, which is pretty much standard fare at most online bookstores, a new window opened and I started listening to an interview with Dan Poynter answering questions about his book.  While I was listening an ad appeared in the window where any time during the interview, I had the opportunity to purchase the book.  Wow!!! What a great idea.  I immediately contacted Dan to see if I could run his interview on my site.  Next thing I know I am talking with Errol Smith, the founder of Reader’s Radio.

Since then Errol has been providing monthly audio articles for the Publishing Basics Newsletter which have been listened to by thousands.  Over the past year I have gotten to know Errol quite well.  We talked very early on about how we could make a program like his available to the small press publisher at a reasonable price.  Our conclusion was that the only way this could be accomplished was to construct a program where we shared the risk of the up front costs and reward of book sales with the publisher.  Here is what we came up with:

The most inexpensive, most profitable way to sell books

Made popular by amazon.com, affiliate marketing has proven to be the cheapest, most profitable way to sell books. Affiliate marketing allows you, the author, to set up a network of hundreds of highly motivated booksellers who will promote your book for free and to sell your book on a commission basis.

To help you sell your recently published books, BooksJustBooks has teamed with Readers Radio to offer you an affiliate marketing program specifically designed for authors. This patent pending program combines a radio interview with a standard affiliate tracking system to enable authors to cut out the middlemen and sell books directly to their target readers for a higher profit. Books are sold through a highly targeted network of radio books stores who “Nanocast” a recorded interview with the author 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Interested listeners are sent directly to the author’s web site to make the order online. The radio book sellers get a commission for every referred sale and the entire process is monitored and recorded by the affiliate tracking system. Authors can log into their account and see how many people are listening to their interview and how many books are sold 24/7. Most importantly, revenue from the sale of books goes directly to you. So there is no waiting for royalty checks, no bookstore returns and no charge backs.

Though Readers Radio does not accept all authors into their program, we have struck a deal with them to enable any author who prints a book through us to be able to set up a basic bookstore affiliate account on their network and to access their 10,000 radio bookstores. Participating authors will receive the following:

Features:

Benefits:

Cost: $129/Month for BooksJustBooks Authors ($199/month for non BooksJustBooks.com authors)

In case you would like to know a little more about Errol Smith, he:

For more information about the Reader’s Radio Program (click here)

Need a cover designed or complete book layout? Try www.BudgetBookDesign.com . –   Only $250 for original cover design.   Complete text layout from $250.

If you have a question pertaining to the publishing production process, please feel free to contact me at ron@rjcom.com.

Ron Pramschufer

Ron Pramschufer has been in or around the printing and publishing industry for over 35 years. His experience, including working in the pressroom, bindery, production office and estimating department helped give him a firm foundation to build on when he entered sales and management. He was partners in a small press publishing company in Annapolis, MD in the late seventies and co-invented and marketed two controversial political board games which sold over 100,000 copies in the early eighties. Moving from his home state of Maryland to New York City after his game experience, Ron sold printing services to, primarily, small to mid-sized book publishers for over a decade before founding RJ Communications with an old friend. Ron recognized the potential of the Internet very early as a powerful communications tool. In 1997 he started one of the first printer related websites, www.rjcom.com, which caters to the professional print buyer. This evolved into www.BooksJustBooks.com and more recently www.selfpublishing.com which target the print buying novice, primarily self-publishers. All three sites are still operating successfully and SelfPublishing.com was named as one of Writers Digest’s, 101 Best websites for writers for 2006. Educating the novice print buyer has been a top priority from day one. To help address this issue, Ron co-authored the popular title Publishing Basics- a Guide for the Small Press and Independent Self-Publisher, now in its Third Edition, as well as Publishing Basics for Children’s Books, in its Second Edition. He is the organizer of the monthly Publishing Basics Newsletter where he writes a sometimes controversial Ask Ron column which addresses various aspects of the publishing process. On the same note, he started the Publishing Basics Radio PodCast in 2005 and serves as the show’s host. A wide variety of topics are covered including a very popular series titled, The Truth Behind POD Publishing, where he conducts interviews with a select group of industry insiders. Since its inception, RJ Communications has helped thousands of customers print over 105 million books. Ron is married and has three children. His daughter, Stephanie, teaches second grade and recently self-published her first children’s book in the Oliver the Clownfish series. Matthew, his oldest son, owns a website design business and Erik, the youngest, is enjoying high school.

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