Posted by Wendy on January 29, 1999 at 01:14:56:
In Reply to: Booksellers Wanted posted by Tom Azzara on January 25, 1999 at 06:16:29:
Tom,
I have about 10 suggestions for you based on your advertising text alone.
1)Your Amazon link is unnecessarily long, and impossible to click from an email.
You can shrink it down to
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ts/book-reviews/1893522016/
and you'll still get to the same place. Honest.
2)If you're going to link to Amazon, why not sign up for their 'Associate' program and earn 20% of retail back as a commission from anyone who decides to buy off your email. It would almost make the 50% discount you're giving them now bearable.
3)Why are you giving them 50%? Unless you're part of the 'Amazon Advantage' program (which would require you to give them a 55% discount), you could easily get away with a 40% trade discount with a 5 item minimum.
4)If you really need to give them a huge discount, why not join the Advantage program, give them the extra 5%, and have your book available immediately instead of 2 weeks. It would increase your chance of a sale.
5)The title information/reviews you posted at Amazon are clearly not from customers, and seem a bit repetitive. Don't you have any more reviews than that? Here's my suggestion: give away 25 copies of your book to 25 people... total strangers, friends, whoever, so long as they promise to write a review of it at Amazon and B&N; (if they carry it). Good reviews from Amazon customers increase sales. It's almost gospel truth. Another gospel truth is this: when your amazon ranking starts going up, bookstores notice, and you'll likely find more of them willing to stock your book.
6)Your web site needs help! I clicked on the link, and although it seems that the page I landed on was meant to promote the book, you haven't ONCE told me how to order it. Instead you want to tell me 1)about offshore banking 2) about IBCs and 3)how to get your newsletter. What about the book you spent the whole page talking about??
7)I'm very confused about what you're offering. You want me to add it to my web site... but then what. Am I, the humble web site owner, supposed to order your book by the case, charge my customer's credit cards, etc.? That's a nice thought, but few of the Web site owners you're trying to reach will have credit card processing capabilities. The same problem arises with drop shipment, along with an even larger concern... how can mr. site owner be sure your delivery methods will make his customer happy?
If you want to offer web site owners a deal, set up an affiliate program. If you can accept credit cards, it's not that hard. You can email me at [email protected] for details on how to do it, but if you do the processing, shipping, and paperwork, and send the good folks who bring your customers to your site a whopping 50% discount, your books will fly off your shelves.
8)Want to help those site owners sell your books? Give them CONTENT. Offer a half dozen informative articles. By doing so you will let your eventual customer know of the quality of the goods he or she will be buying, and 2) will give the search engines something to index, and give surfers a reason to give the pages more than a 2 second glance. On the web, Content is King
9)Edit - or find a copywriter to help you. The copy in this message and on your web site left me wondering exactly what you wanted me, a potential customer, to do.
10)I could probably think of a 10th one, but Its after 1am, and I'll just be happy I got as far as I did without losing consciousness. Usually my lists of 10 stop around #7. I did well tonight. :)