The Perfect Book and Where to Find It!

By Avril Harper
Posted Sunday, August 1, 2004

If I was asked to describe the perfect book, one that’s in high demand, moves off the shelves quickly, costs little or nothing to produce, involves the least amount of work possible, and offers multi-income streams, I’d say it included one, preferably more of the following features:

It Must Be Quick To Produce

Time is money and the sooner your book is ready to sell, the sooner you’ll make money from it.

So let us consider just a handful of many ways to create a book in a day, or less than a day, perhaps in just a few minutes!

1) Profit From Resell Rights

Resell rights - a confusing term with conflicting definitions, but a great way to acquire best selling books quickly, at little cost, complete with marketing materials, web sites, representing the easiest and fastest way to start your publishing business. But there is a problem, a rather big one, in that resell rights products are available to countless firms all over the world, competition is high, and unless you’re prepared to share the profits, you must work hard to differentiate your product. Easy, as you’ll discover in How to Sell the Same Product as Everyone Else and Make Yours the One People Buy! which you can download free of charge at (www.publishingcircles.com)

2) Repackaging For Profit

Repackaging means bundling, recreating, producing something unusual from readily available materials, and ultimately creating a unique product, one only you can offer.

Various elements fall within the guise of repackaging, including:

* Repackage items with no special theme or concept other than offering a high price product at a bargain price.
* Bundle items with a connecting or specific theme to appeal to a wide market audience.
* Repackage for a niche market and watch cash pile into your bank account.
* Bundle and give a great title which might prove more appealing than contents themselves.
* Add something unique.
* Use the package to sell something else.

3) Public Domain and Out of Copyright Works

Which essentially means the work is yours to use as you please! Legally that is, but there are ethical issues you might choose to resolve.

For example, because they’re out of copyright, you could reprint and sell Shakespeare’s plays.

You won’t be breaking the law, even though it might arguably be wrong to change the author’s name to your own, not to mention making you look pretty stupid, and you might care to acknowledge and praise the original author of well-known and less famous titles.

For an excellent guide to publishing information products that are out of copyright or in the public domain visit: (www.ebookfactory.biz)

4) Obtain Marketing Rights from Writers

Another wide area covering royalty agreements, joint venture deals, resell rights (considered earlier), purchasing first or subsequent serial rights, dropshipping, question and answer sessions between yourself and well known authors, publishing other writers’ articles, and more, as discussed in The Ultimate Guide to Making Your Fortune With Resell Rights.

(http://www.resell-rights.net/)

5) Off The Shelf Ideas

Old newspapers and magazines are a goldmine of ideas for you to profit from quickly.

My book Mags To Riches focused on ways to capitalize on old papers, ‘old’ sometimes meaning recent, while more often referring to printed materials up to, sometimes more than one hundred years old. Most very old magazines are out of copyright and include tips, ideas and articles that can be lifted and adapted for today’s reader with no comeback for you. Again, ethics might raise concerns, so in that book of Early Twentieth Century Love Poems you might like to credit the original writers.

6) Directories and Listings

Many a great title is simply a listing of telephone numbers or addresses or a compilation of facts, tips, or other valuable snippets of information.

Typically, there’s no work involved, other than finding and keying essential information into your word processor. But be careful, because directories and listings invariably date fast.

It Must Be Something People Want In Its Own Right

It should be a book you won’t have to work hard to sell. That could be because:

It’s on an all-time popular subject, e.g. cats, dogs, raising children, making money from home, running a profitable Internet business, retiring with money to spend, building your own dream home, and more.

It’s a hot newsy topic, something everyone wants to know about fast. A great example is the recent trial of Paul Burrell, one-time butler to Diana, Princess of Wales, who is now ‘spilling the beans’ about his life moving and working in royal circles. He’s hot news and you can’t buy a copy of Daily Mirror, the vehicle for his story, in my home town right now. Hopefully the book version will appear soon and will surely sell millions of copies worldwide.

It’s an old subject with a new twist. A good example, crop circles, which have existed for centuries and have been linked with magic, aliens, ghosts, UFO landings, and recently Hollywood films. It’s a fact, like Pocahontas and Titanic, and latterly Signs, Hollywood films spawn an insatiable demand for books on the subject.

It Must Be Very Cheap Or Best Of All Free

There are lots of reasons why low prices and freebies motivate people to buy, including:

To encourage greater confidence in products promoted by mail order, direct mail, over the Internet. Remote buying makes people suspicious and ill at ease. Buying books in a book store, handing over your money and leaving with your goods is no problem. It’s face-to-face, there’s someone to answer your questions, you can see your goods, they’re tangible, you get to hold them, and leave with them seconds after you buy.

Inexpensive products can sell amazingly well off-the-page through low cost classified advertisements, unlike more expensive products which require two-stage selling or costly display advertisements. Great news for anyone with limited funds for marketing. In How to Go From Zero to 100,000 a Year Selling Simple Information Products, (www.howtogo.info) I’ll show how a handful of classified ads. sold thousands of copies of one of my books and built a database of regular buyers for my products, some of whom have spent thousands with me over just a few years.

Low prices induce more people to buy (some don’t have the money to buy expensive items right now, and others won’t risk higher sums to unknown sellers). This helps you build a bigger database faster for future, more expensive products.

Has a Definite Objective On Which Profits Ultimately Depend

In this case, profits come not only from the book but additionally from some other source. There are many examples of how this works, including:

• To attract visitors to your web site, as for example where a free book or collection of books is offered to anyone visiting your site in the hope they might also leave their email address for later communications or better still buy more of your products at the scene.

• To attract names for your database. Michael Southon used this technique recently when he changed his ezine server and wanted to transfer names from old to new. His offer of a book unavailable from any other source will no doubt accomplish his aim of maximum resubscription rate.

Additional Profits (Sometimes Sole Profits) Come From Inside The Book or From Back End Sales

Often a book will be offered free or at cost price, the intention being to whet the readers’ appetite for other products.

For example:

• A book of recipes might include advertisements for cook books, cooking holidays, designer aprons, and so on.

• A book of dog stories might include affiliate links for all kinds of products and services for dogs and their owners, such as pet sitting services, pet portraits, holidays with pets, and so on.

A Lot of People Desire the Book (General Market) Or It Interests a Niche Market With Fewer Members But Massive Response Potential

For example, a mass market book could sell hundreds of copies quickly if properly promoted, say in wide circulation daily newspapers, especially if the title appeals to the majority of people.

Examples: finding friendship and love, cutting the cost of your mortgage, how to be attractive to the opposite sex.

Niche market titles appeal to people with very clearly defined interests, such as collecting teddy bears, overcoming fear of flying, growing bonsai trees. Such markets might be smaller, maybe much smaller than for general interest titles, but they are invariably easier and cheaper to reach and achieve the highest response rates. Sometimes there is overlap and a niche market title might also appeal to a huge proportion of the overall book buying population.

Market Is Easily Identifiable

Knowing a market exists for your book before it’s written is half the battle to becoming a well paid publisher.

Imagine the alternative. You write a book on a subject that interests you, it takes months to produce and sets you back hundreds of pounds. Then you start looking for buyers! Easy Peasy - if hundreds of magazines, forums, clubs, mailing lists, radio and television features focus on similar subject matter. In which case, when 101 Resell Rights Secrets Exposed! is finished, I’ve got hundreds of ezines, web sites, Internet users, home business magazines, publisher forums, and lots more places keen to learn more about publishing other people’s books for profit! I’m spoiled for choice of ways to promote my book.

But that other book I have planned, How To Be The Most Boring Person on Earth, where do I promote that? Where do I find a sizeable group of people vying for that particular title? Do enough such people exist to sell many copies of my book?

Market Is Easy To Reach

Following on from the last point, the market must not only be easily identifiable, but also easy to reach. And hopefully at little expense. Niche markets are generally easy and inexpensive to target and usually promise one hundred per cent member interest. So a new book offering previously unknown information about collecting teddy bears should interest every teddy bear collector on the planet.

Many Ways To Market The Book at Little or Low Cost

Self-explanatory, really, because the more ways you have to promote your product, especially at little or no cost, the more enquirers and buyers you will ultimately reach as you will discover in The Ultimate Guide To Making Your Fortune With Resell Rights. (http://www.resell-rights.net/)

Has Viral Marketing Potential

Again, largely self-explanatory, and typically including affiliate and joint venture deals, affiliate links in the book, reprint and resell rights, endorsements, and so on.

Should Have Long Term Popularity And Selling Potential And Be Easy To Update

Very few books of short term interest attract massive profits. The exception is a fad or gimmicky title which captures the imagination and achieves millions of sales in a short space of time. A great example was the solution to Rubik’s Cube which sold millions of copies in a few weeks until the phase died out. That type of book is very few and far between and not to be banked upon. Play it safe, play is sure, go for something with long term potential and few reasons to update your book. Most frequently in need of updating are directories and most books with extensive telephone and address listings. Try to avoid them or offer an updating service at extra cost or free of charge at your web site.

Should Include Means To Capture Enquirer And Customer Addresses And Other Valuable Information From Inside The Book

The list is all in marketing, especially past buyers of your goods and services, whether they purchased direct from you or from someone else. An established buyer is easier to sell to than someone who has never bought from you before.

But that buyer is only profitable if you know who he is, if you have some means of approaching him again with new offers.

About The Author
More copyright free articles by Avril Harper can be found at: (www.publishingcircles.com)
avril@publishingcircles.com