First Word

Like relationships, sometimes book success is dependent upon hitting the mood of the readers at just that right moment. I get asked all of the time how to create a best-selling book. I don't have a formula. I've come to the point where I simply admit it's a crapshoot, do you want to play or not? Many factors can influence or derail a book's success. The mood of the readers is one of them. Perhaps you've written an amazing action-adventure but everyone is reading fantasy and action-adventure literally overnight became passé. You're about to release your book and its publicity and potential success is suddenly eclipsed by the release of a mega-seller that everyone wants to buy, and your book has absolutely no relationship to that subject matter. Maybe the cover is off-beat somehow. We had one book where it's about vacations, and everyone thought it looked like summer and it was released for the Christmas holiday vacation season. This misconstrued thought about...

"I guarantee an Amazon best-seller," is the promise that should a publisher make run for the hills. In a recent meeting with a prospective author, he asked me what I thought about that promise. Could I do the same? I stared at him and thought about what I wanted to say, but the look on my face must have given away the sarcasm waiting patiently on my tongue to escape. I finally relented and said, "I too can make that promise. I'll have my staff buy up 10 copies of your book in one afternoon. Boom! How's that -- you're an Amazon best-seller. Does that work for you?" Any publisher that suggests their group can make your book and Amazon best-seller, or more like "promises" they can do so can only deliver with a guarantee what I just suggested. The value of the contract this author was looking at was $10,000 and a promise. I smiled and told him, it would cost probably $150 for that publisher to deliver his/her guarantee. He nodded and agreed he th...

I have so many prospective clients show up with their book ideas and the absolute certainty they have the next best-seller. I get asked the critical question, "Do you think this idea will be a success?" First, without doing some kind of market study, I can't answer that question without any level of certainty. I can take an educated guess. I have really great instincts. The three top-selling Amazon books published by my company 3L Publishing were my selections. What I can tell you is the no. #1 fail point every time. Do you want to know what it is? And actually this response came when a good friend of mine asked me how a particular book in the 3L catalog was selling. What is the fail point? Failing to invest in promotion . Many authors spend the time to write their books, and then once the "creative" side is finished, they often drop the ball. They don't procure our public relations and marketing services OR they invest very little money in it, and yet st...

Many authors come to 3L Publishing with their great dreams to write a NY Times best seller. The truth about publishing is that you're selling books with a small profit margin. So you have to sell a lot of books to make a huge profit. I try to encourage authors to keep their budgets conservative. The chances of writing and selling a NY Times best seller are minimal and could be compared to winning Lotto. When you compare the thousands of newly released titles to the number that actually make the list, well, you can imagine why I came up with the comparison to winning Lotto. With the odds not on the side of being the next Harry Potter, I try to get authors to look at their motives for publishing their books. The best motive is either to get your work out there and read or to use your book for business promotion and development. Authors who got into the book business with an understanding that anything outside of getting their books published or the personal satisfaction or the opp...

A good friend of mine suggested a fantastic way to take out my frustrations with certain people. She said I should just make them characters in my books. This suggestion made me laugh. I have this one fly that I can't seem to shoo away that has been using references to 3L as keywords. I noticed because I monitor Google pretty carefully to manage our image. Well, the pest has decided it's perfectly OK to stay "hitched to my wagon" by using our name in keywords for some online material. Those of you who know me, know exactly who I am talking about. We'll call this one Kitty Klingon. Here is a message to Kitty: focus on your own company. There how easy was that. No need to use 3L in reference to anything. The last thing I saw was some online business card in which Kitty used 3L as a keyword for searching. Here is another message Kitty: notice how 3L has zero affiliation with you. Hmm ... we could do the same thing and throw that keyword in yet (big shock), we're ...

Lots of fun plans for fall 2011 her at 3L Publishing . I thought I would share some of the upcoming books and projects to whip up some interest and excitement. First Word Radio -- do you tune in each week and listen to Sonja Fisher and I verbally jest? We air two shows a week, and each one can be found in our archives. Listen to this week's show by going to the 3L website , scroll down, and click on the blue dashboard's arrow. The current show will air. We have a tremendous line up of guests scheduled to appear this fall. You will be surprised by many famous names that will be popping up. We've already had a True Blood actress, a producer and a director. We try to focus on entertainment, publishing and promotion. Our guests, however, talk about any number of topics. Here is the thing ... you will often hear about underground gossip and fun you will not find anywhere else. The True Blood hottie's admission about a certain yummy star on the show left our chins on the...