First Word

People’s perceptions of your business or book for that matter determine whether they will give you enough credibility to work with you or buy your product. When it comes to publishing, realize that people perceive information in a blink of an eye. I think the book Blink addresses this point. I run into authors all of the time who don’t understand why low-rent self-publishing services often don’t serve their success. I know as a consumer I can tell when a book looks cheap and printed by one of those repo-cheapo printers. Little things tell the tale. Stapled binding, flimsy paper, stock graphics – all of these things send a message you may not want people to perceive. One of the most important things we strive for at 3L Publishing is excellence. As authors we have enough challenges in the marketplace to overcome without adding to it. If your book automatically looks cheap how does that affect sales? I’ll walk you through it. Book reviewers are deluged with bo...

Driving three hours to Fresno with author Scott D. Roberts to promote his book Vengeance is Now , he says this is a long drive just for an appearance. I said, "I will go anywhere for press. All good press is valuable." Public relations gives your company, product or service exposure. It doesn't matter is the audience is 10 or 270,000, as was the case for Central Valley Talk . You never know who is going to be watching the show. It could be potential buyers of your product or a potential client or even just someone who is going to change your life somehow. You can't sell a product or service without exposure to your audience. If people don't know your product or service or book exist, they don't know to buy it. The biggest mistake I see people commonly make is to write a book and then not invest in the public relations and marketing programs. They mistakenly believe if they post it on Amazon, "they will come." Well Amazon is nothing more than an onli...

With social media, your website or blog, and your newsletter, your own image often becomes a part of your brand. One thing I swore when I left corporate America is that I would never wear a  suit ever again. I also wanted to do things my way. And I consider myself a lot of fun to work with and be around. So, when it came time to do the perfunctory head shots for social media, in particular, I was mindful of what exactly I wanted to convey about my image. (P.S., companies that put logos on social media instead of individual images, I think are missing the boat. I hate it when I'm talking back and forth with a logo ... it's impersonal and I don't know if you're a man or woman.) You will never see a boring head shot on any of my marketing materials. I am not a staid corporate executive. I will never be a vanilla girl who will bore you to work with me. And as you can see, I have played up in my image what I want the world to see -- fun, easygoing, not conservative, and ab...

I had a very good question posed to me yesterday about marketing and the value of doing certain education-based marketing programs, such as blogs and newsletters. First things first, as a business owner I never advise clients to do anything I don't do. I blog, use social media, and write a weekly newsletter. In Heidi Sloss' insightful book Fortune is in the Follow-Up , she discusses the CEO's role in the company -- and that is to be the head visionary, marketer and sales person. She is right. In my opinion, the CEO should spend at least 50-70 percent of her time marketing and promoting the company. I think Heidi suggests we spend a higher percentage of our time doing marketing, but for realistic purposes, I'm going to say 50-70 percent. My client asked me about the value of her blog and newsletter. She felt she wasn't seeing direct and concrete return on investment (ROI). I gave her the answer I give everyone and it's twofold and goes like this: Education-base...