Book Cover Designs

If writing the book is the hard work, creating the cover design is the fun part. Today, we got a sneak peak at our internal team’s initial 6 cover designs. Let me tell you that it’s one of the most exciting parts of the process.

I was really impressed with a few of them. They really look professional, eye catching, interesting and most of them really capture the essence of what’s actually in the book. I wish I could post them here and I will, but we wanted to provide our internal team with some additional comments and direction before we released the design options to the public.

In addition, if you recall, our book guy Steve, also has his designer working on the book cover so we want to see what they come up with and of course, we will share those designs with you also. Everything is coming together so nicely.

Tomorrow is also our weekly book huddle, so I should have plenty to share with you then.

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Understanding the Numbers

If you want to write a book and one day publish it, you have to be aware of the numbers. It’s important to see clearly the world in which you will soon be entering. We had little or no idea what was involved when we started.

Before we talk about writing the book, let’s understand who publishes the book. Yes, you can self-publish your book, but if you want it to make money on book sales and have the book on the shelves at Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com, you need a professional publisher.

There are six large publishers (in NY), 300 to 400 medium-sized publishers and 86,000 small or self publishing firms out there today. That’s a lot of doors to knock on if you want to get a publisher to help you with your book. That’s why most people opt for self publishing. It’s quicker and easier. As long as your goals are aligned this is typically the best option for most people.

Now let’s chat about writing a book. On average it takes 725 hours to write a non-fiction, business title. It takes an average of 550 hours to produce a book. Produce a book means having it edited, designing the cover, designing the book layout, etc. On average, it takes about 10 to 15 hours to design the book cover (we are expecting our initial designs back any day, and I can’t wait to share them with you.) It takes about 61 hours to edit the book.

I searched high and low for the number of new titles that were published in 2007, but only found 2006 information. In 2006, there were 291,920 new titles and editions, up from the 282,500 published in 2005. Finally, if this seems daunting, it only takes 7,500 copies sold to be considered a bestselling “business” book.

Good luck!

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Still Promoting the Book

We are learning a lot about the book business. Did you know that most publishers hardly care what’s in the book, but how you plan on promoting the book? What outside business vehicles do you have to promote the book after it’s published.

That’s where Square 2 Marketing really shines. With over 15,000 email subscribers to our Marketing Minds email and our monthly workshop program, publishers are moved by our ability to promote the book.

Not to mention our blog, which I am very happy to report has increased readership since we moved to coverage of our book project. The blog is a cornerstone to our book promotions program. If you notice right to your right…in the column next to the text, there is a button that says SHARE.

This allows readers to quickly and easily share the blog with social networks like Digg, Reditt, Technorati, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Facebook, RawSugar, BackFlip, BlinkList, and many, many more. Check out some of these sites, they are filled with interesting content, stories, articles, links and more. Feel free to pass our blog along to any of these sites to share with their members.

Tomorrow, I will share some interesting numbers associated with getting a book published. Stay tuned. Same book time, same book channel. For all you younger readers, that’s reference to the old Batman TV series.

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Promoting the Book

Believe it or not, promoting the book starts before the book is even out of editing. We are working to find prominent business celebrities, authors and bloggers to agree to provide us “Reality Checks” in our book. These little snippets will be sprinkled throughout the book and provide supporting commentary to our concepts.

We already have one of those prominent business authorities and they quickly agreed to be part of our project. In exchange for including their content, our hope is that when the book comes out, these notables will promote the book in their blogs, articles, newsletters, and email campaigns. This will provide the book with exceptional momentum when it is finally published and should contribute to a nice bump in book sales.

On another note…editing continues, we are now up to the fourth chapter. Next week, book cover designs come back from the graphic team. That should be an exciting entry for the blog. Thanks for all your comments, keep them up and don’t be afraid to comment right here on the blog.

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Let the Editing Begin

We got great news today from our editor. Yes, we have an editor. Sandra is her name and she has already edited our first chapter.

When you send your book to an editor, it’s a little like exposing your inner self for criticism. You never really know what the edited version of a book will look like. How drastic will the edits be? Will the editor understand the key concepts?

The good news is that her edits were minor and she didn’t want to change any of the concepts. It looks like we are going to be able to work with Sandra and its very exciting to actually have the book being edited by a professional editor.

Our weekly huddle with our book guy Steve is scheduled for tomorrow, so I will have an update for you then. Keep reading and don’t hesitate to comment on any of our issues throughout the process.

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What Should The Book Physically Look Like?

We thought this would be the easiest decision. Books are typically hard bound or soft bound and 6 inches by 9 inches in size. But after talking to a couple of publishing experts and our book guy Steve, we learned there are a number of other options. Since our book includes a wide variety of tools and exercise for readers to utilize, we talked about it being more of a workbook and perhaps having more of a work book feel to it.

Another option was to publish a smaller more portable book that would allow our readers to carry it with them, working on the different sections at convenient times throughout the day. The good news is, we still have time to figure this out, so if you have any suggestions, comment away.

The last part of this conversation has to do with the number of pages. Right now our book is about 150 pages. It looks like we are going to have to increase the number of pages to about 220. This might sound like a setback, but the fact is we have a ton of content not yet in the book, so it’s really a question of what content and how we work it into the existing structure.

One new addition to the book is called Reality Check, where we will highlight a related blog from noted small business marketing bloggers who have read our book and blogged about its relevance in today’s entrepreneurial environment.

Let us know what you think…as we work through this project.

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What Shoud Be On The Cover?

We have been working on this book for over a year and today is the first day I actually feel like the book is going to be published and in fact, I think its going to be wildly successful. It have been such a roller coaster ride that I do try and restrain some of my enthusiasm but on our call with Steve today (you remember Steve from a few blog posts ago), he really seems excited about the opportunity and has really stepped up to keep this moving forward.

Thanks to everyone who emailed me with your comments on the book titles. In fact, there is a next generation already.

• Reality Marketing: A Breakthrough Approach to Turning your Small Business into a Money Making Machine!
• Reality Marketing Revolution: A Breakthrough Approach to Turning your Small Business into a Money Making Machine!
• Reality Marketing: Transform your Small Business into a Money Making Machine!
• Reality Marketing Revolution: Transform your Small Business into a Money Making Machine!

We are getting close, so your comments are really important. Don’t feel like you have to email me (I do appreciate the emails), but the blog allows you to comment directly on the post and lets everyone participate in a giant conversation.

As we learn about the process, we are finding out how important packaging is to the book as well…so I included a link so everyone can see all the copy proposed for the cover of the book. Again, please let us know which one you like and what you think of our approach. Just click on the link, to see it.

Tomorrow, we can talk about how big the book should be…that’s right…its an important decision.

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What Should We Call the Book?

One of the most important aspects of any book project is the title. We have been through over 100 titles until we were able to narrow it down to the top three. When you select a title for your book there are a number of issues to keep in mind. Here are some of them.

• The title has to get the attention of the potential reader
• It should not be a title that is already in use (check Amazon)
• It has to appeal to the reader’s goals and their position in business (a small business book needs to connect different with business owners, as opposed to a book targeting large companies and their marketing vice presidents)
• It needs to be short and memorable (three words or less)It needs a good subtitle that includes reader benefits
• It needs to have an available URL so that it can be cross promoted on the web
• Hopefully the title can be turned into a brand, which can help launch future titles
• Be different, but not too different
  

We have selected three potential titles that meet this criteria.

1. Reality Marketing Revolution: A New Approach To Marketing Your Small Business And Driving Sales
2. Reality Marketing: A Breakthrough Approach to Turning your Small Business into a Money Making Marketing Machine.
   
3. Reality Marketing Revolution: A Breakthrough Approach to Turning your Small Business into Money Making Marketing Machine!

Let us know which one you like.

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So…You Want To Write a Book

Who hasn’t said, “I should write a book.” I know I have said it a number of times. But guess what, its hard work writing a book. Our book has been under development for over a year. So you understand the history of our project, we created an outline of potential chapters and started writing chapter by chapter. Once we felt like the book was about 85% done we realized that since we aren’t book publishers, we needed someone who could ensure our book reaches its target audience.

Let me introduce you to Steve Eunpu from Linx. Linx is a book developer and publisher. They provide turnkey services that include: book concept development, writing, editing, design, brand building, promotion, retail and wholesale distribution. We selected them because of their ability to move at breakneck speed. Concept to "books on store shelves" in less than 90 days!

Steve, Eric and I now meet each Thursday at 1PM via conference call to make progress on the book project. Eric and I are counting on Steve to Project Manage our book project to completion. It took us a couple of weeks to figure out the mechanics of the relationship, but now we are moving forward with key issues including what to call the book, what the book should look like, what size the book should be, and how a reader would use the book.

Tomorrow’s post will be on how we came up with the name, and I want you to vote on which of our names works best for you. Stay tuned!

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Help Us with Our Book

If you have been reading our blog, if you ever wrote your own blog, or maybe you even thought about writing a blog, then you know that one of the most challenging aspects of blogging is “having something to say.”

Our vision for Square 2 Marketing has always included an ability to help business owners, more specifically entrepreneurs. While our consulting practice is thriving, we only touch a handful of people each year. Our goals are loftier than that and the way we plan on helping more people is to share our ideas through traditional media, like a book. Eric and I have been working on a book for the past year and now I am happy to say, is fast approaching completion and publication.

How does that relate to our blog? In 2008, I want to bring all of our readers, clients, prospects, fans, or just generally interested parties behind the scenes and onto our team. I will be sharing intimate details of the process associated with writing, publishing, and selling our book with all of you. I will be inviting all of you to participate in key decisions with us. What to call the book? How to make the book more valuable to readers? How to market the book? Should we use graphics? Should it be a work book? How many examples should be in the book? Interested? I hope so.

So, stay tuned, read the blog, comment, email, share with your friends and sit back, enjoy the ride…and hopefully when the book comes out, you will feel like you had a hand in writing it too.

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