Last week, I was contacted by an individual who’s working with an environmental non-profit group that offers education programs. They visit schools, and do presentations for companies as well. They also have a location where they demonstrate the good work they’re doing.
The individual wrote, “Publishing scares us. We don’t know your world but your straight-forward approach on your website is comforting. Bottom line is we need to have money for food and medicine. If we can’t afford to publish a book for future fundraising, then we are back to collecting money thru donation jars.”
CROWNDFUNDING, OR USING A PUBLISHER’S PAYMENT PLAN PROGRAM?
At BookLocker.com, we have published books for non-profit and for-profit firms, which have then been used for fundraising, and/or to attract new business. While BookLocker is one of the least expensive publishers on the market, with one of the best reputations, and has a payment plan program for qualifying individuals and companies, some authors and firms using the more expensive publishing services firms use crowdfunding to raise money to get their books published. Donors provide the seed money and the author/organization then sends copies to the donors after the book is published.
USING YOUR BOOK AS A FUNDRAISING TOOL
Several years ago, we published a very popular, how-to music book written by a leader in that industry. The author was not only incredibly talented in music, but he was a brilliant marketer as well. He worked a deal with PBS where they “gave away” copies of his book to donors who phoned in donations during the PBS “telethons.” Of course, PBS purchased the books for a mere fraction of the price they were asking from donors. The author appeared on the fundraising episodes, playing the instrument, training people on camera, and helping to hype the book.
Not only was the author making lots of money on the copies PBS purchased, but people who didn’t want to spend that much money on one book simply got on their computers, and ordered a copy from BookLocker.com, or from Amazon. The author was earning a VERY nice living with all the exposure and he was BookLocker’s best-selling author for years.
He eventually landed a traditional publishing contract, and received a very nice advance. And, that’s where things went south. PBS eventually stopped promoting his book, rotating to another new product to interest their donors. And, the publisher wasn’t doing a good job promoting the book. The author emailed me later, saying that accepting that traditional contract was the worst mistake he ever made because he lost control of his book, the marketing, etc. And, sales plummeted. He’d have made more money in the long-run if he’s continued self-publishing. Unfortunately, he was stuck in a long-term, exclusive contract.
YOUR BOOK AS A VERY ATTRACTIVE AND INFORMATIVE “BROCHURE”
Another firm we work with published a book on home building to promote their contracting business. They give the full-length, how-to book away as a really, REALLY nice brochure. If even one potential client ends up hiring that firm after seeing that book, that will be enough to print thousands of books for future prospective clients. The company doesn’t sell the book. We have it set up as short run only at BookLocker so only the company can buy copies. I, personally, think that’s a mistake because they could be expanding their reach even more. People are happy to pay for a quality, informative how-to book even if that book is advertising one specific company.
SELLING YOUR BOOK TO HELP FUND A GROUP
Writing groups have published collections of their members’ works through BookLocker. The royalties go right back to supporting each writing group.
USING YOUR BOOK TO RAISE MONEY FOR YOUR FAVORITE CHARITY
Some authors donate all of their royalties to specific charity groups.
So, using a book as a fundraising or marketing tool can definitely work and there are ways to raise funds ahead of time. BookLocker is happy to give these types of organizations a discount, especially non-profits. Anyone interested in this can CONTACT ME with any questions, and/or to obtain a quote on your specific project.
Lots of folks don’t understand how the publishing process works and that, of course, makes them nervous. It’s actually easier than you might think! We’ve worked on other people’s books every day for the past 19 years and many of our UNSOLICITED author testimonials mention how easy we made the process for them.
BOOKLOCKER’S SIMPLE 10-STEP PUBLISHING PROCESS
To get started, we just need the interior content for your book. All of the steps below usually take less than a month and then the book goes up for sale on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, BookLocker.com, and numerous other retailers across the globe. Yes, it really is that easy!
After the author signs up with BookLocker:
1. We immediately connect the author with the cover designer, Todd, who works one-on-one with the author throughout the process to ensure the cover is exactly what the author wants. You can see samples of Todd’s covers RIGHT HERE. Click on each one to see the entire cover (front, back and spine). Also, see the covers at the top of THIS PAGE. Todd is AMAZING and our authors rave about him all the time!
If the author wants to use his or her own designer, or design the cover themselves, that’s fine. We are happy to send them our specs, and to give them a $200 discount off our services.
2. The author uploads their manuscript to us for formatting.
3. We format the interior file, and send the file back to the author for any changes.
4. The author makes their final edits, and uploads the final manuscript to us.
5. We do a final formatting check, convert the file to pdf, do a final pdf review and clean-up, and send that file to the author for approval.
6. We send the final spine width to the cover designer, and send a final questionnaire to the author that asks them to choose categories, a list price, etc.
7. The author sends us answers to the questions and we set the book up in the printer’s and Ingram’s systems. (Ingram is the largest book distributor.)
8. The cover designer (or author) submits the final cover to us. We double-check the cover, and then upload the files to the printer’s system.
9. The printer processes the files, and ships the print galley directly to the author, usually within two to three business days.
10. Once the author approves the print galley, Ingram sends a feed with the book’s info. to the online bookstores. We also add the book to the BookLocker.com bookstore at that time, of course.
It’s a very simple process for authors because we do the lion’s share of the work. The author just has to review files, approve them, answer a few questions for the book’s listing, and then approve the print galley.
If you’d like BookLocker to consider your manuscript for publication, please CLICK HERE.
Angela Hoy lives on a mountain in North Georgia. She is the publisher of WritersWeekly.com, the President and CEO of BookLocker.com and AbuzzPress, and the author of 24 books.
Follow Angela: twitter | facebook | linkedin
Angela is the creator of the Original 24-Hour Short Story Contest!
Learn more here: https://24hourshortstorycontest.com/
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