Customer Reviews

Publish to Win: Smart Strategies to Sell More Books

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This review by Jon Sievert is reprinted with permission from the BAIPA Newsletter (Bay Area Independent Publishers Association). - There's a new addition to my essential reading list for independent publishers, *Publish to Win: Smart Strategies to Sell More Books* by Jerrold R. Jenkins and Anne M. Stanton (Rhodes & Easton, 350 pp, $20). It earns its spot by addressing the topic of marketing thoroughly and uniquely. Though most of the book concentrates on selling a finished product to multiple markets, it is the one you should purchase and devour long before your own manuscript is complete. Early chapters provide invaluable no-nonsense advice on evaluating the marketability of your book idea, defining your target audience, testing the market *before* you spend your life savings, and the business and aesthetic end of packaging for maximum impact. In addition, there are invaluable chapters on scheduling, finding a distributor or wholesaler, and creating smart, cheap, and effective publicity. Publish to Win's most enduring value, however, lies in its focus on selling to non-traditional markets. Jenkins and Stanton subscribe to Dan Poynter's contention that bookstores are the worst, least profitable places to sell books, and they offer a wealth of other possibilities for consideration. Whole chapters are devoted to selling to libraries, academic markets, foreign markets, book clubs, warehouses and mass merchandiing clubs, gift and specialty stores, catalogs, and corporations and associations. Suggestions for locating, courting, and selling to these markets are delivered in practical detail, backed up by the real-life experiences of small publishers who have successfully done so. It is no exaggeration to say that the advice in any single chapter of *Publish to Win* is easily worth the price of the entire book to a publisher who finds a new market within. This book belongs on every publisher's bookshelf, no matter how long you've been in business.

I've been a publishing consultant for twenty-five years, owned a book printing company, and have published calendars, software, books, and newsletters. There are only a few books on publishing that anyone considering self-publishing should buy - "Publish to Win" is definitely one of them.I lent my copy to a client and they never returned it - so I bought another one. Add this book to your library - you'll be glad you did.