Inside Publishing

Now that your book is finished, what happens next? We're here to guide you through the publishing process, from editorial to distribution and sales.

New in The Hot Sheet

by Richard Smith
Bowker | Fri Jan 13, 2017

The Hot Sheet

If you’re an author and want to stay on top of the important issues in the world of publishing — issues that affect you — you need The Hot Sheet.

With all the chatter out there, it will help you sort through the noise with stories that focus on relevant topics from across the publishing spectrum. From author success stories to key industry statistics, you’ll find what you need to know in The Hot Sheet. Click here to Subscribe to The Hot Sheet!

Inside Publishing

News & Resources

Read more about New in The Hot Sheet

The Results Are In: Quality Is King

by Mark Gross
Bowker | Thu Jan 5, 2017

The results are in. We have finalized the results of our DCL/Bowker survey, and interestingly enough, the submitted answers point to worries over quality and consistency when content goes from print to digital.

This year was our third joint survey with Bowker, and together we probed digital publishers and self-publishing authors to find trend lines across a wide swath of important topics.

As with our 2015 survey, a topic that continued to stir interest was quality, with more than 56 percent of respondents saying it was a major concern. Other concerns were “retaining formatting” (55 percent) and “errors caused by automated conversion” (46 percent).

Inside Publishing

Design & Production

Read more about The Results Are In: Quality Is King

Three Steps to Making Large Sales to Corporate Buyers

by Brian Jud
Bowker | Tue Dec 20, 2016

Non-bookstore marketing is identical to selling through bookstores, yet vastly different. How can that be? There are two pieces in the special-sales pie: retail and non-retail. In retail sales (airport stores, supermarkets and discount stores) books are sold off the shelf, each person buys one book, there is a formal discount structure, you work through a distribution partner and unsold books are returned. Non-retail sales (to corporations, schools, associations) are the opposite. You find the people who can use your content to solve a business problem and you sell directly to them. One buyer can purchase thousands of your books. Terms are negotiated and books are not returnable. This is the more profitable alternative.

Inside Publishing

Marketing & Publicity

Read more about Three Steps to Making Large Sales to Corporate Buyers

Making Your Pitch from the Buyer’s Perspective

by Brian Jud
Bowker | Tue Nov 29, 2016

Making a large-quantity sale (5,000 or more) of your books to corporate buyers typically entails a formal presentation describing how your content can help the company in some way. You can improve your chances of making the sale with an analogy to the game of baseball. In any one game there may be several different pitchers used, but the same catcher is always there.

How does this equate to selling books? There may be several publishers pitching their books to corporate buyers -- the people catching the pitches. The buyers have business issues they need to resolve, and the pitchers who demonstrate how their content eliminates those pain points get the win.

For example, let’s say you have a book with content that helps to motivate employees and you are making a presentation to a Human Resources (HR) manager. This person wants to reduce absenteeism and increase productivity for the company’s 10,000 employees.

Inside Publishing

Marketing & Publicity

Read more about Making Your Pitch from the Buyer’s Perspective

Inside Publishing

New in The Hot Sheet

The Results Are In: Quality Is King

Three Steps to Making Large Sales to Corporate Buyers

Making Your Pitch from the Buyer’s Perspective

Pages

Getting Started

Create a Culture of Quality in Your Publishing Company

FAQs about ISBNs

How to Write a Business Plan as Narrative (Part 2 of 2)

A Novel Planning Technique for Book Publishers (Part 1 of 2)

Do You Have the Write Stuff?