Pre-sell your book before you write it?

[Dien Rice]

Originally Posted by Glenn

Thanks Dien,

Publishizer is of Great interest to me Dien.

Thank you.

Here's why.

In 1989 I found myself sitting next to a short, stocky, bearded man
at a Protege Bootcamp - This fella was suddenly HAILED from the Stage by Jay
Abraham and Mac Ross
as a DIRECT MAIL GENIUS.

Bob Morrison knew so much more than the 800 others in the room about SELF PUBLISHING - that soon
he was on-stage - being interviewed.

Bob said he subscribed to a couple 100 Hobby and niche magazines.

Cut out articles.

When he had enough for a book in that niche. Bob wrote a Sales Letter. Rented
a list of people who had ALREADY bought similar books.

A - IF he got too few orders - he sent them a postcard saying, "The book is no
longer available - here is your munny back.

B - If he got enough checks in the mail - Bob Dictated the book then had a Court
Reporter Type it up.

I particularly liked Bob's story of how he CALLED UP and TALKED to
some of the buyers of his best seller - "Why SOB's Succeed and Nice Guys Fail In
Business"

AND Discovered none of them READ the book. They bought it JUST IN CASE of Emergency.

So.

Bob - Rascal that he is.

Wrote a S-ales letter and s-old all of these buyers SPECIAL REPORTS.

Sold like crazy.

Unknowingly these men had bought Individual Chapters of "Why SOB's Succeed..." broken out into Report form.

Got me Thinking.

I really LIKED the idea of PRE-Testing and knowing
whether your book would s-ell BEFORE you wrote it.

So I started Studying best selling authors
who sold their own books.

Which is how I ended up Testing books on Ebay. (Now illegal to sell an E-book on E-bay.)

I'd list a 7 day auction.

IF I didn't get enough bidders by day 6 I'd Cancel the auction - and NOT Write the book.

I did Outline the book.

So all I had to do was write or type as fast as I could
to create each new book.

Glenn

Publishizer sounds interesting.

I'll take a look.

Let you know what happens.

Thanks again, Glenn...

You're a testing genius! I love these ideas...

The Bob Morrison approach is great, too... I've tried the "dictating" approach, and it's worked well.

What I did in the past is use this to create articles (for a paid subscription newsletter).

First, I'd write out the main points in "bullet-point" format.

Then, as I'd read through the bullet points, I'd dictate. As I spoke, I'd expand out each bullet point. Explain it, give examples.

The audio file would be sent to a transcription company (there are a ton of them around). They'd send me back the article in written form.

I'd find I'd still have to edit the article. Back then, I did the editing myself, but if I did it now, I'd probably hire someone to edit it (using oDesk or something similar).

Wow, as I write this, I realize these are pretty good ideas!

Why write a book the "traditional" way? Sidney Sheldon dictated all his books, and all his TV scripts too. (As an old "I Dream of Jeannie" fan, I read his autobiography! Every single script of that show he dictated.)

Sometimes there are a few too many "sparks" that fly through your head... You gotta write this stuff down...!

Best wishes,

Dien