 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
WRITING A HOW TO BOOKLET
Creating and writing your own booklets.
Booklets
By Paulette Ensign, © 2006-2008, All rights reserved.
THE BOOKLET JOURNEY
Way back in 1991, when my organizing business was already 8 years old, I spotted
an offer for a free copy of a booklet called "117 Ideas For Better Business
Presentations" . Well, because I do business presentations, and because the
price was right, I sent for it. My first reaction was, 'geez, I could knock
something like this out about organizing tips.' Then I threw it in a drawer.
Six months later I was sitting in my office, bored, baffled and beaten down by
the difficulty of selling my consulting services and workshops. I had no money.
I mean no money!
I remembered that little booklet. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but
something hit me, and I knew I had to produce a booklet on organizing tips.
I started dumping all those ideas I ever had about getting organized onto a file
on my computer. These were all pearls that came out of my mouth when I was with
clients or when I did a speaking engagement or a seminar. I could do one booklet
on business organizing tips and another on household organizing tips. Two
16-page tips booklets, each fitting into a #10 envelope. The first one was "110
Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life" and the second one "111 Ideas for
Organizing Your Household".
My first run was 250 copies. That was the most expensive per-unit run I made,
but I had to get samples to distribute to start making money. It took a few
months to pay the printer only $300.
The only way I could think of selling the booklets was by sending a copy to
magazines and newspapers, asking them to use excerpts and put an invitation at
the bottom for readers to send $3 plus a self-addressed stamped envelope. I had
no money to advertise.
Then the orders started dribbling in, envelopes with $3 checks in them or 3
one-dollar bills. This was great stuff. I remember the day the first one
arrived. It was like manna from heaven:$3! Of course, the fact that it took
about 6 months from first starting to write the booklet until the first $3
arrived somehow didn't matter at that moment.
I cast seeds all over the place, hoping that some would sprout. I found
directories of publications at the library and started building my list.
Finally, February of 1992 'the big one hit. A 12-page biweekly newsletter with
1.6 million readers ran nine lines of copy ABOUT my booklet. They didn't even
use excerpts!! That sold 5000 copies of my booklet. I distinctly remember the
day I went to my P.O. box and found a little yellow slip in my box. It said,
'see clerk'.
There was a TUB of envelopes that had arrived that day, about 250 envelopes as I
recall, all with $3 in them.
In April, that same biweekly newsletter ran a similar nine lines about my
household booklet, starting all over again. This time I sold 3000 copies.
Round about June, I stopped and assessed what had happened. Was I making any
money? By then, I had sold about 15,000 copies of the business and the household
organizing tips booklets one copy at a time for $3. When I checked my financial
records, I realized I had tediously generated not a ton of money
And some of the lessons I had learned along the way were expensive ones. I
didn't realize my bank was charging me $.12 for each item deposited until I got
my first bank statement with a service charge of $191.
Some very wonderful things happened while selling those 15,000 copies though:
A public seminar company ordered a review copy to consider building another
product from my booklet. They did, and I recorded an audio program based on the
booklet. I can sell that tape to my clients as well and it led to a 20-minute
interview on a major airline's inflight audio programming during November and
December one year.
I was sorting through the envelopes, ...$3, $3, ,$1000, $3, ..... wait a minute.
Well, a manufacturer's rep decided to send my booklets to his customers that
year instead of an imprinted calendar. A company asked me to write a booklet
that was more specific to their product line. I got speaking engagements from
people who bought the booklet. I found out that the list of people who bought my
booklet was a saleable product.
Things were starting to pick up. So, back to June and taking stock of where I
was. You know those advertising card decks in the mail? Well, that day in June I
was so bored, I opened one. Glancing through it, I said, 'jeez, here's a company
that oughta see my booklet. And here's another one, and another one.' I sent
booklets to each.
Less than a week later, a woman called. At first, it sounded like a prospecting
call. Fortunately, I wasn't too abrupt with her. She was calling to ask me the
cost of 5000 customized copies of my booklet for an upcoming trade show. She
wanted to know if I could match a certain price.
I slightly underbid her price, she was thrilled and the sale was a done-deal. I
thought, 'oh, this will be easy to sell large quantities now'. Wrong. It was
another three-four months until the next large-quantity sale. But, the trade
show they were attending was an organization I had contacted about getting my
booklet into their catalog. They rejected it because I wasn't in their industry.
So, my buyer had bought 5000 copies of my booklet, with my company information
in it, to distribute at that trade show. I loved it!
I looked for other licensing prospects (even though it took eighteen months for
this sale to happen, and the five-digit check was low five-digits, not enough to
sustain me).
Round about spring 1993, I designed a class on how to write and market booklets
and wrote an 80-page manual. The class was small and mostly people I knew. They
paid me money, and I had a chance to test-run the class. So now, I had another
new product, an 80-page manual, a blueprint of how I had then sold more than
50,000 copies of my booklet without spending a penny on advertising.
I like teaching and now I had a new topic besides the organizing I had been
presenting. I also like traveling. So I took the 3-hour class on the road and
had great fun doing it.
Folks who read those postings replied that they would be interested in doing the
same thing with my booklet, but in French and in Japanese. This never even
dawned on me.
At this moment, I have discussions open with people in 10 different countries.
Once these relationships are established, it makes sense to discuss brokering
some of the other booklets I have access to among the people from my classes or
whom I've coached or who have bought my manual.
I've also discovered licensing opportunities for my booklet content in other
formats.
-Two different companies who produce laminated guides (one hinged, the other
spiral bound) licensed my content and will launch these next year. They are also
interested in other content so I expect to broker the content of booklet
writers.
-An inflight video information service is interested in expanding their content
and is looking at my proposal.
-I've created a new division in my company called Tips Products International.
-I've started writing tips for booklet production and other uses by developing
three different packages of 25-100 tips and recommended uses. The tips packages
are created from the clients' materials recycled into tips or doing original
research for them.
-I've been writing customized marketing plans for people's booklets for a while
now, which fits into the menu of services for this division.
I never could have written a business plan for how this has all unfolded.
ADDITIONAL WORK AT HOME INFORMATION
Work at Home Opportunities for
Work at Home Blog
Work at home jobs are posted almost daily.
www.moneymakingmommy.com/Work-At-Home-Blog/
Advertise on
MoneyMakingMommy
No Fee Work at Home Section
I post them here. Updated often, so check back frequently.
www.moneymakingmommy.com/no-fee-work-at-home-jobs/index.htm
Copyright 2006-2008. All rights reserved. Any reproduction of this article in whole
or in part without written or verbal permission is strictly prohibited. Paulette
Ensign has never taken a business course in her life. She taught string
instruments in public elementary schools for eleven years, and did all her
computer online work with no hard drive and a 2400 baud modem until recently.
http://www.tipsbooklets.com/ Paulette@tipsbooklets.com
Back to Ideas Index |
|
|
|
