Principled Profit

One of my favorite marketers, the brilliant and unconventional Sean D’Souza in far-away Aukland, New Zealand, claims he built his entire Psychotactics business on strategic alliances.

And I believe him.

Strategic alliances are that powerful. Two world-class examples:

Apple, IBM and Motorola joined forces in the 1990s to design the PowerPC computer chip–which dominated at least Apple’s product line (and I think was used in various IBM models as well) for the next several years.

And a person in the audience of one of my speeches reminded me that until it formed a strategic alliance to supply operating systems, Microsoft was just another two-bit hole-in-the-wall computer business.

The comments on Sean’s blog page got into a discussion of the typical Internet-marketer JV, but Sean correctly responded,

The downsides to strategic alliances? I know of few. One is, that because they’re not motivated by money, there’s less momentum–that is they’re less likely to be motivated to help. But this hasn’t been true for me. Our alliances have literally built our business, and continue to do so. And the entire relationship is built on trust. And respect.

The downsides to Joint Ventures, I can list by the dozen. The essential problem with joint ventures is money. When the money dries up, so does the motivation. But it’s also an upside. I don’t know. Call me crazy. I prefer alliances over joint ventures.

I agree with Sean. In fact, I posted my own comment, “Most people can’t see beyond the typical JV arrangements to see the much greater power of strategic alliances (and the friendships that can come out of them)” to grow a business.

Strategic alliances have been an essential tool in building my business, and I haven’t yet structured one like the typical Internet-marketer JV (though I may, down the road). At the moment, thanks to a strategic alliance with Sean’s Aukland neighbor Mark Joyner of Simpleology (another fantastic marketer–what’s in the water down there?), I’m about to participate in what could be the most powerful strategic alliance of my career, a partnership that involves one of the most famous names in marketing as well as a large publishing corporation. I’ll tell you all about it once the papers are signed.

Meanwhile, if you want to know more about strategic alliances, I cover them in some detail in my award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First. Incidentally, my alliance and friendship with Mark came about because he ordered this book, and I was brave enough to seize that opportunity to begin a correspondence with him.

Interview with Peter Bowerman, author of The Well-Fed Self-Publisher:
How to Turn One Book into a Full-Time Living (Fanove Publishing; 2007)

What’s the most important lesson in your book?
I’d have to say – and this is based on my own reflections as well as a LOT of feedback from readers – the biggest lesson of the book is the inherent viability of profitable self-publishing.

And the “profitable” part is key. Self-publishing itself, as a process, is obviously feasible. People do it all the time. And in most cases, they do it like clumsy, sloppy clueless amateurs. And as a result, they go nowhere, reach virtually no one, and make no money.

In my case, I started as an unknown author with one book, NO publisher (except the one looking at me from my bathroom mirror), NO publicist, NO big marketing budget and NO publishing experience whatsoever. I was in the black in 90 days, and subsequently turned that book into a full-time living for five-plus years (more like seven-plus now with two more books under my belt).

For those who say, “I just don’t have what it takes to be a successful book promoter,” I firmly assert that commercial success as a self-publishing author is far more about a process than an aptitude – far more about a lot of things you have to do than some way you have to be. I’ve done it and countless others have done it as well. It all starts with a plan, and that’s the whole point of TWFSP – a detailed blueprint authors can follow to write their own self-publishing success story.

What motivated you to write it?

Check out virtually any writer’s publication or web site, and chances are, you’ll come across one or more articles about the challenges of getting published – along with tips, strategies, tricks, etc. So many want it, but so few manage to get it.

Even those authors who are admitted to The Publishing Kingdom quickly discover that the emperor truly has no clothes: anemic royalties, 18-24 months to publication, loss of creative control, surrendered book rights and the unpleasant realization that even after giving up all that, authors are still expected to shoulder the lion’s share of the book promotion burden themselves! All to earn – in most cases – far less than a buck a book.

I felt that for most authors, self-publishing was truly viable, and given how much time and energy they’d have to invest even in a conventional publishing scenario if they wanted success – and all for a lousy return – didn’t it make more sense to do it yourself and keep control of the process, the timetable, the rights, and most of the money?

I felt my story was a good one, and one worth telling. Oh, and yes, I thought I could make money! Because my formula had worked twice, it could work again (and has). Yes, that success benefits me, but it also reaffirms the fundamental validity of the book’s premises.

How do you feel your books make a difference in people’s lives?

I have a 350-page file on my computer of letters I’ve received from people thanking me for writing my books, and sharing the difference they’ve made in their lives (especially my first one, The Well-Fed Writer, about lucrative “commercial freelancing”; www.wellfedwriter.com).

To be able to share my story, which then helps countless others take their inherent writing skills and turn them into a business that supports them and their families, while giving them a quality of life most would kill for, is monumentally gratifying.

Ditto with the ability to share how to take a book you believe in, and by your own wits, perseverance, and the sweat of your brow (and yes, a few bucks), make it the best it can be, bring it to market, and against all odds, turn it into a significant income stream.

I’m happy to say these things have happened countless times as a result of my books. Writing is often considered a career path of dubious financial prospects. I’ve earned a handsome living making a lie of that conventional wisdom.

What site should people visit if they want to know more?
The Well-Fed Self-Publisher: www.wellfedsp.com
The Well-Fed Writer: www.wellfedwriter.com

In a few minutes, I’m heading into downtown L.A. for my 12th Book Expo America.

I’m remembering the first time I did the show in L.A. It was only my second BEA, and I struck up a conversation in a booth that led ultimately to the contract for my fifth book, Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World. Other years, I exhibited Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First at a co-lp booth, nd that led to rights sales for Indian and Mexican editions, both of which have been published. I’ve made connections with editors, agents, vendors, and clients, and I find the show can energize me for weeks (even while overwhelming me with the followup) on top of my usual workload.

This week, already, just from the pre-show conferences, I have a possible subrights deal for the newer, more specialized Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers. Not to mention a few new client leads, some good PR contacts, and some great tips that will make me a more effective author and publisher. In other words, the show dovetails nicely with my attitude that the world is a place of abundance, and good things are there for you if you want to tap into them. Every single BEA has brought good things to me, from friendships and hugs to powerful deals.

And then there’s the social part. Every year, I see friends and have a lot of fun. Last night, at the Ben Franklin Award dinners, I was able to introduce several sets of people who should know each other. Some of those connections will lead to business for the people I introduced. I get a lot of satisfaction if I bring that kind of relationship into being.

It was also a privilege to be at the Franklins for the photo-tribute to the amazing Jan Nathan, the group’s long-time executive director who passed away last summer. Jan was among the warmest and most helpful people in the very warm and helpful world of independnet publishing, andshe had a great sense of huor and a smile that could light up a room.

You can read numerous articles I’ve written about most of these BEAs; the majority of articles on that page come out of these events.

Ethical Corporation magazine, a UK offering that’s always interesting, has a wonderful cheery article on how ethical corporations will fare better in a recession.

This echoes many of the sentiments I discuss in my own award-winning sixth book, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First–that when you establish customer loyalty based on ethics and sustainability, those customers will give you the benefit of the doubt.

For those who buy on energy efficiency, the higher prices will not be a deterrent compared to long-term savings. And those who seek out fairly traded goods,

Jim Hawker, spokesman for green insurance group IBuyEco, goes as far as to say: “Ethical brands are recession-proof – they are perceived as luxury consumer goods, targeted at a niche market that will be less affected by the credit constraints of a recession.”

In fact, the opportunity is growing, they say–and here’s a conclusion I personally haven’t seen articulated before (and fully support):

According to research by the Climate Group, consumers not only expect leading brands to have strategies in place to tackle climate change issues, but also expect these brands to help consumers develop their own strategies, via the choice of products and services made available to them.

For the companies responding to this demand, it is an exercise in brand building.

I believe this is very much true, and smart companies have been educating their consumers on social issues as they relate to product choices for decades. But I haven’t seen anyone talk about this from a brand-building point of view before, nor have I seen the argument that consumers increasingly rely on these companies to provide that education.

For years, I’ve been a proponent of viral marketing; as one among may examples, it’s the main tool I’ve used to gain support for the Business Ethics Pledge.

One of the best viral marketers I know is Ken McArthur, known for his joint-venture Internet marketing conferences. I met Ken several years ago at one of Fred Gleeck’s book marketing conferences, and then again a few years later at Mark Victor Hansen’s book marketing conference. We’ve stayed in touch. And since meeting him, Ive noticed that he crops up absolutely everywhere.

Yet even though he’s obviously been gong to book marketing conferences for years, he didn’t have a book. Now, he’s finally about to release IMPACT: How to Get Noticed, Motivate Millions and Make a Difference in a Noisy World (yes, its an affiliate link). I’ve been one of his many informal advisors, and even commented to him a few months ago that I also have a book title that ends with “in a Noisy World” (Grassroots Marketing: Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, published in 2000 by Chelsea Green

Frugal marketing genius that he is, Ken wouldn’t be content with an ordinary book launch–so he created one of the most powerful viral marketing ideas I’ve ever seen. I wish I’d thought of it.

You know the concept of internships: students donate labor in exchange for training. Ken has taken this to an extreme: he recruited over 100 people to be his unpaid Internet marketing corps, in exchange for learning all his tricks via a series of conference calls. What a perfect example of the Abundance Principle at work! The six-week program started tonight.

I decided that one of my contributions to the effort would be to chronicle it here. So thus, my key takeaways from call #1:

This is an easy one for me, as I know a lot of people in the independent publishing sector. Except that I can’t really separate influencers from JV partners. But because what he’s doing is newsworthy in the publishing world and in the Internet marketing world, I have a number of people I could approach to let them know about what’s going on, including John Kremer, Dan Poynter, Fern Reiss, Patricia Frey, and Joan Stewart–all very big names in the world he’s trying to reach.

Ken being Ken, he makes it quite worthwhile to visit his site, offering a truckload of quality resources just for dropping by.

Is this your chance to learn from a master launcher, without paying thousands of dollars for a product? I think it might just be.

Amazon wants to force publishers to use its wholly-owned printer, yesterday’s Wall Street Journal reports. If it thinks this is a good idea, amazon.com needs its collective head examined. I think it’s one of the dumbest moves I’ve heard of in a loooong time.

Amazon gets a lot of its books through a company called LightningSource, Inc., or LSI–which is owned by Ingram, the 800-pound gorilla in the U.S. book wholesaling world. LSI prints digitally, which enables production of books as they’re ordered, in runs as small as a single book.

Thousands of publishers, from one-title solopreneurs up to the biggest names in the industry, use LSI for some or all of their printing–in part because it allows flexible inventory management, and in part because the connection with Ingram means any bookstore is automatically set up to special-order those titles.

LSI has many competitors, though it’s the only one to offer the Ingram connection. Amazon owns a competitor to LSI, called Booksurge/Createspace. And it’s going to force all publishers listing digitally printed books on its site to use this company.

The Journal reporter sees this move as rosy for Amazon:

The move will likely generate significant profit for Amazon, which has evolved into a fully vertical book publishing and retail operation.

Well, ummm, I don’t think so. This is what I see happening instead:

an enemy, and Ingram is a very powerful company, it will not be pretty

Of course, I may be wrong. Publishers may choose not to fight Amazon and to print non-exclusively with both LSI for Ingram and Booksurge for Amazon. Or they may simple knuckle under as if they’re John Kerry or Michael Dukakis attacked by Swift Boaters. But I’m betting this comes back to bite Amazon, hard.

Anti-competitive measures have a way of backfiring. There’s already been some backlash against certain independent bookstores that are demanding authors who do events with them don’t include links to Amazon. Amazon joining the fray will be shooting itself in the foot. The Abundance mentality, which I write about regularly, says it’s smarter to network with your competitors and to build alliances with them than to try to cut their throats, and end up cutting your own.

The other day, I got invited to help promote an Internet marketing report. Since I don’t endorse anything I haven’t seen (unless I make it very clear that it’s a favor to a friend, etc., and I haven’t personally evaluated), I asked for a copy–and boy, was I appalled.

The model these folks were pushing was to steal content, intersperse enough meaningless blather so Google doesn’t think it’s a duplicate page, and build traffic/ad revenues.

Eeeeeeew!

I let it simmer for a couple of days, until I could respond with enough politeness to get read, and until I could find a way to talk to the part of these people that wants to be better (with a tip of the hat to my friend Bob Burg, who taught me how to do that), and then responded this morning, thusly:

“Let me know what you think, good or bad. I appreciate your opinion.”

OK, you asked. I read it over the weekend.

I’m sure you have good intentions, but frankly, I find your business model unethical. It is one very small step above splogging; the only difference is you’re adding meaningless content around someone else’s words instead of just presenting someone else’s hard work.

It devalues the Internet as a useful information medium; I’d hate to see search results be as useless as e-mail, but if people follow your model, they contribute to poor search results.

And then there’s the matter of making a buck on other people’s hard-earned intellectual property without compensating them in any way, or even asking permission, and doing so in a way that most definitely violates the Fair Use provisions of the copyright law.

I think with the intelligence and understanding of the Internet that underlies your black hat approach, you could come up with a business model that would be just as profitable and a whole lot more palatable. Come talk to me when you’ve done so.

Postscript: I got a response, quickly, that basically said, “well, that’s fine, but I disagree.” Needless to say, I won’t become her affiliate any time soon.

Artists, authors, and other creatives, take note: Kevin Kelly, the guru of Wired Magazine, says you don’t have to be a starving artist anymore. Instead of grabbing for crumbs at the very end of the long tail, build a base of 1000 uber-fans. All you have to do is add one person a day for three years (not that long to pay your dues, really–historically, many artists spent decades to achieve this kind of fan base).

Better yet, Kelly outlines how to make this self-funding without anyone worrying about not getting their money back if you don’t make your goal, through a very cool Web 2.0 website, Fundable.org

Over the years, I’ve always liked Kelly’s work–although sometimes the layout of Wired makes it rather unapproachable. This article, however, is on a blog called The Technium, and it’s very easy to read.

As a copywriter, I love a good turn of phrase that makes you rethink your reality. It’s why I’m a fan of people like Sam Horn, author of books like ConZentrate, Tongue Fu!®, and Take the Bully by the Horns. It’s why I’ve written press releases with headlines like “It’s 10 O’Clock–Do You Know Where Your Credit History Is?” and “The One who Dies With the Most Toys–Is Just As Dead.”

And it’s why I was utterly captivated to read this on Perry Marshall’s site:

This whole “recession” thing everyone’s blathering about was merely fabricated by the media (you know, the people we trust to deliver the “news” to us) so they’ll have more to, uh, g-r-i-p-e about while they assault us with election propaganda.

Did you know that ABC, NBC, CBS and CNN have predicted 40 out of the last 2 recessions?

I love that: “predicted 40 out of the last 2 recessions.” It’s a completely fresh and interesting way to state that he thinks the media are lousy at economic predictions.

Do I agree with him? Well…my own business is doing pretty well, but I choose to live in an abundant world, and the world tends to reaffirm that conviction. However, I definitely see some areas of concern about the economy–in housing, in job creation, and other factors, most of which I can easily blame on the Bush administration.

Whether we use Facebook and other Web 2.0 sites, email discussion groups, blogs, or even Usenet newsgroups, one of the key advantages for solopreneurs/very small companies is our ability to use social networking much more effectively than big corporations. This has been true all the way back to BBS systems in the 1980s.

We can be nimble, we don’t need committees to approve our posts, and we can be authentic. And this is one medium where dollars don’t mean as much as quality.

As someone who provides marketing consulting and copywriting to microbusinesses (many of them home-based businesses), I have been urging my clients (and the readers of my books) to pick a social medium that works for them, and work the niche since at least 1993.

E-mail discussion lists in particular have been very powerful in growing my own business from a local to an international clientele. They have allowed me to brand myself very powerfully in front of a carefully target group of prospects, and I get many clients as a result of a consistently helpful and well-informed posture.

What’s your experience?