Recently, on the Small Publishers Association of North America’s social media network for authors and small publishers, About Books, Inc.’s President, Debi Flora, interviewed ABI’s Book Marketing Coach, Carol White. Here is a transcript of that blog interview:
Debi Flora questions:
Experience is a tool that can be utilized in achieving your goals, and ABI’s experienced team can leverage your publishing success. From critique to editing, all the way through pre-publication services to cover and interior design, the professionals at About Books, Inc. (ABI) help our clients produce quality products. In this interview, you’ll see that having a quality product is only the first step toward successful marketing. Carol White, ABI’s Client Marketing Coach, brings a sales and marketing career to our team, which makes ABI’s marketing services a valuable tool that will “ratchet up” your book sales.
Carol, I am so grateful to have you on the About Books Team! Before we start talking about all the things we can do to help ABI clients with their marketing efforts, let’s visit about your life before our partnership. I know you worked in the telecommunications industry during a period of amazing change and opportunity. Can you tell us a little about your exciting experience with Lucent/AT&T?
Carol responds:
Well, Debi, you are right. I lived through some really wonderful, yet scary times for the telephone and computing industries. I started with “Ma Bell” in 1965 (yes, I’m really old!) right out of high school as a summer job – I forgot to leave. Everything was a monopoly then – rates were regulated, everything we did was monitored and regulated – but the training we got for each job was tremendous – no one does that anymore. I attribute my good work ethic and skills to that excellent early training.
At this same time, women were just beginning to enter the work force with skills and aspirations beyond being an operator or secretary. So, because the phone company was a huge employer of women, they were a big target for discrimination charges and basically we led the charge to enact many of the changes women now take for granted. I’ll never forget getting a check for several hundred dollars (big money in those days) that I didn’t know what it was for. It was for the proceedings from a class action suit that I knew nothing about, but I had apparently been discriminated against in wages!
By this time I was married, had a family and was working full-time as a supervisor in the business office. A very good job in those days for a “woman”. I had a pretty progressive boss who asked me one day if I was interested in Business Marketing – that was where “the men” worked and called on business customers in their offices – only one woman worked in that department. And so, I became the #2 female outside sales rep. I have to tell you, the men didn’t much like us invading their domain. They tried very hard to run me out, by assigning me the industrial accounts where all the “toughs” in town worked – it was daunting, but I found an installation foreman who liked me and helped me learn the ropes – and got me a hard hat so I would fit in!
The 1980s rolled around - divestiture and the break-up of the Bell System was upon us. We all thought we’d be fired – it was a very scary time. We all had to decide – regulated or non-regulated. I knew I wanted free of the shackles, but it was also a much bigger risk. Almost immediately I took the leap to AT&T Computer Systems – a bigger risk yet. No one in the marketing department knew anything about selling computers, but they were sending us to MIT for an Executive MBA in Computer Science. Give me those punch cards and count me in! What a fabulous experience I had over the next two years and went on to be a teaching assistant at MIT in that program. Back at home, I had sales management assignments that encompassed most of the western US – but I got to stay in Portland.
By the 1990s it was clear that the culture of the “old Bell System” employees wasn’t working in the new competitive environment. Some of us were able to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape, but many weren’t. The AT&T board formed a world-wide task force with people from around the globe (yes, we were a global entity by then), at all levels of job responsibility and from every department. It was a very select group of a couple hundred of us who were to lead the charge as Change Agents. It was fascinating to see the business from the top looking down, as well as being in the middle looking both ways. It was probably my favorite, most fascinating assignment in 34 years of employment.
I left the company in 1999 when I was then at Lucent Technologies – a spin-off company that was the darling of the industry for a while until they famously tanked during the dot-com bubble – along with my retirement 401K! It was a wonderful career of changing jobs every few years and experiencing constant change in the industry. I think it prepared me well for the constant change of ABI clients with different book types and marketing needs.
Debi Flora questions:
What a dynamic time…full of challenge and opportunity …your fast paced narrative really brings it alive. So, Carol, after this successful career in telecommunication and computing, what hooked your interest in the small publishing industry?
Carol responds:
LOL – Everything I have done in my life has been an accident, and this is no exception. When Phil and I retired, we took a year long trip around the US – we wanted to see something other than the inside of hotel conference centers and airports. Out of that, I became an accidental author and publisher because people all along the way wanted to know “how” we did it – not so much “what” we did – they wanted to know how we escaped our “regular” lives to do this fabulous thing just for ourselves.
My business and marketing background came in handy as I learned about publishing, formed my own company and independently published “Live Your Road Trip Dream” in 2004. I was fortunate enough to have good people help coach me along the way and the book started selling well. In 2006, it won the Ben Franklin Award for Marketing Excellence and Innovation from IBPA (then PMA), which led people to start calling me for marketing help, and thus started my next accidental career.
I’ve been a SPAN member since the very beginning and learned a lot from the newsletters, networking and conferences.
Debi Flora questions:
Carol, you are very modest, and the pattern I see can’t be described as an accident. You took advantage of the opportunity to “Live Your Road Trip Dream” which was created from the successful life you made with Phil. Then, you capitalized on the business opportunity that was created by your dream. What were the first steps you took toward turning this opportunity into a business?
Carol responds:
Yes, it was the business opportunity that started the whole thing. If we hadn’t met so many people who wanted the “how to” information that we knew by then, I’m sure I would be doing something else right now. I didn’t start immediately writing the book, in fact, I only wrote the book after I had the entire process figured out. I knew that the 78 million boomers (market size) who ranked travel as their #1 priority for retirement (market desire for the information) was an attractive market of huge size, but I didn’t know if there were already other books out with a similar theme(competitive analysis). When I found that there wasn’t, I knew I had a good book concept. Then I set about learning the industry.
Naturally I first learned about traditional publishing and in fact, worked with a large publisher for nearly a year, but they eventually cancelled the project. After going down that road a little more, I decided I didn’t want to have another publisher cancel their project and I would be back to ground zero again. So I took charge of the process and the rest is history. Oh, then I finally wrote the book too. It took me 170 hours – about a full-time work month.
Debi Flora questions:
More evidence that your life is not accidental! Planning is a big part of your message. Rooted in your experience at Lucent, your book is about planning a successful “road trip dream.” In addition, you’ve built a business platform around planning, and is the tool you provide to ABI clients to help them achieve marketing success. Can you tell us a little about the importance of having a marketing plan?
Carol responds:
I’m sure that I am a little biased, but I believe that you write your marketing plan before you write your book. There is a saying about beginning with the end in mind and the “end” is sales, so if you know who your audience is, how you will reach them and what the message is, then when you write your book, you can truly begin with the end in mind. This works for both fiction and non-fiction. Dan Poynter always says to write your back cover copy first before the book – if you can boil your message down to the cover copy, then you have your marketing message set – it is another way of saying the same thing. It also allows you to write “hooks” into your book that make it easier to market.
But your marketing plan is much more than that. Marketing is made up of four inter-related elements – Price, Product, Place and Promotion. You must have all four of them humming in harmony in order to have a successful project. Your book has to be Priced right for its market; the Product itself must be perfectly executed to be considered as a serious project (of course when you use ABI, that’s a given!); Promotion has to start way before the book comes out – building your platform, building your buzz; and Place refers to how you will distribute your product – if you have a great product, priced right and perfectly promoted, but people can’t find it where they prefer to shop, then all your money and effort is wasted.
With a million new books coming out each year, marketing has never been more important. It is as important as all the writing and production aspects that authors tend to focus on – no one wants to think about marketing – except me! Let me help you complete the puzzle with ABI Marketing Services.
Debi Flora concludes:
Thank you, Carol, for sharing your story with us! And I will extend your invitation beyond ABI marketing services:
My experienced staff is ready to help our clients with complete, but customizable book publication services. Do not hesitate to benefit from ABI’s acclaimed customer service by contacting us for a no obligation quote. Our experience can be the tool that leverages your publishing success!
