Does My Book Have a Market? Find Out with a Web Marketing Analysis!

If you are writing a book—even if you're just thinking about writing one—your biggest concern may be whether there is a market for it, whether people would be interested in buying your book.

If you could answer the question, "Is there a market for my book?" how would that affect your writing? Chances are, you might rework your title, carefully select keywords and phrases, maybe even write a different book altogether!

How can you tell if there is a market for your book?

Enter the Wheatmark Web Marketing Analysis (WMA)! As of today, you can send us your manuscript or manuscript idea and we'll give you an analysis about your topic's market on the Web. Find out more about the Web Marketing Analysis here!

Wheatmark Chess Title Achieves Master Rank

Ray Cheng’s Practical Chess Exercises captures best position on Amazon!

Wheatmark, Inc. (http://www.wheatmark.com), the independent author’s most powerful ally, is proud to announce that Ray Cheng’s book, Practical Chess Exercises, has achieved a #1 rank in the Chess category on Amazon.

The best-selling title also cracked the 1,000 mark on Amazon’s Sales Rank for the first time this week, placing it among the elite of the millions of titles for sale on Amazon.com.

Mere months after its release, the book earned admission into Wheatmark’s coveted Great Expectations program (http://www.wheatmark.com/greatexpectations.cfm)—one of the fastest sales records for a title in Wheatmark’s nine years in business (http://www.wheatmark.com/aboutus.cfm).

Practical Chess Exercises is Ray Cheng’s first book.

“It has been an absolute joy to work with the Wheatmark team. They have been professional, thoughtful, creative, and responsive through the entire process of getting my book into print and into the hands of my readers,” he says.

For more information on Wheatmark’s services, including the Great Expectations program, and to get started on publishing your book today, call Wheatmark toll-free at 1.888.934.0888 or visit http://www.wheatmark.com.

Nonexclusive Publishing Contract: What It Means to You

Wheatmark's publishing agreement is nonexclusive. What does it mean to you, the author?

In short it means you are not locked into an exclusive contract; you are free to cancel or publish elsewhere at the same time.

Let's say you have been publishing your book with Wheatmark for a while, and you have an opportunity to get thousands of copies of your book printed cheaply by a different printer, say, a printer in Hong Kong or even one in the United States. You still want to keep selling your book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble using Wheatmark's book distribution system, but you just don't want to pass up the opportunity to get thousands of copies for a better price. The good news is that you can do both: publish your book with Wheatmark and have extra copies printed by different printers. Because our publishing contract is nonexclusive, you have the freedom to do so.

Now, what happens if, some time after you publish your book with Wheatmark, a New York publishing house calls you and they want to publish your book?

Most likely they will want you to sell your book to them in return for exclusive rights. They would want to make sure that no other publisher or printer would be able to sell or print your book. This, too, is possible when you are publishing your book with us: you can cancel the publishing agreement with us at any time.

When you hear nonexclusive, think freedom!

Market Share of Online Booksellers Grows

A follow-up of sorts to my last post...

In case you're wondering what the actual market share for online book sales is these days:

try 30.5% of projected consumer book purchases in 2008.

The same source (Fairfield Research/Greyhound Books—as cited in an article in the March 31st Publisher's Weekly) expects chain bookstores to claim 32.5% of the same market in 2008.

That's a pretty close margin—one that Publisher's Weekly predicts online booksellers will close (or even overtake) by 2009.

Looks like Robert S. Miller is on to something!

New HarperCollins Non-traditional Publishing Imprint

In a sign of things to come, HarperCollins announced that it's starting a new imprint that will not pay advances to authors... nor will it take returns from booksellers.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the new operation "also likely won't pay for more desirable display space in the front of bookstores, a common practice. Instead, the as-yet-unnamed unit will share its profit with writers and focus much of its sales efforts on the Internet, where a growing portion of book sales are shifting."

I'll bet that this is the first of many new imprints at traditional publishers that will follow this model.

Meanwhile, I can't resist quoting Robert S. Miller, the founding publisher of Hyperion (who'll be leading the as-yet-unnamed HarperCollins imprint), who was himself quoted in Friday's New York Times:

“The idea is, ‘Let’s take all the things that we think are wrong with this business and try to change them,’ ” said Mr. Miller, 51. “It really seemed to require a start-up from scratch because it will be very experimental.”

Methinks Mr. Miller need not reinvent the wheel.

If he's looking for successful models to emulate, he might check out the self-publishing services and independent presses that have been selling via the Internet (mainly using Print-On-Demand technology) for oh, about ten years now!

To read the full New York Times article, click here.

Bad News for Borders

Speaking of Borders' financial troubles ...

Borders may put itself up for sale.

The company has also taken out a $42.5 million loan to help with day-to-day operations in the coming months.

This loan may complicate Borders' ability to sell all or part of its operations, however.

Barnes and Noble—the most likely prospect for buying Borders—may not be interested anyway. B & N recently reported that fourth-quarter profits had declined 9 percent.

To read more about Borders' financial situation, as well as the general pressure on booksales nationwide, click here.

Good News for Borders

Another update on the ongoing Borders kiosk saga ... this time, on prices.

Soon, customers at select Borders stores will be able to publish their books using Lulu's software at prices ranging from $299 to $499.

That's a pretty cool thing, but it's only part of the story.

My guess is that prospective customers will be especially intrigued by the possibility of their books being carried in Borders stores—which the new service touts.

I can't help but bring up the issue this raises, which I cited in my Feb. 15th post:

"A final note: I wonder how this move will affect Borders' relationship with its customer-authors? Barnes and Noble had a terrible problem regarding the customer service involved with this kind of relationship when it was a part-owner of iUniverse, another self-publishing service (customers kept asking when their books would be carried on B & N bookstore shelves; the answer almost always disappointed them).

"The problems were so severe, apparently, that they eventually led to B & N severing its relationship with iUniverse altogether last year.

"I guess Borders—a bookseller whose financial problems have been well-reported over the last few years (in large part because they completely missed the boat on online bookselling)—has decided that the possible rewards are worth the risks."

You can check out Borders' new program here.