Sales Occur at the Intersection of Need and Opportunity

*Beef Prices*

It's a summer holiday weekend and a man walks into a butcher shop which has a sign in the window saying "Ground Sirloin: 29 cents per pound" The man says, "I'm having a cookout this weekend. I'd like 5 pounds of your ground sirloin, please."

The butcher shakes his head and says, "Sorry. I'm all out."

The man, disappointed goes down the street to another butcher shop and asks, "How much is your ground sirloin?"

The proprietor replies, "It's $3.29 per pound."

"Three twenty nine!?!" exclaimed the customer. "Just up the street he sells it for 29 cents!"

The butcher smiles calmly at the gentleman and asks, "Does he have any?"

"No. He's out of it right now."

"Well," says the butcher. "When I don't have any, I can sell it for 19 cents per pound!"

So many companies offer terrific deals on things they don't have to deliver.

Self Publishing companies can be like that, offering what looks like great pricing, amazing marketing opportunities and fine tuned promotional campaigns. It's what they're selling that they actually deliver that counts and that's where you find the truth.

I was surfing one well known self publishing company that advertises their network has distribution to 25,000 bookstores, Including 2,500 Christian Bookstores.
The truth is EVERYONE has distribution potential to 25,000 bookstores.

Bookstores order what sells. Bookstores order from distributors and though a "Self Publishing Giant" might have an account with major distributors, it doesn't mean they have marketed, serviced and successfully gotten their clients books into those outlets. It means they know the name of all the major distributors.

Marketing for authors is a combination of hard work, perseverance, combined with the science of direct to consumer contact and consistently, creative approaches that speak to the reader in terms they respect, understand and to which they respond.

There are no short cuts, other than the disciplines of direct marketing that have been tested, refined and applied consistently. Any self publisher promoting their massive distribution list is simply repeating the number of potential outlets for those who are willing to engage in activities that open those doors.