PUBLISHING YOUR FIRST BOOKLET Note from Jimmy: Hello, friends. Typing this month's newsletter was tougher than usual. The events of the past two weeks have had a draining effect upon many people. Myself included. But, life must continue as normally as possible while we anxiously await the next steps to be taken. May the Lord keep and guide us as a nation and a people in the days ahead... SELLING ONE BOOKLET AT A TIME As most of my readers know, I strongly advocate selling "simple publications" in BULK as opposed to one at a time. I also realize that, for a variety of reasons, many people do not feel comfortable contacting a big organization and speaking to key decision makers. And that's okay. Because like it or not, you have to start where you're at TODAY... and use what you have TODAY, in order to climb the ladder to self-publishing success. So let's start by taking a look at a few booklet publishing models' 1. Create a booklet that will help a company or organization sell their existing products and/or services. 2. Create a booklet that will help an organization raise money for a specific cause or campaign. 3. Create a booklet that will help market and sell your own products and services. 4. Go whole hog and create a booklet that will be the first of many booklets, books, CD's in your area of expertise. (See my last issue about becoming the new "Wizard" of OZ) You'll notice that all four models have one thing in common. Create a booklet! Coincidence? Hardly. It seems easy on the surface, but once you get started... the nitty-gritty details can become overwhelming. Your mind can be overwhelmed with questions like - who's going to want to purchase my booklet? How am I going to market it? Where am I going to get the money to do the job properly? How can I possibly sell my booklet to a large organization? The list could go on and on. The next thing you know, it's several months into the future and you still have yet to create your first booklet. So instead of sitting around waiting for the planets to align or Haley's comet to return, let's do a dress rehearsal for self-publishing success. GETTING READY TO PUBLISH - RIGHT ON YOUR DESKTOP First, we need our materials. We're going to create a simple booklet using Microsoft Publisher. If you don't have Publisher, you could do a lot worse as far as your choices go for desktop publishing. There's no need to go out and buy an expensive software program that's going to take you several years to master. Although I use the expensive stuff myself, the other week I used Microsoft Publisher to create a professional layout and no one knew the difference. Not the printer, the proof department or anyone else. The only people who knew where the employees of The Gulf Coast Publishing Group... and now - you. Okay, back to business. First, we're going to buy some decent paper to print on. You want to stay away from the cheap copy paper. I've found that laser print paper works best. If you already have decent ink-jet paper (the kind that doesn't soak through when you're printing text) you can use that, too. Hammermill makes a good laser print paper that works great with inkjet printers. Laser print paper is generally cheaper than inkjet paper. Decent laser print paper works well thanks to the coated surface. The ink absorption is minimal. You don't want one page bleeding though the paper onto the next page. For the cover, you can buy a small pack of the high-end photo paper. Kodak makes a very nice photo-quality paper. That'll give your cover a nice glossy look. You can't use the actual coated cover-stock with an inkjet, however, and expect good results. The water-based ink will bead on the surface of the paper and you'll have smudges and smears all over the place. You can purchase a long-arm stapler from Staples or Office Depot. They're usually twenty- something dollars. Or, if you know a school teacher, maybe you can bribe them into taking your booklet to school and using a saddle-stitch stapler to do the job. Most teachers still use saddle- stitch staples to create in-house booklets. Well... at least they did about five years ago. Okay, the only tool left is the hand SPEED BALL roller. What's that? You never heard of a SPEED BALL roller? Basically, it's a little hand-held, rubber roller that's used to spread ink. They're very cheap. You can find them in an art supply store or online. That's what we're going to use to crease the cover and pages for our final fold. Finally, we need a utility knife or Exacto knife to make our final cut to trim our finished product down to size. I use to use a corked back, metal ruler and/or a metal triangle for trimming purposes. A quick note on trimming a booklet (or anything else). Let the blade do the work. Don't put too much pressure on the knife while you're cutting. You won't believe how easy it is to slip and destroy the whole booklet. It's better to make several light cuts and get a nice, smooth edge than try to do the whole thing in a single stroke. Make sure you don't trim your booklets on the dining room table, either. If you don't have a cutting board (graphic cutting board), you can use a clean one from the kitchen. So far so good? Great. Let's sum up what we need. 1. Paper (Laser print or inkjet) 2. Cover paper (photo inkjet paper will work fine) 3. A long-arm stapler (even your kids can get some use out of it) How's that for justification? 4. A speed-ball roller (or something similar that can crease the folded pages nicely) 5. A utility knife, exacto knife or razor for the final trimming. Our goal is to create a few copies from our desktop that we can use to market our idea. Instead of "telling" someone how great our product is... we SHOW them. You can even sell single copies right on the spot if you'd like to. When they "buy into" the idea, then we have thousands printed. Or, if you're not selling in bulk, you can create booklets to fill orders as they come. For great prices on booklet printing, send a blank email to - bookletprices@simplepublications.com Alright, we're moving along nicely. I'm not going to cover Microsoft Publisher is this edition of the newsletter. I'll have the instructions for that in a "Jimmy Krug Special Edition" within the next few weeks. Okay, now we're ready to pick our subject. Currently, there are loads of articles being written to help people deal with stress, tragedy, fear, etc. A booklet on any topic in this area could sell well. Remember, we're not dealing with marketing right now. We're dealing with product creation. My very first booklet was made this way. Seeing a finished product will do you a world of good. In fact, I brought my single homemade copy to the first Credit Union who purchased my booklet. When they saw the booklet... nothing was left to the imagination. I was able to illustrate my marketing idea clearly and concisely. FINDING INFORMATION THAT PEOPLE WANT - RIGHT NOW! Magazine headlines are also a great source for discover what people want to read. They hype their articles to the heavens. Another good source is the Net itself. Loads of "How-To" articles are posted every day. Especially on MSN. They have "experts" writing daily columns on just about any subject you can think of. Check it out when you have a little time. Don't be dismayed just because you're not an "expert" in any one given area. You're compiling information for a booklet, not an encyclopedia. Magazines, newspapers, periodicals... they're all loaded with information that people ARE SPENDING MONEY to know MORE ABOUT - right now! Today! And all the research has been done for you by the editors of the countless magazines and other publications. And don't forget the literary genius of such publications as THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER. Where else can you discover where Elvis has been hiding the last few days. They also usually have the inside scoop on the latest alien abductions - just in case you need extra-fresh material for your upcoming booklet. Hey, you could probably write comedy style booklets - just using THE GLOBE and THE NATIONAL ENQUIRER as inspiration. Cannon Fodder Publishing Presents: Alien Conspiracy; 50 Years Of Government Coverups Exposed! Or, Non-Human Aliens Living Among Us! Okay, that's enough of that. The titles, that is. I'm not kidding when I tell - the idea could work! See PT Barnum works for more details. He made a living marketing the outrageous. Remember, you're writing for informational purposes only. A disclaimer will protect you from the lawsuit happy public at large. "You, the publisher, are not engaging in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought." A disclaimer will help you sleep a little better at night. The last thing you need is a lawsuit on your hands because someone didn't benefit from the information in your booklet! COMPILE THE INFORMATION FOR YOUR BOOKLET Once you have the facts, figures, etc., at your fingertips, begin compiling them in a notebook. Remember, you're only writing a booklet, not a novel. You don't have to be wordy. When I wrote my booklet CAR BUYING SECRETS... I thought to myself, "What ideas, secrets, etc., do I want to reveal in this booklet?" Here's what I came up with. 1. How to save thousands of dollars on your next car purchase 2. What time of the month to get the best deals and why 3. Why you must never respond to the question, "How much can you afford per month?" 4. How to avoid after market rip-offs 5. Why most leasing deals "really are" too good to be true (for many people) 6. How to take charge of the car buying process and what you need to say 7. How to know what your vehicle will be worth four years from now when you're ready to trade 8. Three numbers you need to know before you enter the dealership 9. Four questions the car salesman will ask and how you need to answer them 10. Tricks of the car trade and how to avoid them 11. A step-by-step guide for buying your next car, truck or van. I wrote the booklet, designed the cover and printed out the final product in 48 hours. Since the original version, I redesigned the cover once. Two days. That was it! On the third day, I had someone else edit the final product. The changes took about 15 minutes to complete. My booklets are written in the same style as this newsletter. It's the same style as my posts at my discussion forum. Very simple, very straight forward, with a touch of humor sprinkled in every now and then. That's the way I am in real life and that's the way I write, too. That, too, is the beauty of writing a simple booklet. If you're not a writer, you can still create a good product. With a novel, you couldn't make it work. With a booklet, you could. So compile the information. I'll let you in on a little secret. Sometimes if I'm not sure how much space the information I've gathered will fill, I write it directly into my final booklet format. I actually set the page size of my program to the final booklet page size and start typing. That way, I can practically count how many pages I have left to fill. Believe me, it's not hard at all to fill a simple 16-page booklet. For example, right now, this newsletter will fill about ten pages in a booklet with the final dimensions of 3.75" x 8.5". That's a perfect size for a #10 envelope. Well... that's about it for now. I'll be sending out a special edition of the Jimmy Krug Report within the next few weeks - showing you how to put the whole thing together using Microsoft Publisher. So until then, this is Jimmy Krug wishing you all the best in life and business! ■ - Jimmy Krug ***************************** 1 MILLION BOOKLET SALES! THE "SIMPLE PUBLICATIONS" SITE http://www.simplepublications.com ***************************** THE "HOW-TO" BOOKLETS DISCUSSION BOARD http://network54.com/Hide/Forum/76969 Copyright İİ 2001 Gulf Coast Design Services 3312 60th Ave West, Bradenton, FL 34207-4334 jkrug@simplepublications.com All Rights Reserved.