My jacket designer (Michael Warrell of Design Solutions) assured me (before he called his lawyer and stopped talking to me) that it was all circumstantial, but when anyone looks at the two books together, it seems they are almost identical: same color, same lettering, same typeface and size of type face, same basic layout, same envelope theme. If it was circumstantial, it was an act of God.

Indeed, it looked as if Michael had done a search, liked the design of Seaman’s jacket, and slightly adapted it. And, given that our titles are so similar, the books look so similar they could be mistaken for being part of a series.

I was in a panic. I had just spent 5 months of 17-hour days writing my new book, and 2 months of doing 1-1 marketing, writing blogs and guest blogs, doing interviews and being interviewed, to create a pretty professional launch week. I had cajoling discussions with Amazon to delay fulfillment of their pre-sale orders until THE LAUNCH DATE. I had books here, ready for fulfillment for non-U.S. orders. Indeed: I was ready for success. Ready for the next day. Was there going to be a Next Day?

SCRAP THE LAUNCH?

Did I have to scrap my marketing? Start again with a new jacket design? It felt like it was going to be a train wreck, and I felt I couldn’t stop the train a day before the big launch date. It was an ethical dilemma: I wasn’t responsible for the jacket design, having trusted my professional designer to give me a fresh design and not even considering the possibility that the jacket might have been ‘borrowed.’

And yet, and yet, I was responsible. Was I supposed to have researched other jacket designs? In my haze of writing around the clock and choosing a jacket design in the middle of writing, I guess it never occurred to me to not trust my designer and do some research on my own. At the end of the day, the buck stopped with me. It seemed I had trusted the wrong person.

I wrote Dave Seaman a note immediately, and he had his publishing house contact me. Needless to say, there was a mess that ensued for days. Should I pull the book? Didn’t seem to be an option. Sue the jacket designer? I got a legal note from his lawyer denying any culpability but offering me a settlement to not sue (and they didn’t even pay me the settlement fee!). I couldn’t reach Seaman to discuss, and I was leaving for Australia.

Two friends/colleagues showed up to help: Eric Wolf of Gravity Free Radio, and Stone Payton of The High Velocity Radio Show, both sent Seaman a note suggesting some interesting ideas: get me and Seaman on the radio to do a program on Dirty Little Secrets in Marketing and Sales. They figured we might as well make lemonade, and help each other sell books.

In the end, it all seemed to work out: Seaman and I are supporting each other and have decided not to make it a legal hassle. But it could have turned ugly for sure.

When publishing houses do a jacket design, they have internal folks who do it. But as a self-publishing author (for this book, anyway), here is my question: how does a client know to trust a vendor? How would I have averted this problem? How would I have thought to NOT trust my book jacket designer (given the odds that just maybe he was influenced by Seaman’s jacket design while doing research for ideas for me)?

Given that in this day and age, everyone seems to be borrowing everyone else’s material (someone recently sent out electronic copies of my ebook to her team after purchasing one copy, then contacted me to help her discuss the book during a conference call. In our discussion – and she was quite lovely and excited about the book - she said she wanted to stay in integrity and thought that maybe she was in the ‘gray zone’ from sending out copies she hadn’t paid for, finally recognizing the integrity in actually purchasing copies for each person). For some reason, people seem to think that because a book is an ebook that it’s legally possible to send copies without paying for them. Would they make copies of a physical book? Of course not.  And the difference is….. what?

Here is a rule: don’t copy anyone else’s material, either as a design or a book. It took us a while to realize that musicians should get paid for their music. I hereby request 1. jacket designers come up with fresh designs, and 2. that people pay for each copy of an ebook you buy and do not share it unless it’s paid for. We authors would like to get paid for our IP also.

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Integrity in Book Publishing is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

OK. Now let me give you the details. Eric Wolf and Stephanie Frost have written an important book: Marketing:Unmasked – insider’s tips & tricks for small business marketing. It’s a very clear, very thorough romp (filled with activities, ‘to-do’ stuff, etc.) through social media offering high-level information on necessary topics that business owners need to know to be successful in this market and economy. It is meticulous and simply written – one of those rare books that says exactly what it needs to say without fillers, yet playful enough to be enjoyable. As an author myself, I was touched by the elegance of the writing.  It will teach you how to make informed decisions to market strategically with truly honest, real-world, wise advice, learned from being in the field with clients.

The book says it offers “… little tastes of many different flavors, like branding, logo design, marketing planning, web design, and social media, and … hiring good marketing, branding, and design partners.” (pg 16).

I adore that Eric and Stephanie believe that branding is an ‘experience.’  In the book they say, “… the intire interaction someone has with your business…the graphics they see…the words they read, the words they hear, and the emotions they feel… every point of contact between you and your customer – your receptionist, your brochure, your order form… sales team, and your product or service… the soul, the intangible essense behind everything that your customers experience when they deal with your buyers.”

This book is one of those rare gems that is packed with important information on every page. Please, do yourself a favor and buy the book.

COME PLAY WITH ME AND TONY PARINELLO

Every few years, Tony Parinello (Getting to VITO)  and I sit down over coffee, each at our individual desks 1000 miles away from each other, and invite perfect strangers to hear us banter on Tony’s radio show. We goad each other, laugh with each other, tell each other stories – he’s the VITO guy and I’m the Buying Facilitation™ gal – and between us bring some light into the field of sales.

Join us on Friday at 10 a.m. PT, 1:00 ET, as Tony and I play. It’s been a few years since we’ve last chatted, so it should be a real hoot. And you might learn a lot also.

Here is how to listen, and be a guest of Tony’s regular show for our segment: www.businessbroadcasting.biz

User Name: BeMyGuest
Password:  Sharon Drew

If you miss this, I’ll put up a link to the podcast of the interview on Monday.
And don’t forget: you have another week of freebies when you buy Dirty Little Secrets.

Thanks to you all for making the book #1 on Amazon’s Hot Titles list and #1 on their Sales list.

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There is still time to get the freebies for: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it. Check out the site for more details.

Or consider purchasing the bundle: Dirty Little Secrets plus my last book Buying Facilitation™: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. These books were written to be read together, as they offer the full complement of concepts to help you learn and understand Buying Facilitation™ - the new skill set that gives you the ability to lead buyers through their buying decisions. You still get the freebies with the bundle order.

Eric Wolf and Stephanie Frost Unmask Marketing/Join Me and VITO is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com

For those of you entering into the ‘book marketing’ business, let me offer a few tips. First: you need partners. Lots and lots of partners. I became a demon – writing to everyone on all of my lists…all the time. My wonderful tech guy Shawn Dibble helped me design, send, and create the materials I needed so I had everything I needed as soon as I realized I needed it.

I began my marketing as soon as I started writing. I sent out early chapters to dozens and dozens of people: some friends, some colleagues, some competitors, some clients. I got feedback, buddies who hung with me through changes and corrections, and folks who ultimately became demons at helping me promote the book they watched grow up. It gave me other brains to think with, other viewpoints from the field, areas of problems, new ways to look at book organization. And I didn’t feel so alone.

Next: I created some nifty tool kits to help people help me promote. After all, if I’m going to ask people to ‘work’ for me, the least I can do is make it easy for them. So I developed a kit with automatic tweets, different sized blog posts, an ‘interview’ with me, etc. Brainless and painless. As a result, with a flick of the wrist, people could lend a hand and help me market without having to take time from their days.  Btw, here is my kit. Cool, right?

Then, I began contacting folks on the web who I thought would be willing to partner with me. My very favorite (other than some scheduled radio interviews with Stone Payton and Erik Wolf, plus the numerous podcasts I’m doing with colleagues – see my calendar) is MaestroConference. They have this truly super-cool conference site that allows people to get into chat groups during  on-line meetings, have large group discussions and ask questions, etc. I believe this state-of-the-art product will be endemic and used by every major corporation someday. As a marketing device, they’ve gotten a bunch of truly fabulous icons (my personal favorites are Diana Whitney and Marianne Williamson and Barbara Marx Hubbard)  to give free seminars so folks could meet the greats and get free time to trial MaestroConference.com at the same time. It’s a win-win. Here is a link to an invite for my free teleseminar Wednesday, Oct 14, noon PT.

Everything else I’ve done defies what we’re taught regarding marketing. I basically spoke to folks personally. Sometimes by email, sometimes by phone, sometimes by Skype conference if they were out of the country. I asked them how I could serve them, I did blogs on them (payFORWARD), I sent them copies of the unfinished, and often typo-laden manuscript, I had lots of people vote on the cover design, I called crying when frustrated by a horrid editor, an irresponsible layout designer and a proofer who should have had his fingers chopped off. By the way, if you want the names of these folks so you can avoid them, call me.

I collected testimonials from everyone who in any way read any part of the book. I gathered freebies to hand out for the book launch …net net net, I have made this all a community effort. People who I never knew have introduced me to others. People who I never liked became my friends. People who I didn’t know well put in Herculean efforts because they believed in me – and I didn’t even know them! Some folks put together groups of us to help each other through our book writing. People who didn’t think sales needed to change are now converts. Along the way I even got work.

And I have a very special ‘Thank You’ to the folks at BookSurge.com, the POD arm of Amazon.com. I decided to self-publish this book because I didn’t want to wait 2 years for it to come out. And with the interesting personalities on my editorial/design team, I ended up interfacing with BookSurge far more than anyone expected. They came out smelling like a rose: they were supportive, creative, flexible, kind. They handed me off to higher ups when necessary and then circled back to make sure all was well. They did me favors, they stretched rules. I LOVE these folks. Every single solitary one of them. I would strongly, strongly recommend them over a conventional publishing house. Truly. So long as you’re willing to do the marketing on your own (which publishing houses rarely do for you anyway unless you’re Stephen King), call these folks. I give them a perfect 10. My rep is David Friedland. He’s amazingly gentle and supportive and professional and absolutely unflappable.

I am happy to report that I have come through the last 8 months a far more enriched person. Very Very Tired. But my book is far, far better because of the community of friends, the always-interesting feedback, the never-ending support and good will of everyone involved.

Thank you all. Together, we’ve made a great book.

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Listen to Sharon Drew Morgen speak on MaestroConference on Oct. 14 at 12P.M. PST

Check out my new book coming out October 15: Dirty Little Secrets: why buyers can’t buy and sellers can’t sell and what to do about it. Read two free chapters. Sign up for presales deals, and announcements.

Or have a look at my book Buying Facilitation: the new way to sell that influences and expands decisions. Click here for two free chapters. It will teach you how to understand and manage the route through the internal decision process, and is meant to be read alongside of the new book, Dirty Little Secrets.

Maestro, BookSurge, and Friends: writing and marketing “Dirty Little Secrets” is a post from: SharonDrewMorgen.com