YOUR BOOKS CAN DO MANY THINGS
Your books can open doors, help connect with people, begin new friendships, generate new clients, jumpstart new referrals, help existing and past clients, raise money for good causes, keep your message alive long after you speak, support clients’ future learning, maintain client relationships for years, expand your library through trades with authors, and help you travel around the world?
Most us probably have not made millions with any of our books. During one trip to Turkey I actually became a billionaire through sales of my book at a conference (exchange rate was 1,900,000 lire to $1).
Nido Qubein, during weekend marketing workshops for speakers, has shared a different perspective for writing a book. “Stop printing promotional brochures. Write and print books instead. Sell them. Give them away in place of brochures.” As speakers we can add other reasons: expansion of your knowledge, intensifying and clarifying your knowledge, strengthening your focus and creditability.
After Nido’s workshop I signed a contract with a contract-publishing house to publish an initial modest run with the purpose to experiment with his idea. Through help of NSA friends like Doug Smart I have learned that we all could easily do the same thing ourselves with a printer.
Our books may not generate great revenues and profits as books immediately, yet they can do many other things that we had not fantasized originally.
Sales and gifts of my book “BROKEN CRAYONS: Break Your Crayons and Draw Outside the Lines” have helped me find new clients, reactivate past clients, make many new friends and take me around the world 3 times so far.
As speaker-authors we begin selling copies with our programs, afterward at the back of the room, in conference bookstores, on consignment at local bookstores, over the internet, through our websites, through Amazon.
None of these efforts have benefited me as much as what I have done with copies to help me travel completely around the world 3 times since 2001.
In 1998 I traveled to South Africa to help a friend with his Creativity conference and took 30 copies. They sold completely. In 1999 I took 35 copies with me to Turkey where I went to help another friend with his conference on creativity. They sold completely. In September 99 I returned to South Africa and sold all the copies. Though I was going to both South Africa and Turkey each year I didn’t see them as what they could become, markets to position me internationally.
Yes I did fantasized about having my book on shelves in South Africa and Turkey as other NSA members have. I did nothing actively do until my second visits. Through friends I sought to find publishers, distributors. These efforts have led to small sales each year at the conferences, a Turkish language edition and a presentation at the largest South African educational distributor in Johannesburg. The results: more contacts, more recognition, larger attendance at my sessions and lots of fun emails.
In the Fall of 2000 I made a decision to take some time off in 2001 to travel, deliberately leaving my life in the US on hold, hopefully to return to begin a new stage of my life refreshed with new perspectives and plans. Initially the plan was to spend a month in both New Zealand and Australia seeing as much of both as I could. During the 8 months I planned the trip turned into one traveling completely around the world to 16 countries, speaking in 12 of them.
In the middle of April after 6 1/2 months of collecting information and planning I received a few emails suddenly from New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and Turkey asking if I would be willing to speak at a couple NSA chapters and for a couple clients. I hadn’t planned on that. I got excited about the possibilities and instantly got motivated to re-contact all the people I had been corresponding with asking about other possibilities for speaking (paid or not).
The result? I spoke for the New Zealand Chapter in Christchurch, met with several officers of the Auckland chapter and NZAA, spoke for the Queensland, Australia Chapter in Brisbane and met many Australian Speakers Association members in cities around Australia and later for the brand new chapter forming in Paris, France. Plus I spoke in Singapore a couple times, in Kuala Lumpur 3 times, lined up a contract in Mauritius through one of the organizations, spoke in Sri Lanka and India, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands, England, France and South Africa.
How did copies of BROKEN CRAYONS make these speaking engagements possible. A few of the people I was contacting already had copies of the book and used it to show their organizations or clients. I quickly shipped additional copies to them to give to other clients plus I shipped autographed copies to people they recommended.
During the trip I had an associate ship copies to people who had done favors for me. What were the favors? Some times they amounted to a modest fee for speaking, hotel expenses, welcoming gifts of flowers, fruit, museum visits, tours of historic sites, city/town tours, meals at fabulous restaurants or tickets to operas, musical events, plays, ballets, being a guest in their home or country weekend retreat, picnics in parks with family and friends, boat cruises, parades, festivals…the list goes on and on.
What had I done? I sent a personalized copy of my book and gave a presentation or short workshop. What did I receive? A lifetime of fabulous memories.
In 2002 I focused on developing work internationally and making connections with other creativity consultants to swap books, write joint articles, co-author books or simply modify my book so that it could be translated into other languages. So far it has been translated into Turkish, Slovakian and Japanese, the later two in process of publication. That year I traveled to Canada, England, Scotland, Turkey, Mexico, South Africa to speak for clients and at conferences.
In the Fall of 2002 I decided to plan a second World Creativity Tour, except that time it was begun as a marketing and business tour not simply as a long-break vacation. Once again I began by sending copies of my book to key people who I had met at conferences, conventions who were consultants, speakers, friends, clients (current or potential) and those I met through the internet or travel with me virtually through a Yahoo.com I have set up, including several NSAers.
My second World Creativity Tour started in Philadelphia at the American Creativity Conference in the beginning of March and ended at the Creative Education Foundation’s 49th Creative Problem Solving Institute in Buffalo selling books at both. The trip took me to Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Dubai, Italy, Dubai again, Thailand, Russia, Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Greenland, Iceland, England, Wales, Eire (Ireland).
Two weeks before I left for Osaka, Japan my host for two speaking engagements there asked me what I had planned to do during my two weeks in Japan. I sent him back a list of 12 basic things I strive to do during my visits to new countries now. By the third evening in Osaka he had helped me fulfill 11 of them as his guest: museums, palaces, castles, gardens, fine restaurants of many types, parks, city tours, etc. Without knowing what Miyoshi had done all my other hosts throughout Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and several of the other countries did the same thing each time each providing me tour guides or personal assistants to help me each day.
About 1/2 way through the 3+ month I was asked to return to Korea in October to speak at the 4th World Knowledge Forum involving speakers from 40+ countries at full fee, business class airplane tickets and 5 star hotel accommodations and personal assistants during the conference and for daily touring. When I received the email in Warsaw, Poland, we negotiated for them to fly me from Johannesburg to Seoul and then around to Atlanta. That created my second trip around the world in 2003 including South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, Singapore and Korea.
In early September I received an invitation to speak for a couple private conferences in Singapore in November and I decided to stop in Osaka to meet with the translators of the Japanese version of Broken Crayons on the way back from Singapore making the journey a third trip around the globe in the same year.
In 2004 Broken Crayons and the various international connections I have made through sales, gifts and prizes of it I have been back to Singapore and Japan again, Italy, England, Gurzuf, Ukraine, and Taipei, Taiwan to speak conferences. In September and October I will be in South Africa plus Lesotho traveling and speaking and then back to Singapore in November.
BROKEN CRAYONS has taken me around the globe 3 to 5 times. Your book(s) can do the same.
Our speaking and writing can promote us around the world. My book BROKEN CRAYONS has done that 8 times and to many other countries on single trips. This article explains how your books, articles, speeches on tape of in MP3 format can take you around the world to promote your work, products, profession.