After attending several sessions on e-books and e-readers at the Publishing Business Conference and Expo, I came away with the following:
* A paradigm shift is under way.
* Book publishers—accustomed to promoting to middlemen middle-persons (retailers, wholesalers, librarians)—are now able to reach end-users and are desperate figure out how to “satisfy their needs.”
* Marketing is not about satisfying needs. It is about creating wants.
* “I had forgotten what my professor Frank Knight used to say, that what people wanted was not the satisfaction of their wants, but better wants.”
—Herbert Stein Economist, adviser to presidents and father of Ben Stein
* What book publishers must do right now is get up to speed on old-fashioned Direct Marketing 101.
* I would guess one question that exists: do you want the prospect to order direct from you—thus bypassing amazon.com and retail stores? Or are your e-efforts purely informational?
* If you do not receive the order directly, it is impossible to track the success—or lack of it—back to your lists and promotional efforts.Assuming e-customers respond to e-marketing efforts—and assuming you are fulfilling product—here is a basic checklist:
1. Is the subject line of your e-mail no more than 35-40 characters max?
___Yes ___ No
2. Is the subject line of your e-mail a grabber—irresistible?
___Yes ___ No
3. Will your subject line get past spam filters?
___Yes ___ No
4. Is your e-mail message short and so compelling that it gives the prospect no reason not to click through to learn more?
___Yes ___ No
5. When the response link is clicked on, is the prospect taken to a special satellite page that directly relates to the specific offer just seen—as opposed to your general homepage?
___Yes ___ No
6. Remembering that you’re one click from oblivion, is your landing page powerful, to the point, easy to navigate, and not wordy or boring?
___Yes ___ No
7. Does your copy employ at least one of the following 7 Key Copy Drivers (and preferably several)—the emotional hot buttons that make people act?
Fear – Greed – Guilt – Anger – Exclusivity – Salvation – Flattery
___Yes ___ No
8. Does your copy contain some or all of the 13 most powerful and evocative words in the English language?
You – Save – Money – Guarantee – Love – Results – Proven –
Safety – Easy – New – Health – Discovery – Free
___Yes ___ No
9. Since “you” is the subject of every sales effort, is your promotion about “you” (the prospect)—as opposed to “we,” “us” or “our?”
___Yes ___ No
10. “Probably well over half our buying choices are based on emotion.” —Jack Maxson
“When emotion and reason come into conflict, emotion always wins.” —John J. Flieder
Is your sales pitch emotional (rather than analytical and rational)?
___Yes ___ No
11. “The prospect doesn’t give a damn about you or your company. All that matters is, ‘What’s in it for me?’ “—Bob Hacker
“People want quarter-inch holes, not quarter-inch drills.”
—MBA Magazine
Are you emphasizing the product, author and benefits and what they will do for the prospect, rather than yourself and your company?
___Yes ___ No
12. “Your job is to sell, not entertain.” —Jack Maxson
“Cute and clever simply don’t work.” —Nigel Rowe
Is your presentation cute, clever and entertaining?
___Yes ___ No
13. Is you e-mail letter effort signed by a real person with a real phone number and e-mail address in case the prospect has a question?
___Yes ___ No
14. Do you include reviews and/or testimonials from happy readers?
___Yes ___ No
15. Do you make an offer?
___Yes ___ No
16. “The right offer should be so attractive that only a lunatic would say ‘no.’ ” —Claude Hopkins
“If you want to dramatically increase your results, dramatically improve your offer.” —Axel Andersson
Is your offer is the very strongest one you can field (e.g., free shipping, pre-pub price, buy-2-get-one-free or a combination)?
___Yes ___ No
17. Does the order link and 800-number appear in numerous places—maybe at the bottom of every page—so the reader can act the moment the urge strikes rather than having to hunt around?
___Yes ___ No
18. Is your offer so simple an idiot can understand it?
___Yes ___ No
19. Do you make it easy to order?
___Yes ___ No
20. Has your paranoid legal department destroyed the flow of the argument with disclaimers, footnotes and other deal killers in gray sans serif mousetype and/or a bunch of the following in superscript: * ‡ © 1 2 3?
___Yes ___ No
21. Before going live, have you handed your promotion off to a half dozen strangers—who have no skin in the game—to make sure the whole thing makes sense, tracks and the ordering mechanism is smooth and easy?
___Yes ___ No
22. Before going live, have you verified that the e-links and the 800-numbers are correct and working?
___Yes ___ No
23. Can customers respond in the manner most convenient to them: mail, phone, fax or e-mail?
___Yes ___ No
24. Will the phone be answered no later than the second ring?
___Yes ___ No
25. Will everyone that answers the phone or receives an e-mail order be expecting the contact and have a working knowledge of the product so that questions can be answered?
?
26. Did you provide the customer service (or order intake) folks with copies of offer(s), so they know what specific offer/product the caller talking about—as well as actual product samples, so they can answer questions on the phone or via e-mail?
___Yes ___ No
27. Do you have a fail-safe system in place that enables you to measure responses by source and determine return on investment (ROI)?
___Yes ___ No
28. “The sale begins when the customer says ‘yes.’ ” —Bill Christensen
Does your fulfillment or follow-up message resell the product and reassure the customer that buying it from you was a really smart decision?
___Yes ___ No
30. If the promotional effort is successful, can you turn on a dime and roll out with it immediately to new prospects?
___Yes ___ No
—Denny Hatch
dennyhatch.com
BusinessCommonSense.com
Jason Epstein, who was interviewed by NPR for 
A study published by the University of Rennes shows that the critics of the three strikes law were right. Instead of the threat of disconnection deterring pirates, the incidence of piracy actually increased 3%.
Plastic Logic has announced it is delaying the Que for several more months.