Traditional publishers reject 98% of all submissions, which results in millions of unpublished and frustrated authors who keep searching for publishing alternatives. These include subsidy and Print-on-Demand (POD) publishing made possible by introduction of digital printing. The latest reports from the printing industry suggest that within a few years most printing shops will operate digital presses and many will be able to produce POD books at a very low cost within a matter of minutes. New York Public Library is expected to install a POD book production system very soon. Such systems may even show up in places like Wall-Mart, Kinko’s, department stores, bookstores, airports, libraries and service clubs as well as other areas wherever books are sold. This creates an unusual opportunity for unpublished, self-published and otherwise published authors to directly control the production and marketing of their books. The Internet, with its unique and extensive communications capabilities provides the tools to facilitate such initiatives. It’s possible to maximize exposure, minimize costs and accelerate response.

Basic Requirements

The author must create a manuscript in digital format acceptable to a POD printer. Those who are not sufficiently computer literate can use the services of POD publishers and book packagers as long as they retain all marketing rights. Critique and editing should be independent of any POD operations. The author should not sign any contracts with regard to number of copies, distribution, book prices, royalties or any rights whatsoever. When you control all aspects of your project you can take advantage of all the opportunities.

Internet Promotion Ideas

Ideally the author should conceive an idea and develop a compelling title before starting to write the book. Using an E-mail query you can then test interest among agents and publishers in pertinent book categories. If the response indicates sufficient interest the author can write the book and announce its development to the media ahead of time. This is done using free Internet PR services, as well as specific E-mail lists of daily and weekly newspapers and magazine editors. TV and radio talk shows are also fair game at all times. The most important thing to remember is to have a UNIQUE, CONTROVERSIAL and FASCINATING subject line of E-mail messages to make sure that recipients will read the whole message. That’s tough to do using only about 52 characters. Eventually the Semantic Web will provide guidance to authors on how to make their book a bestseller but the time to get ready for these developments is now.

How We Acquire and Compile Our Lists and Directories

21st Century Research identifies desirable E-mail addresses for our lists in a variety of sources. We research yellow pages, national, regional, state and local directories, the newspapers, TV and radio shows, and the Internet, to locate E-mail addresses for our lists. We also test E-mail addresses by promoting our own stories or products and eliminate from our lists those that are not active. E-mail lists of all types contain a high percentage of addresses that are obsolete because their users change jobs, Internet service providers, or implement severe security measures that restrict access. This is why for each e-mail list of 100 we actually provide 120 addresses to compensate our clients for any inactive entries that may have developed since we last tested it..

We deliver our E-mail lists in printed form and our customers are free to make any selections they wish to implement their programs. More importantly these lists can be used as often as you wish for queries, announcements and press releases to maximize your investment. We also provide a service to customize our lists for specific promotion and marketing coverage within a 100-mile radius. It is designed for authors to maximize exposure within a day’s drive of their home office while minimizing costs of operation.