The 2012 B-K Authors Cooperative Book Marketing Workshop
Place: The Commonwealth Club (site of the BK Anniversary events on July 19th and 20th)
New Workshop: "Learn to Market Books the Berrett-Koehler Way"
That Berrett-Koehler publishes meaningful books on business and social change is widely known. What's not as widely known is how strongly many Berrett-Koehler books sell.
A look at the copies sold on Berrett-Koehler's Top Ten bestseller list can't help but impress:
- "Confessions of an Economic Hitman": 1.1M
- "Eat that Frog" 1M
- "Leadership and Self-Deception": 960K
- "Love 'Em or Lose 'Em": 580K
- "Repacking Your Bags": 470K
- "The Secret": 380K
- "Empowerment Takes More Than a Minute": 375K
- "Leadership and the New Science": 365K
- "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins": 360K
- "Goals!" 350K
The hearty sales figures don't stop there. Berrett-Koehler has, in fact, published forty books that have each sold over 100K copies. These sales figures raise two questions:
Question #1. How does Berrett-Koehler - an independent publisher that produces niche books which often go against the prevailing wisdom and powers that be - sell so many books?
Question #2. What can we writers learn from Berrett-Koehler's methods, so we can get word out about our own books?
It's these two questions that form the basis of this year's book marketing workshop.
What: The 2012 Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative Book Marketing Workshop
When: Saturday 7/21/12 and Sunday 7/22/12
Where: The Commonwealth Club, 595 Market Street, 2nd Floor. San Francisco, California 94105.
Who should attend: writers who've written a book or books, as well as writers considering a book. While some of the material presented during the workshop will be suitable for fiction writers, most of it will be geared towards writers of non-fiction.
Admission Fee and Registration Page: Admission fee is $395.
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Workshop Details
> This two-day workshop will be packed with counsel on how to get word out about your book.
Along with the keynote speeches and formal presentations, we've also made time for you to have conversations with Berrett-Koehler staff and authors, so you can learn, first-hand, which marketing strategies worked for them - and which might work best for you, your book, and your brand.
> One of the features of the workshop will be its emphasis on multi-channel marketing. The reason? Multi-channel marketing is a hallmark of Berrett-Koehler's approach to selling books.
Whereas many publishers rely exclusively on a few marketing channels, Berrett-Koehler markets its books through dozens of channels - giving its books a wide opportunity to find an audience.
Some of the channels used by Berrett-Koehler, which will be discussed during the workshop, include: Amazon bestseller campaigns, corporate sales, e-marketing, marketing partnerships, social media, and subsidiary rights sales for audio, video, and film.
> Another strategy that Berrett-Koehler relies on, and which will be taught during the workshop, is digital leadership. In fact, Publishers Weekly magazine recently wrote: "The publisher putting the most concerted focus on digital developments in the business book category is the independent, California-based Berrett-Koehler." (5/23/11)
Workshop attendees, then, will learn about methods of marketing books digitally, including corporate digital channels and library digital channels.
> A note about the workshop's speakers: They're all, in some way, part of the Berrett-Kohler community.
Some of the speakers will be from the editorial side of Berrett-Koehler.
Others will be authors who've published with Berrett-Koehler (including several authors whose books have sold hundreds of thousands of copies).
Still others will be "expert outsiders" who have been screened by the Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative.
Two of the speakers who have already been lined up are prominent experts on branding . . . and on how to use a book as a means of increasing your brand's visibility:
Speaker #1: Sam Horn (www.samhorn.com). Sam is known as "America's Intrigue Expert." She's a master pitch coach, and is renowned for her ability to create marketing messages and slogans that stick in the mind. Her clients include Boeing, Cisco, Intel, and NASA. She's also written six books, including "POP!: Create the Perfect Pitch, Title, and Tagline for Anything" and "Tongue Fu!: How to Defeat, Disarm, and Defuse Any Verbal Conflict."
At the Berrett-Koehler workshop, Sam will be talking about her newest program, "SerenDestiny," which teaches authors how to turn their ideas into a mission that helps the world, creates a legacy, and earns them a prosperous living.
Speaker #2: Mark Levy (www.levyinnovation.com). Mark runs the positioning company, Levy Innovation. Consultants and other thought leaders hire him to help them increase their fees by up to 2,000%. His clients include bestselling business book authors Marshall Goldsmith, David Meerman Scott, and Simon Sinek. Mark himself has written for the New York Times, and wrote the Berrett-Koehler book, "Accidental Genius: Using Writing to Generate Your Best Ideas, Insight, and Content," which has been published in eleven languages.
During last year's book marketing workshop, Mark presented a session on "thought leadership branding," and attendees rated it so highly that we've asked him back!
> This will be the Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative's seventh annual book marketing workshop. Last year's workshop sold out.
The workshop, by the way, takes place at the end of the same week in which Berrett-Koehler Publishers celebrates its 20th anniversary. (For more about the anniversary celebration, visit: http://www.bkconnection.com/20thAnniversary.asp)
> If you have any questions about the book marketing workshop, please contact the Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative administrator, Brenda Price. Brenda's email is b_r_price@bellsouth.net. Her phone number, in North Carolina, is 919-662-8548.
We hope to see you at the workshop!
All the best,
The Berrett-Koehler Authors Cooperative
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Lodging for the Workshop:
Berrett-Koehler has a partnership with the Hotel Rex, www.thehotelrex.com, the "arts and literary" hotel of the Joie de Vivre chain (founder Chip Conley is a BK author). It is located at 562 Sutter street (between Powell and Mason) in the Union Square district of San Francisco — within walking distance of the Commonwealth Club and the city’s best arts, theater, and shopping venues.
As a member of the Berrett-Koehler community you are entitled to a 15% discount off BAR (the best available rate) regardless of the season. You can make reservations via phone (415-433-4434, be sure to mention that you are with BK) or online at:http://www.jdvhospitality.com/hotels/hotel/13
Where it requests a promo or corporate code, make sure you enter "WBBERRETT" for it to automatically calculate the discount.
If you'd like to share a hotel room with another BK Author, please send a note to our Administrator, Brenda Price, at b_r_price@bellsouth.net. She will keep a list of who is interested and pass it on to you.
Other hotels in the area:
The following hotels are within 3 blocks of The Commonwealth Club.
Luxury:
- The Palace Hotel (Closest!)
- Mandarin OrientalThe Four Seasons
- St Regis Hotel
Reasonable: (keeping in mind that reasonable in San Francisco is unreasonable elsewhere except possibly NYC)
- The Westin San Francisco (NOT the Westin St. Francis, but the other one)
- The W Hotel
- The Mosser Hotel
- Hotel Palomar