Online Marketing Success
Secrets Revealed!

February 13th, 2004 Edition
Expert Interview

Secrets Of Successful Book Writing: An Interview With
Patrick Quinn author of 21 books!

Hello again everyone, hope you're week has gone well.

It's a priviledge, an honor and a blast for me to include an exclusive interview with a master copywriter, book writer and expert wordsmith Patrick Quinn with you today.

With over 40-years experience, countless achievements, 21 books published and a career that has spanned offline and online marketing - Patrick is an amazing source of proven advice that will put more money in your pocket...

IF YOU PAY ATTENTION!

Read on to get right to the heart of exactly what it takes to turn a struggling book writing business into a highly successful one.

Hot off reviewing his latest book - "Wordpower 3", I have to point out this is one of the best deals out there today. Patrick could be selling this for 10X the tiny price he is asking. In fact, many so-called copywriters are doing just that with material that is 100X less valuable.

Enjoy the interview, APPLY what Patrick suggests, and be sure to take a look at his book Wordpower 3 - I gurantee, you will not be sorry!

Jeff
http://www.highertrustmarketing.com
http://www.infoproductcreator.com
http://www.creating-infoproducts.com
http://www.infoproductcreator.com/hypnotic.html
Contact Jeff:jeff@infoproductcreator.com

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Today's Expert Interview

=====================================

"Secrets of Successful Book Writing"

with Patrick Quinn, author of "WordPower3"

Did you know...

There have been well over 30 interviews included in our newsletters over the last 2-years!

If you've missed some of our past POWER Interviews with the experts, then you'll want to hear what Joe Vitale, Yanik Silver, Marc Goldman, Damon Zahariades, Willie Crawford and many others are doing to create, and grow their own Infoproduct Empires. Check out our archives right here...

http://www.highertrustmarketing.com/ezinearchives.html

This Week...

Patrick Quinn is a copywriter, with 40 years' experience of the advertising business in London, Miami, Dublin and Edinburgh.

Over the years, he has helped win for his clients just about every advertising award worth winning

He has published 21 books they include:

The Secrets of Successful Copywriting. The Secrets of Successful Low Budget Advertising. The Secrets of Successful Exhibitions. Word Power 1, 2 & 3.

Now, for this week's interview!

Jeff [Question]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to share your trade secrets with our readers today. As your introduction mentions, you have published more than 21 books over the years, can you tell us a little about yourself and how you turned your sights toward writing "How To" books?

Patrick Quinn [Answer]

I started off as an ad agency staff copywriter in London back in the 60s. At that time I also had an ambition to write fiction and had a number of detective novels published, which were rather average in both content and technique.

Luckily it didn’t take me long to realize that I had a skill which many hadn’t i.e. the ability to convince people to buy product via words on paper. My career blossomed and for almost 40 years I have worked as an ad agency creative director in London, Miami, Dublin and Edinburgh and as a freelance for some very impressive outfits. It was only a short step from there to teaching and to writing about the art of copywriting. My How To books during this period were published ‘terrestrially’ as it were, by William Heinemann and others.

Jeff [Question]

Your latest work, "WordPower 3: The Sales Writer's Thesaurus" has sold over 7,000 copies in print - that's quite an accomplishment! Was this a self-published work? If so, can you take us through the steps you took to actually produce the book, get it printed, and where you were listed?

Patrick Quinn [Answer]

No, it wasn’t self-published. It was produced by John Powell of Markethill – who is also handling the online version. I am very fortunate in having this association with John, since there isn’t much he doesn’t know about marketing off line; and our sales prove that he’s rapidly getting to grips with marketing on line. But, then, he sets himself seemingly unattainable goals and usually gets there. Also, we do not have the accepted publisher/author relationship. Ours is a partnership.

My view is that writers are notoriously bad at marketing their own work. They need somebody who can take a dispassionate look at the material and slot it into the correct market. Certainly, an author will have a rough idea about whom he wants to connect with, but a good marketing associate is worth his weight in gold!

Failing that kind of partnership, I would think twice about shelling out hard earned money on self publishing. Then I would think again.

Jeff [Question]

You seem to work a fairly consistent target market - a niche of entrepreneurial or small business types - is that part of your secret to making money with writing? Is it important that new authors focus in on a niche market and surround it with many related works?

Patrick Quinn [Answer]

The thinking behind my work is this. Small to medium sized businesses don’t really have the wherewithal to hire advertising agencies. Those who do venture into this area, rarely get the service they deserve, simply because it is not worth the agency’s while to spend too much time on their work.

But such people can be taught to produce their own promotional material – and quite easily, too. So this is where I concentrate my efforts. I think it’s true to say that I was one of the first to demonstrate that practically anyone can write good, selling copy – if they are taught properly (much to the chagrin of the elitists!).

Yes, it is imperative to focus on a market. Too many people write what they want to write, rather than what the market wants. I made this mistake in the early days, and wasted a lot of time doing so.

Obviously, once you have your market convinced, you can offer further products in the same vein and expect a decent conversion rate. For instance, we are about to launch an e-book titled: The Secrets of Successful Low Budget Advertising, which is specifically aimed at the market you mention above. Likewise, I am working on a title that will be aimed at both would-be copywriters, entrepreneurs and personnel in the marketing departments of medium-sized businesses. This one goes into the dot and comma of copywriting – from syntax and grammar to sales psychology - and demonstrates exactly how to produce it.

It goes without saying, I think, that being innovative is not easy. And even when you do come up with a brand new slant on something, it doesn’t follow that people will beat paths to your door to hear about it. Just because there is a gap in the market, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there is a market in the gap.

One final point. When you set out to teach, you’d better be damn sure that you know your subject inside out and backwards. For instance, I have seen many How To books on copywriting on the Internet that are patently worthless. The authors demonstrate in their own web page copy that they are unable to string three coherent sentences together. Would you buy a copywriting course from someone who doesn’t know the basic rules of grammar? Neither would I.

Jeff [Question]

Where do your ideas come from? Like most of us, you probably have many ideas, but how do you test or filter your ideas down to those that you really know (or have a very good feeling) will sell well?

Patrick Quinn [Answer]

Certainly, I have many ideas. Finding the time to do something tangible with them is the problem. On the grounds that there is really nothing new in this world, the best ideas are re-works of old ideas. For instance, every manufacturer will, from time to time, look at his and other people’s products and ask himself how he can improve upon them. Writers should do exactly the same.

I test ideas by putting myself in the shoes of those I expect to buy the product in question. What is the benefit to them if they buy it? People don’t buy products, they buy the benefits of owning them. Consequently, if there is no measurable benefit, and if what I’m producing is no better than the next man’s, I drop the idea.

On the other hand, if I come up with something that has potential, I go at it like a bull at a gate.

Jeff [Question]

Great advice Patrick

If you had to list your TOP 3 tips for writers just trying to break into the Non-Fiction/How-To market, what would they be?

Patrick Quinn [Answer]

Most importantly, you have to come up with either a unique property or a unique way of providing a piece of information. Then you need to find out if enough people are searching for such products or the type of information you intend to supply. On the Internet, this can be researched to a large extent by discovering the number of searches people are making with relative keywords in, say, Overture, or by using the services of Wordtracker.

Of course, you also have to asses your slot in the marketplace and also the activities of the competition. In an ideal world, if you work in an area that nobody else is covering, or you have devised a better way of doing a certain thing and you know enough people will benefit from it, you’re half way home.

Secondly, you need enthusiasm and persistence in abundance. Not just a willingness to work because there may be some profit in it, but a palpable belief in what you are doing. Your work should be so exciting to you that you cannot drag yourself away from it.

Not unexpectedly, this enthusiasm shows in your writing and comes across to readers. You’ll need persistence though, for the very long haul necessary to get your product in front of those readers.

Third, never be happy with what you do. (I rarely am.) Everything can be improved upon. And the good thing about working right through the night is that you get to see some beautiful dawns.

And I’ll tell you something else, if I may. When you boast on your website or elsewhere about the efficacy of a product that is not as good as it might be, you only increase the number of times consumers spot the deficiencies. The fact is, advertising will increase the sales of a good product, but will hasten the demise of a bad one.

Jeff [Question]

I notice you now sell your product in electronic book format using Clickbank online. What are your profits like selling this way versus selling a physical product and which do you favor?

Patrick Quinn [Answer]

This is a question you should ask John Powell. I’ll hand you over to him.

Hi, John here.

There’s really no comparison between the long term profitability of selling electronic books and that of printed ones. Everyone talks about the obvious financial benefits of producing e-books as being no printing, paper or shipping costs – which, of course, is true. But the really big minus of printed books is trying to get the print run right. Too small a print run and your unit costs are too high to turn a healthy profit. Too big a print run and you’re left with a lot of low cost units which nevertheless add up to a great deal of wasted money. Just look at the stores that specialize in cheap remainders. Behind those stacks of books are a host of publishers who caught a cold.

As for using Clickbank, well, it’s pretty good and arguably the best service available for selling e-books right now. I particularly like the reliability of Clickbank; and they make it very simple for affiliates to sign up. A very important point.

On the downside, you can only price your product in USD; and although America is a big market, the world is bigger. Forcing the prospect into having to make a currency calculation creates hesitation in the buying process, which would be better avoided.

Further, Clickbank pays out only in checks and charges to write them. So you end up with transaction charges, the cost of Clickbank writing the checks, your banking charges to process and clear the checks and, in our case, the cost of currency conversion. But as long as you take all this into account (together with your marketing costs), you can’t go too far wrong selling e-books. Because you’ll never have a stock room full of unsold product.

Jeff [Question]

I really appreciate you taking the time to share your incredible success secrets with our readers. I would like to leave you with one last question. What are the TOP 3 traps new writers typically fall into - and how do you avoid them?

Patrick Quinn [Answer]

Pat here again.

I visit a lot of writers’ forums, and what strikes me about new (or young) writers is their attitude to the business. They want to succeed, but they don’t want to put in the effort; and when their work fails in the market, or is rejected by editors, they whine. Every rejection is, or should be, an opportunity to rethink your writing style and technique.

From what these people say, it is obvious that they are more interested in the money they hope to make than in satisfying their potential audience. This is completely back to front.

Similarly, they don’t understand that to be competent in any undertaking, you first have to do the training. I have published 21 books, but I have written, at a guess, about 40. The remaining 19 were rightly rejected out of hand. So the answer is to, write, write, write.

In addition, many new writers produce material that is almost a direct copy of existing stuff. They simply rewrite it and hope that it will sell. It rarely does. If you can’t improve on a concept, forget it.

Finally, don’t ask what your market can do for you – ask what you can do for your market. Your main objective shouldn’t be to make money, it should be to produce something that will benefit your readers. And if you do make money, consider it a bonus.

Jeff [Final Remarks]

A big thank you to Patrick for taking time to share his wisdom and experience with us.

If you are finding writing your webpage, ads or any other copywriting is preventing you from making money online - then you need to look at Patrick's book...

WordPower 3

WRAPPING IT UP!

Have a super weekend

We'll be back next week with another issue of our newsletter for you.

Feel free to email me comments or questions right here:

mailto:jeff@infoproductcreator.com

Jeff Smith

http://www.highertrustmarketing.com

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http://www.highertrustmarketing.com

Online Marketing Success Secrets Revealed!