So you’re a brilliant writer with a brilliant book and an equally brilliant literary agent — who can’t sell your book.
So you write a second outstanding work and out that book goes to a slew of publishers who like it but won’t buy it.
Then late one night after you’ve done this for the third time — and after one of those books even won an award (yet still didn’t sell) — you’re watching a rerun of “Sex & The City.” Carrie Bradshaw, the show’s writer character, is at her lavish book-launch party, complete with paparazzi, red carpet, caterers and a multimillion-dollar advance tucked into her bank account.
And you, oh-so-talented author, seriously consider slitting your wrists. “I was tired, I was watching this TV rerun and I was very bitter,” says Elle Newmark, author of the new novel, “The Book of Unholy Mischief” (December 2008, Simon & Schuster).
“Then I thought, ‘Hey! That’s what I want: a book party,’ ” she says. So she gathered up all that bitterness and sprang into action, ultimately netting herself a seven-figure, two-book deal, plus dozens of foreign-rights deals, on “The Book of Unholy Mischief,” one of those previously unsold books. “I was desperate,” Newmark says. “At that point, I was 60-ish. It was now or never.”
Newmark took Peggy McColl’s “Bestseller Coaching Program” Internet book-marketing class, then set a completely made-up date for her “virtual book launch party.” She secured website “partners” to invite their e-mail lists to her party, gave a heads-up e-mail to some literary agents and publishers, and on Nov. 27, 2007 — party day — she watched her book rise to ‘s best-seller list. That means that her book sales rose to the top 100 best-selling books on for that day.
Turns out, some of those book publishers she’d invited were watching that Amazon list, too. Newmark found herself juggling calls on two phones from agents and publishers jockeying to represent her and buy her book, all while straining to address e-mail offers flooding in. “That day was surreal,” says Newmark. “By noon I was no longer watching the Amazon thing. My phone was ringing off the hook. I had the cellphone, the land line, and e-mails streaming into my in box.”
That book-publishing day out of a fairy tale was fueled by Peggy McColl and Randy Gilbert, who teach the Bestseller Coaching Program. Both have self-published their own books, achieved best-seller status for those books (including, in McColl’s case, New York Times best-seller list), and gone on to secure book publishing contracts at publishing houses.
For five, two-hour teleclasses (students are on the phone, McColl and Gilbert instruct), students are guaranteed to reach either or ‘s best-seller lists — spending little to no money to do so — within 38 days, if the formula is followed. “Our results make us confident,” McColl says. “Any time we’ve done a campaign, any time we’ve watched our graduates do the formula, they’ve always succeeded.”
“If they’ve followed ‘the formula,'” adds Gilbert, “they’ve had success. We’ve learned with our own books the things that have created success, so we combined our knowledge and now teach it. We have a very high level of sureness, no matter what type of book.”
From e-books to self-help to fiction, McColl and Gilbert insist their Internet book-marketing program works for any book. And they offer a slew of examples to prove it. Spiritual guru Dr. Wayne Dyer employed the Bestseller Coaching Program with his book, “Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling.” The book hit both and ‘s best-seller lists and went on to reach the New York Times best-seller list.
David Riklan, an unknown e-book author, did likewise and sold a lot of books. Riklan’s “The Top 101 Experts That Help Us Improve Our Lives,” according to McColl and Gilbert, sold more than 6,000 copies and generated close to $200,000 in revenue. Riklan’s blog claims he sold $108,142 worth of e-books in one day.
Newmark worked hard to get more than 400,000 visitors to her virtual book party, and then slightly twisted the “best-seller” formula, which McColl encourages. “My ‘party’ had a Renaissance theme,” says Newmark. “The book is set in Italy so there were some Venetian masks, and a book trailer on the website. I also offered about 20 free downloads at the party, including a book discussion guide and free e-books from some Web partners. I sent boxes of homemade, book-themed cookies to people I wanted to help me.
“I saw it as my one and only shot,” says Newmark, whose book continues to sell on Amazon. “I was tired of talking to myself. It wasn’t about money.”
Newmark’s in the money anyway and McColl says that Newmark’s ability to fit the Bestseller Coaching Program to her book was key. “Elle really had the right attitude,” says McColl. “She had the philosophy of taking charge. She couldn’t wait around for a publisher. She persisted, she followed through. She went above and beyond.
“Authors really need to inject their own creativity into the process. Part of the formula is creativity.”
The other part of the formula is simple, yet determined marketing work — a piece of the publishing puzzle McColl says authors often neglect. “I went to a megabook-marketing event once,” says McColl.
“The presenter said something that has always stuck with me,” she chuckles softly, remembering the mega-book-marketer’s prophetic words.
“He told us,” says McColl, “that when an author has written a book, they’ve only completed 5 percent of their job.”
Cathie Beck is a writer and professor. Her memoir, “Cheap Cabernet: A Friendship,” will be published Oct. 6.
Coach’s call
More information on Peggy McColl and the Bestseller Coaching Program can be found at: .
