Apple, start-up

Guy Kawasaki Step 8 to Enchantment

At  the Inc. 500/5000 conference I attended last October, Guy Kawasaki offered an informative session about cultivating and maintaining “enchantment” in your customers or clients. Since then, I have been summarizing those points, off and on, and discussing how they are applicable for us at Outskirts Press so perhaps they can also help you apply the information to your own entrepreneurial efforts (starting a business, running a company or yes, even marketing a published book).

Step 8 is to use technology.

Once again Guy demonstrates his admiration for Apple, Inc. by creating a “Step to Enchantment” that is so reflective of what Apple does incredibly well.  Yes, last time I mentioned that Apple was all about presentation, which may have implied Apple values flash over substance.  On the contrary, Apple is one of those rare companies that actually delivers the substance (the technology in this case) to back-up the hype (their flash, their presentation).

With this step, Guy suggests that great companies can use technology to enchant their customers by smoothing over, and even removing, potential “speed bumps.”  A speed bump, of course, is anything that gets in the way of the customer having a flawless experience with that company’s product, service, or brand.  The Internet (and more recently, social media) has given all start-up businesses, as well as established enterprises, an equal opportunity to use technology to provide valuable information, insights, and assistance to their clients or customers.   What used to be a costly and time intensive exercise of direct-mail notification or phone calls can now be accomplished instantly via email or the company’s Facebook or Twitter pages; all the business needs to do is actually use these new technologies that are available to interact with their customers or clients — and let potential new customers or clients experience that dialogue transparently, in real time.

As technically sophisticated as our self publishing website is at Outskirts Press, I feel we could perform this step better.  It becomes more difficult to “use technology” effectively when a customer base spans the age groups between 8 and 80.  Apple is an amazing company with amazing technology simply because an eight year and an eighty year old can often have the same smooth, enjoyable experience with an Apple product (except when upgrading to mobile OS 6 deletes your cloud contacts and calendar, ugh, but I digress).  An 8-year-old can use our online system just fine. 80 year-olds, on the other hand, sometimes find the experience a little confusing.  Fortunately, we offer Publishing Consultants and then Author Representatives, who are available to walk every one of our clients through the entire process, not unlike the Apple clerks at your friendly neighborhood Apple retailer (except you don’t have to drive to our consultants to get the help you need).

 

Apple

Guy Kawasaki Step 7 to Enchantment

At  the not-so-recent Inc. 500/5000 conference I attended at the beginning of October 2012, Guy Kawasaki offered an informative session about cultivating and maintaining “enchantment” in your customers or clients. I am (and have been for several months) in the middle of summarizing those points and discussing how they are applicable for us at Outskirts Press so perhaps they can also help you apply the information to your own entrepreneurial efforts (starting a business, running a company or yes, even marketing a published book).  And, in the meantime, you should get Guy’s book, “Enchantment” for the total skinny.

Step 7 is to present.

What does this mean? It means that customers/clients become enchanted with companies and/or people who have learned the art of presentation. Again, Apple provides a very good example of this (it is almost as if Guy reverse-engineered everything he thinks Apple does “right” to arrive upon this list in the first place, because let’s face it — Apple is one hell of an enchanting company).  Everything Apple does is about presentation, from its commercials to its retail stores to the very boxes their products arrive in.  What other company can boast that its customers keep the BOXES of their products?  Apple’s presentation is so good, in fact, that its customers are liable to ignore (or quickly forgive) gross mistakes that would incite riots if perpetrated by lesser-liked companies (Apple Maps, anyone?).

Infographics are an example of presentation.  Rather than requiring a customer or client to read paragraph after boring paragraph, infographics boil the content down to a few graphs, charts, or images, easily digestible for those of us who have lost the ability to read and comprehend anything longer than 140-characters in this post-Twitter world. Videos are another example of presentation. Along with creating more infographics in 2013, Outskirts Press will be creating more videos — videos that “present” our company and some specific services in a fun, engaging way.  When those videos are done, I’ll share them here…

 

 

ceo

Guy Kawasaki Step 6 to Enchantment

Okay, here we are once again, back to the Guy Kawasaki speech at  the not-so-recent Inc. 500/5000 conference I attended at the beginning of October. Guy offered an informative session about cultivating and maintaining “enchantment” in your customers or clients. I am (and have been for several months) in the middle of summarizing those points and discussing how they are applicable for us at Outskirts Press so perhaps they can also help you apply the information to your own entrepreneurial efforts (starting a business, running a company or yes, even marketing a published book).  And, in the meantime, you should get Guy’s book, “Enchantment” for the total skinny.

Step 6 is to endure.

Easier said than done, right?  If starting a successful company is difficult, keeping one from going out of business is next to impossible. Being an “Apple Guy” (pun intended again), Guy refers to Apple, Inc. as a perfect example of this step.  Apple launched as a computer company at the dawn of the personal computer age and for a long time struggled to find its “place.”  Even while Bill Gates and Microsoft were “borrowing” the GUI interface of the Mac for their own Windows operating system, Apple was trying to compete against Windows in terms of providing office applications like spreadsheets, word processing, and databases. Unfortunately for Apple, Apple computers simply didn’t perform those tasks as well as Dos/Windows based systems.

Then along came desktop publishing, and Apple found its first niche. Guy said during the conference that if it hadn’t been for “desktop publishing” Apple would have gone out of business decades ago.  Wow! That’s an amazing thing to think about when one considers the valuation of Apple today — a 2-to-1 favorite to, perhaps one day, be the first company with a trillion dollar valuation. Yes, you could say Apple has endured.

So even if your business or book isn’t a blockbuster right out of the gate, persevere. Keep at it.  Your “aha moment” (or in Apple’s case, their “ipod moment”) could be just around the bend.

Outskirts Press is enduring, and yes, even thriving. We recently landed on the Inc. 500/5000 list for the 4th consecutive year and I spend a good portion of my time responding to investment companies and brokers who want to give us money that we don’t need.   All this in a tricky, passionate competitive environment where some of our competitors offer for free what we  charge money for. How do we do it?  The easy explanation is that some people drink tap water and some drink Perrier.  People are willing to pay for something that is better if they are informed of the advantages, particularly when it comes to what they put in their bodies, or how they publish the manuscripts they have spent a year or more writing.  That’s a long time and a lot of hard work to just simply “throw up onto the Internet” and hope it sticks. Most people realize their chances for success are greatly improved with professional help.

The more complicated explanation for how we do it has been covered over the course of this “Guy Kawasaki” series of posts about high-quality, customer service, and yes, enchantment.

Step 7 to follow…

self publishing, self publishing a book

Self Publishing 2013

Every January we update our “About Us” information with milestones we reached in the previous year and an update to our “Total Titles Published” chart.  Now that 2012 has come to a close and 2013 is underway, here’s our updated information about Outskirts Press:

Over ten years ago, Outskirts Press was founded as a better way for authors to write, publish, and market their books. Outskirts Press incorporated in Colorado in 2003, and through strategic partnerships, exemplary customer service, and unmatched quality, Outskirts Press quickly became the fastest-growing full-service book publishing and book marketing firm.

The years between 2004 and 2006 marked a growth rate in excess of 1,500%, an accomplishment that was recognized in July 2007 by The Denver Business Journal when Outskirts Press was honored to be the 3rd fastest-growing privately held company (in any industry) in Colorado.  By the end of 2006, Outskirts Press already had nearly 1,000 books in print,  all of them available worldwide through Ingram, Baker & Taylor, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble online, among others. And by the end of 2007, Outskirts Press more than doubled its title totals again.

In 2008 The Denver Business Journal once again recognized Outskirts Press as the fastest-growing publisher, and in fact, the fastest-growing privately held small-to-medium sized company in Colorado (in any industry), boasting growth of over 500% for the years between 2005-2007.

2009 and 2010 marked more new milestones, as well. In 2009 Outskirts Press published its 5,000th title and became the only self-publishing company to appear on the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing privately held companies.

In 2010, 2011, and 2012, Outskirts Press repeated its appearance on the Inc. 5000 list three more times, and became the only self-publishing company to appear on the list of top 5,000 fastest growing businesses in America for four straight years.

2012 also marked the 10-year anniversary of the company’s founding and the year it passed the milestone of 10,000 published books.

So how does Outskirts Press remain the fastest-growing full-service self publishing provider?

  • It begins with our Mission Statement: To exceed the expectations of every author we help publish.
  • It continues with our commitment to conservationism and recycling. Our most popular book sizes offer a recycled paper-stock option, featuring 30% post-consumer.
  • It grows with our authors.  Just ask Gang Chen, who earned over $100,000 in 180 days; or Sally Shields, the stay-at-home mom-turned-2-time Amazon.com bestseller; or Ronnie Lee, who has become one of the most prolific published authors of our generation with the assistance of Outskirts Press.

As we look toward the future, our commitment to produce high-quality books and offer high levels of support to our authors in all three phases of their journey (writing, publishing, marketing), only grows stronger.

For instance, we have embraced digital e-books with three a la carte digital publishing options:

 We have embraced social media to help our authors further promote their books:

And, we practice what we preach, publishing our own series of books to help authors navigate the sometimes tricky waters of book publishing and offering free publication in various anthologies through the year to showcase how easy, fast, and fun it can be to publish with Outskirts Press.

Through it all, Outskirts Press authors have remained our main focal point. With over 10,000 published titles, Outskirts Press continues to pour development dollars and resources into further improvements to the Outskirts Press website and its growing list of writing, publishing, and marketing services/products to further support our authors’ goals and dreams.

What does success mean to you? By any measure, you will find it here with Outskirts Press and we look forward to helping you on that journey.

Many of us, and some of our family members, took a moment during a summer picnic to pose…

publicity, search engine optimization

Self Publishing Simplified: How to publish a book the easy, high-quality way

Infographics are all the rage. They’re a fun, colorful way to present information in a way that is easy to absorb and also easy to share (which is important, given the emphasis on images placed by such social media channels as Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram).

What is an infographic?

According to Wikipedia, an infographic is a graphic visual representation of information, data or knowledge intended to present complex information quickly and clearly.

Below is an example of an infographic, in this case, a graphic representation of complex information (how to publish a book the easy, high-quality way).  One of the upsides to infographics is that they are easy to share on Facebook or Pinterest. The primary downside is that, with the exception of the alt tag, there is very little meta data available for search spiders to index. So even though this particular infographic has quite a few high-quality, effective search phrases for our self-publishing company at Outskirts Press, Google won’t recognize any of them.  But, perhaps that disadvantage is off-set by the potential “share-ability” of the graphic.   Or perhaps both those considerations are moot. Perhaps what is truly the most important is that this graphic clearly communicates many of the advantages of publishing with Outskirts Press in an easy-to-digest manner.  And that’s what potential customers and clients want from your product or service: easy answers to complex questions.  Voila — an infographic!

Self-Publishing Simplified: How to publish a book the easy, high-quality way

 

Brent Sampson, ceo

Guy Kawasaki Step 5 to Enchantment

Okay, back to the Guy Kawasaki speech at  the not-so-recent Inc. 500/5000 conference I attended at the beginning of October. Guy offered an informative session about cultivating and maintaining “enchantment” in your customers or clients. I am (and have been for 2 months) in the middle of summarizing those points and discussing how they are applicable for us at Outskirts Press so perhaps they can also help you apply the information to your own entrepreneurial efforts (starting a business, running a company or yes, even marketing a published book).  And, in the meantime, you should get Guy’s book, “Enchantment” for the total skinny.

Step 5 is to overcome resistance.

The easiest way to overcome a potential customer’s resistance to use your service or product is to provide social evidence that other people are using it and enjoying it– that it is helping other people and/or solving their problems. Facebook is a great way to provide social proof or “likeability.” In fact, Facebook has a “like” button for exactly this purpose.  At the time of my writing this (January 8, 2013), Outskirts Press has nearly 8,000 “likes” on our Facebook page (7,943, to be precise, but who’s counting?).   When authors visit our Facebook page, they are greeted by a friendly, helpful, upbeat community comprised of their peers, many of whom have successfully published with Outskirts Press and are excited with their high-quality book!  That is social evidence in a nutshell.

But don’t just rely upon Facebook. Customer testimonials are tried and true, and offer compelling social evidence that other, real people, are using your product and service with great results.  Weight loss products and services have been using this tactic for years, although they lose a lot of their credibility when they have that little disclaimer at the bottom stating “Results are not typical.”   Why not share lots and lots of typical comments instead?

That’s what we do with our author testimonials. We have been publicly sharing two new author testimonials each week for as long as I can remember on the testimonials page of our website, and to be frank, our testimonials are “backing up,” which means two per week isn’t frequent enough.  So starting in January, we are increasing that output to four new author testimonials every week.  Sharing the successes of others with your new potential clients or customers is a great way to overcome their resistance, and a great way to enchant them.

 

Brent Sampson, ceo, self publishing

A Self-Publishing Holiday Retrospective 2006-2012

In the days since Christmas I have been showing Outskirts Press holiday party pictures from the past. I began with our most recent 2012 holiday picture on Christmas and yesterday showed the picture from the 2007 holiday lunch. That brings us to today, New Year’s Eve, and to our very first holiday picture, taken way back in 2006. Yes, as I mentioned yesterday, there are some familiar faces: Tony, Shirley, Jeanine, Brent, Ellen, Lora, and Lynn.

Of course, attending a holiday party has very little to do with the talents and efforts all of us at Outskirts Press bring to our authors every day. We have so many additional people who help our authors (over 100), many of whom are not in any of these pictures and all of whom contribute just as much as those who have been shown and mentioned over the past few days.  The list is too long to include everyone, so just know that from Wendy to Cheri to Heidi to Jodee to Tina, Elise and Patrick; from Lisa to Jennifer, Jackie, Elizabeth, Heather, and everyone else, Outskirts Press authors are in very good hands.

So to all of you who have contributed your skills to seeing our Outskirts Press authors succeed and to seeing our self-publishing company excel, I thank you, and wish you and your family a happy holiday and a Happy New Year.  And to our authors, past, present, and future, I also wish you a Happy New Year. Let’s all continue to accomplish great things in 2013!

ceo, self publishing

A Self-Publishing Holiday Retrospective 2007-2012

Two more days to go in 2012 and in our self publishing holiday retrospective, where I have been examining our Outskirts Press holiday pictures from the past years. Back in 2007, we held our second annual holiday party, and the “usual suspects” were already well represented: Tony, Cindy, Lora, Ellen, Shirley, Brent, Lynn, Jeanine.

Tony is a board member (and my dad), so his consistency is perhaps not all that surprising. And of course I’m going to be in every picture (although,  I’m a few pounds lighter in this one).  Lynn (next to me, second from the right in the back row)  is not only my mother but is also the CFO/CTO of the organization. And Jeanine’s (furthest to the right) contributions to Outskirts Press over the years cannot be measured or overstated (plus, she is my wife, and that can’t be easy). So the four family members of this family-owned company are a stable foundation.

But let’s examine the other amazing women who have been in every picture since 2007…

Cindy S. (back row, third from the left) offers an amazing combination of creativity and technical know-how, which is a necessary, but rare, combination of talents that is integral to book publishing. In addition to being one of our most talented and sought-after cover designers, Cindy has performed spec checks on images and print-ready PDF files to ensure their technical specification and compliance for high-quality publication. All of that is a fancy way of saying she’s one of the reasons Outskirts Press books look so amazing and win so many awards. Thank you, Cindy.

Lora G. (back row, fourth from the left) has been sharing her amazing skills with Outskirts Press authors almost since the very beginning (you will see her tomorrow in the 2006 photograph, as well). And she’s done just about everything around here. She was among the first author representatives, among the first title production supervisors, and among the first production managers. And even today, when vacation time or scheduling requires it, she can still complete any of those tasks for our authors without missing a beat; although more recently our CFO/CTO has been occupying the majority of Lora’s skills with “number-crunching” tasks related to our analytics and advertising.  All of that is a fancy way of saying that Lora is one of the reasons Outskirts Press has been on the Inc. 5000 list four years in a row. Thank you, Lora.

Ellen N. (back row, fifth from the left in the green turtleneck sweater) has been sharing her talents with Outskirts Press almost since the beginning, too (you will also see her in the first holiday picture from 2006). And she’s still doing just about everything around here. She’s performed every task in the busy production department from author representation to title production supervisor to production manager to quality control supervisor and upload facilitator. She facilitates every hard copy submission (and there’s an unbelievable volume of that, even though publishing is well within the digital age by now).  So if you mail it to us, Ellen touches it.  In fact, if you publish it with us, it’s likely Ellen has touched it.  All of that is a fancy way of saying that she is one of the reasons Outskirts Press publishes between 100-200 books every single month. Thank you, Ellen.

Shirley P. (back row, fifth from the right) has been working with Outskirts Press since the beginning. When Lynn became the CFO/CTO in 2004, Shirley was the first person to lend a hand. We have wanted her to oversee entire departments, but Shirley’s work/life balance is exactly where she wants it – she goes on incredible trips every year and when she’s not exploring the planet, she contributes to our financial and technical sides in a way I admittedly can barely comprehend. I rarely understand her emails since she’s smarter than me, so I often just find myself saying, “Yes, Shirley,” and — wouldn’t you know it? — everything turns out perfectly.  All of that is a fancy way of saying Shirley is awesome, and we couldn’t be doing any of this without her. Thank you, Shirley.

Of course, everyone involved with Outskirts Press  (including those who have been unable to attend the parties but still bring their talents and skill sets to our authors) are very much appreciated and valued. Thank you to them all. For instance, Lisa C. (back row, 4th from the right) still evaluates every digital submission for “publishability” and Deni S. (front row, 1st on the left) is still helping our authors as an author representative; Heidi J. (front row, 2nd from the left) continues to almost single-handedly handle the complex (and sometimes stressful) post-publication revisions department; and Kelly S. (front row, furthest on the right) in the years since this picture was taken has risen to the role of Vice President and in 2012 has almost single-handledly allowed me to take some time off. Thank you, thank you, thank you, one and all.

Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve and we’ll finish this self publishing retrospective with our very first holiday picture, taken way back in 2006…

Uncategorized

A Self-Publishing Holiday Retrospective 2008-2012

Yes, I am still in the middle of the Guy Kawasaki series of postings focusing on his “10 Steps to Enchantment” speech that I heard during the Inc. 500/5000 conference in Phoenix this past October. I will get back to that in the new year.  In the meantime we are currently looking at holiday pictures from the present and past to get a “snapshot” of the people and accomplishments of Outskirts Press over the years.  There are many familiar faces year in and year out, and the 2008 image is no different:

Even in this small, intimate gathering from 2008 you see faces that have attended each and every holiday party since (2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012): Cindy, Tony, Donna, Brent, Shirley, Patrick, Ellen, Lynn, and Jeanine. And the other faces (Heidi, Karl, Michele) were in 2009 and will be in the past years to come (if that makes sense).

best self publishing, self publishing a book

A Self-Publishing Holiday Retrospective 2009-2012

All this week leading into the new year I am comparing the annual Outskirts Press holiday luncheon pictures of year’s past as a sort of short-form retrospective of the folks at Outskirts Press who make thousands upon thousands of authors’ dreams come true every year.  Of course, it should be noted that these pictures never offer a comprehensive glance of ALL the talented editors, illustrators, formatters, cover designers, and other folks involved with Outskirts Press year in and year out; if it did, these photographs would feature more than 100 people each year.  With what many authors would call “round the clock” support, and with a production pipeline containing between 300-500 titles at any given time, you can imagine the difficulty inherent in even getting 20 people together during a work day all at once.  Plus, we have people who work across the country, which makes it even harder to coordinate get-togethers like this one:

We did better in 2009 with our largest gathering to date. Yes, you’ll recognize many of the same people from 2012, 2011, and 2010, including from the back row: Caroline, Ellen, Cindy, Patrick, Shirley, Donna; Middle row: Tony, Tanya, and the front row: Jeanine, Lynn, Brent, and Lora.  Other faces you see here will become more and more familiar as we keep going back in time during this week-long self-publishing retrospective…

I should also mention that 2009 was the year we published our 5,000th book.  You may remember that we published our 10,000th book in 2012. We started publishing books in 2003 (I started the company in 2002 but we didn’t publish other books or incorporate until 2003). So in other words, it took the first 7 years to publish our first 5000 books and only the past 3 years to publish our second 5000 books. That is an explosion of growth!  To say that we were (and still are) in the midst of a self-publishing revolution (and revelation) would be an understatement.