President of Outskirts Press

Cause marketing via social networking

In my last posting I discussed how the royalties from our Facebook Anthology are going to go toward a charitable donation. We leveraged our Facebook Fan base to submit the content for the anthology and also determine the charity itself. This is an example of how social networking can play a dominant role in cause marketing. We published a book, we grew our fan base, new authors got published for free, and a charity will receive the royalties. That’s the definition of win-win-win.

But how can you use social media in a cause marketing endeavor if you don’t publish books? Well, there are many examples across the Internet, and I can provide an example of what we’re doing at Outskirts Press. It’s still “in progress” (much like our Facebook Anthology is/was), but I guess that’s one of the “perks” of reading my blog: getting a sneak peek on behind-the scenes efforts while they’re still underway.

My wife Jeanine, who is the Chief Operating Officer at Outskirts Press, is competing in an upcoming Danskin Triathlon. Danskin accepts pledges for athletes, the proceeds for which are split between TeamSurvivor and the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Here are details about the Pledge Program: http://www.danskintriathlon.net/pledge_program.html

As the triathlon gets closer, and as Jeanine needs more motivation to get through her training schedule, we will post the pledge information across our various networks in the hopes that some members of our growing, and passionate, social community will want to socially participate in the fight against breast cancer. To “associate” your pledge with a specific athlete during the online pledge, please enter the name of the athlete exactly: Jeanine Sampson

Here’s to helping a great cause!

branding, ceo, publicity, self publishing a book, Social Networking Sites

Cause marketing, philanthropy, and charitable donations from book royalties

In past postings I have discussed Outskirts Press’ donations to organizations like Children’s Hospital, Make a Wish Foundation, the Education & Literacy Foundation, and others. And in the last posting I discussed more specifically our specific donations to the Colorado Humanities, and the publication of their Anthology, the royalties from which go in support of Colorado Humanities and the Center for the Book.

And this brings us to another way in which Outskirts Press seeks opportunities to give back to the community. Outside of purely philanthropic pursuits, or cause marketing tactics, donating the royalties of a book can serve two purposes: good will and good marketing. In our case, we will donate the royalties of book sales that come from the sale of our first Facebook Anthology, which is a collection of short stories, poems, and excerpts from our many Facebook Fans. We have been collecting contributions and submissions to the anthology since the first of the year on our Facebook page.

Then, on January 1oth we invited all our Facebook fans and blog readers to vote on the title of the book. Then, on January 12th, we opened the voting to determine the Charity that would receive the royalties. I still don’t know who “won.” It was our hope that by giving writers the opportunity to get published for free AND give to a worthwhile cause at the same time, interest in our Facebook Anthology would be high. That philosophy turned out to be correct. Our Facebook fan base shot past 1,000 fans almost literally overnight and continues to build.

Good deeds can become good marketing, or even, in this case, good marketing can turn into good deeds. We thank all our Facebook fans for their support. And I’m sure the “winning” charity will thank them as well.

branding, ceo, publicity

Cause marketing and corporate sponsorships

Over the past two years Outskirts Press has donated $15,000 to the Colorado Humanities and Center for the Book. They hold two annual literary contests: The Student Literary Awards, and the Colorado Book Awards, both sponsored by Outskirts Press.

In fact, today marks the deadline for the River & Words Poetry and Art contest, the winners of which are recognized at the Student Literary Awards. And the deadline for the Colorado Book Awards is January 15th. Visit the Colorado Humanities website for more information, to participate, donate, or join.

And just like that we have another example of the gray area between philanthropy and cause marketing. Yes, Outskirts Press’ donations to the Colorado Humanities have been for a good cause, and tax deductable. Yes, as a Colorado-based corporation, we join Colorado Humanities in their mission to inspire the people of Colorado to appreciate their diverse cultural heritage.

And, by sponsoring the events, getting signage at the events, logos on their websites, attending the events, and in all other ways partnering with Colorado Humanities throughout the year, this is a perfect example of cause marketing — a for-profit business collaborating with a non-profit to a mutually beneficial end. These benefits are both obvious ($15,000) and more subtle (numerous mentions throughout our social networks, including suggestions for donations – above).

Such collaborations can sometimes lead to exciting by-products. In this case, for example, last year’s publication of the 2010 Student Literary Awards Anthology – the royalties for which went to the Colorado Humanities and Center for the Book.

And speaking of book royalties going to charitable organizations, that is the topic for my next posting…

branding, ceo, marketing, partnerships, publicity

The difference between “cause marketing” and “philanthropy”

Or, I guess I should really call this posting “The little gray area between cause marketing and philanthropy.”

Cause marketing, basically, refers to a mutually beneficial relationship between a for-profit business and a non-profit organization. The term more broadly encompasses any marketing endeavors involving charitable causes. Philanthropy, on the other hand, simply involves a corporate donation to a non-profit charitable organization (usually tax deductible).

I mention this because in my mind Outskirts Press has always been a philanthropic organization that is also involved in cause marketing. I’m not sure I agree that the two terms are mutually exclusive, or perhaps, if they are, that simply demonstrates a lack of effort by the P.R. department of the philanthropic organization.

For example, you can donate thousands of dollars in books to the Children’s hospital — as Outskirts Press has done in the past through its involvement with the Children’s Literacy and Education Foundation — and that can be both a philanthropic act (a pure corporate donation), and can also fall within the definition of “cause marketing” once you mention the donation on a blog or among your social networks, since ostensibly, your company is marketing the good will among your clients or customers that results from charitable donations.

In our case we would typically write and distribute a press release about the donation. And we would take (and subsequently circulate across our social networks) a photograph of the red wheelbarrow full of books in front of the Children’s Hospital logo.

You see, philanthropy AND cause marketing. I have other examples I’ll discuss next, including our donations to the Colorado Humanities, and our upcoming Facebook Anthology – the royalties for which go to a charitable organization.

blogging, branding, marketing, self publishing, Social Networking Sites

Social Networking Sites

Outskirts Press has its sights set on social network publishing this January as we launch our first ever “Facebook Anthology” set for publication this quarter. This is an opportunity for our Facebook Fans to submit material for free publication, just for being an Outskirts Press Facebook Fan. In my last posting I referred to this as an “experiment” and it is one. In fact, any social networking initiative or engagement is something of an experiment because it evolves in real time, with real participation by real people. It’s impossible to duplicate that in advance within a “testing environment.”

Engaging in social networking sites was one of my New Year’s Resolutions last year and it continues to be equally important this year.

So we are launching our Facebook Anthology experiment this month and we don’t know how successful it will be, or how engaged we can get our Facebook Fans to be. But it looks promising so far. Since announcing the Anthology on January 1, our Facebook Fan base has increased by 10%. Now it remains to be seen how many fans actually submit material for the anthology. Of course, it doesn’t help that Facebook makes the submission process somewhat convoluted. You see, in an effort to engage the “social” part of this anthology, we wanted to encourage our fans to submit their material directly through Facebook (as opposed to submitting it to us via email, for example). But, as a result, submissions are victimized by Facebook’s character limitations:

A “Wall Posting” has a character limitation of 1,000 while a “Status Posting” has a character limitation of 420. Since our fans are only allowed to post “Status Updates” on our wall, that means their submission is limited to 420 characters — not very many at all.

So the solution to this was to encourage them to Post a “Status Update” announcing their submission, and then Comment on their own Status Update to submit their actual creative content. You see, for some reason, Facebook allows 8,000 characters in the comments section, even though the status posts are limited to 420. Why? That’s a question for Mark Zuckerberg. While this is relatively easy to do in practice, it sounds overly complicated when just reading about it on a blog posting. It’s my hope we can encourage our fans to participate by stressing the “free publication” part and the fun social aspects of this anthology. It’s a fun, free, fast way to get published by Outskirts Press — and perhaps will allow new authors the chance to “dip their toe” into the self-publishing pool to see how it feels.

It is also my hope that many of our Facebook fans will appreciate the opportunity to donate to a worthwhile charity. You see, the royalties of this Facebook Anthology are going toward a charity that our Facebook fans themselves will vote on. And more on that next time….

self publishing a book

The cost of self publishing a book

It always intrigues me when people are confused (or, oddly enough, sometimes even belligerent) about the fact that companies charge service fees for “things” that can be done directly at the source for less than what the company charges. For example, some people wonder why we charge $99 for something that can be done independently for less, with some knowledge and time. It makes me wonder if these people truly believe their car costs $25,000 to make.

It also reminds me of an old joke: This government manager was over-seeing a nuclear reactor when one of the warheads started to overheat. In fact, it got so critical that if something wasn’t done very soon to correct the problem, the warhead was going to explode, killing thousands of people! The manager opened the control panel but was confronted with a dizzying array of knobs, lights, and switches. So he called the contractor who had installed the warhead and asked for help. The contractor arrived and looked at the warhead for a moment and said, “I can solve this problem for you, and it’s going to cost $25,000.”

The warhead heated up some more. They were running out of time. In fact, the warhead was so hot, any wrong move would set it off. “Fine, fine,” the manager said. “Do whatever it takes. Just hurry!”

The contractor reached into the control panel and flipped one of the switches. The warhead returned to normal almost immediately. Crisis adverted. “That will be $25,000,” the contractor said. “I’ll send you a bill.”

“$25,000?!?” the manager screamed. “You didn’t do anything! All you did was flip a switch!”

The contractor calmly said, “Yes, that $25,000 is for knowing WHICH switch.”

You can build your own house, or you can pay a home builder with the know-how to do it for you. You can do your own taxes, or you can pay a service fee to an accountant with know-how to do it for you. You can publish your own book, or you can pay a service fee to a self-publishing firm with the know-how to do it for you. Some people want to be publishers. Others simply want to be published. And never the twain shall meet.

See you next year.

self publishing a book

Self Publishing in Denver

Every year, Outskirts Press hosts a local holiday party. With Author Reps, Title Production Supervisors, Project Managers, Editors, Illustrators, and Publishing Consultants all around the country (to best facilitate same time zones with our authors), not everyone can attend. In fact, only about half of our local people were able to get in this year’s picture — sometimes work takes priority as we we try to get as many books as possible published before Christmas.

This year’s party took place on December 14th, and this photo features:

Back row: Cindy, Margaret, Trinity, Lora, Donna, Caroline, Patrick, Ellen, Shirley, Brent
Front row: Jodee, Jeanine, Lynn, Tony

Sometimes it’s fun to look at photos from previous years, so here are some of the past ones… from 2009…

… 2008 …

… and 2007 …

… and 2006 …

No matter what year it is, Happy Holidays from Outskirts Press.

outskirts press scam

“Outskirts Press scam” posts revealed

I mentioned in a previous post that our most vocal critics are other publishers and competitors–hardly credible sources. Given our 99% author satisfaction rate, our authors’ comments are better sources for accurate information, as is examining 3rd party reviews of self-publishing companies and then averaging those scores to arrive upon a scale of the best firms according to a wide range of sources.

Perhaps you have even stumbled across an “outskirts press scam” topic or thread yourself without even trying, given Google’s own propensity to highlight rubber-necking results with their so-called “Google Suggest” functionality. I have discussed Google’s controversial functionality at some length in previous posts, where I demonstrated via Google screen shots that EVERYTHING is a scam according to Google, even Google.

So, congratulations! If you’ve stumbled upon this postings, you’re more than likely a victim of Google’s own manipulation — you didn’t even know you were looking for a scam until Google suggested it to you. But, if you take the time to read further into nearly any of the “scam” results Google presents for any company (whether it be for bottled water or shoes), you soon discover that you haven’t really discovered much of a scam at all.

In our case, a competitive publisher, who as far as I can tell has published less than 25 books (half of which are by the publisher herself), demonstrates her vested interest when she calls into question one of our book contests, which by the way isn’t even sponsored by us, but rather by the Colorado Independent Publishers Association. This posting, appearing on Gather.com, carries all the indicators of a questionable source that I have mentioned previously (i.e., it is written by a competitive publisher, the content is slanted and biased, the date of the posting is from 2007, and the content lacks accurate information since it wasn’t vetted for accuracy, as newspapers are).

Another posting/topic shares many of the same indicators of a questionable source. In this case, the blog was created by a small press publisher. The date of all its postings are from 2008 (in other words, 2.5 years ago!). And the content lacks accurate information (in fact, by its own admission, the content is 100% supposition) since it wasn’t vetted for accuracy, either.

It’s interesting, actually. Of the first page postings, half of the “scam” results are from competitive small presses who publish their own books, and are using this tactic to attract customers to their own business or products, since more people search for “Outskirts Press” than for their company. Heck, makes sense to me. If I was selling RC Cola, I’d write as much about Coke and Pepsi as I could. But even RC Cola can’t convince itself, much less anyone else, that it is superior to Coke or Pepsi.

Other scam postings appear because they are asking if Outskirts Press IS a scam on various Q & A sites (the answer is “no”) or because we have published many, many books on the topic of scams. “Scams” are a popular topic, in a supermarket tabloid sort of way.

And all this goes back to support my previous posting, which is… do your homework when conducting research online.

This blog posting about the legitimacy of Outskirts Press might also help.

outskirts press complaints, Uncategorized

“Outskirts Press complaints” posts revealed

I mentioned in a previous post that our most vocal critics are other publishers and, therefore, hardly credible sources. In fact, 99% of our authors love us, and we post many of their comments on our website here.

Perhaps you have even stumbled across an “outskirts press complaints” topic or thread yourself, even if you weren’t trying to, given Google’s own tendency to highlight negative results with their so-called “Google Suggest” functionality combined with humankind’s morbid curiosity for controversy. I have discussed Google’s controversial functionality at some length in previous posts. According to Google, everyone on the Internet complains about everything.

So, congratulations! If you’ve stumbled upon this postings, you’re more than likely a victim of Google’s own manipulation — you didn’t even know you were looking for complaints until Google suggested it. But, if you take the time to read further into nearly any of the “Google Suggestion” results Google presents for any company (whether it be for bottled water or shoes), you soon discover that you haven’t really discovered much controversy at all.

In our case, the top “Outskirts Press complaints” postings involves our Better Business Bureau information, which is not surprising since the BBB is all about consumer complaints. I’ll state frankly that I’m not a big fan of the BBB. Let me give you one reason why: One of our foreign authors registered 5 different complaints to the BBB because we take U.S. income tax out of his royalties (it’s a legal requirement). Same author, same issue, five different “Outskirts Press complaints” according to the statistics reported by the BBB. Another author registered multiple complaints because she was upset that her book, which featured 100 pages of 50-pound paper (the type of paper she requested), was “thinner” than my Self-Publishing book, which features 108 pages of 55-pound cream paper.

I believe in the case of the former, the author somehow believed the BBB would force us to break U.S. tax laws if he kept complaining to them. And in the case of the latter, I suppose she thought the BBB might be able to make her 512 PPI (pages-per-inch) paper as thick as my 441 PPI paper. Of course, the BBB isn’t able to force companies to break laws, and isn’t able to magically make paper “thicker.” So even with the involvement of the BBB, the customers were left unsatisfied and we were left unsatisfied, not only because we had 8 registered complaints instead of 2, but because we would have liked to have satisfied both of those authors if we could have.

It’s interesting, actually. Of the first page postings, a third of the “Outskirts Press complaints” results are from individuals who have started their own small presses. They discuss Outskirts Press in order to attract customers to their own business or products. It’s easy to understand why: More people search for “Outskirts Press” than for their company. It’s the same reason The National Enquirer writes more about Tom Cruise than Tom Arnold. People care about Tom Cruise; Tom Arnold — not as much.

And if you check the dates of the posts, they hold even less weight. One comes from 2008 (over 2 years ago) and another comes from April Fool’s Day.

“April Fool’s Day” has earned its namesake in the Internet age, with desperate individuals using the date as justification for posting false, fraudulent, and libelous claims. A competitor of Outskirts Press, for example, once distributed a press release on April Fool’s Day claiming that the Library of Congress needed to add another wing to accommodate the vast quantity of books being published by said competitor. Another company in our industry (this one not so much a competitor of Outskirts Press) claimed to have reached a deal with J.K. Rowling for the ebook rights to Harry Potter. Were both these press releases clever? Of course they were. But they muddy the waters in an already confusing industry and ultimately add to the confusion of the end customer/consumer/client (or author in this case), who may not realize that such a press release is a “joke.” Separating fact from fiction is hard enough on the Internet; companies don’t have to make it even harder one day out of the year.

And all this goes back to support my previous posting, which is… do your homework when conducting research online.