Tag: promotions

self publishing, self publishing a book

Celebrate the 4th of July by saving 20%

For the past several posts I’ve been discussing the NEW Outskirts Press with all new packages starting August 1. But as the thousands and thousands of satisfied authors who have published with Outskirts Press since 2002 can attest, the “old” packages are pretty stellar, too.  And right now is your best, last chance to get your best deal on the best publishing packages in the industry, with our explosive 20% discount extravaganza!

Outskirts Press helps authors develop and publish high-quality books by offering exceptional design, printing, publishing, distribution, and book marketing services. Top Consumer Reviews ranks us #1 because we deliver outstanding customer service, affordable pricing, industry-leading royalties, and a team of hands-on, US-based publishing experts (many of whom are writers themselves). In short, we take the complexity and guesswork out of publishing, and our passion is helping you publish the book of your dreams.

This 4th of July holiday, Outskirts Press is making it easier and more affordable than ever to start publishing! Today you can receive an instant 20% discount when you choose to publish with our industry-leading Diamond publishing package or our full-color Pearl publishing package.

Both packages include a personal publishing team who will help you through the process, answer your questions and help you to publish the book of your dreams.

The Diamond and Pearl packages include:

 

  • Worldwide distribution and order fulfillment
  • Online sales through Amazon and Barnes & Noble
  • Interior formatting
  • ISBN and bar-coding
  • Keep 100% of your rights & royalties
  • Much, much more

When you start your publishing journey from July 1 – July 5, you’ll receive a 20% discount when you purchase the Diamond or Pearl package! Simply enter the promotion code SAVE20 during check out. It’s that easy!

best self publishing

Biggest self-publishing promotion of the year

On July 1st we launched our biggest self-publishing promotion of the year at Outskirts Press — an opportunity to save $200 or more instantly on our most popular publishing package, the Diamond. In the years past where we have offered this discount, is has proven to be our most popular.

 

 

Holding “4th of July” events is a mainstay in America commerce, as evidenced by all the car commercials and retail store specials you’re doubtlessly being bombarded with.  This is a week when people’s attentions are generally elsewhere (outside, BBQing, boating, camping, swimming, being with family, and watching fireworks, etc.).  In an effort to maintain monthly “cash flow” many companies and businesses historically “sweeten the pot” to lure customers and clients to their places of business even during this holiday where Americans, at large, are too busy having fun outside to be inside buying things.  It must work. Year after year, you see the same car commercials and retail store specials.

Our July promotion certainly works for us.  Unlike some of our competitors who artificially inflate their prices just so they can offer 50% discounts all the time, our black/white packages are packed with value and already in the sub-$1000 range. We do not have $13,000 packages simply so aggressive, commission-based sales people can sell them for $6,500 and call it a “50% discount.”  Doing such things ultimately undermines the true value of your services, affecting the long term credibility of your business.

At Outskirts Press, our self-publishing packages have remained consistently value-packed and economically priced for years, and we expend a good amount of effort communicating that value with our clients through various channels like phone, email, and social media channels.  As a result, many writers come to recognize Outskirts Press as their self-publisher of choice.  For many, it’s simply a matter of timing — having a manuscript that is ready to go at the same time the price is achievable.  It is our hope our 20% discount in July helps many more authors reach their publishing goals.  An instant savings of $200 (or more if they choose our full color Pearl package) certainly does help.

We are able to offer this deep discount (it’s deep for us), not because we artificially inflate all our prices to accommodate a huge discount, and not because we undercut the value of the discounted packages, but because we are confident that the majority of authors who publish with Outskirts Press once will choose to publish with us again and tell many of their friends about their great experience.   If the daily author testimonials being posted are any indication, that seems to be working, too.

Happy 4th of July everybody!

 

self publishing a book

Self Publishing Love

For the second year in a row, Outskirts Press held a “Share the Love” video promotion around Valentine’s Day where we invited our authors to submit a “Video Valentine” showing off their books. We received a lot of great submissions, tabulated the Facebook “Likes” of many of them on our Facebook page, and from those “likes” arrived upon three finalists to participate in a public poll at the SelfPublishingNews.com blog.  The author of the video receiving the most votes in the public poll would win a free laptop computer.

When the votes were counted, the finalist was announced on March 1, and Tommy Baker, author of Santa Clause The Fourth Wise Man, walked away with a free computer with this video. Congratulations, Tommy!

 

Apple

Cyber Monday at Outskirts Press

Since we’re currently in the middle of a series of posts about Guy Kawasaki (the proclaimed “evangelist of Apple), it’s not too far removed to take a small intermission today to mention the “Cyber Monday” special we are offering at Outskirts Press on one of our Apple options. In this case, the option is our iPad/iPhone Premium Edition e-book option, which includes a private label ISBN and iBooks distribution.

Since Cyber Monday deals have to be huge, we’re offering a whopping 50% on this popular option for one day only (today) with the promotion code CYBERAPPLE entered in during check-out.   This is an option we offer to all others, regardless of whether they have published their book with Outskirts Press or elsewhere (or haven’t yet published their book at all and want to enter the e-book game), so it really represents a great opportunity for all authors.  If your book isn’t yet on the iPad and distributed through iBooks, this is your chance to make it happen, and enjoy an amazing discount at the same time.  All the details are on our Outskirts Press blog by clicking here.

self publishing

Best of December promotion

Last December Outskirts Press ran a promotion looking for the “Best Manuscript of December” where the winning author will receive not only a full credit of their publishing package cost, but an additional 10% as well.

According to our manuscript evaluation department and author services team (the front-end folks), it was very successful and resulted in a LOT of manuscript submissions. I always say a discount or a promotion is never the ONLY reason to use a company, but it can sometimes help those “on the fence” take action. The idea, of course, is to combine the benefits of your business or company, overall, with the urgency of the promotion.

Our manuscript evaluation team then narrowed down ALL the manuscripts we received in December from authors who began their publishing package during the promotion dates and from that list provided me with 12 very high-quality manuscripts to review.  Yes, from ALL the manuscripts that were submitted, 12 made it to the second round, and let me tell you, these were 12 excellent manuscripts!

The idea of this process was not only to identify and reward a very talented author, but to also imitate the selection process of traditional publishers, as harsh as it is.  These 12 manuscripts from among all the submissions represents a much larger “statistical likelihood” than an unsolicited manuscript finding success with being sent to a traditional publisher or agent.

The next step was very closely reviewing these 12 manuscripts to narrow them down even further.  The 12 “second round” manuscripts literally came from all four corners of America — ranging from California to Connecticut, New York to Texas — and the globe.

It was challenging narrowing down the 12 to a more manageable 6.  They were all very, very good.  Now we have arrived at 6 “finalists.” 

3 fiction and 3 non-fiction.

Since they were all submitted in December, some of them are already published, but until all 6 finalists are published, we cannot move forward with the judging. Here’s why…  While there’s no doubt the strength of the writing is very important, other factors contribute to an overall successful book — not the least of which is being a professional author who has a “platform” on which to jump-start marketing efforts after publication.   But we also want to view the published book “as a whole” including its cover, the back copy text, the author’s webpage, marketing tactics being put forth, etc.

This also imitates the process of a conventional publishing process, where the publisher or agent is almost always as equally interested in the author as the manuscript. “How easy is this author going to be to work with? How professional is she?  How much marketing muscle can he bring to the table?”  Etc.

Once all 6 books are published, I’ll touch upon this again.

self publishing

Find the pot of gold

One of the promises I made to myself when I started this blog at the first of the year was that I was going to try to “reveal” some inside stuff since that is probably an expectation when reading a blog from a CEO.  When I discussed this topic in a previous posting, I mentioned the dilemma such a goal produces: revealing interesting enough stuff without jeopardizing either  the interests of our company or our authors.  It’s a hard line to walk.

But today presents me with a perfect opportunity!  On St. Patrick’s Day we’re offering a 1-day promotion and I’m announcing it here first.  Authors who order their book publishing package during St. Patrick’s Day and include the following promotion code at the time of check-out, will receive a 20% instant discount on either the Diamond or Pearl full-color  publishing packages.

PROMO CODE:  PADDY2010

 Talk about finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow! An instant discount worth either $199 if you publish with the Diamond, or $219 if you publish with the Pearl.

Click here to publish your book