Still, there are certain steps one can take that will increase one’s odds of success: the right combination of bait and tackle or the right look matched with the right song. The same is true of writing a successful book. While there is no guarantee of success, taking certain steps can help make success more likely.

In his candid post “The Author’s Dilemma – Why Most Business Books Suck,” John Greathouse explains why in his opinion most business books aimed at entrepreneurs aren’t very good, or very useful. By “reverse engineering” his reasons why these books fail to achieve their purposes, we can identify the positive traits that a good book should have.

“Why do most business books suck?” Greathouse asks. His answer: “In many cases, the relevant content of business books could be summarized in fewer than five pages.” So thin content is a problem, and a successful book might contain more meat and fewer trimmings.

Greathouse reminds authors that entrepreneurs need “tactical guidance,” not lofty corporate strategy. They don’t have time to read thick tomes, much less the attention span. The takeaway: make sure your content is suited to your audience. “The business world” is a big place where everyone from the owner of a small plumbing company to the CEO of General Electric dwells. Know which one of them is meant to read your book.

Greathouse also bemoans the large numbers of “formula” business books: the parable (for example, Who Moved My Cheese?), the biography (Winning, by former GE CEO Jack Welch), or the historical novel (the marketplace is overloaded with books at the moment about how Wall Street’s excesses precipitated the 2008 recession). Formulas are popular because they work; however, a smart author may look at the marketplace, ascertain what kinds of books are missing from it at the moment, and direct their effort toward filling a niche.

But just having a good book that avoids Greathouse’s pitfalls may not be enough. RainToday.com surveyed 200 authors and found that the number of books sold was directly related to how much help the author received. According to their website,

4,500 Median number of copies sold of the first book that an author wrote where the author did notuse a book publicity or marketing service

5,000  Median number of copies sold of the first book an author wrote where the author did notuse a book agent

10,000  Median number of copies sold of the first book an author wrote where the author did use a book publicity or marketing service

12,000  Median number of copies sold of the first book an author wrote where the author did use a book agent

If you blend these numbers with Greathouse’s ideas, the winning strategy is to write a good book, sold to a publisher by an agent and marketed well by a professional publicity or marketing service. Will this guarantee success? Again, no one truly knows the cosmic forces that align to make the 1969 Mets World Series winners, and the New York Yankees, with baseball’s highest payroll, frequent losers at crunch time. But one thing is certain: doing the right things will increase your odds of success substantially.

Two other examples of these “illuminated texts” include “Tree of Codes,” which dissects “The Street of Crocodiles,” a collection of stories published in 1934 by Bruno Schulz, leaving behind literal holes where text used to be, and the most recent issue of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, a literary journal which is packaged as a box shaped liked a man’s head. Inside, editor Brian McMullen asks “What would your head look like inside?”

Of course, none of this artistic embellishment is possible in an e-book. But such embellishments aren’t necessarily new, either, nor are they just a response to the “quick and dirty” world of e-publishing. One pop culture example that comes to mind is from the sitcom Seinfeld: Kramer’s coffee table book that was actually a tiny coffee table with fold-out legs.

Still, books like these do cause us to stop and ask a few important questions: just what are authors writing, anyway? Books? Or is a book just a physical container for words, and is what writers are actually creating stories, essays, and novels? The music industry went through a similar problem of semantics when vinyl albums gave way to cassette tapes and then CDs in the 1980s and 1990s. The problem came to head when music went mega-portable in the 21^st century.

For decades, artists released music in “albums,” which was literally an album in the dictionary sense: a folding paperboard book with an artistic cover, literature inside that may have included lyrics or a folded wall poster, and a sleeve that contained the vinyl record itself.

When cassettes and CDs came along, the package was still an album of sorts, albeit a much smaller one. The elaborate and often beautiful cover art was smaller but still present, and there was still room for a tiny folded booklet and lyrics. But it was a far cry from the giant, pizza-box sized packaging of the vinyl LP that was an artistic creation and statement in and of itself.

The final blow was struck with the advent of the iPod and the sale of individual songs for $0.99 each. Gone in all but the most superficial form was the album art, the liner notes, the posters, the ordering of songs and the musical flow that musicians and record producers once created, when playing music was a linear experience defined by placing a needle on a plastic disc and flipping it over after four or five songs. While Beatles fans who first heard Sgt. Peppers on vinyl instinctively know that “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” follows “With a Little Help from My Friends,” today’s music fans may never own an entire release from a current artist, much less listen to it from start to finish. And what to call these new recordings? Albums? Records? Those terms are antiquated and recall a physical, analog era.

No doubt the book publishing industry is experiencing the same growing pains, but 30 years after it began in the music publishing world. Is there room in the future for creative, artistic, hard-copy books like those published by Siglio Press? If history is any guide, the answer is yes. Even while iTunes makes millions on dollar downloads, musicians still produce special editions of their music—multiple-CD boxed collections that contain hefty books, posters and photos, often to commemorate an anniversary or a tour. And with hi-definition TV and home theater systems becoming commonplace, these collections are even taking the form of DVDs: entire concerts in a collector’s edition box, filmed in crystal clear high-definition and recorded in Dolby 7.1 surround sound. These leather-bound, gilded collections of ear candy for die-hard music fans are truly the audio equivalent of the “slow read.” If anything in the music world offers hope for those passionate about the physical printed book, it’s this.

An important step in creating a website for your book is to pick the domain name. Unless you’re a famous author like James Patterson (www.jamespatterson.com) or Nicholas Sparks (www.nicholassparks.com), you probably don’t want to use your own name for the domain name. Rather, use descriptive keywords for your domain name. For example, author Thomas Lawson recently wrote a book titled Carl Jung: Darwin of the Mind. Rather than using his own website to publicize the book (the rather mundane www.ttlawson.com), he chose www.jungdarwinbook.com. This name is ideal because not only is it unique, but it will show up well in many search engines, and automatically lets the viewer know what the site is all about.

What should your website include? Here is a list of features that will interest potential book buyers and encourage them to click “add to cart”:

• Pictures of the front and back covers

• Excerpts from the book

• Blog

• Information about the author
• Reviews and press coverage
• Information on other books you may have written
• Links to order the book, either from your site directly, or from an online bookstore
• Podcasts or videos of you talking about or reading from the book

Your website tells your fans what you’re up to, where you’ll be signing books next, or answers questions from fans and followers. You can discuss the details of your manuscript, your career, new projects and other interesting ideas.

A Facebook presence is a must too and can tie in neatly to your website. It’s just one more way to interest more people in your book.

Remember, the goal is to sell your book! Tell your potential readers why your book is different, new, newsworthy, unique, fun, entertaining and/or informative. Use a theme that sets the mood: if your book is about 18th-century colonial America, think sepia-tone, parchment, calligraphy and quill pens. If it’s a cutting-edge business self-help book, think the colors of business (whites, blacks, blues, greens), bold lines, thick, solid text and successful-looking, smiling faces. A murder mystery? Dark! Blacks, blood reds,  icey blues and bone whites.

While no website can sell very many copies of a so-so book, a great website paired with an engaging read can make the difference between ho-hum sales and a chart topper. Want to learn more? Call or e-mail Trade Press Services today.

The popular PBS children’s show Reading Rainbow was canceled recently due to a lack of funding. It ended a 26-year run with host LeVar Burton (you may know him as Star Trek’s Geordi LaForge or Roots’ Kunta Kinte) during which the show taught children that reading could be a lot of fun.

A recent AP/Ipsos poll found that in 2007, one in four Americans didn’t even crack a book.

Around the country, newspapers are going under as subscribership drops and advertising revenues dry up.

Is the evidence overwhelming? Is reading…dead? And perhaps a more important question for you, the business leader: Is it worth spending your advertising dollars on print media? In short, yes.

Reading isn’t dead—not even close. Information is as important as ever. Today, the ability to rapidly consume, digest, and act on information is perhaps the most important skill an executive can possess.

Reading Rainbow wasn’t canceled because reading isn’t important. It was canceled because the Dept. of Education wanted to focus their funding on the how of reading—spelling, phonetics, grammar—and not so much on the why. Americans’ reading habits have bounced all over the charts over the years. And while newspapers are going away, real-time information sources on the Internet are exploding.

How do trade publications fit into this mix? For most industries, trade journals are still the top source of industry-specific news. Increasingly, print is being supplemented with the web, which can serve as an online archive for printed journals, a way to expand and enhance printed content, and a convenient way to provide timely, brief news updates.

But in the end, it’s the content that matters, regardless of how it’s delivered to your brain. Trade Press Services can help you position yourself and your company as subject matter experts whatever the media type. Call or e-mail us today to learn more.