Way back in 1991, when my organizing business was already 8 years old, I spotted an offer for a free copy of a booklet called "117 Ideas For Better Business Presentations" . Well, because I do business presentations, and because
price was right, I sent for it. My first reaction was, 'geez, I could knock something like this out about organizing tips.' Then I threw it in a drawer. Six months later I was sitting in my office, bored, baffled and beaten down by difficulty of selling my consulting services and workshops in a slow economy. I had no money. I mean no money!
I remembered that little booklet. I had no idea how I was going to do it, but something hit me, and I knew I had to produce a booklet on organizing tips.
I started dumping all those ideas I ever had about getting organized onto a file on my computer. These were all pearls that came out of my mouth when I was with clients or when I did a speaking engagement or a seminar. I could do one booklet on business organizing tips and another on household organizing tips. Two 16-page tips booklets, each fitting into a Number 10 size envelope. The first one was '110 Ideas for Organizing Your Business Life' and second one '111 Ideas for Organizing Your Household'.
My first run was 250 copies. That was most expensive per-unit run I made, but I had to get samples to distribute to start making money. It took a few months to pay printer only $300.
The only way I could think of selling booklets was by sending a copy to magazines and newspapers, asking them to use excerpts and put an invitation at bottom for readers to send $3 plus a self-addressed stamped envelope. I had no money to advertise. Then orders started dribbling in, envelopes with $3 checks in them or 3 one-dollar bills. This was great stuff. I remember day first one arrived. It was like manna from heaven:$3! Of course, fact that it took about 6 months from first starting to write booklet until first $3 arrived somehow didn't matter at that moment.
I cast seeds all over place, hoping that some would sprout. I found directories of publications at library and started building my list.
Finally, February of 1992 'the big one' hit. A 12-page biweekly newsletter with 1.6 million readers ran nine lines of copy ABOUT my booklet. They didn't even use excerpts!! That sold 5000 copies of my booklet. I distinctly remember day I went to my P.O. box and found a little yellow slip in my box. It said, 'see clerk'.
There was a TUB of envelopes that had arrived that day, about 250 envelopes as I recall, all with $3 in them.
In April, that same biweekly newsletter ran a similar nine lines about my household booklet, starting all over again. This time I sold 3000 copies.
Round about June, I stopped and assessed what had happened. Was I making any money? By then, I had sold about 15,000 copies of business and household organizing tips booklets one copy at a time for $3. When I checked my financial records, I realized I had tediously generated not a ton of money.
And some of lessons I had learned along way were expensive ones. I didn't realize my bank was charging me $.12 for each item deposited until I got my first bank statement with a service charge of $191.
Some very wonderful things happened while selling those 15,000 copies though.
* A public seminar company ordered a review copy to consider building another product from my booklet. They did, and I recorded an audio program based on booklet. I can sell that tape to my clients as well and it led to a 20-minute interview on a major airline's inflight audio programming during November and December one year.
* I was sorting through envelopes, ...$3, $3, ,$1000, $3,..... wait a minute. Well, a manufacturer's rep decided to send my booklets to his customers that year instead of an imprinted calendar.
* A company asked me to write a booklet that was more specific to their product line.
* I got paid speaking engagements from people who bought booklet.
* I found out that list of people who bought my booklet was a saleable product.
Things were starting to pick up. So, back to June and taking stock of where I was. You know those advertising card decks in mail? Well, that day in June I was so bored, I opened one. Glancing through it, I said, 'jeez, here's a company that oughta see my booklet. And here's another one, and another one.' I sent booklets to each.
Less than a week later, a woman called. At first, it sounded like a prospecting call. Fortunately, I wasn't too abrupt with her. She was calling to ask me cost of 5000 customized copies of my booklet for an upcoming trade show. She wanted to know if I could match a certain price.
