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Victoria Human Exchange Society (VHES) 2/11/2009 2:11:59 PM
As you all know, I am donating all 1st year profits of each volume of the,'The City of Gardens Collection'to VHES to aid them in their fight against homelessness. I did a financial forecast for this year and I am very disappointed that these efforts are no where near to what I wanted to do. The amount greatly varies to the effectiveness of my advertising. Generally, advertising only generates a 2% response. With the hard times ahead of us, this will greatly affect how people want to spend their money. In my case, I must advertise or face a 0% response. 2% is better than nothing.
There are ways to increase this response as to what your product is and how will your customer will benifit from this purchase? This new book that is now out has the subject content that is very relevant to what is happening in Victoria, BC, Canada.
Mental illness, addiction and homelessness was a very hot topic last year. As the time passed on, 2009 has geared down in awareness. This publication has come out at a time that the city needs to keep this topic alive in the city.
The five year plan to house and support $1,550 homeless people within five years is greatly jeopardized by this slowdown.
I am using,'The City of Gardens Collection' to act as a voice from the system directly to the people. There is no evident relationship or communication between these two bodies.
This is where the books would fill this void. Interest is always stirred by controversy. 'The City of Gardens: The Other Side of the Fence' certainly has that.
The whole province is heavily influenced by these conditions giving it a wide appeal to a general audience. The front cover is very provocative and powerful which is complimented by a strong confirmation on the back.
All these characteristics will have an affect on responses. If done right with careful planning, this in all likelyhood could increase the percentage.
Most campaigns fail due to the fact that the procuct is actually on the market. Being a self-bublished book, it does not have the exposure as compared to a conventional publication. It is up to the author to take the news to the streets.
Radio has limited coverage which literature is only covered by information and talk radio stations. The target audiences range from middle age to seniors.
Television has a wider audience which have the influence of being visually stimulating and immediate , especially for the local news whose audience is general.
Establishining working relationships with these media outlets can be very difficult. Even getting a newspaper article is not an easy task to accomplish. The best advertisement is free. If you are able to establish these working relationship, the price is right and the coverage is most imppressive.
Again, self-published authors are usually overlooked by the media. It is least to say that this closes the doors on a lot of people. Paid advertisement with these mediums are very expensive and limited. Most individuals cannot affort this form of promotion.
Unfortunately, paid advertisement is usually the only way to get the information out. Many people are not aware of an advertisement that is cost effctive as well as targeting specialized areas making your efforts target only those who are more probable to respond.
Flyers are fairly inexpensive to print, especially in black and white. Distribution is targeted to only areas you chose. Your city most likely has a community newspaper publisher that prints various papers covering different communities throughout the province.
Contact your local community paper to arrange distribution of usually 5,000 flyers in a targeted area. Your flyer can be distributed in the community paper for under $300.00. The printing is usually under $500.00.
This is the cheapest and most effective form of publicity for a self-published author. You already spent thousands of dollars on your project, what is another thousand going to hurt? It is no use of writing a book if you don't plan to promote it. It would be a big waste of time and money.
This is the least expensive bill that you had to pay in developing your book. The fact is there will be responses, but it is you who controls the outcome. You get back what you put into it.
It is true that word of mouth is the best way to advertise; however, this depends if your book is worth talking about. Let's say it is, this will only happens if people know that it exists. This is where inexpensive advertising will most effectively benifit you.
If you target a hotspot in your city like the downtown core, there is a high likelyhood that the news will generate outward to the surrounding areas.
The beauty of this plan is that you only have to put out of pocket money only once to cover the province. Even at 2%, this will cover your expenses so that you can cover the costs for your next target. In my case, I have 22 targets. One every two weeks centalized in downtown areas and main drags where the business community and the wealthy occupy.
The news will quickly spread from there. Once you saturate your province, you can stop advertising. The news will hit the media and spread accross to other provinces or nations. Besides; even if it doesn't, you would have accomplished an effective and prosperous campaign.
It all depends on how much time an effort are you willing to invest. I am limiting myself to one year of promotion for each volume of, 'The City of Gardens Collection.' After the five years have been exhausted, I will stop all publicity except for online promotion and up-dates.
The residual effects of those efforts will continue for many years later. The nice part of the promotion is that you rarely have to leave your home to get results. There is no need for tours, public appearances or expensive advertising.
I am able to then donate large amounts to VHES because of the low overhead keeping my expenses tolerable. You do have to pay Income Tax, GST and PST to stay leagal and out of trouble, but this ia a normal part of life.
In my predicitions for the value of my donations, I did not account for the costs involved in executing the plan. I was nieve. This is why I am informing you of what is involved in my plan. Even if the response is only 2%, that is still over $20,000.00 to charity. Do that five times and my total donation will be over $100,000.00 to VHES.
I am frustrated that I am not able to do more, but I have to realize that without my efforts they would be really struggling as a non-profit organization. I guess, a $100,000.00 is better than nothing. This is of course, the worst case scenerio that I have been describing.
If the series is successful, I can increse the responses by two and a half times. This is almost $300,000.00 to the Victoria Human Exchange Society in just five years.
I still cannot help to feel that I failed to achieve my goals. I have to understand that I was not thinking realistically before I started to actually crunch the numbers. I almost burnt out my Excel program, but I now have a very accurate and achievable plan.
