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Case
Studies
1.
Selling
Your Books By Mail
After John Bear's manuscript was rejected by a
dozen New York publishers, he decided to publish it
himself and sell it by mail. We produced and
printed 1,000 copies of the first edition of
Bear's Guide to Non-Traditional College
Degrees for under $1000. John then spent $500
on small classified ads. The rest is history. Over
the next twelve years, he sold more than 90,000
books by mail.
In the Massachusetts birthplace of Hyla Watters,
Elsie Landstrom edited the memoirs of the
diminutive surgeon who allowed neither war nor
Japanese occupation to interfere with her
determination to build a hospital in China. We
produced the book and mailed an attractive sales
brochure to 5000 students and colleagues of the
famed surgeon. Hyla Doc is now in its third
printing and Hyla Doc in Africa was then
published for the same audience.
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"Hyla Doc: Surgeon in
China"
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"Hyla Doc in Africa"
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Selling books to niche markets can turn a book
with limited appeal into a steady seller. Not many
bookstore customers were interested in South
American ornithologists, so we printed a sales
pitch on the back of two thousand extra covers of
Stowell Rounds' book, Men and Birds in South
America, and he mailed the covers to libraries
and Audubon Society members with very good
results.
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