New staff are coming on-board to help support our growing author PR services. Stay tuned for more info . . .

One of the most common questions at BRIO that is asked is “How do I get my book into Barnes and Noble’s bookstores?” I thought I would write a blog to help answer some of the basic questions.

According to Marcella Smith of BN they have 4 factors that they consider:

1. Quality of Content
2. Integrity
3. Logistics
4. Content in Marketplace

Like everything, the publishing business is based on relationships. The bookstore wants to have books on their shelves that will sell. They buy 40,000 new titles each year and only 7,000 titles make it into ALL their stores.

When I talked to her about the key to success she mentioned that titles that have the best “sell-through” are those for a niche subject. For example, Teen & Children’s books do well. Christian books also do very well.

If you have other questions please feel free to email jmarino@briobooks.com or call 888-333-7979.

Cheers!

Welcome to our new revised site and new brand name. We are very excited to help new and existing authors sell more books and reach new readers. In doing so, we have a new team that can better assist small publishers and self publishers reach their goals and sell more books.

We have new services and have more information on existing services. Ghostwriting is a great service for those who want to write a book and not a good writer and/or have the time. We offer professional writers who work with you to write a best seller and help establish yourself to build a brand.

We offer the best editing services in the business. We have three different levels of service depending on the needs of your manuscript. We highly recommend using this service for those who want to SELL books. We cannot accept any titles into our PR/Marketing program that have not been professional edited.

Our award winning book printing continues to beat expectations of our clients. BRIO offers tremendous value by having a project manager dedicated to you. This personalized service allows for a great publishing experience.

BRIO has expanded our book marketing services. Part of our commitment to our authors is to help them sell more books. We have in-house public relations, book marketing, and press kit capabilities. The demand of our clients has increased and am proud to say that we have stepped up to the challenge.

Feel free to contact us regarding your next book project. The phone number is 888-333-7979 or email sales@briobooks.com. We look forward to learning more about your next project.

Thank you.

Many first time and repeat authors come to BRIO looking for consultation regarding their book. We have worked with first time authors that hit a home run right away and sell 5,000 and 10,000 books and we others who are still working at it. Often times people are making simple mistakes. Luckily, they have found us and we can help.

Some of the basic “Do’s” in this business is make sure you have a well-written book. Talk to a professional editor and they usually can tell you in the first 3-4 pages how it reads. Second, make sure that you have a well-designed book cover. There are lots of options and at the end of the day you should have 100% royalty free design and the ORIGINAL files. There are a few more tips I would give which you should call and find out. However, one last tip I will write about is to think about who is going to read your book and how are you going to let them know. Have a sales plan. If you don’t know, ask someone who does know how to market books. Traditional publishers are not the only ones who can sell books.

A couple of “Don’ts” that I see quite often are someone owns the manuscript but not the design. They do not have the original files and therefore they have to pay someone else to redo what has already been done. Another critical mistake that first-time authors make is that they are not ready to promote their book once it is printed. Talk to a public relations person, write a press release, do a book signing at Barnes & Noble, be prepared to share with as many people as possible. Recently we had an author write a textbook and we sent it to 600 college professors across the country. However, he never wrote a cover letter so the impact is minimal. Please seek advice from professionals so that your title is successful.

It does not have to be confusing when writing and publishing a book. Heck, if you finally completed the marathon of writing it you should pat yourself on the back. I am truly impressed by those who have the courage and determination to write a book. It is not easy and it takes a lot of discipline. I am fortunate enough to be there in the end to make the journey of writing a book a reality.

Thank you to all who have worked with BRIOprint. We look forward to helping those authors who are yet to discover how passionate we are about books. Call us or email us to find out more.

As Book Printing Bootcamp proved to be wildly successful, I’ve decided to release a follow up series titled Self Publishing Basics.

Bad Input Equals Bad Output 

In most instances of life, what goes in bad comes out bad.  A bad ingredient yields a bad dish; a bad series of notes yields a bad song; a bad premise yields a bad story.  Nowhere else is this true than in the world of manuscript files.  Many authors and first time publishers rely on the “Your the professional….make me pretty” approach to resolving formal issues pertaining to their files.  We see it all:  72 dpi images grabbed directly from websites, graphic images pulled from Clipart, yellow fonts layed over golden fields of wheat, 5.5″ x 8.5″ layouts that are supposed to be 9″ x 12″, etc.

With offset manufacturing, the quality of your book is directly related to the quality of your files.  There is no play with bad files.  There is no magic button.  There is no angle, no champagne room (for those who enjoyed Michael Clayton, this is for you).  The math on this simple:  Bad files yield bad books.  If your images are lifted off of a website and have a resolution of 72 dpi, they will look bad.  I’ve seen images come it at 7 dpi…..this is not a misprint!  7 dpi!  Where do people find images like this!?  If you lay a yellow font into a field of wheat, the words will be difficult to read.  There are basic formal elements that pertain to offset manufacturing that need to be abided in order to insure a successful book printing experience.  Though coming to terms with bad files can be painful and frustrating i.e. “What are you people talking about!  I printed my pages at home and they look just fine!”, trust me……no really, TRUST ME!, if you are making a $20,000 investment in publishing your book, you want it to look like a Ferrari rolling down Rodeo drive, not a rusted out Yugo in a scrap yard.  That said, we can’t produce that Ferrari if you give us Yugo parts.

So how do you make sure your files are good?  Simple:  Communicate early and often.  There is nothing I enjoy more than educating a first time author who has taken the time to contact us well before he/she is ready to print.  Question:  Why expend all that time and energy laying out your interior files and creating a cover only to find out in the 11th hour….when your book signing is 3 weeks away that your files are bad and need to be reworked?  This unfortunate circumstance happens with alarming regularity, yet is completely avoidable.  A page or two sample sent via email to our prep department for pre-flighting can save you hours of rework and increase the likelihood of meeting your deadline when minutes and seconds count.

Our company is moving in a great direction to help more authors profitably sell their books. We collaborated long and hard as a management team to determine the best way to serve the self-publishing market.

There are a number of companies that offer print-on-demand services which provide low cost entries into the world of publishing. However, these companies provide little in the way of constructive assistance or guidance.  It is not uncommon for a previously published author to come to us with files that are not properly set up for offset manufacturing.  In other words, the print-on-demand company never bothered to inform them that should their book take off in sales, they would need a file format commensurate with the formal requirements of offset book manufacturing.  THANKS ALOT!

The most important question pertaining to your book is “Is this book good?” This is a loaded question.  “Good” can mean a good story that is poorly written, or it can mean an poor story that is well written.  We recommend hiring a professional editor to help answer this question, and upon doing so, determine which of the two scenarios (good story / bad writing, bad story / good writing) applies to you.

The second questions you must ask yourself is “Can this book sell?” Is their an audience for your book and do you know how to reach those readers? We are launching a new suite of services at BRIO to help authors connect with potential readers. Call and ask to speak with one of our experts to find out more and get ahead of the competition.

Our company is driven to bring the most value to self-publishing. We encourage all authors and publishers to call or email to discuss your next title and get ahead of the competition.

BRIOprint is attending the San Francisco Writers Conference on February 15-17th at the Mark Hotel. We encourage anyone in the area interested in self publishing to attend. This is a wonderful opportunity to speak with agents, and learn  from successful self-publishing authors.

The author of “My Flying Grandma”, Paula Grecco, will speak as part of a session titled “The Fastest, Surest Way to Get Your Book Published.” The workshops and speaking sessions will give the over 1,000 attendees an opportunity to meet literary agents, and to learn how to make money, improve book sales and identify what traditional publishing companies look for when seeking out prospective author talent.

If you print hard or soft cover books, full color books or are thinking about writing your first book, this conference is a “must attend”. Join us. We want to meet as many people possible and do our part to help anyone and everyone do well in this industry. If you have questions, please call 888-333-7979 and ask for John or William. Thank you and we’ll see you in San Francisco.

An overlooked part of BRIOprint is our design and layout service that we have tailored to the unique needs of our authors. Yes, we are a book manufacturer with exceptional quality (samples poised and ready to ship upon your request). But the story rarely begins with manufacturing. Most authors do not use the commercial print accepted programs InDesign and/or Quark Express to compose their opus, nor should they. 99% of book files sent to BRIOprint are either from Microsoft Word or Publisher platforms. Surprisingly, most of these Word and Publisher files are sent by graphic designers hired by authors to design and layout their manuscipts. The end results are often additional charges for manipulating the Word and Publisher files in order to prepare / repair the document for raster image processing (RIP) and subsequent proofing.

At BRIOprint, we live and breath for books. Our staff is knowledgeable and equipped to design and layout your book as it should be i.e. professional, polished, proofable and printable. We use both InDesign CS3 and Quark Express 7 for design and layout which means your book is ready to go for today and for tomorrow’s second edition. And contrary to other companies which offer similar services but retain ownership of your manuscript files, BRIOprint operates on the belief your book belongs to you, you wrote it and the completed files are yours to do with as you wish. Most importantly, choosing BRIOprint elimates reduncancies and additional charges which arise from choosing designers unfamiliar with the unique and necessary nuances of designing for book manufacturing.

Why pay someone else to layout your manuscript incorrectly only to pay someone else to fix what they did wrong? Choose BRIOprint from the start, and you’ll be amazed how simple book printing can be.

In today’s climate it is important to be “Green”. This past week we have made strides forward in providing “green” paper via the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) certification. In case those of you do not know, the FSC, part of the Rainforest Alliance, has a Chain of Custody certification that allows those who purchase FSC graded paper to place the FSC logo on their website.

In talking with other printers in the industry, many are in the process of getting their plants certified as well as their Chain of Custody certification. I talked with one printer that is so environmentally friendly that they purchase their electricity from a Wind farm in Minnesota. I did not know that was available but if you consume so much you can work through the power company to channel it through the grid to your plant.

For those individuals or companies that want to take the next step in purchasing FSC paper, BRIOprint can assist you with your next project. We are committed to being good stewards and environmentally conscious. Please talk to one of our Printology Experts to find out more.

It doesn’t get addressed as often as it should, but it is nonetheless an undeniable truth:  Book printing is the crowning stage culminating a massive achievement which few individuals ever reach.  Authorship.

I have spoken with men and women with various, and delightfully unique backgrounds and histories.  For some, becoming a published author is the product of a lifetime spent gathering information, formulating theories and at long last, painstakingly composing a singular opus that becomes his or her legacy regardless of public opinion.  Others are wildly prolific, capable of developing new book ideas effortlessly, and are often already on to the next book as the ink is still drying on the previous one.  The common thread binding all of these men and women together is their authorship.  They did it!  The world is rife with half - started stories, theses in-the-works, fragmentary poems, and ‘every intention of sitting down and getting it written’ promises.  But these few individuals who get it done, demonstrate willing, determination, and talent that is far more impressive than anything I offer.  I slap the ink on the paper.  I’ve got the easy part.  I’m the guy on the tarmac with headphones and glowing cones leading the jet to the hanger.  The hard part of book printing has nothing to do with printing at all.  The hard part is writing a book, and anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something.