The biggest mistake you can make when publishing your book

A powerful headline for your book, sales letter, or article can be the most important factor in the success of your product.

This is why…

A headline I used in my first press release worked so well that I still use it 12 years later.

Not only will a great headline grab attention, but good advertising can save you thousands of dollars in marketing expenses.

This is how I did it…

First I studied advertising. I learned a lot from a guy named Paul Hartunian. He probably has the best advertising course there is.

Ted Nicholas was also one of my big influences. He was the space advertising guy for a long time. That’s where I learned most of my stuff about space advertising.

So, I tried advertising with this crazy idea: a sci-fi cookbook. Then I wrote a press release.

I followed Paul Hartunian’s tee format and felt like the press release came out.

I just got swamped!

This was before email, so I mailed it. I mailed it to radio stations, newspapers.

I still use it. Every year I send these things. I’ve been doing it for 12 years.

The headline of my press release is: Children eat face; Mom laughs at her heads.

There is a recipe in the book called the Eat Your Face Jello Mold. You can make an exact clone of your face in jelly and serve it for the salad plate. That’s your Halloween party.

I sent out about 100 in this first press release. The phone started ringing! It started ringing at five in the morning.

Simply submit your press release first, and then when an editor or disc jockey calls you, offer to send them your bio sheet and Q&A sheet.

They think you’re very professional and you’ve done this before and you haven’t really done it. You’re still blurry-eyed in your pajamas.

I started getting calls, especially from these zoo morning shows on FM stations. They just thought it was funny. They let me talk about my products for five or ten minutes.

Give my 800 number and my website address and hang up the phone and go check and I got orders right away.

The good thing about advertising is that it creates a lot of this marketing — word of mouth, which is the best kind you can get.

A big advantage of all this is that it is free. You don’t have to pay a penny. Of course you want to continue advertising to get that one-two punch, especially if you’re going to be on a radio show in Denver.

So you buy a little space ad in the Denver Post or something so a lot of people will see it and say hey I heard this guy on the radio!

This is how it worked for me.

They’d call and say, “Hey, aren’t you the guy with these exploding cakes, or whatever? They called because they heard about me, and they heard about me from my publicity.

Remember: if you’re going to publish a book yourself, maximize your investment by seeking publicity.

Write a press release with a catchy headline and send out as many as you can.

If you land on a nationally syndicated radio show, your book can become an overnight hit as the show airs across the country.