Tony Nash - The Business of Books

CEO of online bookstore Booktopia, Tony Nash, admits he was never much of a reader. It was his skills in internet marketing and a passion for meeting customer demands that drew him to the business. After a long and twisty road from recruitment into becoming an SEO expert, Tony began Booktopia as an evening side project with a budget of just $10 per day. He now has six million titles in the store.

“I didn’t really know anything about books, but I was passionate about selling, customers and meeting customers demands. I could see that by focusing on what customers wanted, that’s how we could make this work,” Tony said.

Like a business, a great book is similarly built on dedication, hard work and a passion for marketing to the right crowd. There are 27 million books currently in print and 4,000 new books are added to the worldwide database every day, so competition is hot. Even the seasoned experts can’t always pick a bestseller, so Tony’s advice? Laser-like focus on your desired outcome, and put in the work.

Tony likens dealing with competition to running a 100 metre race. As a young decathlon athlete, his sprint coach gave him advice which resonated with everything he has done since.

“Slow up, look to your left, look to your right and see where your competitors are. If you want to go as fast as you can, you pick a point down the end of the runway and focus on that. If you want to know where the others are, build peripheral vision.”

A great book doesn’t happen by magic. “There is no Harry Potter wand for success.” Once you have written your piece, it needs some serious polishing and, as Tony points out, even the best writers have an editorial team to assist.

It is very hard to be objective with your own work, so Tony highly recommends working with an editor who can work the storyline, guide character development and plot, and provide recommendations on additions or cuts to the content.

Once the copy is complete and you love every word, there are numerous options for getting published these days. The time-honoured way is through a publishing house, who will take a manuscript and run with it. Unfortunately, only around one per cent of books reach customers this way.

The world wide web has opened doors for self-publishing for those who don’t make it through traditional channels and has seen books that would never usually see the light of day, become best-sellers. What makes the best books here is not only great writing, but great publicity and clever marketing – just like any business.

“If you don’t get published, and you still feel your book is worthy, today we have selfpublishing, we’ve got print-on-demand and ebooks,” Tony said.

“A lot of work goes into a book getting some traction. For a book to simply magically gain critical mass by people telling people – that’s very, very unique. You’ve got to be out there, you’ve got to be talking at events, you’ve got to be in bookshops and maybe do some sort of speaking engagement. You need to be doing marketing on the internet or some sort of Facebook posts. A lot of the effort needs to come from the author, and that is hard work but you can be rewarded.”

From a marketing point of view, Tony highly recommends you select your title and subtitle carefully. In today’s online-centric purchasing habits and propensity to Google everything, you need your book to be searchable.

“Think about the keywords that you want to put in the title and the subtitle, because that is how Google, Booktopia and any other site will deliver results. This is especially true for non-fiction. If you want to go for some fancy name because you think it sounds really cool, you need to keep in mind what that might do for sales,” Tony said.

The other important marketing point is the look and feel of your book, particularly if you get it onto shelves. As Tony puts it, make sure it doesn’t look like it was made on your cousin’s computer; make it look like it has already sold over 20,000 copies. Use quality paper stock and contemporary styling so your book will catch the eye of readers as they browse the store. A foreword from someone prominent and a selection of wellwritten reviews can also help.

At the end of the day, no matter how many copies you sell, you have to be in it for you – not the money.

“If something you desire is to be a successful, published author, then you just have to keep doing it. It may not come by magic and it may not come by your first, second or 15th book, but you are developing your craft… that’s the key, that’s what’s going to endure,” Tony said.

“In the end, you need to weigh up whether if you only sell three copies to your aunt, your mum and your best friend, does it really matter? It’s a personal challenge, and that has to be the driving force no matter what. That sense of purpose is really important.”