I had fun doing a quote recently to a writer who was wise enough to want the full shebang (manuscript assessment, editing, ebook design, aggregation AND marketing). I said this in my email to them:

"I had fun doing your quote. As I mentioned on the phone, many of our independent author customers just don't have the right approach to SELLING (the business side of publishing) so they don't think ahead with marketing or have a strong plan for selling their books.

"When we do a manuscript assessment please be assured that there is no conflict of interest. Our editors will give you genuine and useful feedback. They are not afraid to be critical, neither am I. If we don't think your book can sell in a specific genre to a specific niche target market then we will say so. It will then be up to you if you want to go ahead with production and marketing services.

"At the end of the day, even big publishers don't know what books are going to sell. I would think they have a better idea than most, though! And they have excellent data to draw from. We can all somewhat benefit from this data as well, by searching the internet and book best seller lists, and talking to librarians and book store owners. I encourage you to do this, especially as you try to discover exactly what niche or niches your book fits into.

"Even if it is a unique work that could appeal to lots of different people, but in order to sell something and have a meaningful marketing plan, you do need to discover your main/primary target market, and especially the market niche for your product."—Amanda Greenslade, Director