Shoestring Venture-The Brand
A Unique Publishing Brand
Shoestring Venture is a new type of brand in the publishing industry
that unites several various strands into a unique configuration. A series
of books, videos, and online resources dedicated to an audience of bootstrap
entrepreneurs, the Shoestring Venture brand includes:
• Mainstream book titles following standard distribution models
• Long-tail titles on obscure topics using innovative, new media distribution
models
• Producer-driven titles
The key to the Shoestring Venture brand experience is that the series
identifies a highly definable reader and user group, produces a series
of mainstream titles that specifically address that audience’s needs,
and then uses that brand platform to launch an entire series of producer-driven,
low distribution, long-tail titles.
For the first time in publishing, we are producing a brand that offers
long-tail selfpublishers a “multiplier” and offers the consumers of
long-tail books a trusted brand.
How it Works:
The Shoestring Venture series of books, videos, and
other resources specifi cally targets entrepreneurs running home-based
or low-resource businesses. This audience is responsible for most if
not all of the business’s decisions and requires resources that address
their unique concerns, including limited budgets and the bootstrap economics
of a self-funded business.
The series offers a set of mainstream resources that uniquely address
the bootstrap entrepreneur’s situation, such as books on business plans,
budgeting, e-commerce, setting up a Web site, etc.
However, many bootstrap entrepreneurs have specific, long-tail concerns,
such as how to develop a product, how to make and use a planogram, how
to use specific open-source software solutions, such as Boot Camp project
management software. Resources on these issues are few and far between
and the average consumer has no guarantee of quality.
Shoestring Venture, however, as a brand promises certain qualities that
the consumer can trust – for both mainstream and long-tail books.
So the consumer can trust a Shoestring Venture producer-driven,
long-tail title on such unique concerns such as planograms, open-source
software, or making fitness videos for next to nothing.
To self-publishers, Shoestring Venture offers a trusted brand, a built-in
audience, brand marketing, and “accelerators,” such as inclusion in
the Shoestring Venture catalog. In exchange for a licensing fee and
publishing costs, self- and vanity-publishers can gain a wider audience
and a marketing boost.
The best analogy would be something like food service. An entrepreneur could always open an independent restaurant – or they could buy into a franchised brand, such as McDonalds or Olive Garden. That’s what we offer to self-published, long-tail authors and to the audience they want to reach.
The Brand Strategy:
• Identify an underserved audience.
• Produce a brand of books and resources that uniquely address that
audience.
• Leverage the brand to attract long-tail self-publishers.
• Transfer much of the production risk to self-publishers.
• Enlist self-publishers to build awareness and loyalty to the brand.
• Multiply the long-tail audience through the power of the brand.
• Exploit every possible licensing and sales strategy, including allowing
other publishers to license the series brand.
• We own the brand – let others own the books and other resources.
Now Available - Shoestring Venture: The Startup Bible - on Amazon.com & Barnes and Noble