AI and Tipsheets

Your sales pitch

The four cornerstones of your sales pitch are the cover, the price, and the reviews and the blurb.

We create your sales pitch by distilling these cornerstones together on an AI sheet.

What is an AI sheet?

Sample AI for Afterlife of King James IV, Chronos Books

The AI or Advance Information sheet is a promotional tool that publishers use to present their book to the book trade. We create one for every book we publish. Your AI sheet will be circulated to our sales reps, specific to their territories, and they will use the information on it as the basis of their pitch.

Book buyers look at your AI sheet and take a decision on how prominent to make your book on their database, whether to take print copies into stock, and if so, how many and where – so it's your chance to get their attention and the information must be accurate, punchy, and concise.

We create your AI based off the information YOU give us

In the month after your book's publication date is set, we create your AI sheet based on information you have given us and upload it to your Marketing page.

The AI sheet broken down: what bookbuyers are looking for and how you can give it to them

Our AI sheets include the Back Cover Copy, your Author Bio, Endorsements, the Promotional Plan, your USP, Categories, Competing Books, and your Previous Titles (if you have them).

• Back Cover Copy. Booksellers have very little time to consider each title pitched to them, so make sure the language used in your book's Blurb, is succinct and accessible.
• Author Bio. This will include links to your website and social media accounts, and also your location which will be used by the sales teams when selling to chain and independent bookshops, for whom local authors are often a selling point. Tell us as much detail as you can about yourself as you can in your Author Profile.
• Endorsements. Booksellers like endorsements from people they have heard of or that their customers are likely to know. Please source Endorsements as early as you can, sorting them by order of importance.
• Unique Selling Points. Booksellers need good reasons why they should stock this book and not another so tell us what sets your book apart from the rest under Unique Selling Points.
• Marketing Plans. Will your marketing bring people into the shop asking for your book? As early as possible, please record what you plan to do, and the arrangements you make in Promotional Plan and Marketing Activities.
• Competing Books. These give booksellers a better idea of what the book is about; a general feeling that the author understands who they are writing the book for and where it fits into the market. You know best which titles your book can be most accurately compared to, be it either by style, content or audience. Please add these under Competing Books.
• Categories. These have to be spot on, as a bookseller won't buy a book that doesn't fit in their section of the bookshop! You know your book and its content, so take some time looking through and assigning Categories at the bottom of your Book Details page. We will check these and make any adjustments we feel necessary, but, particularly if your book is more academic or niche in subject matter, your judgement is of great importance.
• Previous titles. If we're publishing your exciting debut title, then we'll sell it as that, but if you've had previous publishing success then the sales teams want to hear about it – make sure you add them when you Prepare Your Manuscript.

You can use the AI sheet for your own promotion

Once the AI is up, feel free to download and use it. Some ideas:

• You can base your own promotional emails/approaches off it.
• You can use it to create any promotional material you want, along with your cover.
• You can take it along to local stores who might host a signing session.

How to update your A/I Tipsheet

You cannot alter the AI sheet we create, but you can give us the best information possible, before your book has been assigned a publication date, to ensure it is as strong as possible.

If you think any information on your Tipsheet is incorrect or out of date, please leave a note on the Sales and Distribution forum.

Newsletters

Recent JHP newsletter

At JHP we keep various mailings lists, who we contact with new title information, bestsellers and notable backlist. One made out of consumer fans who we email 1-2 times a month. We also email once a month to the trade, and Moon Books has their own separate list.

If we mention your book in any of these newsletters you can see it recorded on your Marketing Page in the Email History section. Click on the blue link to see the the contents of the newsletter.

If you – or anyone you know – would like to keep in touch with us via our newsletters, you can sign up at the bottom of the John Hunt Publishing homepage.

Share this page: