Writing « Robin Writes

Last week, when I talked about distribution, I briefly mentioned bookstores, festivals, markets, and just plain hauling around boxes of books. Let’s look at those things again, for a moment, and then move on the more creative selling.

Bookstores: you CAN arrange events and have your books stocked in indie stores, even if you have no mainline distribution. But it’s much easier if stores can simply order your books through their main system. And it’s virtually impossible to get into large chain stores without that distribution.

Festivals, markets, schlepping: anyone can do this, all it takes is time.

Now, let’s be creative—and I’m going to use RHP books as examples, since we cover a lot of genres:

Genre Events: Smut by the Sea, across the pond, is a good example of this. Author Charlotte Howard (Seven Dirty Words, Four Letter Words) is going this year, in fact, she’s a featured author. Almost any genre has an organization, or several or many groups, who put on events to bring together readers and writers.

You will, however, run into other authors who have a “buy mine, I’ll buy yours” agenda—keep your wallet in your pocket. Sure, you’ll have sales, but only do this if you DO intend to read the book. Your book should stand on its own, not be a condition of a sale. Writers’ conferences can fall into this category too, although sometimes they offer a store to sell participants’ books.

Science fiction? Look at Archon or ComicCon; the first is local (to me) and the second, in Cali, has spawned dozens of events around the US. Particularly books like author George Sirois’ novel, Excelsior, or Michael Chulsky’s The Descending Darkness, fall into this category and could benefit from the exposure.

Now, you might be thinking these aren’t so creative after all, but how many of you have registered for one of these events? Even better—sell yourself, so you can be featured or part of the program. You wrote a book, for heaven’s sake, surely you have something to talk about, right?

Let’s move on—where is your story set? Who is the main character? Is there an overall message?

The Reduced Series: Girl Scout camp, adult women, survivalism

P.A.W.S: Forest Park (STL), young teens, bullying

Dickinstein: 1800s, Emily Dickinson, science

Spirits of St. Louis: St. Louis area, ghosts, history

Water Under the Bridge: early 1900s, women and girls, religious bullying, women’s rights

Danny’s Grace: early stardom, child abuse, drugs

Caught Between Two Curses: baseball, Cubs, paranormal, mystery, teen girl

What can you come up with as a potential venue for these? Break down your title, your story, and let your imagination loose. The worst that can happen is that you’re told “no.” And it might be just the thing a particular venue needs/is interested in to help THEIR sales and exposure.

I’m not forgetting children’s books here: Tuffy and Debbie, for instance. Guest reader at a school, naturally handing out a card with a book-buying link; library story time; pediatrician offices—ask to leave a complimentary copy. Again, look at the setting, the characters, the story, the message.

Holiday books can pose a particular problem when it comes to marketing and sales year ‘round. However, keep in mind that holiday shopping often starts in the fall, sometimes late summer. Retail stores often begin receiving holiday merchandise in August. Yes, August! Even now, in March, it’s not really too early to start bringing Morgidoo and ELF to someone’s attention!

Non-fiction can work the same way, except it’s more obvious that you are an expert—every author is, of course, an expert on his or her book. INNspiring Breakfasts, with its tie-in to author Kriss Royer’s B&B, could also be featured on cooking shows, grocery stores, specialty shops, and more. What is YOUR book about? What kinds of people would be interested in YOUR book?

Make a list. Brainstorm. Write it down whenever and wherever you think of a venue. Find your hook. Find your audience—make another list of all the characteristics of your ONE READER. Then find that reader, and all the others like him or her. Or find their parents. Or their pets.

You have to look, but you have to know exactly what you’re looking for.

Distribution. You gotta have it, one way or another. So how do you get your books out there, into the hands of readers? Keep in mind, of course, that some ways are more effective than others—in other words, it’s a good thing when someone reads your book, but you have to weigh time and cost when it comes to getting the book to the reader.

And, too, you have to look at the value of the reader.

Yes, I said that whenever someone reads your book it’s a good thing—and it is—and while Mom and Grandma might tell their friends about it, or your friends might tell their friends, unless these are other relatives and friends of yours, no one is vested in reading that book. Likely no one will buy more than one copy; they might even share and pass around the same one.

The friends and family method is only going to net you, wild guestimate, 50-100 sales.

So, what’s next? Footwork. Pounding the pavement.

One of my author friends keeps a case of books and a small table in the trunk of her car. Whenever it strikes her, she sets up shop. I know a several authors who go to community festivals, markets, craft fairs, and so forth. Some of them do quite well, although I don’t know their figures.

YOU can do this too—but again, keep in mind the cost of entry, booth space, time involved, etc. For instance, if you spend $50 on one booth space for one event, and you net $5 per book, you have to sell ten books just to break even. If you’re sitting there for four hours, and sell those ten books, you’ve just “earned” $12.50 per hour—except you really didn’t, because of the cost involved.

You earned zero dollars. But you sold books, right? And yes, that’s a good thing! Realistically, though, how often can you do this? Every Saturday? Probably not, if you have a full-time job and a family. Will you sell ten books every time? Probably not. From experience, I can tell you that author events, regardless of venue, will generate from zero to 40 copies sold. Unless, of course, you’re a NYT bestselling author. But then you likely wouldn’t be reading this.

The same goes for events at indie bookstores—except most won’t charge you to appear in the store. They will, however, probably request that you bring your own books and they’ll pay you a percentage, usually 60%, of the sales; some stores pay 70%. Of course, eventually you’ll run out of local stores and will have to travel—which eats into both your time and your cost, and that means you have to sell even more books.

Unless.

Unless you have distribution—surely, your books are on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. That’s pretty much a no-brainer. And your own website, for convenience. This stuff is easy, and free. There’s no excuse for not doing it.

But national or worldwide distribution? With all the books being published on a daily basis—nope, don’t have figures, try Google—you MUST be findable. MUST.

Booksellers—indie and chain—get their books from Ingram or Baker & Taylor. Yes, there’s a cost to list your books there—quite minimal, considering that ANY bookstore can look up your book in the Ingram catalog and ORDER IT! And yes, they get a discount. But because Ingram is a wholesaler, you have to give them a discount too.

Sure, you can do events at stores on consignment, where they pay you that 60%, and you can lug books all over the place to garner sales. But wouldn’t it be much easier to have someone else do that, like UPS? And, well, it’s a little more professional. Think about it.

The other part of mega-distribution is whether or not your book is returnable—if it’s not, via Ingram, booksellers are going to be very, very hesitant to order. Oh, sure, they can just get a couple copies, and many do. But if you want to sell, especially if you want to do a signing, you need booksellers to be able to order 20, or more—and not get stuck with them if your event flops.

Of course, it’s up to you to SELL the book, and yourself. Just because a book, along with hundreds of thousands of others, is available, doesn’t mean that a bookseller will notice it. But if you can tell a store that yes, your book is available, at a regular discount, and is returnable, they’re more likely to schedule you AND order your books.

Some stores, particularly chains, will ONLY have you in for an event if these criteria are met.

It’s really the easiest way to get your books out there.