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Re: How would you like bookstores to sell your books?

What methods did you employ to sell your book? Personal appearances? Web
site? Word of mouth? Advertisements in newsletters?

All of these techniques have their uses, Cat. But we only used one of those, and some not listed. Personal appearances was the prime way of selling. Web sites were used indirectly, as I'll explain. And we used no paid advertisements.

Speaking as a PR professional, let me say that "word of mouth" is a carefully orchestrated event. It very rarely happens spontaneously, and anyone who depends on spontaneous word of mouth as "being the best advertising" is going to be stuck with a lot of product.

In addition to personal appearances, we sent our own press releases out. These included the tag that autographed copies are available from....... The quoted price consisted of the cover price of the book plus shipping.

The thing to keep in mind is that even the best publisher won't do the promotional job you can do yourself. That being the case, why shouldn't you reap the benefits? The information in the press release did get posted on several websites, and sales resulted. But mostly it was used by newspaper and magazine editors/writers.

With books I negotiate two things that let me double dip, and realize at least the retail price on any I sell.

First, contrary to industry practice, if I buy books in bulk I fully expect to earn royalties on them. I buy 50 at a time, and, in that respect, am no different than a retailer.

Second, I arrange to charge the books I buy to my royalty account. So my books get paid for with books that the publisher sells. Sure, as a bookkeeping practice, I lose the royalty on those books. But I gain the full retail price. If you need some math to see how this works, let's assume 10% royalties on a book that retails for $20, but wholesales for $10 once the quantity discounts apply. So, the writer's royalty on each book is $1.

Book quantity: 50.  Total cost: $500        Royalty Revenue: $50
Selling costs: Zero    Sales income: $1,000   Total income: $1,050

There's a theoretical loss of $450 that is slowly deducted from the royalty account. But it's money I never really see (except on my royalty statements), and don't miss. Whereas I do see the thousand.

I'm impressed with your great sales, Brook!!!


It's just a matter of knowing how to sell your work, Cat.

That's why I started my e-course in freelancing, in fact. Far too many people can write, but then they don't know how to sell it. So I developed the course to teach them how to do that.

Personally, I've always operated by the writer's credo, and teach my students to do the same. That credo: Authors desire recognition. Writers desire to be paid."


Brook
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