Re: Garden Books Not Selling

**"bbmackey" b*@prodigy.net**

Sheri was disappointed with her book signing results. But she had more
success than meets the eye. For one thing, the event led to a front-page
article about her in an area newspaper, which probably mentioned her book
titles. Without an event, she might not have been featured. Perhaps other
copies of her books were sold at bookstores or on Amazon because of the
pre-event publicity.

She probably had her web site mentioned in the paper, for free. Perhaps it
was also listed in the boostore's circular where they list events. That
probably led to hits and maybe book sales.

The store ordered books for the signing. So at times when she was not there
signing, the books were still visible and available to customers.

You never know when an encounter with someone at a signing can lead to
another event such as a paid lecture.

Garden books themselves are a niche, and each title is a sub-category with
an even smaller potential audience. It takes a lot of publicity, or else
very targeted publicity, to sell books.

Sheri, I think you should try to get another local event going, maybe a
program at a library, that will also be covered in the newspaper. That way
your message is repeated to the same audience and makes more of an
impression because of it. Keep the news flowing. Tom Ogren had a nice
posting about getting publicity back in August.

-- Betty Mackey
http://www.mackeybooks.com

>
> Two months ago I set up a book signing at our local bookstore. One
> newspaper in the area did a front page article on me and the signing,
> the other did nothing.
>
> I sat today for over two hours and sold under 10 books. They had three
> different ones to choose from.

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