Promoting Your Book to Bookstores
In a perfect world, your book baby would be in the hands of a publishing team who would love it as much as you do and use their passion and resources to promote it like crazy and get it on to bookstore shelves. Alas, we do not live in a perfect world. Breaking in to traditional publishing is challenging, to say the least. Even if you manage to do so, their marketing and publicity staffs are overworked and underpaid and unless you’re one of their top authors, even if they love your book to the moon and back, you’re not likely to be allocated many, if any, of their promotional time and money. Chances are, too, that you ended up self-publishing, which means you may not have any outside help and promotion falls completely on your shoulders. I can’t give you a 100% guaranteed, easy-peasy method for getting your book on to bookstore shelves, but maybe I can offer some tips to help you maximize your limited resources, like time and money.
Who am I to offer this advice? I’m someone who’s worked in indie bookstores for more than 25 years. I’ve been through the rise of e-books, Amazon, and self-publishing. I’ve been a book buyer, helped plan events, and been responsible for book consignment programs. (I’m also the founder and organizer of Bookstore Romance Day, but that’s not particularly relevant here.)
First, a couple of things that a lot of authors spend their money on, but that really don’t work: postcards and bookmarks. Seriously, don’t bother. Postcards barely get looked at before being tossed in the recycling and bookmarks face the same fate unless you can send 25, 50, 100 so that bookstores can use them while waiting for new store-branded bookmarks to be printed. Save your bookmarks and postcards to give to readers at events or send out with pre-orders.
In fact, don’t bother with any kind of swag. It’s fun for readers, but for booksellers it’s mostly clutter. The only swag that really helps keep your book in the front of booksellers’ minds is the stuff that is probably way beyond your budget and likely to have a low return on investment. The stuff that can actually have an impact is stuff like pens and sticky notes and mugs that get used every day so booksellers keep seeing your book’s title and/or cover. But that shit’s expensive and will probably cost you more than it will earn you in profits from sales.
ARCs are great but, again, they can be expensive to print unless you’re lucky enough to have a publisher doing them for you. If you have to print them yourself, don’t send them out to booksellers. Most bookstores have more ARCs than they know what to do with and end up using them as giveaways, which is great and gets your book into the hands of a reader, but doesn’t help to get it on the store shelves. You have two viable options here: NetGalley or finished copies.
I wouldn’t recommend adding your e-galley to NetGalley unless you’re already doing to for reviewers and influencers because most booksellers get their digital galleys from Edelweiss, but if you’re already putting it there, being able to share a link (or widget) with booksellers can encourage some of them to read it. If you have the e-galley on your website rather than NetGalley, that works, too. Don’t, however, ask them to email you for a link or so that you can email them a PDF or .doc or even to get the link. The fewer steps booksellers have to take to gain access, the more likely they are to actually read your book.
If a bookseller asks if you have a physical copy instead, let them know the approximate date by which you’ll have them and ask for the best mailing address and to whose attention it should be sent. Then, when you have finished copies, pull out your list and get to shipping. It’s not a bad idea to include a little note reminding them of your communication—whether it was email, in person, or by phone (I’m mostly focusing on email this time, but will get into best practices for phone and in-person in a future newsletter)—and thanking them for their interest. Include information on how and where to order and maybe a request for feedback. (“I’d love to hear what you think. If you have time, would you share your thoughts with me at author@email?”).
If you want to see your book on bookstore shelves, it’s best to have it available through Ingram, preferably at a standard (40%) discount and on a returnable basis. If you have to choose one or the other for financial reasons, returnable is better, but never at less than a 20% discount. Making it available through Ingram also makes it available on Bookshop.org, which more people are turning to as an alternative to Amazon. If you’re unable, for whatever reason, to list your book on Ingram and are selling directly, ask the bookstore whether they would prefer to buy them outright (again, at the standard 40% discount and preferably with you buying back any unsold copies at the end of a pre-determined period) or whether they’d rather take them on consignment. Some stores have great consignment programs in place, but others don’t have the time or resources to do so. (Consignment can involve a lot of paperwork and tracking, and not every store has the staff to implement a good consignment protocol.) Be willing to be flexible. Booksellers remember the authors who work with them and their store’s needs and will share that information with other bookstores. If you’re unwilling to adapt, booksellers will also remember that and share it with other booksellers.
When you’re making initial contact with a bookstore, email is usually better than phone or in person, but take the time to make it personal. Every bookstore receives innumerable emails that say something along the lines of “I was looking at your website/social media and you have a really cute store. I think my book would be a great fit and your customers would love it.” This always comes across as the bullshit it is. Stick to something simple and factual. “My name is Author and I wrote Book, which is now available/will be available on Date. It’s about Brief Synopsis. If you think this might be a good fit for your store, I’d be happy to send you a copy. Book is available from Ingram/to order directly from me. I look forward to hearing from you.” Include a footer with a cover image, ISBN, price, and on sale date. Do not include Amazon reviews, ratings, or purchasing links. Doing so is likely to get your email sent straight to the trash.(I’ll get into the reasons why in a later newsletter. For now, let’s simply say that Amazon would gladly see all small businesses—not just bookstores—go the way of the dodo.)
If your book is published by Amazon, either via CreateSpace/Kindle Direct Publishing or via one of their in-house traditional publishing imprints, be up front about that, but also be aware that it may be a deal-breaker for some bookstores. If they choose not to carry your book, keep in mind that it’s not a judgment of your or your book and don’t take it personally or try to argue them out of it because neither is helpful to you.
In short (too late, I know):
◊ Be smart with your resources
◊ Be personal and polite in your approach
◊ Be flexible
◊ Be reasonable in your expectations
◊ Be willing to take “no” for an answer