Important Bookstore Insights

   

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

With thousands of books entering our world every day, how do readers determine which books to buy and which books to skip? It’s an age-old question that authors, publishing professionals and many others have been trying to understand. 

As an author your book may only be in an online bookstore. Sometimes that bookstore is only Amazon and other times you are in many online bookstores. In other articles, I’ve pointed out that bookstores have limited shelf space for books. How are those decisions made about which books to carry in that limited space? 

From my years in publishing, I understand behind the scenes there are many individuals in this decision process. I encourage each of you to be constantly learning about this process and glean insights that can be used for your own books. 

Last week I heard this podcast What It’s Like to Be a Kid with Jon Anderson, the President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing. As the show notes say, “Jon Anderson has been President and Publisher of Simon & Schuster Children’s since 2009, after a career in both publishing and bookselling that began at age 16 at a B. Dalton mall store in South Dakota. His journey through Barnes & Noble, Penguin, and Perseus to his current position is one marked by creativity, humor, and iconic books and brands, from Mad Libs to Nancy Drew.” 

I learned a great deal from listening to this interview including Anderson’s insights about the current children’s book market. For many years, he was the book buyer at the corporate office of Barnes & Noble. Publishers and their representatives regularly pitched Anderson because of the significance of his decisions about which books to put into the stores. To make decisions, he said he looked at the cover then read the back cover. These two elements are details that you as an author have control and influence (no matter how you publish). Yet you have to take action in this area.

Much of the decision-making process is outside of anything that an author can control or influence. Instead of shrugging this responsibility, I want to call to your attention several elements where you do have control: the book cover and the back cover. Depending on your publishing path, some authors have more decision-making influence than others. Every author can make an impact in this area and I’m encouraging you to seize it.

Years ago when I worked at another publishing house, I spoke with the Vice-President of Sales when he had returned from a trip to present our new books to buyers at bookstores. With frustration in his tone, he said, “After hearing about our new books, the buyer would say, “I’ll take two copies of each. One to sell and one to show.”  I could hear the disappointment in his story because no publisher is trying to sell only two copies of any book. It shows the difficulty for every publisher to get their books into the bookstore.

What Authors Can Control

Whether your book is going to be online or inside a brick and mortar bookstore, there are some elements that you as the author have control. First, create an attractive and attention-getting cover. First impressions count and I’ve seen some poor book covers and others garner attention. Your choice of a designer and a publisher are in the author’s control.

Your words on the back cover are another area where the author has influence and control (depending on your publishing path). It is a learned skill to write these words which sell your book. I recommend you get Shelley Ring’s book How To Write Back Cover Copy That Sells: And Other Marketing Materials to Promote Your Book as a resource. I’ve written many back covers and your experience in this area will be a boost to your ability. You can read my review of Shelley’s book here. 

The third way to influence book buyers is to include high profile endorsements. As a new or unpublished author you may think you have no ability to get these types of endorsements. That assumption is wrong. 

You can take action and collect great endorsements for your book--even if you self-publish. In other articles (follow this link), I’ve written about these details. Also look at this article from Jacqueline Marcel about getting endorsements for her self-published book. If she can do it, you can do it. To get these endorsements you have to ask and make it easy for that person to agree and return the endorsement (even if you write a “draft” yourself when you ask because well-known people are busy. It takes author effort and not just once but over and over. 

There are obstacles to getting your book into the hands of readers but with your activity and continued promotion, you can overcome these hurdles and turn them into opportunities.

What actions are you going to take in this area? What am I missing that you can add? I look forward to your comments.

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My Writing In Other Places:

With these articles, I encourage you to publish your work beyond your blog in other places. Below are three articles which were published in other online locations than this blog.

How to Get Your Book Into Libraries. I wrote the details into a two part article and you can get both parts here.

 

When you submit your book proposal, I explain why you shuld simultaneously submit. Read the details in this article.  

When an author selects a publishing path, there is an often forgotten and critical element (distribution). In this article, I encourage awareness and wisdom in your choice.  

During my years in publishing, I’ve reviewed thousands of submissions and spoken with many authors about their plans and dreams for their book. I’ve found many of these authors have  unrealistic expectations about what will happen with their published book. From my experience, many aspects of the details of publishing are outside of anything an author can control. I wrote 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS to give authors practical help. You can get decades of insights in 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS for only $10, free shipping and over $200 of bonuses.

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Do Book Gimmicks work?

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Throughout my week, I often receive packages from authors and publishers with books. I read these books outside of my work and write reviews to support other authors and publishers. Occasionally a package will stand out as different. Some people call this an attention-getting gimmick. Do they work? In this article, I want to give you some ideas and cautions.

Once I received a book to possibly review. This author added confetti into the package which caught my attention but also made a mess in my office. Confetti was on the floor, on my keyboard and anything sitting on my desk. It was a nuisance and took some extra energy to clean up. The confetti caught my attention but it wasn’t what the author was expecting because it was negative attention and not the right impression. Whatever you do in the book gimmick area, you want to think about the person who will receive the package and make sure you are making a positive impact.

Several weeks ago, I received a package with a book which was in a pink package. When I opened it and looked closely at the book, I was interested in reading it and writing a review about it. The pink package received positive attention and increased my interest. The book gimmick worked in a positive way to encourage my reading and writing about the book.

More recently, I received this package:

I opened it right away and it had a signed copy of a new book from Jacquelyn Lynn called Christian Business Almanac. She emailed recently and showed me a page in the book where she quoted something from these entries in my blog. I reviewed the book on Amazon and Goodreads plus promoted it to my various social media connections (an example). It’s a simple way we can help each other as writers and authors. Her package got my attention. You can use this same envelope (follow this link).

I recommend you be selective about where you use it. Ask yourself, who will help me tell others about my book and where can I get the biggest impact for using this tool? From my experience, just a little forethought about this question will help you use the envelope for the greatest impact on your book.

I want to show you another simple book tool that every author should create and use for their book: bookmarks. I love creating this tool and use it with my books and at conferences. People may not purchase my book but will take a bookmark and maybe buy the book at a later point in time.

As you create this tool, I encourage you to pour some thought and creativity into it. For example, I wrote a biography on Billy Graham. While the book has been out a few years, I continue actively telling others about it. I have bookmarks in my briefcase and use them often. I’m adding an image of this bookmark do you can see the thought I poured into the creation?

The front includes ten facts about Billy Graham and at the bottom, I have my book website. The reverse is also full color with the book cover, an endorsement from biographer and bestselling author Jerry B. Jenkins and the words “Available at bookstores everywhere.” Finally I include the International Standard Book Number (ISBN) to help the reader or bookseller easily locate this book.

If you are going to invest in printing a bookmark, spend the creative energy to make it effective. I collect these bookmarks from others and I'm always surprised at the missing information. One of the hardest things to proofread or see is something that not there.

 

Do you use any book gimmicks? How did they preform and what am I missing? Let me know in the comments below. I look forward to your comments.

Tweetable:

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Much of the publishing process is outside of the writer’s control. 10 Publishing Myths helps writers have a realistic perspective and take action. Get 10 Publishing Myths for only $10 +FREE shipping + over $200 of free bonuses.