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.

Tweetable:

How can authors influence the discovery of their books inside bookstores? Learn specific actions from this prolific author and editor. Get the details here.  (ClickToTweet)

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.

Subscribe to Terry’s Newsletter:

During the last year, once a week I’ve been sending a short free newsletter. Just follow this link to subscribe. When you are added to the newsletter, you will receive a FREE 87-page Ebook which is packed with insights for every writer.

Get these articles on your email: 

Since 2004, I have blogged about The Writing Life over 1,800 entries and one of the top 27 content writers. With this simple form, each week you can get my new articles, encouragement and insights at: https://t.co/W6uU64u6aA

What To Do with Strange Experiences

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

Throughout my life, I’ve had a number of strange personal experiences. It’s part of our lives that we have these different encounters and experiences. As a writer, what do you do with these stuations?

Some people write a book manuscript. Others use the material as background for their novel and other storytelling methods. While I love books and work as an acquisitions editor for a New York publisher, this usage for your stories and experiences has limitations. Thousands of new books enter the marketplace every day. I’ve read estimates between 4,500 and 11,000 new books enter our world every day (depending on your source and including the self-published books). These numbers involve a lot of competition for readers for your books.

In this article, I want to suggest a different starting place for your experiences. Instead of a book, I encourage you to use your personal experiences as storytelling material for magazine articles. When you write a magazine article, it’s easy to reach 100,000 to a million readers (depending on the circulation of the publication). Magazine editors tell writers what they are looking to publish in their writer’s guidelines. Often you can find these guidelines on their website or in a market guide. 

Each publication has a specific readership or audience. As you craft your article or your query (pitch), you have to be focused on the audience. When I worked as the Association Editor at Decision with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, we were printing 1.8 million copies of each issue. This circulation has dropped through the years but is still over 400,000 (see this link).

Some of the greatest readership for my writing has come through my personal experience stories in Decision. Decades ago we taught our oldest child about death through the passing of our second child. I called this article Schooled In Death. As I went through this difficult personal experience in a journal, I captured little pieces of dialogue and feelings. Then later as I wrote my story, I used these snippets in my magazine storytelling. 

It’s a pattern I suggest you use for your personal experiences--write down the feelings and dialogue then use them in a magazine article. When you write a magazine article, you learn some specific skills which will build into your writing life. You learn how to create an interesting title and how to begin your article and pull the reader into your story. Magazine articles have a limited word count (500 to 1,200 words--again depending on the publication. As you write your article, you learn how to have a beginning, middle and a strong ending which leads the reader to a single point called a takeaway. 

Where do you find these magazines? First, which ones do you read on a regular basis? I would begin there because you are familiar with their readership and target audience. Almost every magazine will take a well-crafted personal experience story for their publication. If you sell “first rights” to the magazine (noted at the top of your first page of your submission), then these rights return to you once the magazine publishes your article.

I’m suggesting a simpe strategy with your personal experience stories. Write a series of these types of articles which likely can be interconnected. With some editorial adjustments, each article can be the start of the chapter in a book. If you string together 15 to 20 of these articles, then you have a book manuscript. I have a lot more detail about this type of strategy in my free webinar Get More Mileage from Your Content.

As writers, we have an abundance of opportunity. I encourage you to use the Christian Writers’ Market Guide to look for more publications and opportunties to publish your writing. From going to writer’s conferences, many writers are focused on getting their book published and never consider teh magazine world.  You can do both--write for publications and write books. Your magazine articles can tell people about your latest book in your one-sentence bio at the end of the article. Your persistence and consistency as a writer will pay off.

What steps are you going to take to write and publish your strange experiences? Let me know in the comments and I look foward to hearing about it. 

Tweetable:

As a writer, what do you do with your strange personal experiences? This prolific author and editor encourages an unexpected series of actions.  (ClickToTweet)

New Podcasts:

In these articles, I’ve encouraged you to use PodMatch or some similar tool to book and record podcasts. Last week one more podcast recording launched:

David Newman (@dnewman) and I spoke about Real Deal Publishing on The Selling Show Podcast. Listen at: https://bit.ly/4q7yDDl 

Throughout my many years in publishing, I’ve co-authored over a dozen books and reviewed thousands of submissions (no exaggeration). As a part of the process of working with these authors, I speak with them about their dreams and plans. Many of these authors have  unrealistic expectations about what will happen with their published book. 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. 

Subscribe to Terry’s Newsletter:

During the last year, once a week I’ve been sending a short free newsletter. Just follow this link to subscribe. When you are added to the newsletter, you will receive a FREE 87-page Ebook which is packed with insights for every writer.

Get these articles on your email: 

Since 2004, I have blogged about The Writing Life over 1,800 entries and one of the top 27 content writers. With this simple form, each week you can get my new articles, encouragement and insights at: https://t.co/W6uU64u6aA