Selling Books During War

By Terry Whalin @terrywhalin

As a life-long journalist, I follow the news and major world-wide events. While I care about these events, in general they do not touch my work in publishing--but they did last week and this article will tell these stories.

For the last 13 years, I’ve worked at Morgan James Publishing which has a global business working with authors and selling books. One day last week, David Hancock, our founder, began receiving a series of texts and emails from author concerned about their books on Amazon being unavailable. As he looked into it, all of our books were not available which was strange and then he learned the reason.

Amazon was shut down for five hours. Why? The Iranians bombed and destroyed two data centers. One of them was in Iran and the other was in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). One of these data centers had the data for Amazon and it took their technicians several hours to restore their service.  

For many authors, Amazon is a key part of their bookselling effort. They are a large Morgan James customer but only 24% of our overall business.  As David Hancock likes to say, we are selling our books in 98% of the bookstores in North America including the brick and mortar bookstores. If Amazon isn’t working then you have many different other places to purchase our books. This diversity for our distribution is an important aspect of bookselling. 

Our Morgan James team encourages authors when they set up their websites to “share the bookselling love.” Don’t send all your readers to Amazon but include links to other locations like your local independent bookseller, Barnes and Noble, BooksAMillion and give your readers the option to buy an autographed copy directly from you, the author. As an example, look at how I set up my book site for Jumpstart Your Publishing Dreams with these various buy buttons. Notice I include an Amazon button but it is intentionally the last one on the list.

Booksellers do not like Amazon because right or wrong, they believe this company has destroyed their business. Years ago at a conference when I was talking with a bookseller about my Book Proposals That Sell book, with pride, I mentioned this book had over 100 Five Star Amazon reviews. 

“I don’t care about Amazon reviews,” the bookseller retorted. It was my last time using this statement. Instead I told about the book having over 100 five star reviews and left out the word Amazon. 

In 2019, Morgan James published a business book from Steve Anderson named The Bezos Letters: 14 Principles to Grow Your Business Like Amazon. As you can imagine, it is impossible to avoid the word Amazon inside this book. As expected when the book released, Barnes & Noble, BooksAMillion and other national bookstore accounts refused to carry and sell the book. Yet The Bezos Letters was a USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller (as noted on the cover). Through the years, it has been a steady and continual seller. 

A little over a year ago, these booksellers changed course and began to stock The Bezos Letters. The selling track record of this book overcame their objections about the word Amazon. Booksellers are in the business of selling books to their customers. 

Lessons for Every Author

-Whether we know it or not, as authors, we are a part of a global economy. The war and bookselling can be disruptive to us.

-No matter how you publish, diversity where your books are sold--not just Amazon.

-If you diversity, then a disruption on one online store --even a major one like Amazon--will not affect your book sales.

-Where you publish and their distribution should be an important part of your decision process. As an author, you want your books to be sold everywhere. Then readers don’t have to go to a particular website or location to buy your books. 

-Finally as an author, don’t constantly watch your Amazon page then contact your publisher if you see your book is unavailable. It’s nothing that I’ve ever done with my many books with different publishers. There are better ways to spend your time.

How are you selling your books? Are you diversified or only on Amazon and your own website? Let me know in the comments below what action steps you are going to take. I look forward to your comments.

Tweetable:

Selling books is connected to the war in the Middle East. This prolific author and editor tells an unusual story. Read the details here.  (ClickToTweet)

Let’s be honest. Publishing is a complex business and much of the process is outside of anything an author can control—no matter how they publish. I wrote 10 PUBLISHING MYTHS to give authors realistic expectations  and 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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