AtlasBooks announces a discount off Marketing Package A. Check out this flyer to learn more.
Remember that writing a book is just the first step. Marketing and publicity are essential to selling books in today’s publishing industry.
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Each week we highlight and expound on a question or section from our Publisher Resources page on our website. The more you know, the better you can publish, so we invite you to check out the information we offer.
This week we will continue the steps to a successful book signing. If you haven’t been following, please check out the first four steps:
Step one
Step two
Step three
Step four
I know you aren’t supposed to use clichés in writing, but sometimes they just fit so well! So today, I’m going to highlight the motto for the Boy Scouts, “be prepared.”
Step Five: Prepare your materials. Most bookstores will post signage around the store for you, but come prepared with a 4-color enlarged image of your book jacket and an easel to place next to your table. Practice your speaking points. Make sure your speech is short, to the point, and interesting. Prepare forms to collect names, addresses, and email addresses from your audience to add to your database.
Step five is a bunch of little points all rolled into one idea, be prepared. Having materials and your book pitch down will make your signing polished.
The jacket on the easel will look professional and will draw attention to you at the signing. It is a lot better than people walking by wondering why someone is sitting at a table in the store. You can also bring business cards, pens, props appropriate for the book, anything that gives your set-up a little pizzazz. You signing should be an event and be interesting, not you sitting at a table with a stack of books.
And once the customer stops by, something intelligent better come out of your mouth. Your book description should be what is known in the business world as an elevator pitch. You need to be able to pitch the book in the span of time you would have someone’s attention in an elevator, about 30 seconds to two minutes. If you can’t say enough about your book in that amount of time, then you are including too much. Of course you are excited about a complicated plot or all the research, or whatever it is. But if you throw all of that at the customer at once, they are likely to be overwhelmed. So a succinct speech will act as your hook. The customer can either ask you for more information, or even better, can buy the book to find out more.
And here is another tip for your elevator pitch. Perhaps this is personal preference, but limit traditional pitch phrases or over-the-top evaluations. Depending on the book and the audience, they may work well, but many customers will be turned off when they hear things like, “this book will change your life,” or “this book is better than the Harry Potter series and the Twilight series combined.” Let the description of the book build the excitement for you. Keep it simple and tell the customer what the book is about and what makes it great. Comparisons can work, but claiming that your book is better than half the books on best-seller lists just sounds fake.
The final tip here is to set up something to collect information from customers that stop by. A form at the table is a pretty traditional and easy way to do this. You might consider promoting that you will do something for the customer in order to get their information. You could offer a sample chapter of an upcoming book or take pictures at the signing and then post them on your website and social media sites, with an email to your customers to check them out. This information will help you to build your fan base.
In keeping with the “be prepared” theme, make sure to have these things ready days ahead of time. The last thing you want to do before your signing is trying to find a Kinko’s to print out the jacket on your way to the signing, finding a line, driving around town to find another option, arriving late and flustered…I think you get my point. Have everything ready to go so you can be calm and ready to go on signing day.
Check in next week for the last step.
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A few weeks ago there was a post on the BookMasters’ blog (our parent company), about understanding the various selling programs that Amazon offers. This week I want to get more specific about how AtlasBooks works with Amazon and what that means to our distribution publishing partners.
How does AtlasBooks sell to Amazon?
AtlasBooks sells to Amazon via the Amazon Advantage program. We are able to do this because we are the vendor of record and per the AtlasBooks agreement with publishers, we have distribution rights for these titles, which is a key factor in selling to Amazon through the Advantage program. For this reason, publishers are not able to maintain an Advantage account for the titles distributed through AtlasBooks if they already had an account set up.
How does title information appear on Amazon?
Just like with our other trading partners, AtlasBooks sends accurate up-to-date title information to Amazon via ONIX, the industry approved method of submitting title data. This information populates pre-set fields within the Amazon product detail page. Availability is determined by the publication date, stock levels at the Amazon warehouses, and stock levels at major wholesalers’ warehouses.
Why does Amazon have a different price?
Amazon buys books on consignment from AtlasBooks at an agreed upon wholesale discount off the retail price. This is important because no matter what Amazon sells the book for (even if they heavily discount it), the publisher will still make the same amount from the sale because the percentage is taken from the retail price.
How many books will Amazon buy?
Amazon likes to keep one week’s worth of inventory on hand. They do not buy speculative amounts and they do not order books until four weeks prior to the stated publication date. If Amazon does have stock on hand for a book and they do not sell through that stock within a few weeks’ time, Amazon will likely return the unsold stock.
Because books are sold to Amazon as consignment, Amazon does not send payment to AtlasBooks until the end of the month in which a sale is made. Payment to the publisher then occurs according to the terms of the AtlasBooks contract.
Why are resellers selling my book?
Here is the part that may get a bit confusing. Earlier in this post, I mentioned that the publisher is unable to sell their books to Amazon through an Advantage account. A question that we frequently hear is, “Then why are other people selling my book on Amazon?”
First , there are vendors that sell to Amazon. Though AtlasBooks is listed as the vendor of record, Amazon is also able to buy the book from wholesalers. Stock would still be coming from AtlasBooks to the wholesaler, then to Amazon. In most cases, Amazon will first go to the vendor of record before going to the wholesaler to purchase stock. If Amazon chooses not to keep stock on hand at their own warehouses, they have access to view the stock levels at the major wholesalers and will list a title as shipping in 3-5 weeks when they see that the book is readily available from the wholesalers. A frequent follow-up question is “why doesn’t Amazon connect with the stock levels at AtlasBooks to list availability?” The reason is that it is easier for Amazon to connect with the wholesalers than to connect at the distributor level and also easier than using their own warehouses to keep stock slow-moving inventory (according to their metrics).
In addition, Amazon may purchase items from outside of the Advantage program. This is known as Amazon Marketplace and it operates like Ebay’s Half.com. Instead of selling to Amazon, these sellers are using Amazon.com as a storefront and sell through Amazon. AtlasBooks has no part in this and all payment structures, shipping notifications, etc. are handled with Amazon. Because this selling structure sells through Amazon direct to consumers and not to Amazon as a part of the book trade industry, publishers can legally sell their books through Marketplace and not be in violation of their contract with AtlasBooks.
Can I have links from my website to Amazon?
Another option that publishers can do within their distribution agreement is the Amazon Affiliates program. This is a program by which a publisher lists a link to Amazon from their own website. If a customer clicks through and orders the book, the publisher gets a commission. If you do this, I would recommend having links to the book for other outlets as well, including ww.bn.com and www.indiebound.org. Just having a link to Amazon could upset the other outlets and I have heard cases where a competing vendor has ordered fewer books because the publisher’s site only listed Amazon.
And finally, I want to mention Author Central. Author Central is a free service to allow authors to promote their books. The author can list of her books in one spot (even if they were published by different publishers), create a bibliography, add a photo and biography to a personal profile, upload other images, and use a blog to connect to readers. If an author’s book is listed in Amazon’s catalog, she is eligible to join Author Central. This means that all books that go through the AtlasBooks distribution program qualify their authors for Author Central.
This has been just a quick overview of Amazon. If you have any questions that were not answered in this post, please comment and we can do a follow-up post with more information.
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If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? If an author has a book signing and no one comes to the event, is it successful? I don’t know the answer to the first question, but the second is “no!”
Just as marketing your book is so important, it is also vital to get word out about author events.
Each week we highlight and expound on a question or section from our Publisher Resources page on our website. The more you know, the better you can publish, so we invite you to check out the information we offer.
This week we will continue on with step four of our steps to a successful book signing. Make sure to check out steps one, two, and three.
Step Four: Plan your publicity. Send out press releases to the local media at least 2 weeks in advance of the signing date. You may also want to discuss sharing the cost of a print ad with the store. Don’t forget to publicize your event in some way. Be creative.
Book signings are great events, but if no one shows up, they can be discouraging, can make the bookstore reluctant to host you again for later books, and reflect poorly on the author. You really need to work to get people into the store. The store may help to promote the event with in-store signage, a mention in a newsletter, and that sort of thing. But it is your job to be proactive about publicizing the event.
Press releases to local media are a great way to get the word out to the community. This is especially true for smaller communities.
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With the heat of summer finally about to start winding down, it is time to think about spring! The AtlasBooks Spring 2011 catalog deadline is fast approaching (September 15). Now is the time to take the plunge and make the decision to publish your book. Now is the time to think about 2011.
The publishing industry works on long lead times, so publishers need to plan for books to come out 6+ months from now.
The book doesn’t have to be in final form. Books don’t need to be in stock until 4 weeks prior to the publication date. You need to have a pretty good product specs at this point, like trim, binding, ballpark page count, etc. And you do need to have an ISBN identified for the book. From there, AtlasBooks can begin to send out title information and build a catalog in time to prepare our reps to sell for the spring season.
In planning books for spring, here are a few ideas for seasonal themes to help with promotion and publicity:
First Quarter Promotional Book Bundle Ideas/Themes: New Year’s resolutions, weight loss, exercise, healthy cooking, goal-oriented exercises, football, hockey, sports, black history, black authors, marriage related issues (Valentine’s Day), presidential titles, American History, Christian titles, romance, calendars, appointment books, Irish titles, craft projects, and cabin fever reading lists.
January – New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. B-day and MLK national day
February – Groundhog Day, Ash Wednesday, Chinese New Year, Abe Lincoln B-day, Valentine’s Day, President’s Day, George Washington B-day, Mardi Gras, Superbowl, and Black History month
March – Palm Sunday, St. Patrick’s Day, Good Friday, First day of Spring, The Oscars, Easter
Second Quarter Promotional Book Bundle Ideas/Themes: Bathing suit season, exercise, vacations, diet, healthy cooking and eating, Mexican culture, gardening, earth issues/recycling/environment, parenting, mothers, sports, baseball, graduation, fathers, military history/issues, and craft projects.
April – April Fool’s Day, Passover, Take Your Daughter to Work Day, Earth Day
May – Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day, Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day
June – Flag Day, Father’s Day, Summer begins
Planning promotions around events like these opens your book for tables displays and other promotional events. It gives us a good sales handle and opens up marketing and publicity ideas for publishers.
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Each week we highlight and expound on a question or section from our Publisher Resources page on our website. The more you know, the better you can publish, so we invite you to check out the information we offer.
This week we will continue to highlight the steps to a successful booksiging. (Check out step one and two from previous weeks).
Step Three: Two weeks in advance of the signing, call the bookstore manager again to check on the status of the book order. If there is a problem with the order, please contact BookMasters with all pertinent information. You can’t have a book signing without your books.
Two weeks prior to the signing is go time. If for whatever reason the bookstore does not have books in stock or on order to arrive soon, you may need to take action. Ensure that the store puts in their order immediately and confirm that they are able to get the books from their preferred vendor in the supply chain.
Please note that some stores prefer to buy through certain wholesalers, or in the case of national chains, through the national headquarters. Even if the book is in stock at AtlasBooks, the store may not be able to get books in quickly if they are required to go through certain channels.
If the store is not able to get enough stock through their preferred channels, it is okay to mention that they can go straight to the distributor for stock. AtlasBooks is happy to work with any store to get stock in time for a signing.
As a last resort, authors sometimes have to take books or extra books with them to the signing. By following the steps to a successful signing (especially the courtesy reminder calls at four and two weeks prior to the event), the author most likely won’t have to be in this position. However, many authors like to take extra books along just in case. They can even stay in the car unless they are needed. So at this point, make sure to have stock with you or do a stock up request to have books sent to you.
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Getting on a reading list of any type is good for a book. It gives the book a vote of confidence. It also puts the book in line with other books so that if a reader likes one book in the list, they will be more likely to pick up another book on the list.
Even if your book doesn’t make a popular summer reading list like those mentioned previously in Summer Reading – Part 1, the summer spin could still be a good marketing tool for you. Ask your local bookstore or library to do a list and ask that they include your book. And offer to do an event with them. Summer events tend to draw less people because summer is a time for travel, sports, and other activities, but a summer-themed event could work well in some communities.
You could also check out summer lists with genre-specific publications. Have a fiction book based in the Mississippi? Check with state-specific publications or even chambers of commerce to see if they would be interested in putting together a list of books about the area. You could even research some other books that would fit the list well to make it less work for whoever you are submitting the work to. You could go so many directions with this.
Remember that a key in any type of promotion is timing. Now is not the time to put together a summer reading list, so if you are reading this and think your book might be a good fit, now is the time to start planning for next summer or for your next book.
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Check out the post about Understanding Amazon on our parent company, BookMasters’, blog.
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Each week we highlight and expound on a question or section from our Publisher Resources page on our website. The more you know, the better you can publish, so we invite you to check out the information we offer.
This week we will continue with step two of doing a successful book signing.
Step Two: Four weeks in advance of the signing, call the bookstore manager to check on the status of the book order. Don’t be surprised if the books haven’t been ordered yet; this is a courtesy call reminder.
Last week we looked at when an author should start to pursue a signing (at least 6 weeks in advance). Step two is the follow-up.
Bookstores can be very busy places, and as I think we all experience, time can pass more quickly than we realize. So a brief call to make sure books are ordered or are on schedule to be ordered is a nice way to give a reminder. It is also a good chance to catch up with the bookstore again. It shows that you are invested and organized. And it gives you an opportunity to make sure you have done everything on your end as well.
And as we say, don’t be surprised if the books aren’t ordered yet. Many bookstores just don’t have the space to store boxes of books in anticipation of an event, so they may just put off their order until a little later.
And remember that there is a fine line between a good follow-up and being a pest, so please do be sure to stay on the side of doing a good follow-up. By scanning the blogs and comments of various booksellers, a major complaint is about authors that are too pushy about their books or their events. If the bookseller says they don’t have the books in yet, tell them this was a friendly reminder and you look forward to seeing them soon at the event. They will appreciate the reminder and the brevity of the call.
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