AtlasBooks Distribution Blog

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.