Jim: Barnes & Noble was recently purchased by a hedge fund, but the company is not going away.
Thomas: There was some discussion about whether Barnes & Noble would go out of business. Their financials were not good, but they have secured a new buyer. Assuming the sale goes through, Barnes & Noble will be around for the foreseeable future. Their stock went up 60% on news of the sale. They represent 25% of the book market, depending on how you count.
Barnes & Noble, and other bookstores, are a key part of a publishing strategy, especially if you’re traditionally published.
Are indie bookstores making a comeback?
Thomas: There are fewer brick-and-mortar bookstores than before. Borders went out of business several years ago, and Lifeway is closing its bookstores, but indie bookstores are doing better than ever. Twenty years ago, it was all about the big Barnes & Noble putting the indie out of business. The surviving indies are now putting the screws to Barnes & Noble.
Jim: The shop around the corner is going to stay.
Thomas: If it survived this long, my money is that it will be around for another 20 years.
Indie bookstores offer something you don’t get at a big Barnes & Noble. The Book People store here in Austin is a great example. They have a lot of personality. The people who work there are fans of books, and they write reviews of the books on the shelves. You can go to the person working in the sci-fi section and ask her for her recommendations. She’s read two or three sci-fi books this month, and she can recommend something to you. Barnes & Noble won’t offer that.
People still prefer to buy paper books, especially for nonfiction, and especially younger readers. A lot of people think it’s the kids buying Kindles and ebooks, but it’s the opposite. The younger the reader, the more likely they are to prefer paper. The older the reader, the more likely they are to prefer an ebook. The reason is large print. Somebody using reading glasses loves a Kindle because they may not need reading glasses for it. A 25-year-old millennial reader doesn’t have that issue and may prefer a paper book.
What about Amazon’s brick-and-mortar bookstores?
Thomas: We’re not talking about Amazon’s brick-and-mortar bookstores here. Amazon has a totally different strategy. If Book People is going for a highly human approach with staff who’ve written reviews, the Amazon bookstore strategy is highly automated, run by big data, machine learning, and algorithms. While there are humans who work there, they are not the ones making the decisions.
What do bookstores actually want?
Jim: Bookstores want foot traffic. They want people browsing and engaging with readers and workers. That sounds obvious, but it’s important because it’s something you can help change on a local level.
They also want to sell books.
Most importantly, they want good community relations, especially indie bookstores. I live in a small town with one bookstore, Riverwalk Books. It’s an indie bookstore, and they want to be known in the community. My town has a huge influx of tourists, and the bookstore wants good relations with other local businesses so people will say, “If you’re looking for a book during your summer stay, you’ve got to check out Riverwalk Books.”
Thomas: Ideally, you want to be the author that brings bookstores what they want. They want foot traffic, and you’re the person who brings people walking into the store asking for your book. They want sales, and you want to have the book that flies off the shelf.
How do bookstores decide which books to stock?
Thomas: For the most part, bookstores are selling the same books that sold last week or last month. There’s not much turnover in the core books they offer.
When it comes to new books, the big booksellers and distributors have catalogs. Ingram has a catalog and sales teams. Both Ingram and major publishers like Simon & Schuster or Random House have salespeople call bookstore owners about which books they should list.
Publishers have a spring catalog and a fall catalog. You have to get your book published by a certain date to be featured in the spring catalog, or you get bumped to the next one. The buyer at an indie bookstore is typically the owner and reviews the catalog to decide whether to stock your book.
The salesperson may only talk about a few dozen of the 500 books in the catalog. You want to be the author the sales team is talking about.
If you’re traditionally published, you can ask for a meeting with the sales team. Many authors only ask to talk to the marketing people, but they’re totally different people. Just because the marketing people like you doesn’t mean the salespeople are aware of you.
Barnes & Noble has stores all over the country. Typically, if they’re going to stock an author, they’ll stock that author in their home city and maybe some nearby stores, because the assumption is that the author’s platform is strongest locally. If the test goes well, they’ll expand to more stores. Barnes & Noble has regionalism built in, especially with new books, where they feature more local authors initially.
What’s the single best way to get your book into a store?
Jim: All the technology in the world cannot match you physically walking into a store and introducing yourself. I’ve done this since the start of my career. I walk into any bookstore, anywhere I am. If I’m traveling, I’ll walk into local bookstores and introduce myself to the manager or, if it’s an indie bookstore, the owner.
I’ll go into a store and first look to see if my books are on the shelves. If they are, it’s simple to say, “I just wanted to introduce myself and thank you for carrying my novels.” If my books aren’t on the shelf, I still start a conversation.
They will do you favors once they get to know you. Don’t walk in and say, “Why are my books not on the shelves?” The approach is, “I’m an author, I love bookstores, I love books, and I’d like to get to know you.”
At my local store, Riverwalk Books, I went in and met the owner, Libby. We had a conversation. She immediately looked me up in her catalog and said, “Oh, you’re a legitimate author,” which in her mind meant traditionally published. I didn’t say, “You should carry my books.” I said, “Great to meet you.” Over time, she came to me and said, “I need to carry some of your books in my store.”
She ended up ordering my books and bringing them into the store. You can be a salesperson for your own books. It doesn’t all have to come from your publisher.
Thomas: Spending time getting to know bookstore owners is a better use of your time than posting photos of yourself to Facebook or Instagram. It takes time, and you may have to spend time in the car, but it can make a difference in your book sales. If it’s an indie bookstore, it’s not just about having you on the shelf; it’s about them recommending you. As they familiarize themselves with you and your writing, they’re helping to handsell your book. When somebody walks into Book People and asks the staff what they recommend, you want your book to be the one they mention.
Jim: There’s a whole mystique around local authors. People love knowing the person who wrote this book lives in the area. I’m not saying make a special trip. Most of us have patterns of visiting certain places periodically. It’s just an extra five-minute stop to drop in on the local Barnes & Noble. Over the course of a year, you can drop in two, three, maybe four times. That action of the staff saying, “We really like Jim, we’re going to recommend his books,” can have a huge impact on sales.
What attitude should you bring to a bookstore?
Thomas: Realize that you’re just another author. Don’t expect to be treated like royalty. You need to be the servant, not the master, in this relationship. You want to be a blessing to the bookstore owner.
Jim: When I was first published, I thought bookstore owners would be impressed. It doesn’t work that way. They have worked with hundreds of published authors, many of whom have done far more than I have.
Go in with the attitude of, “How can I help you? I have some ideas on how I can help your bookstore succeed.” If you go in with that attitude, they’re going to receive you very differently. Be humble. Look for opportunities to serve, not be served.
Are bookmarks still worth it?
Jim: Make it easy for them. If they like you, they need a tool to tell people about you. Bookmarks are still an effective way to get the word out, especially if the bookstore is the one passing them out. Most traditional publishers will provide you with bookmarks if you go to them with a plan for how you’ll distribute them. Publishers are willing to spend money if they can see the potential for return on investment.
Thomas: Buyers still want a free bookmark when they check out. Bookmarks are perishable. They tend to disappear into the book they were used for. A free bookmark is a gift that says, “Thank you for shopping here. Here’s a bookmark from a local author.” That improves the bookstore’s relationship with the community in one small way.
Can you build bookstore relationships before your book comes out?
Thomas: This isn’t something you have to wait for. You can start before you publish.
Jim: Tell them your dream. In 2008, Darcy and I were on the Oregon Coast, and I walked into a bookstore and started talking to the owner. It came up that I was an aspiring novelist, writing a book and hoping to get published. She said, “Good for you. I hope you pursue that dream, and I hope someday we carry your book.”
I came back to that bookstore about three years later. My first novel, Rooms, was their number one seller. I walked up and said, “That’s me,” and pointed to the book. She was over the moon. She called one of her employees and said, “She is your biggest fan in the world. You’ve got to wait till she comes and meets you.” The dream came full circle.
Do you think she pushed that book harder than ever after that? Absolutely, because I had talked to her years before the book was even published.
What’s the easiest way to build a bookstore relationship?
Thomas: Shop at your local bookstore. There’s a good chance you buy most of your books on Amazon. That’s convenient, but it doesn’t build any relationship. Amazon doesn’t care. If you shifted your buying to your local bookstore, they’d see you on a regular basis.
Most authors, especially successful authors, read a lot of books. If you’re constantly going in and getting to know the staff, it’s much easier for them to say yes to you because you’re a patron. It doesn’t cost you much more, maybe 10% more per book, but it could go a long way.
Why throw a launch party instead of a book signing?
Thomas: Barnes & Noble features you in your local bookstores first, so throw a launch party at your local Barnes & Noble. Chances are, your marketing team will ask you to do this if you’re traditionally published. They’re hoping you’ll get 50 or more friends to that bookstore to buy 50 or more copies. When Barnes & Noble sees that 50 copies of a book have been sold, that triggers their algorithm, and it’s only good news for you. You want their system to flag your book as hot and put it in more stores.
It doesn’t just have to be at your local bookstore. Maybe your parents live in a different town, and they can throw you a launch party there, inviting their friends to their local Barnes & Noble.
The more of these you do, the more sales you’re driving. Barnes & Noble sales count for BookScan and for their internal system, and it helps get your book stocked in more and more bookstores.
I want to underline that this is not a book signing. Yes, you are signing books, but book signings are boring. This is a book launch party. You’ll spend $20 at the grocery store on a sheet cake or dessert people love. Maybe you’ll do a reading from your book or a Q&A.
I know authors who throw parties that sell out in hours. It can be very effective, but not if they call it a book signing. You have to be J.K. Rowling for a book signing to work. I recommend parties at bookstores.
Why does selling locally matter so much?
Jim: Some of you are thinking, “If I sell 50 books at this party, based on my royalty rate, maybe I’m making $40 or $45. Is that really worth it?” Selling books locally has a massive influence nationally. The best place to build momentum is locally. Those things you do locally start to expand outward. The most famous example is the Kingsmen with “Louie Louie,” one of the most famous songs in rock and roll. It started as a local hit in Portland, Oregon, and then it got bigger and bigger. A bigger label picked it up, and it grew from there.
If you look at your Amazon numbers, most of your sales are going to come locally, which tells us it makes sense to focus a lot of your marketing effort there. It can grow exponentially.
Thomas: If your book is good, meaning it drives word of mouth, and the people who read it want to buy copies for their friends and family, this big local push is what gets that word-of-mouth marketing rolling. One of the ways to encourage word of mouth is exactly what Jim is talking about.
Where do bookstore owners go to meet authors?
Thomas: This is an advanced tip for authors who are really serious. Fish where the fish are. Bookstore owners go to conferences and events to meet authors. If you go to those events, you can personally meet a lot of bookstore owners all at once. Sometimes, one flight to a bookstore owner conference can be worth a lot of driving around to bookstores in your area.
Jim: This past January, I was at the American Library Association biannual meeting in Seattle. Librarians were coming in, booths were set up, and I had a chance to meet all these librarians. They came to me instead of me going to them. Libraries are wonderful because they don’t return books.
A lot of authors hate it when somebody emails and says, “I just checked out your book from the library.” They think that’s not a sale, but it is. Statistics show that if somebody checks out a book from the library, reads it, and likes it, 50% of them will go out and buy the next book rather than check it out.
Thomas: Libraries are a great discovery tool. Public libraries have existed for hundreds of years. The first public library was created by Benjamin Franklin. Find out where the bookstore owners who stock your kind of book go, and see about getting into those conferences yourself. Ask your bookstore contacts what conferences they attend.
What if your book doesn’t fit a traditional bookstore?
Thomas: Look for non-standard bookstores. When people think about bookstores, they think of stores with “Bookstore” in the name, but you’d be surprised at the number of stores that sell books as one of many products. There was a Dale Earnhardt book that sold, if I’m remembering correctly, at AutoZones, because the people who shop there are interested in NASCAR racing and curious about this famous driver.
I was at a Texas-themed store in a mall with my wife. In Texas, every mall has a Texas store because we love buying Texas-branded things. This store had a small book section of Texas-themed books. One of them was a book of cowboy wisdom with cowboy proverbs, and it had sold half a million copies. It almost certainly sold almost exclusively through these kinds of Texas-themed stores, not Barnes & Noble or Amazon. The author, by thinking outside the box, was selling lots of copies right next to the shot glasses and napkins with the Texas flag on them.
These specialty stores may be very interested in stocking your book if you show up and explain why your book would be a good fit for their audience. Go to the mall and think about where your target reader shops. Maybe your book takes place in small-town Mississippi, and you go to stores there. Maybe you’re writing fantasy or science fiction, and a local comic book store or board game store would be interested.
Jim: My wife and I were at Glacier National Park a few years ago, and there was a store at the entrance selling posters, coffee mugs, walking sticks, everything you’d expect. There were three or four novels set in Glacier National Park for sale. Not 15 or 20 novels, just three or four. People are in that mindset. They’re in the park, they see a book set there, and they’re going to pick it up.
Thomas: They’ll read it because they’re on vacation. A very target-rich environment.
Jim: You don’t have to be traditionally published for this one. You could be indie published and say, “My book is this adventure story set in Glacier National Park. Would you consider carrying it?” There’s a lot of opportunity.
Thomas: Indie bookstores aren’t biased against indie authors because they don’t have relationships with the traditional publishing companies. They may not know who Ingram is. They don’t return the books. They tend to buy them outright. It’s a huge opportunity that is often overlooked by authors who assume Amazon is the only option.
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