Librarians have goals, wants, and needs that we need to understand.  You have to remember that, although librarians are lovely people most of the time, libraries are a business.  Walking into a library, sending an email, or picking up the phone to tell them how great your book is won’t get the job done.  You need the right materials and the right approach.  This will make a world of difference for you.  It will be the difference between potentially making sales for your book and getting rejected.

What are some of the goals, wants, and needs that librarians have?  I’m glad you asked.  Here they are:

• Acquire books that their visitors will enjoy
• Increase their traffic
• Stay in budget
• Serve the community 
• Do a good job easily and quickly

Check out rates are key.  The more that a book, or a series of books, are checked out, the better off a librarian is and the more secure their job is.  A librarian stands a better chance of keeping their job and their bosses will be happier with them if the checkout rate is high.  If the checkout rate starts to drop, it means they aren’t picking great books, and all of the sudden, they start to get nervous about their job security.

They also need to see that their foot traffic is increasing.  As you’ve seen from the survey data, that’s actually happening in the US, but librarians want people to come to their library branches.  The more people who show up to their library branch, the better off the library is.  Also, librarians have to stay within their budget.  They aren’t allowed to go over budget, so anything that you can do to help a librarian order books less expensively is a huge help.

Librarians also want to serve the community.  Again, many librarians are lovely people, and one of the main reasons a lot of them have for becoming librarians is because they want to be of help.  Further, they want to do a good job, but they need to be able to do it easily and quickly.  A librarian is likely juggling all kinds of plates in their air at any given moment, so the easier you can make their job, the more you’ll be able to keep a conversation going.  You both may be able to achieve your goals mutually, if you take the time to care about what they need and offer to do what you can to help.

One way to help is to help them quickly and easily attain a book that will increase their foot traffic and allow them to stay in budget, and you.

If you would like to learn more, click below to watch a free video class on selling to libraries.