My experience proves that  bookstores and retailers put books into four categories.

1. “Ugh, no way.”

2. “Perfect for our stores and our in person shoppers.”

3. “Not perfect for our stores but close enough so let’s try it out.”

4. “A good book, but package /price /topic makes it not right for our stores, so let’s put it on line. Those who want it will buy it there.”

Other than “ugh, no way”… each of these reactions is a success.  If your book is on a brick and mortar  bookstore website, you have a real shot of moving it to a test in the stores.  Don’t drive all of your online traffic to Amazon…. make sure you have people buy from and review on the other bookstore sites too!

www.indiebound.org

www.bn.com

www.booksamillion.com

www.chapters.ca

I had a wonderful time speaking with Julie Ann Eason at Successful Author Podcast.  If you are interested in hearing my 30 minute tutorial on how to sell your book from the comfort of your own desk, then click here!

by Christine Raneri

Have you ever been on the road where you are driving along happily singing away to your favorite song when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you hit a wall of white with nowhere to go and not knowing quite what to do?

It happened to me not behind the wheel of my car but rather behind the keyboard of my computer.

It is subzero in the land of review requests with gusts of no-thank-yous approaching 20 inbox per hour.

I thought November and December were causing frost bite on the fingers of bloggers who kindly request review copies but it doesn’t even touch the cool responses and white out conditions seen in January and early February.

I decided to put on my balaclava and locate my ice axe and investigate this frozen blogtundra.   This is what I dug up from some lovely bloggers who shared this cold spell with me.

Book bloggers are a great community of people who not only love books, and reading as much as they can, but who also genuinely love to support authors.

This is a slippery slope because these bloggers receive handfuls of review requests PER week!  I’m sure that’s equivalent to snow falling at 4 inches per hour.  As soon as you shovel the driveway, you look where you started and it’s covered again.

Our lovely bloggers accept some, not all requests on books they are interested in reading and have every intention of reviewing it within the usual 3-5 month window but life happens.  Like all of us, they have actual lives beyond their blog.  They have kids, partners, pets, jobs, errands, illness, simply bad days, weeks, other hobbies and interests, etc….

 Some might not understand that bloggers do this voluntarily!

In comes November and December.  This is the time bloggers hope to have their TBR piles read and completed so the new year starts with a clean slate.  They tend to stop taking review requests so they can put their energy and efforts into the authors who are patiently waiting for a review.

Then the holidays blanket us in chaos and before we know what it, we can’t believe we’re dating our documents with a new year.  What does all this culminate down to?

Bloggers do this voluntarily!

Bloggers are still catching up on their reading, while settling back into the after holiday routines and next thing you know, we’re into February.  Although I have not seen a warming trend outside, I have seen one in the last couple weeks in the blogosphere.  Maybe Valentine’s day had something to do with warming hearts towards authors and books or maybe it’s just the ebb and flow of the blogging industry.

I’m not only a lover of books and ice climbing, I’m a geek through and through so this will be a start to a longitudinal study.  I currently have brain freeze so please feel free to share title ideas for this study.

My name is Christine Raneri and I’ve recently joined the New Shelves Distribution Team as their Marketing Manager.  Before this I was a College Professor and Business Consultant.  a few months ago, the publishing industry was new to me and  I decided to slide into the land of books.  I found myself on the seesaw of print vs. e-book, self vs. vanity press, urban vs. traditional fantasy… Once I got a grasp of all that, I decided to jump into the sandbox of factoids.  I am sharing what I believe might be useful to those who are just starting to think about writing, those who are in the middle of writing, those who already have a book written, and those who just love books and factoids.  So here we go with some book industry fun facts:

• Every 30 minutes a fiction book is published in the US.  In 2013, over 400,000 titles were self-published.
• Although e-books continue to climb in reader popularity, print copies are still the preferred choice of how readers would like to read a book.
• Those of middle-age are the ones buying the most books.  Those who live in the US West outpace Easterners in book buying by 40%
• Amazon says the average age of e-book readers on their site is 18-29 years old.
• According to a survey of teens, their book purchase is influenced mostly by authors they have read and liked in the past.  The second major influence are libraries.  29% of teens said they found their books by browsing around libraries.
  • 80% of people, who use the internet to research books and other products, stated trusting online reviews.
  • Readers were given a list of genres and asked to pick their favorites.  Below are what was found:
    • Favorite/preferred fiction genres:
      • 50% of those readers prefer mystery, thriller and crime genre.
      • 25% prefer science fiction
      • 25% literature
      • 25% romance
      • 10% graphic novels
      • 8%  chick lit
      • 5% westerns
  • Favorite/preferred non-fiction genres:
    • 29%  biographies
    • 27% history
    • 24% religious and spiritual
    • 18% self-help
    • 13% true crime
    • 12% current affairs
    • 11% political
    • 10% business

What does this mean to you?  It means when you are playing with the idea of writing a book, think about what the genre is and if it is a niche to a small following of readers or a favorite.  If you have a book started think about who your target audience is and if you need to have your book published in many formats.  If you have already written a book think about how you are going to generate reviews for your book since people tend to pay attention to reviews when purchasing.  If your book is geared towards the Young Adult and New Adult age group, a good idea would be to get reviews from librarians and utilizing Library Thing.  Next time I’ll swing us into the importance of reviews.  Specifically; who reviewers are, what reviews do, where to find them, how to ask for them, when to expect to see them.  In the meantime continue to have fun writing, thinking about, and reading books.

Sites

http://www.statista.com

http://oedb.org/ilibrarian/12-stats-on-the-state-of-bookstores-in-america-today/

http://www.harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/864/Default.aspx

When I meet authors and publishers who are interested in growing their sales, I ask them this question: “What shelves to you want to see your book sitting on?”  It is helpful to hear what authors have in mind before I start working on their sales plan.

What I hear the most often is “Costco”, “Wal-Mart” and often, “My book would be PERFECT for Airport stores!”

While that may be true, I hate having to tell them what I am about to tell you…

That will only happen if you have already sold enough copies to prove to the buyers at these stores that your book will be worth their time and shelf space.

Airport stores, Costco and Supermarkets have very limited shelf space compared to the rent they are being charged.  It is a book buyer’s job to make sure that those shelves earn their keep.  Each inch of shelf space needs to yield a minimum amount of money each month. If books are put on the shelves that don’t sell enough, the buyer has to replace them. This is expensive and a waste of time and money for the store.

So buyers are judged by how well they choose books that will sell well and make money per shelf spot. The best buyers have an innate sense of the books that will succeed.  All buyers (if they are smart) look at data and sales history to back up their gut feelings before they put a book on their shelves.

No matter how great your book is, a buyer needs to PROVE to their companies that a book will make money.  You need to prove to the buyer that your book will make money.  How will you do that?

Airport stores don’t have the luxury of trying out books to “see how they do”.  They choose books that have already done well in the book market or online.

So, before you approach the national offices of any of the major chains, you have to have data that shows that they will make the money they are required to make.  If you don’t have sales from Amazon or the book retail chains, then you can try approaching a manager of a local airport store or Costco and ask if you can do an event.  A successful book sales day at Costco can be leveraged into a conversation with the main buyer in Washington.

I am not saying that you cannot have your book accepted into Target… I am just letting you know what the book buyer’s job looks like and what you will be up against.

If you want our help getting into Costco or Airport stores, there are ways to get tested in local Costco locations and ways to use co-op funds to get tested at airport stores.  Call us and ask how we can help!

I often hear clients struggle with the idea of signing up for Amazon Advantage. They wonder why they can’t just list their book on Amazon as a third party seller.  I wanted to share with you the experience of a client who decided to sign up for Advantage after I “pushed” a little.

I’m an independent publisher with an award-winning book that is being reviewed and sold nationally.  I’m also an Amazon Central Seller.  I make more profit more because of their amazingly low fulfillment prices and access to an incredible book market.  BUT, even though I have thousands of books in three different fulfillment centers, I’m still a “third-party” seller.  I will NEVER get that most important little green “Buy Button” on Amazon because they still control all the little green “Buy Buttons” for BMVD—Books, Movies, Videos, and DVD’s. (If you sold waffle makers or nail clippers, you’d get a “Buy Button.”)

 The only way to get that little “buy button” is through the Amazon Advantage program.  I’ll be honest.  I don’t like the Amazon Advantage program because it’s a consignment program.  BUT it’s the only game in town that will get you the “buy button” for your book.  The ONLY game in town. 

That little  “Buy Button” on Amazon means EVERYTHING to sell your book.

It means more than Amazon Author Central—more than even good reviews—more than everything.  It means, in the eyes of the Amazon consumer, you are legit.  I’m still an Amazon Central Seller and still have prices lower than Amazon.  I’m still the only third-party seller with prime shipping rights.  But I will never, ever, ever get that little green “Buy Button.” And nor will you.  And what’s really sad is without that “Buy Button,” you’ll be dumped in and lumped in with all the third-party sellers, which doesn’t give you’re book the appearance of Amazon legitimacy.  That’s the reality of Amazon.  

I learned all this Amazon information the hard way.  It’s not written in bold anywhere.  I am ALL for the independent author and publisher to make it.  But there’s the Amazon Advantage way—or the highway.  And yes, I did, finally get that little green “Buy Button.”

I have recently put together with Joan Stewart a full 90-minute presentation on how to do your own sales and marketing to Costco, B&N, Target, Wal-mart and the other big box stores.

If you are interested in owning this presentation, please just email me at amy@newshelves.com

and I will arrange for you to receive a copy.  The presentation was $49.95 originally, but…

   We Are Offering it for $29.95 Through May 5th, 2014.

It was SUCH a pleasure speaking to and with all of you!  I loved the smart questions. As I said, I would love to be of help in any way.  Here are a few materials that I put together for you all.  Below you will find the presentation I have today and a few items and informational papers that will help you along the way.

If you would like to be in touch, feel free to email me at nicole@newshelves.com or call 518-261-1300 X 302.  (Truly, though, the best course of action is to email me and we can set up an appointment to talk on the phone.

• Open Door Dos and Donts Feb 2015
• How to do your own ebook distribution
• Do you need IngramSpark and CreateSpace?
• Why you need a price specific barcode
• Distribution vs Wholesaler (video)

Have a terrific day!  – Nicole