Don't you find it annoying that the author is expected to send customers to the bookstore? If you are a broom maker and a shop buys them from you or a wholesaler, nobody expects the broom maker to send customers to the shop. This is true for other businesses, but not for books. We have to send our potential customers who could have bought from us directly (with a bigger profit for us) to a 3rd party. Strange arrangement. Book shops in my mind should purchase products (books) they think their customers may need or like, this is how it is in other shops, shopkeepers take risks by buying products. I don't know any industry that asks for returns and there is an option to destroy the product because it didn't sell in x amount of time. Destroying books is just awful. Bookselling has a very strange business model. I haven't approached any bookstore yet as I dread the question, "Will you send customers to us?"; "How will you help us sell your book (and get lower royalties by partnering with us)" ; "Will you come for free to do a talk or reading or signing?" It seems like the author has to do everything and the bookseller just sits in his bookstore waiting for those customers sent by the authors. For now, I rely on online sales only. It seems like a better use of my time. I'm scared to ask bookstores to stock my books as I don't want to be considered like an almost free employee. It wasn't like that before. Authors wrote their books and booksellers sold them. I wish it would be like that now too. Authors just want to write, they don't want to spend time looking for customers to send to bookstores. Just let me write great books, you do the selling. Wouldn't that be awesome?
It's pretty typical in retail for the product maker to have to market the product. Think about any national consumer brand. You see a TV commercial for a Ford truck or an Oreo cookie, that's typically either 100% paid for by corporate (with a call to action to find a dealership or grocery store near you), or it's co-op, meaning corporate pays for part of the advertising, and individual stores or regional groups of stores pay the other part, in exchange for a tag at the end of the TV commercial pointing people to their location. In traditional publishing, the publisher takes the part of "corporate" and should be doing the work of getting your book sold to book stores. But these days, what they are able to invest in sales and advertising is shrinking, due in large part to Amazon monopolizing the book market. All that said, I agree with you that most of this stuff seems to be a waste of time for an indie author. The majority of book revenue, even for physical books, is from online sales now (70% during pandemic, but it was over 50% even before that). Spending the time and money targeting independent bookstores one at a time, and/or setting up book tours (where you, an unknown author nobody cares about, have to sit awkwardly at a table in the middle of the bookstore hoping someone will stop and talk to you while all the shoppers try to avoid eye contact) seems crazy to me. Maybe I'm missing something (does physical shelf space provide exposure that leads to a snowball effect, even in just a few stores???), but I'm guessing advice like this is just the industry failing to stay ahead of consumer trends. I clicked on this video hoping to find information about paid promotions you could do with IngramSpark to spotlight your book to retailers. But sounds like it's not an option.
Hello! I'm hoping you can help me-- I've been trying to create an account on Ingramspark, but when I click "create account." Nothing happens. I've tried changing my internet connection, changing my device, and still nothing. Is Ingramspark aware of this issue and working to fix it? I couldn't contact support because you need an account to submit a question.
Hi Jazmine! 👋 We’re so sorry to hear about this! We definitely want to get to the bottom of this and will need some more information. Please submit your question here.→ selfpub.is/3hcLAJW 🙏📚
This was very helpful. ✨️
Thank you 🙏
You’re welcome 😊
Thanks for this informative webinar!
Our pleasure!
So helpful. Things more indy authors should know. Thanks for this.
Glad it was helpful!
Great information. Thank you.
Thank you ☺️ just published my book on healing from divorce titled “THE SUN ALWAYS PIERCES THROUGH”
Very awesome. Thank you so much for sharing this information.
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Don't you find it annoying that the author is expected to send customers to the bookstore? If you are a broom maker and a shop buys them from you or a wholesaler, nobody expects the broom maker to send customers to the shop. This is true for other businesses, but not for books. We have to send our potential customers who could have bought from us directly (with a bigger profit for us) to a 3rd party. Strange arrangement. Book shops in my mind should purchase products (books) they think their customers may need or like, this is how it is in other shops, shopkeepers take risks by buying products. I don't know any industry that asks for returns and there is an option to destroy the product because it didn't sell in x amount of time. Destroying books is just awful.
Bookselling has a very strange business model. I haven't approached any bookstore yet as I dread the question, "Will you send customers to us?"; "How will you help us sell your book (and get lower royalties by partnering with us)" ; "Will you come for free to do a talk or reading or signing?" It seems like the author has to do everything and the bookseller just sits in his bookstore waiting for those customers sent by the authors.
For now, I rely on online sales only. It seems like a better use of my time. I'm scared to ask bookstores to stock my books as I don't want to be considered like an almost free employee. It wasn't like that before. Authors wrote their books and booksellers sold them. I wish it would be like that now too. Authors just want to write, they don't want to spend time looking for customers to send to bookstores. Just let me write great books, you do the selling. Wouldn't that be awesome?
It's pretty typical in retail for the product maker to have to market the product. Think about any national consumer brand. You see a TV commercial for a Ford truck or an Oreo cookie, that's typically either 100% paid for by corporate (with a call to action to find a dealership or grocery store near you), or it's co-op, meaning corporate pays for part of the advertising, and individual stores or regional groups of stores pay the other part, in exchange for a tag at the end of the TV commercial pointing people to their location.
In traditional publishing, the publisher takes the part of "corporate" and should be doing the work of getting your book sold to book stores. But these days, what they are able to invest in sales and advertising is shrinking, due in large part to Amazon monopolizing the book market.
All that said, I agree with you that most of this stuff seems to be a waste of time for an indie author. The majority of book revenue, even for physical books, is from online sales now (70% during pandemic, but it was over 50% even before that). Spending the time and money targeting independent bookstores one at a time, and/or setting up book tours (where you, an unknown author nobody cares about, have to sit awkwardly at a table in the middle of the bookstore hoping someone will stop and talk to you while all the shoppers try to avoid eye contact) seems crazy to me. Maybe I'm missing something (does physical shelf space provide exposure that leads to a snowball effect, even in just a few stores???), but I'm guessing advice like this is just the industry failing to stay ahead of consumer trends.
I clicked on this video hoping to find information about paid promotions you could do with IngramSpark to spotlight your book to retailers. But sounds like it's not an option.
Hello! I'm hoping you can help me-- I've been trying to create an account on Ingramspark, but when I click "create account." Nothing happens. I've tried changing my internet connection, changing my device, and still nothing. Is Ingramspark aware of this issue and working to fix it? I couldn't contact support because you need an account to submit a question.
Hi Jazmine! 👋 We’re so sorry to hear about this! We definitely want to get to the bottom of this and will need some more information. Please submit your question here.→ selfpub.is/3hcLAJW 🙏📚