Statistically, book sales in book stores are down. As more and more people shop on the Internet, book store sales will continue to drop. There will always be people, though, who love visiting their favorite book store and browsing the shelves for a new find. These are the people you want to sell your book to!
Unless your book is being sold by a major publisher, there is a slim chance you will get your book onto the shelves of a major chain. Some major chains also ask for your marketing plan to sell your book. A marketing plan will detail how you will promote your book, stated as actions, financial commitment, and time commitment. For big chains like Borders to sell your book, you need a sales history of previous books.
Your best option as a new writer is to ask local, independent book sellers to sell your book. List down independent bookstores around your area, and pop them a visit instead of just calling. Even then, don't have high expectation that bookstores will automatically want to promote your book purely because it has been published. The initial contact is important, dress nice to impress, and always be humble as a self promoter.
Offer to sell ten or twenty copies of your book to a few local book stores, then check back in a week or two to see how many of them have been sold. Remember to set a lowest amount you are willing to take for your books, being said and done- the bookshops are there to run a profitable business. At the end of the day, if the store was able to sell your book, they might want to buy more copies. If not, you can always try another store.
Another tip is that bookstores will also respond to customer requests, if you have Print on demand on your side, and perhaps if you could rally a group of your personal readers to order your book from a bookstore, the store is more likely to take notice of your title when you give them that visit.
Once your book has a bit of sales history and you are able to develop a marketing plan, then the time has come for the next step - to approach the larger chains!
© 2010 BookPal Australia Pty Ltd - All Rights Reserved Worldwide
http://www.Bookpal.com.au/ is helping self publishers all around the world to successfully self publish and market their books with cost effective solutions to create bestsellers. The website offers a free book for budding self publishers, and many other free resources.
Terence Tam is the founder of BookPal, he previously spent 6 years as an academic and was a contributing author for several academic books. Frustrated with the level of service he was getting with traditional publishers, he set up his own self publishing company to help other authors publish and market books with cost effective yet efficient solutions
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