Hi! I’m Dale Beaumont and welcome to Get Published TV. This is the only dedicated show on the internet to tell authors and aspiring authors to write, publish and market their own best selling book in around eight minutes a day.
Now, before we continue with today’s episode, I need to just make you aware into some of our regular viewers, say yes or no. Some of my episodes are being a little bit longer than eight minutes. There will be nine, ten or even couple are going to be over 11 minutes. I’m still working and trying to make sure I stick to that time. Sometimes when I get really passionate and excited, I get to be carried away and talk a little bit more than should. But I am going to do my best in this episode to pay that back and to have it be under eight minutes so I can even get the information and you can get on with the rest of your day.
Now, in today’s episode, actually, in the last couple of episodes, we spoke about what are the pros, what are the reasons why you should sell your book in bookstores. And we spoke about the reasons why you should not sell your book in bookstores. And, what you need to do is obviously make a decision as to which way that you’re going to go. So I always can give some ideas, throw this right in your mind and then see which option is really right for you.
Clearly, if you’re going for a major publisher or specialized publisher and we’re going to talk about the differences between those two in the future episode, if that’s the case then the primary or in some cases, their only distribution channel is the bookstores. That’s where they sell their books, so that’s great. You know, your books are going to go out there, so round with it, back them up, give them lots of support, and help with as much marketing as you possibly can. Don’t rely on your publisher. You need to be driving a book, just as hot to ensure that it’s going to be a success. So really round with it.
If you choose to self publish, then you got a choice to make. Now, if you have the luxury of having some outlets for distribution, such as a very large database or you don’t even have to have a large database. Maybe your book is around a specialized topic area. I’ve used the example before learning to play tennis because there’s a tennis court just a couple of hundred meters down the road over there. If you’re a tennis coach and you got a book about how to improve your tennis, then clearly a great place to sell your book would be in tennis centers. So what you could do is either approach them directly and sell them copies of your book at a discount or what you could do is you could find the distributors that actually sell products into tennis stores such as people that manufacture tennis rackets or balls or bags, and all those type of people. And what you could actually do is you can approach the people that actually manufacture the tennis rackets or manufacture the bags, whatever the brand names are and say that if they buy bag, then they get included a copy of this book and you can sell the book to them at a discount and that’s a value add for the actual purchase.
Now, we’re going off topic with the bunch of other ideas but if you some distribution channels, then for you maybe it’s going to be more preferable to just stick to those alternate distribution channels, such as your own database and network. You can do it through other retail outlets such as tennis stores, fishing stores, or whatever your book subject matter is about or you can approach industries, associations, organizations that are around your particular topic area and try to sell it directly to their membership or their network base. So they’re all options. There are hundreds of others that we’re going to talk about in more detail. The other thing is you’re a speaker and you’re out there speaking to a 102, 103 people every week, then that’s a huge opportunity to sell your books. Say, for some of you might find, “You know what, I’m actually making enough money” or “I’m happy with the results that I’m getting and I don’t actually need to go into the book shops.” Now, if that’s what you decide then great. Congratulations.
However, I would not try to discount bookshops because for a little bit of extra effort and it does take a bit of effort to get us set up initially, and yes it does take maintenance in order to work with your book. This should be done to continue to ensure your book is actually selling. But it is well worth the time and investment in my opinion even though you may make less money per book sold because of the other factors that I mentioned earlier such as the extra income, the credibility, the opportunities, the media exposure. You can attract some really good or high level buyers and it really helps with you’re the viral marketing effect of your book because if people like it, they tell other people and people are going to go into the bookshops and they are going to want it and if they can’t find it, they may be forget about or think that the book doesn’t exist and you’ve lost that potential sale. But by having it there, you just can then seize on every single opportunity.
So in my mind, in my opinion, you should do both. You should sell your book in bookstores and you should also sell your book direct. And we’re going to talk about a lot of different ways you can sell your book direct in the future. I say do both but what I also say is that sometimes you can actually trip people up if they try to do both at the same time because they never really get any attraction and any real results because they’re splitting their focus into totally different areas.
So one school of thought maybe just focus in the bookshops for the first month or two months until that relationship is build and the books getting out there and you’re promoting it and you got some good publicity happening and then focus your energy and attention after a couple of months on selling direct and making some of those big deals happen so you can sell books in volume or do the reverse, so your books direct first and then go back to the bookstores. But I have seen a lot of people trying to do both and they do both not very well, so the book doesn’t end up selling in the stores and they don’t sell the books direct and they think it’s not working and sometimes those people throw it all and they give up which is a real, real shame. So you think it through. Weigh out the pros and cons.
If you got some questions, leave them in the comment section below or give me your feedback. Give me your thoughts on what you like about today’s video and we’ll continue the conversation in a future episode of Get Published TV. So that wraps up today’s show. Thanks again for watching. I trust you’re learning lots of stuff and we’ll see you again next time.
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