Here’s a true story of one very tenacious self-published author and what not to do to get your book on my shelves.<\/p>\n
– First thing of all: do not try to get your book in any store in December. It’s just too busy a time for me and most other booksellers. <\/p>\n
– Do not call more than once. Leave a message, trust the system and know that the right people, i.e. the buyers, will get the message.<\/p>\n
– Do not have three different members of your family call suggesting I carry the book. This just takes up staff time saying the same thing: Please, either send an email with details of the book, or better yet, send a copy for the owners to look at. But do not take up my staff time with the same message multiple times a week.<\/p>\n
– Do not pretend to be a customer looking for the book when you are in fact, the author. We have Caller ID and we check it before we answer the phone.<\/p>\n
– Do not offer to send an invoice me for five copies, sight unseen, during the sixth phone call of the week.<\/p>\n
Here are some things the author could have done differently:<\/p>\n
– Do be patient. December is a very, very busy time. Try to get your book to us after the holidays.<\/p>\n
– If you’re that confident of your book and are frustrated with an inability to reach a buyer, offer to send one copy as a consignment. This way you can get one in the store without endlessly calling staff.<\/p>\n
– I know your book is very important to you, but please understand that this is the busiest time of the year for me. This is when I make my money for the year and I barely have time to restock the bestsellers, deal with special orders and unpack boxes; I do not have time to tell you again that I cannot make a decision about a self-published book I have no information about.<\/p>\n
– Find out the store’s email and send me a nice email about why I should carry your book.<\/p>\n
– Understand that if I don’t respond right away, I’m probably just busy. Send a follow-up email in a month and then let it be. Not every book is going to work at my store.<\/p>\n
– Consignment works for me. This way I take no risk and your book comes to my store.<\/p>\n
Did I take the book? Well, yes I did, because the author came in and she let me take two on consignment. I had her sign the books. I put autographed stickers on the books and put them on the Vermont shelf, spine out. To which she said, "Is that how you’re going to display them?" I was dumbstruck at her boldness. After I calmly explained that we had other books to feature, bestsellers, newsletter books, and holiday books, she backed off. I also suggested that she send some of her friends in to buy the books because, honestly, I’d like nothing more than selling these books.<\/p>\n
I’ll keep you posted about the book’s sales as well as how it winds up displayed. It would not surprise me if this book "somehow" wound up face out.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Here’s a true story of one very tenacious self-published author and what not to do to get your book on my shelves. – First thing of all: do not try to get your book in any store in December. It’s just too busy a time for me and most other booksellers. – Do not call […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}