What makes for a successful book from a bookseller's point of view?
by
Nick Thorne
It is a question that I get asked from time to time by the new authors that I meet. Rather flatteringly they think that, as I am a bookseller of 19 years experience, that I may be able to answer this query for them. Often they are writers who have taken the self-publishing route and so do not have the hefty pockets of the multi-national publisher's marketing department behind them. Others, I meet, are authors who think that their publisher are not really fully behind them in the promotion that their title is getting.
Now, assuming that your book is well written and has been targeted at a market in which there are enough potential customers with money to spend, how do you get your book on the shelves?
The first thing you need to be aware of is that shelf space is considered valuable to the bookshop owner, whether a multiple or a small owner run shop. For the retailer's buyer to even think about stocking your book it must first be published in a format that they are used to handling. It must look like it is professionally printed and bound and come with an ISBN and a bar-code in the usual place on the cover. The dust jacket or, if it is a paperback, the front cover is very important and the whole package needs to convey the right impression.
The
local branches of a bookstore multiple, will normally buy almost all
of their titles centrally, although the manager may be able to buy certain
books for his own store. Multiples tend to buy titles that slot well
into the special promotions that they do. This is the 'buy-one-get-one-free'
or 'three-for-two' offers. Go into any shop and you can often find the
cardboard display units know in the trade as 'dumpbins'. They are normally
assembled by the big publishers and so unless you are an author published
by one of the big publishers you will have a mammoth task trying to
get your book into these displays. Major retail chains and the publishing
houses do deals with each other. The publishers have their titles displayed
in the front few square feet of the branches of the multiple shop, where
the most footfall of customers are found and the multiple gets paid
some marketing fees in return. If you are a small self-publisher then
it is almost impossible for you to get into to this valuable area. An
independent shop, on the other hand is most unlikely to be involved
in receiving any money from the major publishers marketing budget to
promote titles in this way.
This being the case, then, the more of these independent booksellers
that you approach the better.
Unless you are already established writer and getting the benefit of this promotional activity, perhaps you will be asking yourself how can you compete? I think that the answer is to, create your own demand for your book. You could consider giving talks on the subject of your book to clubs and societies. Each time that you visit a bookshop offer to sign their stock copies. A 'Signed by the Author' sticker on a book will give it that extra selling edge, especially to people shopping for presents to be given away. If the subject matter of your book lends itself to selling a good few copies at an organised signing session, then you should suggest it to the shop's manager to see if they are willing to hold such an event for you.
Assuming that you have a well written book, that you have adhered to the convention of choosing a format that booksellers and the public are accustomed to and that you have obtained an ISBN and then had a barcode generated (see our article on Writing a Book - Will it Be Judged By The Cover, you should then take on doing some marketing activities to "sell" your book to your readers. This will impress the bookshops to consider giving you shelf space.
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