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Book Promotion Myth - The Best Place to Sell Books is a Book Store
by Judy Cullins

When most people think of buying books they think of bookstores. Marketing guru, John Kremer, author of 1001 Ways to Market Your Book says "I'm glad I don't rely on retail "brick and mortar" bookstore sales for my income, but it will be nice to add that icing on the cake into my cash flow again."

In the past three years, John has sold 45,000 copies of his book, many from non-traditional marketing strategies; his web site, his eMagazine which offers tips, products and seminars, specialty stores, foreign markets, libraries, and back of the room sales. Because he is a recognized name, he and other bestsellers by famous authors get a lot of shelf space in the bookstore--cover side out. For your lesser-known book, only your spine will show and after three months of initial placement, your book will fade away unless you put on your promotion hat to get customers to the store.

In one book coaching session, a new client thought he wanted to sell to the bookstores. I asked him who was his particular audience. He said business people. What kind of business people? Do these people go to the "brick and mortar" bookstore for a business book? Or, will they be more likely to visit a particular business Web site for specific kinds of business books?

Did you know?

• Seventy percent of US adults haven't been in a bookstore for the last 5 years *Bookstores sell only 45% of all books sold

• Bookstores return non-sold books to the author-think of the Starbucks people dripping their coffee and scone on your book. The author will get those returns.

• Bookstores will take 90 days, even a year to pay you for your total book sales

• Bookstores only order two or three copies at a time because of limited shelf space

• Bookstores buy only from a distributor or wholesaler.

Copyright © Judy Cullins

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