Next steps

Once you have your book in the shops through one means or another, you sit back and wait for the orders and/or payments to roll in. They won't of course. Even if you have a wholesaler or distributor selling your book, there is nobody better able to market and promote it like yourself.

This section consists of my top tips for maximising the sales, revenue and profit from your book.

Minimum Order Quantity

Many bookshops automate the replenishment of titles. This means that every time a copy is sold the computer orders another - often automatically. Then you get orders for one copy at a time, which if you are supplying direct, is the most expensive and inefficient way of supplying - from a postage point of view. If you introduce a minimum order quantity this has several effects. First of all it reduces the unit cost of postage, second it replaces each one copy with two more and in theory this means that the number on the shelf of the bookshop will increase over time, not decrease. Cunning huh?

Email Shots, Mail Shots and Fax Blasts

I have not convinced myself that these pay for themselves, especially if you use faxes or post, but they do generate orders in varying quantities. Most bookshop websites list addresses and even phone and fax numbers. It is fairly straightforward to set up a single page email or fax on your computer and send it out. Email tends to be free and seems to generate more response as it goes direct to the manager or someone sensible. In 2019 I’d be tempted to focus on the email method but be careful not to be flagged as a spammer!

Email Top Tips:

• Put all the address in the 'bcc' field (Blind Carbon Copy) or else each bookshop you send the email to will see that it has gone to all bookshops.
• Keep it short and to the point and include a nice image (cover shot)

• Think about what you want the bookshop manager to do after reading your note

  • Provide information on how to order - phone, fax, wholesaler name
  • Provide enough bibliographic data for them to be able to identify the book (ISBN, Title, etc.)
  • Use a special offer – extra % off seems to do the trick
  • Limit the offer to a certain time – e.g. for the next month/week etc.
• Ask someone else to read it before you hit send and look for obvious errors
• Spell check it and make sure it reads professionally and not like spam

Email seems to be a good way to talk directly to individual bookshop managers – they’ll see the email, you know it goes to them and not the part time Saturday staff and it enables you to send individual notes to shops that are particularly important to you. Of course, those that do not have email, or don’t respond, will mean you have to revert to cold calling, which most people don’t like to do.

You’ll find when you do cold call that many people will be a bit off with you and unhelpful. However, don’t be put off; ask who the correct contact is, if you don’t think you have the right one, and try again. There are really nice people in the book selling business and once you have built up a relationship you will find it gets easier.

Mail Shot Top Tips:

• Create a single A4 page flyer on your computer
• Keep it short and to the point
• Make the offer or call to action obvious
• Don’t use too many words – it will read easier with some space
• Include pictures – at least a cover of your book

• Think about what you want the bookshop manager to do after reading your note:

  • Provide information on how to order – phone, fax, wholesaler name
  • Provide enough bibliographic data for them to be able to identify the book (ISBN, Title etc)
  • Use a special offer – extra % off seems to do the trick
  • Limit the offer to a certain time – e.g. for the next month/week etc
  • Enable the page to be faxed back to you with a tick and some minimal info to enable them to place an order; Shop name, contact name, phone number, quantity required.
• Ask someone else to read it before you hit send and look for obvious errors
• Spell check it and make sure it reads professionally
• Try and address the mailer to a generic but accurate contact in the shop – e.g. Humour Buyer
• The Publishers Association sells label lists of bookshops based on different criteria
• Alternatively look up bookshops on the web based yellow pages and create your own list – this is the free option but takes much more time
• The danger of mail shots is that they will just go in the bin and potentially not reach the right person

Fax Blast Top Tips:

Yes some shops still have fax machines!

• Create a single A4 page flyer on your computer
• Keep it short and to the point
• Make the offer or call to action obvious
• Don’t use too many words – it will read easier with some space
• Include pictures – at least a cover of your book

• Think about what you want the bookshop manager to do after reading your note:

  • Provide information on how to order – phone, fax, wholesaler name
  • Provide enough bibliographic data for them to be able to identify the book (ISBN, Title etc)
  • Use a special offer – extra % off seems to do the trick
  • Limit the offer to a certain time – e.g. for the next month/week etc
  • Enable the page to be faxed back to you with a tick and some minimal info to enable them to place an order; Shop name, contact name, phone number, quantity required.
• Ask someone else to read it before you hit send and look for obvious errors
• Spell check it and make sure it reads professionally
• Try and address the fax to a generic but accurate contact in the shop – e.g. Humour Buyer
• You can fax each page yourself - this is time consuming and heartless work, but cheap
• There are bulk fax companies on the web that allow you to upload your file and they will fax them out for you for a fee
• The danger of faxes is that they will just go in the bin and potentially not reach the right person

Book Fair

The London Book Fair is an excellent place to go to meet other small publishers, larger ones, printers, distributors and wholesalers and other people from the trade. If you buy your tickets on their web site you save a few pounds and I'd recommend a visit if possible.

All The Other Bookshops

There are lots of bookshop chains in the UK as well as the smaller individual outlets. Many of the individual outlets seem to buy from Bertrams or Whitakers but I have found that they will buy direct and also haggle less. Make sure you share your TeleOrdering details. They will often go for 30% and 30 days, I always offer Sales or Return as I have had very few returns so far.

Use Google to find the top bookshops in your area or wherever you want to sell. Make a list of the shops you want to go after - both online and offline. You need to be quite organised as before long you will forget who belongs to which shops, what you said, when you spoke and so on. Keep a log by shop of what you did, when, who you spoke to and what the action was. Here are the main ones:

• Blackwells
• Books Etc
• Hatchards
• Stanford's (travel)
• Waterstones
• WH Smiths

Plus all the independent bookshops that vary from town to town

Shipping Overseas

As well as the need to set up cost effective shipping within the UK, if you manage to sell your title to speciality bookshops in the US or other countries then you are going to need to find a way to get your books there without costing £100 a case that the Post Office will charge you. There are several shipping companies around who specialise in books. They tend to deal in whole cases and combine several customers into pallet loads that they ship around the world on containers. They then handle import/export for you and get the package to your customer at the other end.

For example, using specialist shippers, the US can cost around £25-£30 for a case that would cost about £100 using Parcelforce. It takes about 3-4 weeks to get from door to door though these folks will often collect from you. If they won't then you need to add the cost of carriage within the UK from you to the shipper you use.

Some shippers worth trying:

• Print Trail – Outsource your order fulfilment (both inventory and print-on-demand)
• Fastlane Forwarding - Will collect for a fee
• Magnum Book Services - Ship from anywhere to anywhere
• Parcel2Go - Also handle international

With shipping generally it’s worth shopping around as it can be expensive. I ended up with Fastlane for the USA deliveries and ParcelForce for the UK as they collected. Today I’d probably be using Parcel2Go.

Useful Links:

• London Book Fair - Meet the industry all under one roof
• The Bookseller - Online magazine and useful lists
• Good Reads - Self publisher group