Having problems getting that local bookstore to carry your book? Want to see your cover in the display window—well, we have an answer for you, friend. Publicity!
Okay, I couldn't resist the infomercial beginning, but this week I realized that authors might not know they need to be in contact with their publisher as they garner publicity hits.
It's hard to get your book on the shelf, even locally. Bookstores must make their choices wisely. They only have so much shelf room, and they need to know what they place on the shelf is going to make it to the register (preferably at full price.)
If a book is going to be featured on Good Morning America, there's a good chance people are going to be looking for it—bookstores want them to find it—at their store. They'll want to make it easy to find. too.
Ever notice how easy it is to find an Oprah Book Club Book?
This can work on a smaller level. Are you going to be interviewed on your local news? Make sure you publisher knows this. Their sales department can contact the bookstores in your area and alert them to have the books available. If you're going to be interviewed on a syndicated Christian radio station, your publisher can notify the chain stores, such as Family Christian, Lifeway, Parable, etc,.
So don't forget to communicate what publicity you've been garnering.
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Friday, January 19, 2007
Publicity and Book Shelf Space
Jess, is it okay for the author to notify the bookstores themselves? Love that pic, very visually appealing, much like yourself! :)
ReplyDeleteHa! Thanks, Gina. That's a smart question, much like yourself :)
ReplyDeletePersonally, I would approach it by communicating first with your publisher. If it's local, tell them about the hit, then let them know you'd like to be the one to communicate with the book stores.
My guess is that some publisher wouldn't mind an author doing this, while others might.
LOL...Jess and it really helps when you spell the names right...LOL...Oprah, not Opera...LOL!
ReplyDeleteLOL--Thanks Bonnie!
ReplyDeleteGood advice here. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet... So much of this business/life will always remain a mystery. The stories of our literary giants who couldn't get published for so long, much less publicized, are endless:
William Kennedy, unable to get a bite until he met Bellow, who passed him along... Malcolm Lowry, who, in a moment of inspiration, told an editor, "Try to look at it [Under the Volcano] as if it were already published, not a manuscript by someone you've never heard of"... and my favorite (being from the West), Wallace Stegner, whose Angle of Repose wasn't even reviewed in the Times until he won the Pulitzer Prize, at which point they referred to his first name as Walter in the NYT BR.
If we accept the struck-by-lightning aspect of it all, and just commit to doing our solitary, steady work, whatever the outcome, we'll be okay.
At least, that's what I tell myself.