by Marci Kladnik
I’m new to this self-publishing thing—less than a year—and can only share what I learned during the struggle to market my books during this crazy time. I’m still in the red, but am slowly making headway on turning the numbers black.
Self-publishing is addictive because it’s so easy to do and because it is so gratifying to hold a book you wrote in your hands. It can also be an expensive venture if your books just sit in boxes on your dining room table. You’ve paid the printer and the illustrator, and now it’s your job to sell the books. Maybe I jumped the gun and published before I created a demand for the book, but that’s the journey I’m now on.
I wrote my first children’s book ten years ago
I’m an award-winning writer of articles, but never found a traditional publisher to take on my children’s book. I finally caved and went for self-publishing this year because I got tired of waiting. I’m already a senior and not getting any younger, and neither is my older cousin, who dedicated the book to.
If I knew in February when I published Maggie Adopts a Kitten (It really happened!) that the country would relatively shut down within a few weeks due to a pandemic, I might have held off another year. By the time my books came from the printer in late March, the scheduled local book-signings and readings had already been canceled. A person has only so many friends and family members they can nudge, and those sales hardly covered my start-up costs for illustrations and printing.
As a final touch to my manuscript, I tapped three of my well-known and published author and editor friends for review quotes of my book. The wonderful ones I received I added to the front matter and also the back cover. I hoped Io add credence to the book and help it sell. The reviewers’ compensation included a sincere thank you and a complimentary copy of the book. One of the reviewers, a NYT bestselling author, even offered to plug my book on her website.
Because I used IngramSpark, a print-on-demand (POD) company, the book was available online through Amazon (worldwide!), Barnes & Noble, Target, and Walmart as part of the publishing package. As excited as I felt to see MY book in those online stores, who’d buy it without some kind of buzz? I needed to start beating the drum and generating sales without throwing more money at the project.
I heard that I needed to tweet and post to Instagram, so I created accounts specifically for my book. I only knew the basics of how to use the platforms, but at least I garnered the appropriate account names and planned to learn later. I also invested in a website dedicated to Maggie Stories that lay stagnant for several years. The tools were in place, if only I could figure out how to use them all to generate and keep a buzz going.
Facebook became my intimate friend. Since the book was about my Scottish Terrier and a feral kitten that imprinted on her, I started by searching out every Scottie Facebook group and joined them all. I even found one devoted entirely to Scottie books! Even though sales are pretty much forbidden, I asked the admins for permission and they allowed me to post a photo of the book and say I’d just published it. As I hoped, this did generate commenters interested in purchasing. I even made a couple of new friends, a nice bonus.
I did a live reading on Facebook and made it public, sharing it also to every Scottie group. As of this writing, it has 680 views. That’s not a lot, but it’s still 680 more people who heard about my book.
Of course I sold through my own personal Facebook page to friends and family, but books didn’t exactly fly off my dining room table, and I didn’t want to continually post about the books. We might call it marketing, but my friends might view it as spamming. My Facebook friends really want to see photos of the kittens I foster. I needed to do more—much more—to get the book moving.
I posted on Instagram and Twitter, but as a senior I admit I’m not good at keeping up with it. I started a Maggie the Wonder Scottie Facebook page, but have hit a wall trying to get it to go live to the public. I do have a MaggieStories.com website, but then again, I’m not good at keeping abreast with the blog. All of these sites and social connection platforms are really useful tools for creating buzz and generating a following of interested potential customers, but one needs to stay on it and keep that buzz going. I think I need to hire a teenager to help me with all this social media stuff, or better yet the nerds from Big Bang Theory, who set up a website and sold thousands of Penny’s “Penny Blossoms” hair barrettes overnight. For me it seems rather daunting, even though I know the tools are at my fingertips.
Because I’m more hands-on motivated and want to start with something not as overwhelming as what happened in the preceding paragraphs, I started locally by contacting two bookstores that actually opened for business. Happily, both took some books on consignment.
This brought up the subject of pricing.
Industry wholesale pricing is generally 55 perecnt of suggested retail. Trying to price one’s book to sell is tricky. If I priced it to sell, I couldn’t afford to grant a 55 percent discount. If I offered a 30 percent one and still made a (seriously) tiny bit. Anything higher, and I’d need to pay IngramSpark back for each book sold at wholesale! I felt gratified to learn that one store would take my books at a 25 percent discount, and the other for 30 percent! The first store even jacked up the price on the paperback so we’d both make more.
Then for some crazy reason, the next book in the Maggie series just poured out of my head onto the keyboard. Customers who bought the first book through my Facebook connections asked for more, so I seemed to have tapped a market. In June I pulled up my big-girl pants and published Maggie and Barney and the Allergic Photographer (It really happened!). Now I really needed to get to work marketing TWO books.
Posting a photo of the books together on a tartan backdrop in the Scottie Facebook groups generated new interest in the first book and I sold sets to new buyers. I also received orders from many of the people who bought the first book. That was awesome! I made that photo the banner for my personal Facebook page so it’s always out there, subtly reminding people of my books while not being pushy. I had my picture taken in the bookstore standing beside my books prominently displayed on the rack. I posted this to Facebook, of course.
I called the two local bookstores to tell them new book, and was told that one store was completely out of my first book and the other was out of the paperbacks! They had been in the stores only about a month, so this was wonderful news. Both stores ordered more, and of course wanted the second one as well. How sweet to receive those two commission checks. Even sweeter, I was now completely out of paperbacks for the first book and needed to order more to fill waiting orders. Not a bad place to be in, even though I still paid out more than I’d brought in.
About that time I saw a posting on Facebook in a writers group about a member being written up in the local paper about her new book. Aha! I could do that. I wrote a bi-weekly cat column for three local papers a few years back. I emailed my former editor, and she said she’d love to interview me and even took photos! Nothing like free local advertising to help get the word out. I will alert the two bookstores before the article comes out so they can restock and be ready for the rush of customers I hope it generates.
To date, I’ve sold the most books by posting on Facebook. Each time I post a reminder that they are available, new customers seem to pop up and some who already bought want another set to give as a gift. The trick is to stay in their faces without being pushy. I post things like, “Whoohoo, I just got my books into another local store!” or, “Check this out, I’m in the paper!” and post a link or photo.
More books have sold through the local bookstores, and of course, through the online venues, some overseas, making me officially an international author!
What’s Next?
I plan to enter my books in the upcoming Cat Writers’ Association contest. The entry fee is affordable, and if I win, it will boost sales.
So essentially the takeaways from all this so far are…
- Before you publish, start creating a buzz about your upcoming book via whatever social media platforms you use.
- Before submitting your manuscript for publishing, search out and ask authors and editors you have a connection with for review quotes you can add to the front matter and the back cover.
- If your book has a special niche, as my books are about a Scottie, search out every online group and join. Be mindful of the group rules with regard to selling, and either ask the admins prior to posting about your book, or post it in such a way that it is just an announcement rather than a sales pitch. Then wait for the comments of interest.
- Pricing is critical because you need to make it affordable and also price it high enough that you can offer a reasonable wholesale discount to local bookstores and still make a bit of money.
- When your books arrive on your doorstep, take an armload to your local bookstores and ask them if they would take them on consignment (remember, you CAN negotiate the terms). Also ask if you could hold a signing/reading in their store when the pandemic eases.
- Don’t wait for your books to come in, but be proactive and contact local libraries and other such venues to schedule book-signings and/or readings when they’re once again open. This isn’t happening during the pandemic, of course, but keep it on the back burner and be ready to jump on it as soon as restrictions lift. Perhaps do a virtual reading.
- Contact your local newspaper(s) and ask to submit a blurb about your book using the “local author” angle. Make sure to include a photo of your book.
- Keep track of contact information for anyone who purchases from you, to create a list to tap into if you plan on sending out press-release emails and/or if you write another book.
- Don’t be shy, do a Facebook Live reading of your book (or part of it, if it’s long). Be sure to save a link so to repost at a later date.
- Enter your book in contests that don’t cost a lot of money to enter.
As I continue on my own marketing journey, I hope to impart some useful advice to others like me who struggle. The competition is stiff out there, so get creative!
Marci Kladnik, Past President, Cat Writers’ Association, Muse-winning writer and photographer, Contributing writer to Catster.com.
