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HOW TO STAY SANE WHEN BANGING YOUR HEAD AGAINST THE WALL
(SELF-DISTRIBUTION TIPS by David Murphy)
Face it: book distribution companies have no interest in your self-published or self-imported book. They see you as having no marketing behind you and no PR worth mentioning. You cannot compete with gold-embossed titles and big names. You are non-commercial. Your only option is to be a one-man (or woman) publicist, distributor, agent, stockist, marketer and Jack-of-all-trades. You will have to interface with the increasingly hostile retail trade.
Time was when you could walk in off the street to any bookshop, big or small, talk nicely to the booksellers and they would make room for you on their shelves. Even the big chains made space for the self-distributed. Things have changed. Disappointment may be in store, if you’ll pardon the pun. Your salesman’s patter may succeed in smaller shops and some of the mediums. As for the chains and bigger stores, genuine book-loving people who work in these palaces of neon-lit, gaudy-covered, best-selling covers no longer have the authority to make decisions about what to put on the shelves. It’s all homogenised, stultifying, hive-minded, moneyed titles coming down on high from faceless men and women in suits, marketers and accountants.
Big bookshops have become like commercial radio-stations with ever-constricting and predictable play-lists. It’s all about turnover and product. In a big store nowadays you talk to someone who needs to check with someone else who walks up to you and says, “We only take stock from the main distributors,” or “No new accounts are being set up.” Don’t take such remarks at face value. Do not turn around and walk out. Stand your ground. Argue your case. If the manager says they only take stock from major publishers, ask how then does one become a major publisher? Watch them wriggle out of that one. If it’s clearly a lost cause remain friendly because it’s not unheard of to return a month later to find that they will take your tome after all. Persistence does pay. Remember, you’re trying to sell a book. Here are a few hints that may help.
Try not to look scruffy and don’t walk in carrying books in a supermarket bag. Invest in a proper briefcase, which you’ll need anyway for bits and pieces such as business cards (a must), delivery dockets, calculator, invoices, pens, elastic bands and a few spare covers (make sure to get loose covers off your printer or publisher - they’re handy for identification/location purposes when you return to the shop and you can also use them for publicity). Have invoices prepared with ISBN, invoice number, book title, your address and contact number already written on them. All you need fill in is the quantity and date. That saves time. It makes you look and feel professional about what you’re doing. Have plenty of books with you or in the car boot. You’ll kick yourself if the bookseller asks for fifteen and you’ve only ten.
Experience will teach you that it can be very hard to predict. You will make firm sales (cash for books when you deliver the goods!) in the most unlikely shops in the most obscure little towns. Other places, which you think of as potential goldmines, turn out to be a waste of time. Then, when you’re in, you can never tell how sales will go. So much depends on placement. On a bottom shelf with only spines showing, they’re dead. Face out at eye-level and they’ll sell, no matter if it’s a light romantic novel in a Marxist bookshop. Placement is everything, or almost everything. Go with the lowest cover price possible. The lower the price, the more sales.
When you re-appear months later you will hopefully experience the delight of a frequent sell-out. Produce an invoice and ask for payment there and then. If they say it’ll take months to process, ask for thirty-day credit. You will be agreeably surprised by the amount of booksellers who hand over immediate payment because it saves paperwork and avoids clogging up their system. Don’t be happy just to take the money. Ask if they want more. They will hardly refuse because they, and you, are on a winner. If there are no sales, accept that it’s the wrong location and move them to another shop. If there are both sales and returns under the same roof, and the bookseller says they’ve been long enough on the shelves, offer to leave a copy on a no-return, shop-keeps-the-money basis. It’s a friendly gesture that the bookseller will appreciate. Tell them to put whatever price they like on it. The advantage is that your book remains ‘on the market’ in that locality. But there is another hidden advantage you can exploit using the following ploy: make sure that the freebies you hand out in this manner are slightly shop-soiled or imperfect copies from the printer’s initial shipment (there may be some). Use the copies you wouldn’t otherwise dream of handing out as complimentary or direct sales. There’s nothing underhand in this method of weeding out imperfect books because you’re giving them away for free and have already told the seller to lower the price. Think of it like this: the successful distribution of hundreds of books is like shuffling a very large pack of gigantic cards. When you get two hands of cards back from the dealers, re-shuffle them, weeding out the undesirable shop-soiled returns to create one new, perfect, hand that you can place elsewhere.
Small presses, self-distributors and minority-interest books (such as academic presses) rely more and more these days on direct sales rather than the increasingly narrow retail sector. Target conventions, organise signings and readings, nuzzle in on literary festivals, get yourself onto writers’ directories, be interviewed in local newspapers, use the web. Get as many direct sales as possible because these are the gravy - you get one hundred per cent on the cover price so they’re worth more.
One very lucrative area (in Ireland) is the public library system. Each county and city has its library HQ where individual librarians have the power to decide what to buy (unlike Northern Ireland where such decisions are made by dreaded committee). Most of these book buyers are not averse even to cold-calling. Sell yourself well and each HQ (there are about three dozen here) may buy anything from one to twenty copies, depending on the type of book and the number of local branches under their wing. They pay full price, though a few may ask for a small discount. I’ll repeat that in case you missed it: the vast majority of libraries pay the full cover price. Do your sums and you may be able to break even on library sales alone.
Budget for plenty of complimentary copies. Reviews may help if you can get them, but fulfil all your legal-deposit copy requirements, which in Ireland amounts to about ten (you will receive legal-deposit requests from archive libraries - these places are entitled to demand, free of charge, a copy of every book produced in their jurisdiction). Allow also for archive copies to go to writers’ and literature centres. Remember, it’s all about getting into the right hands. A well-placed complimentary may lead to an invitation to read; the fee for which may well equal the profit on fifty sales.
In the end you can sell pallets of books and make thousands of euro in profit, far more than you’d make if you had to pay fifty or sixty per cent to a professional distributor. But it’s very hard work. Keep track of your expenses: petrol, other transport costs, postage, phone charges, launch costs (if there is one), etc. If you don’t count these you’re only fooling yourself. It helps if, for other reasons, you travel about the country a lot. That way you can deliver when you happen to be passing. That saves you money. There’s no rush. Your book does not, like some, have a shelf life of only a few weeks. You’re the boss. Take your time. Play it like a game and you’ll find yourself enjoying it.
After hopefully less than a year, it will be time to put that book on the back burner and move on to the next project. What to do with the remaining shop-soiled returns? Amazing how a rub of an eraser removes all but the most stubborn dust stains from the leading edges of your pages. Discard or replace aged price tags. Remove unsightly gum residue from old tags and stickers. Wipe the cover with a damp cloth and many of your books will again be presentable. What to do with goods damaged beyond reasonable repair? One option is the second-hand trade. It may be anathema to see your books re-cycled in this way, but there are long established and well-known shops that will buy several copies each from you. They’ll give you a pittance but if your book is already in profit what have you got to lose? It’s extra icing on the cake because it disposes of unwanted leftovers, exposing you to additional readers. It’s better than other ways of re-cycling and is something to consider as your book reaches the end of its natural life. Remember you don’t want to be left with more than, say, a few dozen copies after the first year has elapsed. That should leave you with enough future freebies for new friends and acquaintances, greedy relatives, etc. It may even be enough for a lifetime’s supply. That depends on you. However, if you intend remaining active in the book world, if you’re occasionally invited to read at bookshops, festivals and conventions, you may need considerably more than a few dozen to keep you going!
(c) 2006 David Murphy - Albedo One. All rights reserved
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