Changing Distribution Channels Will Affect How You Price Your Next Book
The Borders chain has been in trouble for quite awhile, and now it seems that all of their 45 stores in the United Kingdom will close. 200 Borders stores in the USA will also close. This used to be a great place to do book signings and readings and otherwise promote a new book, but no more. Creditors, led by Ingram, have forbidden such activities or even single copy orders except online. Barnes & Noble is also closing some of their smaller outlets under other trade names. Waldenbooks will disappear. As for independents, they have been closing when not acquired […]
We did another little book tour in August. It was time. The economy was creating a stagnant sales profile, and we know that doing a few book signings primes the pump. We made our arrangements with four Hastings Entertainment stores, two of which we were at last year. (This makes a total of sixteen book signings with Hastings Entertainment stores.)
When that ubiquitous television pitchman Billy Mays died recently, I had just started watching the reality series about him and his partner, Anthony Sullivan, appropriately called “Pitchmen”, on the Discovery Channel. I’ve done a lot of sales work over the years as “day jobs” supporting my writing career; so much so that I tend to forget that the process remains mysterious to most writers, who remain clueless about this essential rite of modern commerce.
The issue of branding is critical to a self-published author; It defines your book and it also defines you in the public mind. The obvious problem here is to find a title that stands out from the rest, attracts the attention of potential buyers and actually tells them what the book is about. It is the first step in answering the question in every reader’s mind; why should I read this book? Why should I care?
That’s a headline we’ll be seeing more of in the future. The barrier erected by agents on behalf of publishers has come back to haunt them. In this instance we are talking about Carol Buchanan’s historical thriller God’s Thunderbolt: The Vigilantes of Montana which has already been 
