CRAFT: Make your Marketing Suit Your Goals by Angel R. Ackerman

As you make the transition from writer to published author, you are faced with a lot of decisions. By this point, hopefully you’ve created a buzz about your book among your friends, your community and at every networking event you can find. You should have a social media plan (and think about who your audience is, and where to find them, as you plan your strategy, but also don’t forget the golden rule: if you hate it, don’t do it) and a newsletter.

And let’s not even talk about if you need/want paid advertising.

Even beyond all of these marketing standards, you need to decide what your personal goals are.

What is most important to you?

1. Make money
2. Develop a fan base to promote this and future works
3. See my book on a shelf in Barnes & Noble
4. Use my book to support my teaching/speaking career
5. Find/build a like-minded community
6. Support other small businesses

Jot down whichever items on the list struck a chord with you. With these items in mind, let’s consider the advantages and drawbacks of where we promote our books.

Craft/Vendor Fairs (1, 5, 6)

Some communities have free vendor events and craft fairs. Some entities use them as fundraisers, whether it be to benefit a fire department, school or nonprofit. Some event planning companies host them in shopping malls. Fairs in my Pennsylvania region (the Lehigh Valley) average $50 and will get you a 6- or an 8-foot table. Some provide tables and chairs, some you must bring your own. Some are indoors, others are outdoors. Many outdoor events allow you to bring a tent or a few tables.

The key to a successful vendor event is to interact with passersby, have a clear theme to your table and know the event. If you’re at a senior living fair, supernatural YA romantasy may not be popular. Nonfiction with spiritual themes or practical advice about living with disability might fare better. You have the potential to be the only person selling books at the fair, so choose your tactics wisely. And collect those emails for your newsletter!

With any of these options, don’t forget to consider the time it takes for each. A vendor fair requires packing the car, setting up your table and sitting there for hours, then traveling home and unpacking everything.

Let’s do some oversimplified math:

In all of these examples, we’re going to assume your book costs you $5 to print and it normally retails for $20. We’re also going to assume no credit card transaction fees or credit card fees.

If you sell 15 full-price books at the event, which is a good day in my opinion based on the experiences I’ve seen with Parisian Phoenix authors, you’re making $225 profit before the $50 table fee. If you offer a “event special” and sell the book for $15, you’re still making $10 per book. That’s $100 in profit after the table fee. Whether you make $175 or $100, let’s pretend you spend ten hours total between preparations, travel and sitting at the event. That’s $10 to $17.50 per hour. What happens if you only sell 10 books at $15 each? Now you’ve only made $50 for all that work.

Vendor events can be hit-or-miss for sales, but they also offer a chance to support other small businesses, think up creative partnerships and network with people. That’s why it’s important to know your goals.

Barnes & Noble Book Signings/In-Store Events (2,3)

Depending on your circumstances, Barnes & Noble can be a tough venue to break into. Each store has the freedom to create its own policies on what to order from distributors, what to carry on consignment and what events to host in store. And, depending on the economy and popular trends, this can change all the time.

And, if you self-published your book only producing it via Amazon KDP, forget it. Even if you clicked on their expanded distribution option, no Barnes & Noble will carry you.

But, let’s assume you did the legwork and you got in. Here’s the interesting part of Barnes & Noble events — congratulations, you are now a glorified karaoke deejay. Barnes & Noble will add you to their event calendar, but they expect you to bring your fans to them. Sure, you will meet book lovers who might take a chance on your book, but Barnes expects you to do the marketing work and bring people to the store to buy books.

The average Barnes & Noble book signing is four to five hours on a weekend. So, if they order your book from the distributor, they will probably order five or ten unless it’s a large-volume store. We had a store in Manhattan order 30 copies of a debut poetry book. And your books must be returnable to sell at a corporate/franchise retail setting like Barnes. You want them to order what they think their store will sell and not more. Because, if they don’t sell, you’ll be doing events at Barnes frequently to get rid of the books they already bought and paid for.

If Barnes orders 10 copies, and if you’re a first-time, relatively unknown author, five feels more realistic. But, we’ll show some optimism. Remember, they get a discount on the books AND your distributor takes a cut. Again, for simplified math, let’s pretend that after everyone takes their share your royalties are $5. Again, that’s reasonable for a $20 novel.

If the store ordered 10 copies and you sold all 10 in four hours, then you made $50. But if you only sold five copies in five hours, then you made $5 an hour. If it takes you three different visits to sell all 10 books, then you’re barely making anything.

Also to consider: if your book does well and you sell out in the first hour, Barnes might order more books, and then you have to come back and sell those books. Which, if Barnes & Noble is your happy place, that might feel great.

Book Festivals/Writing Conferences (2,4,5)

Mathematically, this follows the same concept as the vendor fair. You have to consider your time and your financial investment. Unlike vendor fairs, a lot of people at the conference or festival will have a book to sell. What makes a writing conference exciting is you may have the opportunity to present a workshop, and you could build your reputation as a professional with good advice. You can learn information to help your own career and potentially find fans.

At a book festival, it’s important to sell the right book to the right people. Stereotypes and clichés are terrible, but sometimes when you only have a few seconds to capture someone’s attention, pitching romance to a woman and action/adventure YA to a teen makes sense.

At a recent used book festival, where I know readers are looking for cheap books, I noticed the people with the largest piles of purchased new books were women in their 30s and 40s. I started pitching my horror series, “set in the high fashion industry” and “written with a woman’s touch” and I sold at least 10 books in two hours.

Curated Vendor Spaces, Small Shops and Independent Bookstores (1,6)

Selling your books on consignment or renting a space at a curated vendor shop usually offers a good return on investment if people find your book and the owner/manager stays on top of vendor payments. Relationships are important here. You need to keep track of your inventory, market your book’s availability at the location and offer to do events to support the venue.

And remember — if the store offers you a consignment deal based on the sales price, you need to provide the book. So, if they give you permission to display five copies, and let’s say the store owner offers a 50/50 split — that $20 novel could bring in $100. The store owner would make $50, but you need to subtract the $25 in printing costs from your end of the revenue.