Talk about perfect timing. I was going to ask Greg to share his experience with the marketing and distribution aspect of his children’s book “Where Monsters Go When You Grow Up” when lo and behold, what should appear in my inbox?

I hope you all enjoy his insight as much as I did.

***

Ok – forgive me, Father, it’s been awhile since my last post.

Last time I talked about self-publishing your book; which , as I recall, boiled it down to being a good thing when all was said and done. I stand by that. But here are some addenda I would like to add, having gone through the past few months of marketing/selling my self-pub.

I spent a few months micro-managing my book’s sales, right down to person-to-person sales. I busted my rear-end getting the word out, I literally LITERALLY called every bookstore in the US that could carry my book. Bottom line – I sold a couple hundred books. That’s it. And it was HARD work; ridiculously hard work. Like almost not even worth the effort hard work. So here is what I have to let you know now:

Have a plan, have some money, spend your money wisely in marketing/selling your book, get ready to do consignment sales. A LOT of consignment.

As we talked about last time, the major issue with self-publishing is that no one is going to sell your book for you – you have your work cut out for you BIG TIME. Another very big issue with self-published books is that they are “non-returnable,” more on that later.

The Plan, Stan

Do your homework. Study up on the whole book sales thing, the markets, the stores, what people are reading where – figure out where you want to target the sales, ’cause otherwise you’ll end up ping-ponging all over the place with no direction. Kind of what I did at first. I took a week, I got on the internet, and I started up in the Northeast, and I worked my way down to southern California calling bookstores – mom & pop shops and chains – any place that looked like they would carry my book.

Some of this kind of activity is unavoidable – you simply can not know what every area will carry, or what the demographics are of every sub-section of every city. But do a little at a time – and start locally. Talk to the bookstores and gift shops where you live first. They are usually pretty receptive to local authors, and some will want you to do book signings in the stores. But don’t expect to make any huge sales – you will just be getting your book out there. And most will be on consignment.

The C Word

Aargh. Start groaning now. I will give you a moment to get one big, long groan out now, so that you can beat the rush when you start getting out there with your SP Book. Go.

Done? Good.

Consignment. You give some books to a store, they sell them, and you split the proceeds, typically I have seen 50-50, 40-60 and 30-70, where the first number is for the store. Not bad, huh? Here’s what you missed: check that second line of this paragraph again. “You give some books to a store…” Where do you get the books? YOU buy them.

Even with a huge discount, your books will cost a pretty penny up front, out of your pocket. I had over a dozen stores (I stopped when I started to do the math) ask me for anywhere from 2 to 10 books to sell on consignment. Let’s average this out for the sake of getting concrete numbers to look at and smile.

12 stores asked me for 5 books each, let’s say. That’s 70 books. I pay 5 dollars each to buy my own books so that = 350.00 to buy the books. Plus probably up to 10 dollars to ship to me; then another 3-5 dollars to ship to each store. That’s over 400 dollars just to ship books to a dozen stores.

Then, let’s say that those stores give you the average rate of 40-60. The book sells for 12 bucks, that means the store gets 4.80 and you get 7.20/book x 5 books = 36.00 x 12 stores = $432.00.

You’d better check my math on that. And then groan some more.

Now, to be fair, on the up side you just sold 70 books and word of mouth has started hopefully. And hopefully the store gets people clamoring for the book. So that’s a good thing.

Another Bad Thing

So the store gets clamoring throngs asking for the book, so now they can just order it themselves and send you residual checks, right? Umm, not really. You see, it’s a self-published book, it does not have a huge gorilla company backing it. So if those books that shipped get damaged, or if those books don’t sell – the store can not return them to the warehouse for a refund or exchange.

This is the main reason why stores will not be able to just get on the computer and order books from the major booksellers. Your book will pop up, and that’s kinda cool – but they will balk at buying some because it is non-returnable.

Some stores will order anyway, and they are cool, I liked them. But most will not, especially the big chains; their manager simply will not let them. And so – consignment. So make sure you have some money put aside to buy your own books, and place them wisely – try to get them in the bigger markets’ stores.

(By the way, just so you don’t feel too bad – even when those stores order “directly from the warehouse” – you still only make pennies per sale, it’s just less work for you. I sold a couple dozen books to stores who ordered them . Stores typically get an automatic 40% discount to begin with. So out of those few dozen books – I made probably 5 bucks. Total. In residuals.)

Do you have marketing materials?

I heard that from a LOT of stores as well. Posters, postcards, display pieces, this is what they are talking about. Something that they can put out in the store to generate interest. Start to work on these now instead of later. That way, as soon as your book is done, you can get to stores and have marketing pieces ready. You can also leave these things in stores and on public boards etc to get the word out – and you can usually find some deals where you can get some of these things printed in color for relatively cheap – take a look at internet printing places like VistaPrint, Print Pelican, Zazzle and the like. Have a plan and some money for this stuff.

Yippee!

So there you are! Have fun, see ya!

This was not meant to beat you down, seriously, just to inform you of what you may be in for. You may be lucky and someone will see your book and snap it right up and distribute it for you. But chances are, you’ll be in the aforementioned boat with what seems like one oar in the water and icebergs everywhere.

Use internet resources, ask others for help, make a plan, save some money, start small, think big, and keep the faith, baby.

***

Greg Dorchak is a sorry little man.

*sounds of frantic scrambling behind the curtain and someone mumbling “What do you mean you sent the wrong email?”*

The real Bio: Greg Dorchak is the author of the children’s book: Where Monsters Go When You Grow Up, and is working on more as we speak. He is an award-winning actor, cartoonist and writer living in Austin, Texas. His  film work includes Xtracurricular, Miss Congeniality, Rolling Kansas, and The Longshots; and he most recently worked in Sick Boy due for release in 2011.

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