For those who have never tried to get a book that isn't published by a NY publisher into a chain bookstore as big as Barnes & Noble, it's not exactly, "Here's my book. Now you can stock it."
There's a lot involved and the main thing is its returnability. Why that is is because if your book can't be returned, it's never coming close to getting on their shelves. So, that's a strike against you that equals three strikes actually because you're not even in the game anymore.
Another thing involved is whether they can order your book from their distributor which is Ingrams.
Romancing the Soul, my previous book, was not in the Ingram system when it came out. We dealt with a distributor that didn't even put us on the ordering map as far as the chains were concerned.
Of course, that didn't stop me from trying.
We were vacationing in the beautiful town of Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia which had a quaint bookstore called The College of William & Mary Bookstore, which was affiliated somehow with Barnes & Noble, nestled in between the colonial buildings (big tourist spot) surrounding it. If ever I imagined the perfect setting for a booksigning, this was it.
I've talked about this story before because it somehow captures the anquish and frustrations of a newbie author who doesn't understand how the system works.
I walked in and asked the clerk if she could look up my book on her computer. I had been told by seasoned authors that that's the first thing they do as they want to make sure it's even in the system first.
She was a sweet girl with a nice smile, but the words out of her mouth were that of the demon gods themselves. "I'm sorry, but your book is not up here."
"But...," I stammered, "the name is Romancing the Soul. Here..." I took a crumpled piece of paper out of my pocket and read off the ISBN to her.
Still smiling, she said, "Sorry, but we don't have it in our system."
I could feel the blood rushing to my face. "And does that mean if someone walked off the street and tried to order my book, they couldn't?"
"I'm sorry. No."
I thanked her, told the kids I was done, and hurried out. Might I say that was the last time I decided to get my book into any kind of bookstore.
Although I did go on to successfully stock my book in local businesses on consignment, it wasn't the same. I felt like the blonde redheaded stepchild with a book that no one wanted. All my author friends didn't have to go through this. Why me?
And that's when I learned how to e-market my book. I found my niche in the relationship field and proceeded to find out how you can successfully sell a book over the Internet. I had no choice...the chains couldn't stock me and I was tired of going the consignment route. Just wasn't the same.
However, a book that I co-authored with Heide Kaminski and Pam Lawnizak called
The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost, which came out in paperback last month and listed on the Barnes & Noble online store as available,
was in the Ingram system. But, even with that, would my local bricks and mortar Barnes & Noble stock me? With all the millions of books being published each year and but so many spaces on the shelves, not to mention the fact that because I wasn't published with a NY publisher, am I beating myself up against a brick wall for even thinking they'd even give me the time of day?
I told my online group I was going to find out. One of our members, Sandy Lender, who is also published with a small press with her book,
Choices Meant For Gods, successfully set herself up a booksigning at her local B&N, so that was the push I needed.
My daughter and I planned a trip to Salisbury, Maryland, which to me, is still local. It's 45 minutes away but is the only B&N in the area. The store actually hasn't been there very long, and it was simply beautiful and was something that the area needed bad.
I walked in, browsed a bit, found a book by Alice Sebold called
The Lovely Bones that I'd heard so much about and on the bargain table to boot, so I grabbed that and headed to the desk. I was also interested in another book that I couldn't find called
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picault, so I asked the clerk behind the desk if it was available.
She looked it up on the computer and after she told me they did have it, I said, "While you're on the computer, can you do a favor for me? Can you look up The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost? That's three dollar signs and not the actual word ' dollar'."
I didn't tell her who I was at this point.
After she ran her fingers over the keyboard, it came up - the page with my book in the left corner of the page. I had reached first base.
I'm standing there, feeling an anxiety attack and I'm imagining the worse, when she says, "I'm sorry, we don't have it in stock. But, we can order it for you."
Second base, folks, second base.
"So, would you like me to order it for you?" she asked.
"Well, the thing is," I said, "I'm one of the co-authors of the book. I really am. I just wanted to see if you had it in the system. By the way, what's the chances of stocking it in your local author's section?"
"Well," she said, "she's the one you should talk to about that" and pointed to the other sales clerk.
The other sales clerk was very polite and to the point. "You see, the thing is, it has to sell."
I nodded, with images of me outside running around and telling everyone to go inside and buy my book.
Then, she looks at me dead square in the eyes and says, "And that's where YOU come in."
Well, ho-ney, did she know who she was speaking to? The guru of e-marketing? The promo queen herself? The big kahuna who invented the meaning of pumping up your book promotion???
I'm all nodding and everything like I already know this and she says, "We could at least try to stock it in the local authors section. It's no guarantee, you know. But, we can at least try."
I think that was third base. It's not a definite, but a definite would be a home run, so definitely third base. Bing-freaking-o.
"But," she adds, pointing at a number on the screen, "this number is a generic number (it said 100). We're not sure how many we can order so we'll just have to play it by ear."
"I have another question," I asked. "Do you hold booksignings?"
"We don't do the single author booksigning anymore," she replied. "What we do is hold events with many authors at one time."
Now, that was music to my ears being as I hate doing booksignings alone anyway.
Then, she handed me a card with a number on the back. "What I would recommend you to do is call this woman. She handles events for Barnes & Noble and perhaps you might want to be included in that."
I took the card and put it in my pocket, paid for my The Lovely Bones, and walked out.
Not a home run, but third base isn't too bad for a newbie novelist who doesn't know beans about getting books into bricks and mortar stores. I have no idea if I should have done anything differently, but that's the way I did it anyway. I'll keep you informed as to whether they get stocked.
Oh, I ordered one of my books to stay on the safe side. Now, they have actual record of my book being bought at their store and when the book comes in and I go back to get it, I'll check to see if they really did try to order it for their shelves. Meanwhile, I'll be giving this woman a call and get things rolling.
So, that's the story of how I made it to third base with Barnes & Noble. Now...if I can just make it to that home plate.
Tags:
online book promotion,
author publicity,
book promotion,
book promotion tips,
Barnes & Noble,
The Search for the Million $$$ Ghost,
Romancing the Soul,
Williamsburg,
Jodi Picoult,
Nineteen Minutes,
The Lonely Bones,
Alice Sebold 
I'm thrilled to death to announce the opening of Pump Up Your Book Promotion PR, a full service online book publicity agency which specializes in virtual book tours, among a few other goodies. As everyone knows by now, Jamieson Wolf who joined me last month, and I have been running Pump Up Your Book Promotion Virtual Book Tours, but it was branching off my writing site. Now, we have a spanking new website!
I'm happy to be the second stop on Pamela S. Thibodeaux's virtual book tour for her book, 
