Marketing Your Book with Pinterest

Last night at the St. Louis Publishers Association's monthly meeting, Danelle Brown gave an excellent presentation on why Pinterest is important for authors. Pinterest gives authors the opportunity to engage with their readers (and potential readers) in a way that is unique from other social media avenues. If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest, there are a number of videos available online. Essentially it is a way for you to bookmark photos of things on the web that are of interest to you, keeping them organized on boards where you "pin" the photos. Other people can then re-pin something that you put on your board, just like you can re-pin photos from the boards of others.

So why should you care? Pinterest is the fastest growing segment of social media, growing faster than Google+, Twitter and Facebook. Chances are, your readers or potential readers are hanging out on Pinterest. You do not want to be blatantly self-promoting on Pinterest. The general social media rule of posting 20% promotional topics versus 80% non-promotional applies for this social media venue as well as the others. But one of the cool things about Pinterest is that each "pin" has a link that will direct the viewer back to the original place on the Internet that the photo, video or article came from. Let's say that your book is set in England and so one of your blog posts contained photos of England and a bit about the setting for the story. When you pin the England photos onto one of your Pinterest boards, the viewers will be directed back to your blog. It may be the first time that they have heard about you and your book.

Here is a screen shot of my Pinterest page. Note that my profile displays my publishing company name, the fact that I have written three books, and my web page so people can learn more about me if they so desire.

Kim Wolterman on Pinterest

While I have enjoyed my time on Pinterest, I have to admit that I have not done as much as I should have with regards to promoting my books. One of the things that Danelle recommended is to check out the Pinterest accounts of other authors, so that is something that I plan to do. Plus I just learned of another reason to become more active on this social media venue. Actually there are 70 million of them. That is how many users Pinterest had in July of 2013. Some of them may be looking for me and my books.

Writing a Book - Who Cares?

Today I met with a woman who is considering writing a book about the history of her community. Because she knows that I have published several niche books, she asked me if I would share my experiences with her. One thing I firmly believe in as an author and a publisher is that we should help other writers out. So many wonderful people helped me along the way that I feel the least I can do is provide the same sort of support to others traveling the strange and sometimes scary path of putting a book together.

Who cares?

Those of us who write non-fiction have to ask ourselves a really hard question: Who cares? Does anyone care about the subject of our book? More than that, do enough people care so that the book will sell a sufficient number of copies to make the publication of it worthwhile? It is something I have struggled with since I came up with the idea for my first book. Because the topic was not just researching house history, but instead was specific to researching houses in St. Louis County, Missouri, I knew that I was severely limiting my potential audience. And I was asked more that once why I did not just do a generic book on house research. The answer was simple in my mind. There are already several books in the market on researching the history of your house, so there was no point in going generic. And more importantly, there was no guide for researching in St. Louis. To research a home in St. Louis County is a very painful, drawn out process. My book needed to be specific in order to really benefit researchers in my area. In the end I believed that just because I was not going to sell thousands of books did not mean my book should not be written.

The same was true of my second book about my dad's service in WWII. Is there a huge market for this book? No, but the historical photos and documents my dad left behind needed to be placed somewhere that people could enjoy and learn from them and not simply be left in an old cigar box.

My advice is that you need to ask yourself why you are writing the book, and who is your intended audience. Who cares? Once you know that, you can make the decision on whether to go forward or not. I leave you with this extremely funny video about writing a book.

Saving The Book House

The Book House

Another independent book store in my area may soon face its demise. The Book House in Rock Hill has been operated by the same woman for over 27 years. The business is in a charming house built in the 1850s that has been designated as an historic structure. She has persevered despite the downturns in the economy as well as the world domination of Amazon. What she may not be able to escape from is a bulldozer. She does not own the house or the land upon which it sits, and she has just received a 90 day eviction notice from her landlord. And what will go in the place once occupied by the house and several other businesses? A storage facility, of all things. Remember the lyrics to that old song, "They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"?

The Book House has been a wonderful supporter of authors, both traditionally published as well as independently published writers. She holds many events at the house, and is generous with fundraisers for schools or other charities in the area. She was the first person who bought copies of my book to sell in her store, and actually wrote me a check for them on the spot. Add to this that she is the single parent of a handicapped child, whose sole support is this book store, and you can begin to see why people have been busy garnering support for her.

KSDK interviews Michelle

some of the rally attendees

A petition has been circulating in support of the book store, and it now has over 1,600 signatures and some press coverage as well. I attended a rally Tuesday night at the store, and News Channel 5 came out and interviewed Michelle and filmed a bit of the rally. The footage appeared that night on the 10:00 news. Tonight the preservation committee in Rock Hill is meeting to discuss the possible demolition of the book store. Michelle had served on the committee until a few months ago when she was asked by the mayor to resign. Hmmmm... Anyone else smell something fishy?

I am not sure what can be done since the city is taking the position that they have no say in a private sale between two individuals. I think that is hog wash as they certainly have a voice in whether or not they will allow an historic building to be torn down. I can't believe that these people think it is okay to destroy what may be the oldest house left in pretty much its original condition in St. Louis County. The house survived the Civil War, but it just might not survive the city of Rock Hill.

sign on The Book House

Wholesaler or Distributor - Which One Do You Need?

bookstore

Barnes and Noble wants to purchase copies of a new book written by a friend of mine. Great news, right? The only problem is that they want him to go through a wholesaler or distributor in order to get the books into their stores. They sent him a list of companies that they are working with so that he could select one. This led to a discussion about the differences between a wholesaler and a distributor.

In a nutshell, using a wholesaler enables publishers to get their books into most traditional bookstores, online retailers and libraries. They essentially receive and process orders. The wholesalers keeps supplies of books in their warehouses and mail them to retailers and libraries.

On the other hand, a distributor gets books into the hands of wholesalers in addition to bookstores, online retailers and libraries. Distributors also handle the storage and shipment of books. Additionally the distributor employs a sales staff to assist in the marketing efforts of its publishers. Unlike wholesalers, distributors often require an exclusive arrangement from their publishers.

So how do these two entities make their money? Wholesalers make their income by buying books from publishers at a high discount and selling them to their customers for a slightly lower discount. A wholesaler may require a 50-60% discount off the list price of the book, which means the publisher receives 40-50% of the list price. In turn the wholesaler may allow bookstores 40-45% off the list price. Libraries may be offered 20-33% off list price.

Book distributors derive their income by taking an overall percentage (normally 25-30%) of the retail selling price. That may work out to 67% off the list price, leaving the publisher with 23% of the list price.

Both of these result in less income per book for the publisher. Because distributors are doing some marketing of the books, the publisher realizes less income in that arrangement than a wholesaler agreement. So does it make sense to enter into one of these agreements? If your book is of regional, national or international interest, you may want to consider these options. Many bookstores will not deal with individual authors or publishers, so if you want your book(s) in bookstores and/or libraries you may have no choice. While you are giving up a pretty substantial portion of list price on each book, using a wholesaler or distributor opens up many new marketing opportunities for you. Additionally they deal with getting the books into the markets, billing and collection of any moneys due, and shipment of books. Trying to do all these tasks on your own can be overwhelming.

As with all things in this brave, new world of publishing do your research on the companies before signing any contracts. There are a lot of unscrupulous folks trying to take advantage of authors and publishers right now.