Every page of this well-researched book has ideas that can help you sell more books--from a few to a few hundred thousand.
It
doesn't take long for a publisher to learn that bookstores are not the
best places to sell books. Huge discounts, long waits for payment (often
six months or more), and the dreaded returns make bookstores less than
attractive markets. So what's a publisher to do? Find other places that
will buy your books.
'Beyond the Bookstore' is your map to finding
sales opportunities. The 79 strategies give specific information that
will help you identify special markets for your books, locate the people
who will buy from you, and make the sale. Some of the special markets
identified include warehouse clubs, supermarkets, corporations, book
fairs, airport stores, catalogs, museum stores, book clubs and home
shopping networks. Strategies include lots of how-to, with success
stories, detailed tips and contact information.
These strategies
will work for large publishers, small presses, self-published authors,
and (in many cases) Print on Demand titles. There are even strategies
for leveraging your content to create new products, in addition to
books. The CD-ROM included with the book walks you through the process
of creating a detailed marketing plan and timeline.
I had high
expectations for 'Beyond the Bookstore,' and those expectations were
exceeded. If you want an easy to follow, step-by-step plan to open new
markets for your books, you need 'Beyond the Bookstore.'If you can get your book into traditional bookstores, great. But don't
overlook the many other lucrative markets out there. Brian Jud's "Beyond
The Bookstore" does an excellent job of describing these markets. But
he doesn't stop there. Brian explains exactly how to break into special
markets and provides detailed, useful contact information.
Ever wonder
how to sell your book directly to libraries? On page 159, Brian points
out there are at least 117,418 libraries (including public, academic,
and school) across the United States. In the pages that follow, he
explains exactly how to market to libraries, and he includes contact
information for library wholesalers you may want to work with. He ends
this section with a true story of an author's successful library book
tour.
In addition to explaining how to approach places like Target
& Safeway, airport shops & museum stores, Brian gives practical
pointers on everything from promoting perpetually to getting book
reviews.
A valuable resource which I'm benefitting from immensely
in my ever-growing search for new markets for my book. I highly
recommend this book to every author. Don't limit yourself -- think
outside the box! Beyond The Bookstore will open your eyes to greater
opportunities and point you in the right direction.You've invested a great deal of writing time and energy into producing
an excellent manuscript or a nonfiction book proposal. Now put yourself
in the shoes of the acquisitions editor. Each year you receive literally
hundreds of these proposals from literary agents and authors. How do
you find a proposal that stands out from the crowd? (Hint: It's not the
proposal on colored paper.)
For the last several years, as an
acquisitions editor, I've been on the receiving end of these proposals
and manuscripts. I love to find an author who knows the necessity of a
sales partnership with the publisher. These authors understand it takes
more than an excellent book but they need to actually work at selling
large volumes of the book. Beyond the Bookstore helps the author better
understand about how books are sold.
Have you ever read the sales
numbers of a particular book and wondered how that particular book ever
sold in the bookstore? Some of those big sales numbers have been
outside the bookstore. In fact, more than half of all books sold each
year are sold outside of bookstores.
Beyond the Bookstore is a
valuable resource for any writer to think outside the box. Jud covers 79
specific strategies for generating "special sales." A special sale is
anything outside of the traditional bookstore setting. As you read this
book, you determine which ideas are appropriate for your book then
incorporate these sales ideas into your nonfiction or fiction book
proposal. When you include this type of information from the beginning
of the publishing process, it will show your publisher your good
intention to be proactive in the sales process. Proactive authors who
understand how to sell books are attractive authors to any publisher.
Reed
Business also produces Publisher's Weekly and this book is loaded with
current statistics and contact information such as, "Today, the
worldwide book market approximates $90 billion. Almost one third of
those sales occur in the United States. Over the past ten years, the
amount of sales through traditional outlets is decreased by 11 per cent
(down 19 per cent without factoring Internet sales), and sales through
non-bookstore outlets have increased by 8 per cent."
Three major
advantages of special sales include control over your destiny,
customization potential and nontraditional market segmentation. As an
additional resource, this book includes a CD-Rom to help generate a
marketing plan and give the right emphasis for each market channel. Yes,
your publisher should generate the marketing plan but they only can
give each book a limited amount of potential. Only the author has the
passion and intense interest in their book.This is a great book with many ideas on where to market your book other
then the bookstores. Very inspiring and yes, a notebook is needed to
make notes for your own book marketing specifically. I missed some
practical information on how to reach the right person in a company to
pitch too, but overall a must-have for every writer.
The reason I didn't gush all over this book and give it 5 stars is
because it is not easy to put these ideas into action. It is 5-star
reference material, but let's see us actually DO these things without
the need for expert assistance.
This book is one of the few true
classics of book marketing to date. Book marketing at the time of this
writing (in the early 21st century) has become a process of selling an
"information product" rather than promoting something you have penned.
If Shakespeare were alive and authoring today he would need this book,
because as Mark Twain once quipped, "A classic is something that
everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read." Books no longer
sell themselves, and publishers don't sell books either. They print on
command (versus print on demand) and make deals to get space in
bookstores. It is up to the author to make sure those books sell, or
they end up as "former authors." If YOU want YOUR BOOK to sell you
really need this book, because more books sell outside of bookstores
than ever will (ever again) IN bookstores.
But herein lies the
problem. Most authors are not salesmen. Getting a sporting goods
corporation (or let's just say "WalMart") to carry your books is not as
easy as popping by HQ and chatting up the VP of merchandise. This is not
a "fun" book to read. It is not an easy book to implement, but if you
can manage to do 1/2 of what Mr. Jud advises you will surely be a
millionaire several times over.
This book will NOT help you sell
books on Amazon. It will not help you make cool myspace pages, and it
won't teach you how to do radio interviews. But if you want to sell your
books to mega-corporations, associations, conventions, magazines,
retail chains, or doctor's offices, this is the ONLY book that can help
you. The book is expensive and it is detailed (see "customer images"
above for proof of that) in ways that will make your brain swim, but
that is why it is such an invaluable resource. This will undoubtedly be
the textbook for future marketing students and book publicity
professionals. I only wish that it came with an in-person instructor and
a few pots of coffee.
Beyond the Bookstore is imposing and
emotionally detached, but don't you dare let that stop you from buying
THIS book. This book is indeed full of "stuff" you need to do to sell a
lot of books in places you never thought of (which is the point of
reading this book). If you ever want to break the 10,000 books sold
barrier (the absolute minimum number of copies sold to be considered a
"best seller" in any sense of the term) you need to know what is in this
book. Perhaps there will be a companion WORKBOOK someday that will help
the author (you) actually complete some or all of the ideas covered in
this text. [That was a blatant hint by the way: this book needs a
workbook]
I like what Brian has done here and I wish him well.
After all I gave him $50 of my money (+ s&h) so I "support" him. I
hope that in the future he will pen a more author-friendly version that
actually holds your hand along the process. An excellent companion to
this book is "The Complete Guide to Book Publicity" by Jodee Blanco I
believe. Nice girl. Well written. Knows her stuff too. Check out John
Kremmer as well. Then come back to THIS book for more ideas. At $50 a
copy though, do not let this book out of your sight.
Brian's book is so full of fabulous tips and ideas, I don't even have
enough time in the day to apply them all...that's a good thing. It's
always better to have more than we need, rather than less. I think it's
also helpful to readers because different ideas will appeal to different
readers, so any author or aspiring author is bound to find something
that appeals to them.
One of the best features about the book is
the CD-Rom included. When I first received my book, that was the first
thing I did...pop the CD in my computer, listen to his intro and get
started on the calendar, timeline and marketing plan. Incredibly useful
tools for getting started in moving beyond the bookstore. I applaud his
efforts to help aspiring authors market and sell their books in creative
ways through creative outlets.
Beyond The Bookstore" is a terrific book about selling your book to
everyone else other than a bookstore. I met Brian while co-presenting on
a panel at a Learning Annex seminar in NYC on the topic of book
marketing. I covered the topic of book publicity, he covered selling
books. Brian Jud says since more than half of all book sales come from
outside bookstores it's important to target these markets. Mass
merchandisers such as Wal-Mart or Costco, gift shops, airport stores,
home-shopping networks, book clubs, libraries, network-marketing
companies, catalogs, associations, government agencies, corporations,
educational markets, retail stores and military branches all buy and
sell books.
Brian walks you through creating a special sales
plan, where to find the people you need to contact to make your pitch.
If you really want to sell books outside the bookstore market then buy
Beyond the Bookstore.
As a book publicist it's imperative for me
to keep up with all of the great books and magazine articles being
published on the topic of book marketing and book promotion. I've read
dozens and dozens of books on book marketing and this one is on my top
ten list.
Scott Lorenz
President of Westwind Communications, a
public relations and marketing firm that specializes in book marketing
and author publicity.
You've invested a great deal of writing time and energy into producing
an excellent manuscript or a nonfiction book proposal. Now put yourself
in the shoes of the acquisitions editor. Each year you receive literally
hundreds of these proposals from literary agents and authors. How do
you find a proposal that stands out from the crowd? (Hint: It's not the
proposal on colored paper.)
For the last several years, as an
acquisitions editor, I've been on the receiving end of these proposals
and manuscripts. I love to find an author who knows the necessity of a
sales partnership with the publisher. These authors understand it takes
more than an excellent book but they need to actually work at selling
large volumes of the book. Beyond the Bookstore helps the author better
understand about how books are sold.
Have you ever read the sales
numbers of a particular book and wondered how that particular book ever
sold in the bookstore? Some of those big sales numbers have been
outside the bookstore. In fact, more than half of all books sold each
year are sold outside of bookstores.
Beyond the Bookstore is a
valuable resource for any writer to think outside the box. Jud covers 79
specific strategies for generating "special sales." A special sale is
anything outside of the traditional bookstore setting. As you read this
book, you determine which ideas are appropriate for your book then
incorporate these sales ideas into your nonfiction or fiction book
proposal. When you include this type of information from the beginning
of the publishing process, it will show your publisher your good
intention to be proactive in the sales process. Proactive authors who
understand how to sell books are attractive authors to any publisher.
Reed
Business also produces Publisher's Weekly and this book is loaded with
current statistics and contact information such as, "Today, the
worldwide book market approximates $90 billion. Almost one third of
those sales occur in the United States. Over the past ten years, the
amount of sales through traditional outlets is decreased by 11 per cent
(down 19 per cent without factoring Internet sales), and sales through
non-bookstore outlets have increased by 8 per cent."
Three major
advantages of special sales include control over your destiny,
customization potential and nontraditional market segmentation. As an
additional resource, this book includes a CD-Rom to help generate a
marketing plan and give the right emphasis for each market channel. Yes,
your publisher should generate the marketing plan but they only can
give each book a limited amount of potential. Only the author has the
passion and intense interest in their book.
