In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi Member Q&A podcast, hosts Michael La Ronn and Sacha Black discuss creative strategies for getting books into independent bookstores, including sending signed copies, bookmarks, and promotional materials to stores that stock your books.
Other questions include:
- How can authors monetize a new podcast beyond just encouraging listeners to buy their books
- When should traditionally published authors make the leap to self-publishing if their agent hasn't secured a publisher
- What options exist for self-publishing a Chinese translation of a book in Hong Kong and reaching that market
- How can authors evaluate whether a publishing service is legitimate or making too many promises
- What technical settings with distributors like Gardners might prevent bookstores from ordering indie books
And more!
Listen to the Podcast: Building Bookstore Relationships Through Goodwill
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About the Hosts
Michael La Ronn is ALLi’s Outreach Manager. He is the author of over 80 science fiction & fantasy books and self-help books for writers. He writes from the great plains of Iowa and has managed to write while raising a family, working a full-time job, and even attending law school classes in the evenings (now graduated!). You can find his fiction at www.michaellaronn.com and his videos and books for writers at www.authorlevelup.com.
Sacha Black is a bestselling and competition winning author, rebel podcaster, speaker and casual rule breaker. She writes fiction under a secret pen name and other books about the art of writing. She lives in England, with her wife and genius, giant of a son. You can find her on her website, her podcast, and on Instagram.
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Read the Transcript
Michael La Ronn: Hello and welcome to Self-Publishing with ALLi. This is the Member Q&A Podcast — the podcast where we answer all of your burning self-publishing questions. You've got the questions, we've got the answers. We hope. My name is Michael La Ronn and I'm here with Sacha Black. What's up, Sacha?
Sacha Black: Hello! How are you?
Michael La Ronn: I am fantastic. I'm gearing up — we try not to always talk about when we're recording, since we sometimes record early. But I am preparing to be on the road for about two weeks. Going to a writing conference and then I've got a trip planned after that. Things are a little chaotic — I'm trying to pack, finish presentations, and leave my house somewhat clean before I leave. Something's going to have to get sacrificed.
Sacha Black: Yeah. It's usually the cleaning. Let's be real.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah, that's 100% the problem. How are you doing?
Sacha Black: I'm okay. In terms of what I've been up to — we fulfilled the big Kickstarter, we've just got a few stragglers left on that. And then I went straight into moving warehouse. I now have two units instead of one. We had to move the existing unit into a new unit and then we expanded into a second unit, so they're like next door to each other, which is quite cool. There's an internal corridor, so if it's raining we can just bring books through indoors, which is nice.
It has been a very long six weeks of manual labor. And as a writer who usually has her backside on a chair at a desk, I'm quite tired. I'm going to take a couple of days off and then try to be at the desk writing for a really long time. The only thing I want to do for the rest of this year is write words. There is the small issue of moving house as well, but apart from that it should just be words from here on out.
Michael La Ronn: Just microscopic issues like moving house, you know.
Sacha Black: At least I did them all at the same time. I was like, well, it's going to be crazy — let's make it really crazy.
Michael La Ronn: When it rains, it pours — and then it's sunny. It's all good. I hope you'll be able to keep the colour-coded bookshelf. For those who aren't watching, Sacha has the most amazing colour-coded bookshelf in her background.
Sacha Black: Fingers crossed. We were talking about that last night — where is the bookcase going to go? Because I'm going to be building an office in the garden, and there won't really be enough space for walls and walls of books in there, and there's not really anywhere obvious in the house either. So we were thinking maybe all my special editions go under the stairs as a little reading nook — build a bookcase under there — and then maybe the rest go in the office. We'll see.
Michael La Ronn: Well, we're eagerly curious to find out. I'm sure your background is still going to look amazing.
Sacha Black: Fingers crossed.
Question 1: Getting into Independent Bookshops
Michael La Ronn: All right, so we've got our first question, and that's going to come from Julia. Julia writes: I'm struggling to get my novel into independent bookshops. My local bookshop was very unfriendly and said they don't stock books listed in Gardners as firm purchase. I asked Gardners why, and they said it's because my book shows a 45% discount and is marked as ‘destroy.' They have kindly explained that my book is listed as ‘firm.' Is there a way around this?
Sacha Black: On the technical side — how do you get it not listed as firm? I would just contact Gardners and ask them: if these are the settings that are making it firm, what are the settings I need to have to mark it as not firm? It's probably something to do with enabling returns, but that's a risk you carry as the author — you could end up having books docked from your income if bookstores return them.
One of the things we are looking at doing is creating a list of queer-friendly independent bookstores and reaching out to them directly. Because I do print runs, I get the books at low prices, and we're going to offer bookstores the books at the same price as traditional publishers — except when we send them, they'll all be signed and they'll all have artwork and bookmarks and things. So we're doing that as our own little project.
But in terms of working with bookstores generally, it is often about developing a relationship. What can you offer them? Can you offer to send book plates? We ship book plates all over the world — whenever I'm tagged in a bookstore that stocks my books, we do something to say thank you. We'll send book plates, bookmarks, anything like that to support the bookstores.
Getting into bookstores is extremely difficult unless you have high volumes of sales and you have readers going into their local independent bookstores to ask them to order your books. Until you're selling a huge volume, it's almost not worth spending a huge amount of time trying to fix this. I would definitely go back to Gardners and ask what settings will enable it to be labeled as something other than firm. If it turns out you have to enable returns, make sure you've read the terms and conditions and you understand what the consequences are. And then go back to the bookstore and say, the status has changed.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah. And I agree with everything you said, Sacha. I think it goes back to the very beginning of the question for me, which is: if the bookstore doesn't want to carry your book, they're not going to carry your book. There are just some bookstores out there that aren't going to carry your book even if you do everything right. Even if you make sure the book isn't listed as firm, your discounts are correct, and you make it worth their while — there are just some people that aren't going to want to work with you. Just like there are some kids on the playground that don't want to be your friend.
So you have to figure out where the friendly folks are and where the not-so-friendly folks are. When someone shuts the door in your face, don't take it too personally. There is a limited pool out there, and we just have to work with the folks that want to work with us and not lose too much sleep over the rest.
We'd also be remiss if we didn't mention that ALLi has a guidebook on this topic. It's called Your Book in Bookshops, by Debbie Young. If you're an ALLi member, you can find it by logging into your dashboard at allianceindependentauthors.org, then going to Publications, then Complete Guides. You can download it for free as part of your membership. And if you're not an ALLi member, you can also purchase the book in our bookstore, as well as wherever books are sold.
Sacha Black: I think that's about it — it's just hard. It's a hard sell.
Michael La Ronn: How do bookstores usually respond when you send them something? When you get tagged, does it actually increase your sales?
Sacha Black: They're usually delighted. They might say, ‘Oh, we're not sure if we can afford the shipping,' and I say, don't worry about the shipping — I've got it, I'm offering this as a gift. That usually makes them very excited. They're thrilled, because they don't necessarily get that level of engagement from authors.
What I will say is that bookstores are extremely busy and they find it very difficult to follow up on things. So I tend to put the ball in their court. As soon as I'm tagged, I say: I've seen that you're stocking my books — would you like some art cards or bookmarks? And they say, oh yes, that's amazing. And I say, great, please email my customer service manager and tell us how much you stock of each book, and we'll get a package in the post to you.
They have always come back and said thanks so much. I do seem to be getting tagged in an increasing number of these things. It's difficult because they don't necessarily come back and say, can we have some more. So I don't really know for certain, but it does seem to create goodwill. And over time I've even done a campaign online asking if any bookstores are stocking my books, or asking readers to let me know if they see my book in a shop. It's very slow, grueling progress, but because of the capacity I now have to mail things, it's something we're doing at an increasing rate. I would not have done this three years ago.
Michael La Ronn: I think that's brilliant. When they tag you, you send them something. You know what that reminds me of? When you're sitting in a doctor's office and the pharmaceutical rep comes in with samples and meets with the doctor and gives them things. Whatever your feelings on pharmaceuticals, I still think that's a good business strategy. You're nurturing the relationship, and I would be willing to bet that 99% of authors and publishers don't do anything like that. So just doing it makes you stand out.
Sacha Black: Exactly. And in independent bookstores especially, they are hand-sellers. If you've created goodwill and you've supported that store, then if somebody comes in asking for your genre, they are much more likely to sell your book than anybody else's. It is strategic, but it's also a way for me to support independent bookstores. We are independent authors — I like supporting independent bookstores. I have the privilege, ability, and capacity to do this, so that's what I try and do. And hey, it also happens to benefit our business — it's a very hard thing to measure and track, but I feel like it does.
Michael La Ronn: And what I also like about it is that you're waiting for them to tag you. You're not that author who walks in with their book trying to get the bookseller to stock it. Booksellers hate that. But if they're already stocking your books and then you're reaching out — I love that idea. It feels like it would work really well.
Sacha Black: Yeah. The other way we do it is if readers tag me saying they've seen my book. I've now got one of my team starting to do research so we can be slightly more proactive — we're starting with LGBT-specific bookstores. If we're ever in a city and I see a bookstore, we go in. But this stuff is very slow. It is never going to generate tens of thousands of book sales. But who doesn't want to see their book on a shelf in a bookstore?
Michael La Ronn: As they say: how do you build a career? One reader at a time. One bookstore at a time.
Question 2: Starting and Monetizing a Podcast
Michael La Ronn: Next question is from Victoria. Victoria says she is starting a podcast this year based on two of her nonfiction books, both about the work of straight women in the AIDS community. She says: I'm doing this to expand my readership, who are now primarily over forty-five. It will be a lot of work, but content is no problem — I have dozens of audio interviews to draw from as well as crates and crates of research. I can also include several dozen women who did not make it into either book. My question is: I know marketing is going to be my number one focus before and after the podcast premieres, and it will take a while to build an audience. But there's only one other show I know of out there — so what are some other ways I can monetize this podcast? Should I be looking for sponsors and advertisers, or just encourage people to buy the books?
Sacha Black: That's a really good question. Podcasts are quite easy to monetize once they're established, but it's quite difficult to get sponsors before you're getting at least 800 to 1,000 downloads per episode. And that's going to take a while to reach. So on the sponsorship front — yes, definitely, but keep an eye on your download stats before you start approaching sponsors.
You can also do things like a community or a Patreon, where listeners can get bonus content, behind-the-scenes information, an extra fifteen minutes of audio — for a couple of dollars. So I would look at Patreon as well. And of course you want to direct people to the books. Is there a course you could develop from the books that could be another revenue stream?
I think podcasts are generally forms of marketing more than they are huge revenue streams, until you are very, very established and have large download numbers — at which point it becomes quite easy to monetize and attract sponsors. But that initial phase is hard. If you're going weekly, you need at least six months to a year of content before sponsors will look at you, because so many podcasters stop after seven episodes.
Michael La Ronn: Absolutely. I think it was Joanna Penn who said she wouldn't be a guest on shows until they had at least ten episodes. And it might be even more than that now, just because of the way things are currently, with so many people stopping.
There are potentially smaller companies or startups that might be willing to sponsor you earlier if you can build a relationship with them — companies that are trying to get their foot in the door. But generally speaking, you've got to have a track record of consistency — putting out content on a regular basis — and the ability to bring in listeners. If you can do those two things, you can get sponsors.
Something else to think about: it sounds like you've got dozens of guests in the bank, Victoria, but you're going to need a lot more than a few dozen to sustain a podcast. You have to think about what the content looks like for the next year and beyond. What I often find is that people start podcasts thinking they have plenty of ideas, and then they run out. And if you're doing guest interviews, finding guests becomes even harder. You almost have to think about expanding your content focus. If you're talking only about HIV and AIDS, you might run out of people to feature at some point. Are there topics adjacent to this you could also cover? Are there ways to come at it from a different angle? Don't underestimate how quickly the content can run out.
Question 3: When to Leave Your Agent and Self-Publish
Michael La Ronn: Next question is from Raim. Raim asks: how do I know if it's time to stop trying to get published through my agent and just jump into self-publishing? It looks like Raim has an agent and the agent is trying to sell a second book, but neither of them has had any luck with publishers.
Sacha Black: I almost want to challenge the phrasing of the question. It feels a little like self-publishing is second best — a default position of ‘I didn't get trad pub, so I'm going to self-publish now.' Whereas I come at it from the other angle. I think self-publishing first, because authors make more money, and then consider whether a particular project might be better suited to traditional publishing.
So I would actually look at the book, then look at the market, then look at the genre. What proportion of the top sellers in your genre are traditionally published versus indie published? Are you trying to pitch a book to trad pub in a market that is dominated by self-publishers? If so, that might be why you're not having success.
The other thing is that traditional publishing is unpredictable. Nobody in publishing knows what's going to be the next big hit. I literally have a friend who sent their agent a manuscript, the agent hated it. Six months later they sent the same manuscript and the agent loved it. If that isn't a perfect example of what traditional publishing is like, I don't know what is.
I would say that self-publishing your manuscript needs to be a choice and a business model you are choosing to engage in with a strategy, a purpose, and a reason. If you are going to self-publish, what is your marketing strategy? Have you already baked the marketing into your book? Do you know how you're going to reach readers? Do you know what problem it solves, if it's nonfiction? If it's romance, do you know your tropes? If it's urban fantasy, does it have the right snark, humor, and world-building? We don't have enough information to know.
For me, the question of when to go indie is a choice. What is the market tolerating? I look at the genre and the books that are bestselling in it, and I look at the ratio of indie published to traditionally published. It's quite easy to tell, because the big publishers tend to be well-known names — Hachette, Pan Macmillan. Go to the top 100 in your genre and look at who published each book. If you see those names, it's trad pub. If it's some obscure LLC or something-something publishing, it's probably an indie author.
And another option: you could just withdraw the manuscript for six months and then query it again when the market shifts. The market is always changing — what publishers want changes day by day. It might just not be the time for that particular manuscript. It might be that the book is written in a way that's more akin to trad pub, and it's worth holding it and waiting. Or, if you're like me — impatient and confident in your marketing — just self-publish it. But don't feel like you're self-publishing it because it wasn't picked up. That framing really irks me.
Michael La Ronn: Yeah. At the end of the day, you've got to choose: do you want people to choose you, or are you going to choose yourself? And I think what you're saying, Sacha, is that you choose yourself. If other people see you and decide to choose you, that's cool — but at the end of the day, you're going to blaze your own path.
Sacha Black: Yeah. I actually have a book sitting on my hard drive that feels more like a trad pub book. I haven't self-published it, but I also don't feel it's the right time for it. I haven't queried it and I haven't self-published it — it's just sitting there. Ninety-nine percent of the books I write, I choose myself. But there are some books that just feel more trad pub in terms of style, design, story arcs, and character types. You can be a lot more experimental in indie publishing. Trad pub books tend to be a bit more… vanilla. That particular book of mine is a little lighter, a little softer, a little more conventional than some of my others.
Michael La Ronn: I think you're not wrong. It probably depends on the genre — I have heard some pretty wild stuff in trad pub books. But generally speaking, the really wild stuff tends to be on the indie side.
Sacha Black: Or it starts indie and then gets picked up.
Michael La Ronn: Exactly. Trad pub is never first to do it. Both paths are choices and both are available to you. I think you're going to make a lot more money on the indie side because it's going to force you to understand the market.
Sacha Black: Let me challenge that — I agree with you, but that's because of who we are as people. Not everybody is going to make more money indie, because not everybody is going to market the way that we market.
Michael La Ronn: True. If you're willing to work at it and you're willing to learn, then you have infinite possibilities on the indie side. That's not to say money can't be made on the trad pub side, but in a way you're gambling — you have to win the lottery. So many things have to happen in order for your book to even get published, and then for lightning to strike it. We're called the Alliance of Independent Authors for a reason — you can probably tell where our sympathies lie.
Sacha Black: There may be some biases, and they're not subconscious.
Michael La Ronn: Exactly. Well, somebody's going to start an organization called the Alliance of Traditional Authors at some point, and they'll probably give better advice on trad pub.
Question 4: Self-Publishing a Chinese Translation
Michael La Ronn: Next question is from Katie. Katie writes: I got my novel translated into Chinese. The English edition is published by the Book Guild in the UK. I would like to self-publish the Chinese edition in Hong Kong and sell it online. I am applying for an ISBN in Hong Kong using my business name as the imprint. I was told I could use BookVault once I have the ISBN. I'm not sure of the entire process or if BookVault is even the best option. What should I be thinking about?
Sacha Black: I don't know exactly where BookVault ships in terms of all of their countries. They do have a fairly vast reach. The one thing I do know is that PublishDrive has some penetration in Asia and in China in particular. So it might be worth reaching out to the team at PublishDrive and asking that question, because they have much more knowledge and much more penetration in that market than we do.
Is your translator also going to translate some of your marketing copy? Because I don't know how you reach that audience unless you can speak the language. But yes, I would definitely look at PublishDrive — I believe they do have some print options in there now as well, though don't quote me on that.
Michael La Ronn: I think you're right about PublishDrive and the Chinese market. I would also go to the ALLi member forum, or other author forums, and see if you can find someone who has a presence in the Chinese market and just see what they're doing. It's a very unique market compared to where we typically sell our books, and there are certain things you can do there and certain things you can't.
I don't know the first thing about the market other than that it is very unique. So see if you can find other authors who have had success in China and find out what they're doing. This is one of those cases where, I know authors sometimes don't want to pick up the phone, but you really need to just have a conversation with somebody. Ask them: what do I do here? How does this work? It sounds like a very relationship-driven market.
Sacha Black: Talking to people. Oh no, no, no, no. I'm out.
Michael La Ronn: All right, bye everyone! Authors and phone calls don't mix, and authors and spreadsheets don't mix either — and I happen to like both of those things, which makes me a unique creature.
Question 5: Red Flags from a Publisher
Michael La Ronn: And I think this will be our last question, and that's from member Jane. Jane has a children's book and has been approached by a company — I'm not going to name the publisher — that has had the book printed in China and says they can get it into IngramSpark's sales platform. They're offering a marketing, pack, and ship service. Jane's question is: how do I know if this company is legitimate? She also mentions that she has to pay for the printing of the books, and the publisher charges a management fee on top of that.
Sacha Black: There are some red flags there. If it's a publisher, you should not be paying for anything. Now, there are hybrid models and companies that help support you through the publishing process with a lot of handholding. But if you are paying for the print run and they are also charging you a management fee, they are not a publisher — that term is being used incorrectly. Publishers pay to publish your book. That is what makes them a publisher. So that is a very, very large red flag.
The second thing I'm a little confused about is: they're having it printed in China, but then it's being distributed through IngramSpark — and IngramSpark prints themselves. So I'm not quite sure how that works. It sounds like there might need to be a more detailed conversation with this member to look at that a little more closely.
Michael La Ronn: I would agree. Jane, the first thing I would do is check our services directory. The company you mentioned isn't in our directory, so I would encourage you to reach out to our watchdog and let us know about them. If you have specific questions, you may want to reach out to us in confidence and we can try to answer them.
I do see a few red flags. We may not have the whole story, and I want to be sensitive to that. But having to pay out of pocket for publishing is a concern. Make sure you evaluate it as much as possible — use your network, find out if others have used this particular service. And if it feels too good to be true, it probably is. Be sure to reach out to us if you'd like a little more guidance, or if you'd like our watchdog to take a look into this for you.
Closing
Michael La Ronn: All right, Sacha, we're at the bottom of another episode. Be sure to ask your questions, everyone, at allianceindependentauthors.org. Questions are from members only, but anyone can listen to the show. If you're a member, please submit your question by logging into your dashboard — there's a link where you can ask your question and we'll do our very best to get to it on the show.
We're actually approaching the bottom of the queue right now, so we're going to put out a call for more questions. Trust me, if you've got a question, we're going to put it in the queue and take a hard look at it. So thank you everybody for listening. We'll see you next month, and happy writing.
Sacha Black: Bye.
