3 Tips to Sell Books with Libraries

Thousands of librarians, librarian assistants, librarian study students, technicians, directors, board members and authors descended upon Downtown Washington, D.C. for the 2022American Library Association Conference and I soaked it all up and have the best ways to sell more books with libraries for you today. So if you want to get library listings and use libraries to reach your readers, then this video is for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of a fabulous full service self publishing services company, Book Launchers. At Book Launchers, our focus is to be the first choice in publishing, not just the backup for authors that don't get traditional book deals. And to do that, we know library listings and library relationships are very important. So we've been spending a lot of time building relationships and testing different ways to connect authors and libraries. If you want to do this on your own, you're not working with Book Launchers. Here is what you need to know about selling more books with local libraries. Number one Many libraries are keen to have content and programming for their location. While many are excited about in person content, now they almost all have virtual programming as well. As an author, you can tap into this by creating a program for your local library and beyond. It doesn't mean they're interested in every topic though. In fact, we found that our typical business topics were of much less interest than some of our niche books like immigration, career advancement, financial literacy, content to engage teens, advice on parenting, and ESL material. So if your book falls into one of those categories, I highly recommend you create programming that will benefit the library's community. Some libraries might even pay you a small fee for the training or allow you to sell books to the attendees or promote your business, they most certainly will be interested in listing your book when you host the event. Number two, if you're going to be pitching libraries whether to list your book or to have programming, the best way to establish credibility in the library world is to have a credible review like a Kirkus Review, a Publisher's Weekly review, or a Forward review. The librarians pay a lot of attention to these reviews and even more specifically the first two lines of that review. I heard from so many librarians that said they just read the first two lines of the review. And even when I spoke with the folks at Overdrive about the lists they make for libraries, they said they use sales, but they also look at those published reviews to decide what books should go on the list and be featured books put forward in the library ebook listings and system that they have. Tip 3 Librarians actually had minimal awareness over what books were self published and what books weren't. In fact, many thought their library would not and does not buy or feature any self published books, which is not true of very many libraries at all. But it goes back to what I've always said. If you have a book that is edited and designed at the highest standards, nobody even looks to see who the publisher is on the spine when you seek library listings. Have a top quality book. Librarians are book lovers and they're intensely patron focused. So if you have a book that is in demand, that's high quality and will help their patrons, they're not even going to look to see if it's self published. Oh, and fun fact for you, libraries often buy the books they carry from Amazon. They also buy them direct from an author. When you're hosting an event, which has happened to me twice, have a receipt book because I was paid cash and had to give them a receipt. Physical books are purchased literally wherever books are sold and then they get listed in the library. A library listing doesn't mean a big payday for an author because it could be read a thousand times from the same library and you're paid once. That's not quite true of ebooks, depending on what system you're in and how the libraries list your book, which we've talked about before, but it is true of a physical book. But there is an opportunity in building an audience at the grassroots level in your local community and at the local library, providing support and resources to people who are patrons of the library and just seeing where each exposure can take you next really valuable. A successful library program at one library can lead to another and another. And people who sit on library boards are often very successful local business people or educators. I always look at book marketing as one door leading to another which leads to another. And if you have the right topic for the library audience and you're an author that doesn't have a big audience right now, well, your local library could be the place for you to go to test your material, your training, your workshop, sell some books and build your brand in your local market. Now, there's a lot of other videos we have on libraries. If you want to learn about the aggregators and how they distribute your ebooks to libraries, this video is one you should watch. And if you're good there, I highly recommend you check out this video on your media kit as it can be a valuable tool in your pursuit of opportunities like libraries and other local events. Both videos are quite good. I highly recommend you check them out and I really want to see you there. Click on over.