Self Promote and Succeed Chapter 11: Library Love

Chapter 11 the lowdown on Libraries there's money to be made with libraries, but we're not talking big bucks. If you care only about making money, this chapter isn't for you. If, however, you've become an author to make an impact, enhance your authority, or give back to the community you live in, then you're going to love learning all about Library Listings Selling books is important to access readers, but for many authors, and especially those who want to help others trying to get through hard times, getting your book on the shelves at libraries is a must. A library listing doesn't mean a big payday for an author because the book could be read a thousand times and you're paid only once when the library buys the book. That's not quite true of ebooks and audiobooks, depending on the system and how the library lists your book, but it is true of a physical copy of the book. Even so, libraries still represent a valuable book marketing opportunity. Getting your book listed at libraries allows you to build an audience at the grassroots level in your local community and provide support and resources to patrons, including those who may otherwise lack access. It's also a way to continue to gain exposure, grow your platform, and discover new, unexpected audiences. Even better, a successful program at one library can generate more avenues for you to explore. And people who sit on library boards are very often 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 who doesn't have a big audience yet, your local library could be the place for you to test your material, your training, or your workshop while selling some books and building your brand. A library might not be your place if you've written a book for high level executives and CEOs and your goal is to land six figure consulting gigs. But for authors who've written books on personal finance, immigration, education, related subjects, subjects for teens or young adults, grief or hobby related subjects, a local library could be the perfect partner. Now, one quick note before you start approaching PCIP blocks make it easier. Your library may still buy your book without the PCIP data, but the cataloger who enters the book into the system could reject it. The PCIP block is a cataloging in publication record data, a bibliographic record. It helps libraries know where to file books. If you haven't filed for a Library of Congress listing or you didn't successfully secure it, you can pay to have this created for your book. The datablock allows librarians to properly catalog your book. Remember the Dewey Decimal System from school? Yes, that is part of this. Without it, some catalogers won't do it so your book won't be listed, while others may try but may not get your book exactly where it should be. Again, it's not required, but if you plan to make a big push for library listings, investing in this could be well worth your time. You can hire someone to create this block of data for you on readsy library live events 101 most community libraries love supporting their local authors. There's a good chance that your nearby library is ready and waiting to become your number one fan. That said, in meeting many librarians at American Library association conferences where I've had the pleasure of speaking on the topic of self publishing, I must warn you that they get a lot of authors approaching them asking for help. They see a lot of badly put together self published books. You must stand out by showcasing why their patrons will benefit from your book and your event, not asking them to give you support. Please don't go into a library asking for them to help you. Be prepared to show them how you are going to be of service to them and their community. Libraries are interested in doing all kinds of things to get people in the door and they want to make use of the space they have. I've held many different kinds of events at libraries. Some have beautiful spaces where you can host a class, offer a book reading, or even do book signings. Check out your local library. You might be surprised and impressed at what they have available. My local library in Las Vegas, the Summerlin Library, even has a theater where they host plays and other productions. On top of that, they have several event rooms for hosting readings, clubs and other activities. Check out your library's space and chat with the person in charge of programming to explore your options. Then let your creative juices flow. Organizing a book event can seem daunting at first, but the process is easier than you might think. How easy you ask, how easy you ask. I've broken it down into seven steps. Step 1 Make a list Make a list of five or more libraries in your area. An AI search engine can help. Along with using one of the many mapping services to find libraries near you, you're shooting for public branches you can drive to or reach by public transportation with relative ease. Step two Research Hit up their website to research individual library programming. Most library branches have online event and activity calendars and this is the best place to start your research. You might be surprised at their diversity and robustness. Many Libraries host weekly or monthly book clubs from month to month. These often revolve around topical subjects or current events, and there may be an upcoming topic that's a perfect fit for your book. Libraries also hold events to coincide with holidays, awareness months, or other celebrations. Some even host things like creative writing workshops in November for NaNoWriMo. Get a sense of what kind of programming the library likes and what events are coming up to figure out where your book might fit in. Does your book have a tie in to something already in the works? Great. If not, you'll have to pitch a new event to promote your book to the library. In either case, you're ready to move to Step three. Step three at dawn, we plan what kind of event will you host? Authors often default to hosting typical readings and book signings, but this is the least desirable thing for a library to host. In fact, at the American Library Association Lib Learn X event, where I spoke at a workshop session on self publishing, an entire discussion erupted about boring author readings. One woman said, we'd rather hear what you didn't put in the book or what your process was for writing the book. Most people want to read the book, not sit there and hear a tiny part of it. Read to them. Chat with other authors or even your local librarians to see what is of interest or what has worked in the past and how you can improve upon that. There are so many options. I've offered short workshops at libraries to teach a small part of my book to the audience. It was free, but it was a great way to build my list, sell books to the library, and connect with my local community. Just keep in mind your goals and resources as well as the capacity and interest of of the local library. Here are a few ideas to get you Author reading audience Q and A book club local author panel has the added benefit of your intersecting with another author's audience Party to celebrate a book award, your book launch, or an awareness month. Virtual events that include interactive quizzes or games like Kahoot Workshop or some other sort of interactive activity, especially if you have a workbook. Research your audience and understand their demographics and interests. We've spoken to librarians who said popular topics include resume building, career advice, home buying, immigration support, esl, local stories, basic personal finance, and books that will engage a teen audience. Step 4 Pitch your event Once you have your event plan in place, the next step is to get in front of the person in charge of programming for the library. For nonfiction books, your best bet is probably the adult services or programming librarian. There's often a youth services librarian who specifically handles children's and young adult books. When in doubt, just reach out to the library branch and ask whom you should talk to. You can always reach out to the reference librarian. Making an appointment to speak with the right person face to face is a good idea so you can pitch something they want. Then you can send an email, reintroducing yourself and sharing a bit about your book and then putting one or two sentences together on what you're planning. If possible, suggest how your event might tie into what they've already got going on or align with the particular interests of their membership base. If the library likes your idea, it's time to put together a one page plan. You don't have to map out every little detail, but it helps to have a general outline. This should include a summary of the event, including schedule, cost, supplies, date, time, the number of people you expect to attend, and of course, your marketing ideas. You'll also want to ask if you can sell books at the event and if you need to pay any kind of fee. Sometimes a library will even have a tiny budget to pay you for your appearance. More often, you'll be doing it for free but are welcome to sell books and the library will help you promote the event. These are details to discuss before you finalize event plans. Be sure to emphasize how you're going to promote the event as well. Libraries are always interested in new ways to attract community members, so your assistance is important. Additionally, most libraries don't have the marketing expertise to draw a crowd, so the success of an event is on your being a great promotion partner. Step five Prepare and promote. You got the green light, okay. That means it's time to get ready, get prepped and promote. Spreading the word is vital to this event's success. Most libraries put up posters and advertise the event on their websites and newsletters if they have one. Meanwhile, you need to hop on your social media and start rattling some cages. If you have a newsletter, send out an invite. Post regular reminders starting at least a month in advance. If you have an email newsletter, use it. Reach out and let everyone know about the upcoming festivities. You can even potentially get posters printed and put them up at your local coffee shop, gym, or other popular community spot. That kind of visibility can be great. After all, this is a local event celebrating a local author. Find out if the library allows food or drinks and if so, bring some tasty treats for your guests to enjoy during your reading, talk or workshop. Send out reminders the day before and make sure you've posted again everywhere on your social media. Finally, remember to bring copies of your book to sign and sell, and if you're ordering them, make sure you've ordered them at least a month in advance to make sure they arrive in time. Execute the day has come. Get there early and set up as needed. Your attendees may need certain materials, including pens or paper, so make sure they're available and there's plenty for everyone. Bring a Sharpie or two for signing books since your event probably won't be gigantic. Greet everyone as they arrive and don't forget to introduce yourself before the event kicks into gear. Some attendees might know you, but others will not remember you're not just there to promote your book. This is a perfect opportunity to create connections with the potential to do more than sell books. Ideally, have a friend at the book table helping to sell books and hand out your materials after the event wraps up. Let your audience know that you're signing books and give them a chance to approach you directly with questions or comments. Step 7 thank the library this is a best practice tip that benefits both you and your relationship with the library over the long haul. There's a good chance the library probably won't charge you for their event space, and they almost always buy a copy of your book to add to their bookshelves. If you're selling it at an event, your library deserves love, so make sure they get it. Thank the librarian in person right after your event and let them know that you'd be interested in participating in other events in the future. Bring a receipt book because many libraries have actually paid me cash for the book and needed a receipt. And of course, post pictures and a happy note on their social media pages filled with your gratitude for their hospitality. How to Approach Libraries for Listings all right, now that you've got your local events rolling, it's time to get people requesting your book in your area and beyond. Usually when you host an event at the library, they will buy a copy of your book, but here are two other ways besides events to get library listings. First, let everyone know that your book is out and that they can request your book from their local library, either in person or online. The key is this person has to be a member of that local library. Unlike the Amazon Marketplace, where there's not much a friend or family member can do to help you promote your book, libraries don't care if it's a relative or friend of the author requesting the book. They only care about serving their membership. That means these requests can absolutely come from family or friends if you're focused on a specific library, you can make it even easier on friends and family by letting them know who to contact to request a book. If they're more inclined to go to a library in person, provide some directions like telling them to ask for the circulation desk or the main help desk. The library staff should be able to direct them to the right person to make requests, but any help you can provide along the way to your friends and family will be a bonus. If they will be requesting your book on the library website, check to see if the library has an online request an item or ask the librarian feature. In that case, the person requesting your book will need the title, your full author name, and maybe even data like the ISBN code. Most libraries will be able to search by title or author name. Oh no, I don't have a great stand for this thing. That was one thing I didn't do. Well, it's not ISBN code, so let me just change that. Remove that. In that case, the person requesting your book will need the title, your full author name, and maybe even data like the ISBN. Most libraries will be able to search by title or author name. Second, credibility in the library world comes from those paid reviews we covered in the previous chapter. So you need them to sell your book for library listings. I've met many librarians who complain about the authors who don't make a case why their book should be carried by the library. Having a sell sheet could be a great way to do this, but high quality editorial reviews are an incredible help. A review in Kirkus, Publishers Weekly or Forward will be highly regarded by librarians. When I was at the 2022American Library association conference in Washington D.C. i heard from many librarians who consider these type of reviews important. And when I spoke with the folks over at OverDrive about lists they make for libraries, they said they use sales data, but they also look at published editorial reviews from those sources to decide which books should be featured in their system and their library ebook listings. Librarians have told me that without the gatekeeper of a publisher to ensure quality with self published books, they rely heavily on reviews or authors. It's up to you to show that you are heavily invested in the quality of your book and that you have credibility. One additional thing to note is that librarians are book lovers and they are intensely focused on patrons. If you have a high quality book that is in demand and will help readers, librarians will be interested in it. Oh, and a fun fact for you, libraries often buy books from Amazon. Alright, now that you know the basics of how to make your book attractive to librarians. Let's introduce you to some of the other tools you can use to get your book onto library shelves. What is WorldCat? Imagine you can visit a library anywhere in the world and browse its bookshelves. Or even better, imagine that your book was available to readers not only in that library but also in thousands of other libraries worldwide. How is that possible? It's all thanks to A site called WorldCat.org WorldCat includes catalogs for 15,637 libraries in 207 countries. Plus it contains over 512 million bibliographic records in in an astounding 483 languages. That represents more than 3 billion physical and digital library assets. And the number of people accessing all of this more than 100 million. With WorldCat, you can search for books, videos, music, and any other physical items you can check out of your library. Think of it like a Google search specifically crafted for bookworms. The database can also help you discover new digital content, like downloadable audiobooks. It doesn't just search your nearest library, either. It searches the itemized collection of many, many libraries all at once to help you locate what you're looking for nearby. WorldCat can help you find research articles or digital items that can be directly viewed or downloaded right from their database. It even has historical documents and photos, such as local newspaper articles and digital versions of rare items that are usually unavailable to the public. Once you find what you need, you can add Items cataloged in WorldCat to personalized lists. And there's no limit as to how many lists you can include in your profile. You can group items in all kinds of ways, like titles owned by your Library or other WorldCat libraries. You can also share your lists with friends, colleagues, and other users. A record of your book here has the potential to connect to tens of thousands of libraries and millions of people throughout the world. It's like the greatest PR firm ever. To add your book to WorldCat, you need an online computer library center member institution that carries a copy of your book in their catalog. OCLC is a global library organization that provides shared technology services, original research and community programs for its membership and the library community at large. Once your book is available in one of these libraries, check check WorldCat and confirm the accuracy of your listing. Library of Congress why they Matter if you love the smell of books, you should definitely visit the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. besides being a beautiful building, it's a place many authors dream of having a book listing. Not Being listed in the Library of Congress does not mean you won't get library shelf space. That said, it definitely helps you get more library listings if you are listed. To be accepted, your book must meet their requirements, which can be viewed on the Library of Congress website. Essentially, they want titles that will be widely acquired and the title page or copyright page shows that it has been published by a U.S. based publisher. It doesn't mean a self published book will be rejected, but you shouldn't be surprised if it is. As much as I love libraries, it's not going to be a tactic that makes sense for every book because not every audience will borrow books from the library. Let's talk about something that does make sense for most authors. How to use ads and paid promotions to boost your Signal Chapter Summary 1. Libraries are great author partners if your ideal reader is likely to be a patron. 2. Being active with libraries is a great way to build grassroots support for a book and have a meaningful impact on communities. 3. Be creative when considering your event options for libraries and remember you have to sell yourself and your book. While librarians like to support local authors, they won't do it out of the goodness of their hearts. It needs to be something that benefits their community. Do your research and be prepared when you pitch your book or your event to your librarian. 4. Library listings are not typically the way you'll make a lot of money or even sell a lot of books, but for the right authors they can open doors to bigger and bigger impact and income opportunities. 5. The best way to get into your local library is either by making a request you or someone else, or by hosting an event. Of course writing a high quality popular book itself will get you into libraries. Paid reviews from respected sources are also a way to attract librarians attention. If you've seen me stop in the middle of reading and make notes you you might be wondering what I'm doing. I have found typos or something that needs to be changed in the material. This is why I like reading the audiobook version of my book when it's in layout because I find little things. Thankfully my team has done a fantastic job of editing and I've only found a couple of typos like referencing NPD bookscan. They actually had an NDP which in Canada is a political party and they had a few other little things and but really I found one missing word and a few other things but there's a couple things that have changed since I wrote the book and so those are things I'm crossing out and there's some other minor things, but that's what. So when you read your audiobook, have a notebook in hand, and I also highlight them on the screen here so that I've got that record as well.