Self Promote and Succeed Chapter 18: Cut Out the Middleman — Selling Direct to Your Reader

Chapter 18 cut out the Middleman Selling direct to your reader Rich Dad, Poor dad started out being sold in car washes, and after the right person found it, momentum grew rapidly. You really won't know where your book will find its audience if you don't try different things. Using retailers to distribute your book online or on bookstore shelves is important, but it's not the only way to grow your reach and make a bigger impact. Sometimes a little creativity can be the key to getting your book into the hands of more readers through less traditional tactics. One way to do this is by selling your book directly on your own website, and we'll get to that in just a bit. Another way to do it is to think outside the box about where you can and should sell books. From a table at the back of the room, at your live events to anywhere your target reader frequents in the world. I've sold books at my dentist office, my CrossFit gym, and at the library. I know authors who have sold books in garden stores, chiropractic offices, gift shops and travel agencies. You are never limited to bookstores or Amazon. Every single step you take in book marketing can lead you to newer, cooler and bigger opportunities. Let's start with selling direct and get to the more creative ideas. Next Selling books Direct selling books to readers cuts out the middleman when which means you can make more money and potentially build relationships. But there are lots of pros and cons to consider when you sell direct. First of all, you can charge any price you like. Of course, that doesn't mean anyone will pay it, but you are in control of the price. You can also offer incentives for readers to buy books. For example, if you wanted a print copy of Self Publish and Succeed, I could bundle in the audiobook version of the book. When you sell direct to buyers, you also get data like their contact information and the links that brought them to your website. Now, how to do this For a long time we used Lulu Press to sell Self Publish and succeed@selfpublishandsucceed.com it was a great setup because Shopify was the cart. Lulu printed and shipped the books and we collected the data and money from the sale. This wasn't terribly lucrative. However, after we paid for ad costs, we paid Shopify, Pay, PayPal, and Lulu their respective printing, shipping and merchant fees. That said, once it was all set up, which was a bit of a pain, it was very hands off and the data was delivered directly to our customer relationship management system. It was also a simple way to handle direct sales because I ran ads. It allowed me to track conversions from those ads so we could turn off unprofitable ads and add money to the ones that were converting. But even more important, it allowed us to get the contact information of book buyers so we could send them emails and build long term relationships. Amazon never tells you who buys your book, so it's much better to end a conversion with a contact. Building the long term relationships was especially important because we barely ever broke even on books after ad costs. And that's okay, because the ultimate goal is that somebody reads the book and then wants to hire book launchers or take one of our courses. We stopped using Lulu halfway through 2022 because they raised their print prices several times and and then announced a further increase and also increased their shipping rates. In the US this brought the cost of shipping and printing a single book to more than $16 per copy, plus we had to pay Shopify and PayPal fees. Even if I sold a book for $20, I was not going to break even. So there was no margin left for ad costs or any profit at all if somebody just came direct to the website and bought the book. To make it even worse, we got a lot of complaints because because Lulu was taking two weeks to deliver a book to a buyer, we even had somebody submit a chargeback complaint to PayPal against us because they hadn't received their book after 12 days. In this day and age where almost anything ships and arrives within two days when there aren't pandemic driven supply chain problems, that is completely unacceptable. We had several angry emails from people saying they would never trust our service if we can't send a book out in a few days. Keep that in mind too, if you decide to do this on your own. It's a commitment to quick turnarounds. The good news is the alternative is cheaper, but it's more labor intensive. We're currently buying cases of books from Ingram at a net cost of $5.44 per book plus our shipping cost. When we buy a carton of 30 and ship it to an address in the U.S. our shipping is roughly $50, so our cost per book works out to about $7 per book. Doing it this way, if we print through KDP Print, we cut a dollar off the top for each copy. Now the trick is that we then have to mail the book to the buyer, which is done via media mail, and our operations manager has to drop them off at the post office. To make shipping from home a little easier, we use stamps.com which allows us to print labels at home, so it's nice and easy. It costs us $3.49 to print a media mail label and then have it ready for the post. Doing it this way costs us just under $11 to send a book, plus the time it takes to print the label and ship them off. If you are selling lots of books, like hundreds and hundreds every month direct, it might be worth doing a large print order to get a discount, especially if you're doing a free plus shipping funnel and you're charging something like $7.99 for the shipping. Once you sell a lot of books, you can consider a warehouse option, but this is for high volume direct sales, more than 1,000 per month. The only other way that I really know of that will work is to access your KDP account and ship author copies direct to buyers. I don't love this option for domestic buyers because the book comes from Amazon when somebody thought they were buying it from you, but I like doing this for international buyers because it's so much more cost effective than shipping a book from the US to another country. Personally, if somebody's buying a book direct from me, I would like to have it look as if it's coming direct from me. You may also want to include a card, promotional material or stickers, and you can't do that if you're Using Amazon direct to your reader also means selling at trade show events and other places where you're actually taking credit card information or cash from the buyer. If you do this, I strongly encourage you to send receipts via email so you build a connection and can follow up on their purchase, ask for a review, or make some sort of an upsell offer. If you aren't doing that, you should at least invite the reader to join your email list at the time of purchase. Stripe and Square are great mobile payment apps to handle purchases at events, and you can automate email receipts for buyers, which allows you to follow up on the purchase. If you sell direct in person, you should have cash on hand for change and take that into account when you price your books. It's probably easier to sell your book for a round number to avoid needing to handle change. Selling ebooks and audiobooks direct now that's just print books for selling ebooks direct to buyers. Book Funnel is the choice most authors make. They have a robust system that allows you to do this and still keep a lot of control. They also recently announced an integration with ThriveCart, which solves issues for more sophisticated authors selling direct who may want to offer upsells as part of every book purchase. ThriveCart also has a system that automatically calculates sales tax along with other features. ThriveCart comes with a heftier integration fee, but this might make sense depending on the model for your author business. Other platforms that many indie authors use to sell ebooks direct include payhip, Gumroad, and Ejunkie, to name a few. Payhip could be a great option if you want to build an entire funnel of offerings like courses or membership sites. I have not used them personally, but I know some authors who do, and they're pretty happy with how the system works. Selling audiobooks direct has not been very easy to date, but services coming on board now may make it easier. The most exciting for authors is Book Funnel. Other services like Gumroad, which podcasters use for membership sales, could be rigged to work for it. Supporting Cast, which is a podcasting platform, is getting into the audiobook sales space. Connecting it with Stripe allows you to sell your audiobook direct to listeners, and their platform creates a secure copy of your audiobook for that buyer so they can listen to the book as they would a podcast. It's easy to get excited about selling direct, but it's a lot of work and of course it's totally on you to send the audience to buy your work. Make sure it's worth it by assessing the advantages and how they align with your bigger picture goals. For example, if you're using paid ads for platform building or using your book as the first step in your bigger business funnel, this is a great tactic. The upside of using Amazon and Barnes and Noble is that they bring buyers to their platforms and and if your book gets in front of the right buyer, it could sell itself. Their platform also has buyer trust. When you sell direct, you have to make sure you can drive the buyers to your pages or your platform and that you can establish enough trust that someone will pull out their credit card without knowing who you are. As part of brokering your own sale, you need to build a lot of elements, including a sales page. This page needs images, a payment method which connects to a bank credit card or service such as PayPal, a privacy policy, a return policy, and sales copy. You also need to figure out if you need to charge sales tax. In most cases, you probably don't unless you're selling more than $400 of books in any one state in a year. Some of the platforms like Book Funnel make setup more straightforward, but it still takes work and I recommend you work with an accountant selling in person. How to prepare for Author signings and selling books at the back of the room. When you sell books directly, you need to look like the professional author that you are. Here's a quick checklist so you can make sure you've got what you need to succeed. Sharpies for signing those books One of the best parts of selling physical books direct to readers is that people ask for the book to be signed. People love having signed copies. Bring Fine Point Sharpies or whatever you prefer. You can use a pen, but a Sharpie looks official Sign up sheet for your newsletter do this old school. Put up a sign offering your reader magnet and provide a sheet of paper with a spot for their name and email address. I've tried QR codes, but unless it's at a conference that gives you attendees names and email addresses automatically, it's not going to work well. I've tried texting systems and so many other ways for people to connect with me and get on my newsletter list, but nothing works as well as just getting them to pull out the pen and write it down. One other thing you can do is have an iPad there for them to enter their name and email address right on the spot. Either way, don't expect them to do anything after they walk away because few will. Pens for people to use to sign up for your newsletter or make notes Bring lots because they grow legs A display shelf or way to stand the books up so the covers face out. This can be a cheap magazine stand or some other fancier bookstand. We often have a box that we put down on a table and cover with a white tablecloth. We lean books against the box and also use book stands we bought online for a low cost. Depending on the event, you should have at least 20 books on hand and or a QR code that takes purchasers to a universal link to buy the ebook. Also provide a QR code for buying the audio version that you hopefully have for your book as well. Table cover to hide the ugly event tables, I would go with black because I can't tell you how many coffee stains there are on our white one. Your tablecloth doesn't have to be branded, but when you do events at libraries and bookstores, it should look nicer than the ones the event is likely to provide. You can buy a cover at Michael's, a local craft store or an event store for a pretty low price. You can also order a branded one from Vistaprint or services that make banners. I'll list some in a second. If you ordered a branded one, make sure it has your website on it. Stand up vertical banner with a call to action that will attract your ideal reader. You could put your cover on it, but you may want to make it stand out in some other way because people will already see your book cover on your table. Instead, have a great blurb or an endorsement and the formats and logos of where people can buy your book. A way to collect payment I would recommend a cash box with change and a receipt book as well as a way to take credit cards. You can use Square or Stripe to collect credit cards with your mobile phone. So many people don't carry cash anymore so this is really important. I use BoothPop for all my banner needs. I just have really enjoyed working with them and they have a graphic designer who works with you so you don't necessarily have to hire or outsource that job. They're a little pricier than Vistaprint, which holds a 50% off sale twice a year. You can have other branded items like postcards, pens, bookmarks or even fancier merchandise like journals, water bottles or T shirts to give away or sell. It's not necessary, but if you have a business behind your book it can be good exposure. Promotional partners are everywhere. Are you looking? I met a woman who ran a gift basket company and liked to find a really great book or two to include in her arrangements. She said she was often able to strike great deals with self published authors for buying 100 books at a time. She said she always sourced the books on her own based on the basket theme, New mom gift basket, Graduation gift basket, Wedding gift basket and she had to have a decent margin between what she paid and the perceived value of the book. That's one idea. Here are some other out of the box ideas that you can use to sell books or open the door to new opportunities. Consider companies you discuss in your book in a positive light. Write that list down and make sure they know about your book. Speak with them about how they can leverage your book to their advantage, which will also likely help you with your book sales and promotion. Try placing your book for sale in stores. This means you leave a copy behind. You're out the cost of a book, but you might sell it. One of our authors is currently approaching all the running focused retail stores in his state. When that is done, it will certainly be something I cover on Book Launchers TV because it is going to be a great lesson learned piece. We've had authors sell books at chiropractic offices, travel agencies, gyms and other places of business that were a fit for their book. Pair up with some other local authors and set up a book table at your local farmer's market or craft fair. The expense of a table isn't as high as you might think, and if you share it with other authors, it could be a fun and affordable way to sell books. The best part is that it doesn't matter if you are all in different genres. People will come to the table because they see books. When your child's school or sports team or your nonprofit group asks for donations for silent auctions, you can give them your book along with something else relevant to the subject of your book. My idea might be a budding author kit complete with our journal, mug, pen, this book or Self Publish and Succeed and maybe a one hour call with me or a writing coach. One author I spoke with said he was planning to take books to all of his kids football games because the parents of high school students were his target market. What establishments do you frequent in Self Publish and Succeed? I tell the story of an author who wrote her book at a tire shop and the tire shop promoted her book when it came out. If you have a regular coffee shop, restaurant, gym, massage therapist, bowling alley or other popular venue, be brave and let them know that you have a book coming out and that you're looking for places to display, sell and promote it. This is how my dentist and my CrossFit gym displayed and sold my book. If there is a product your book promotes or it provides a good cross promotion opportunity, why not reach out to the company that owns the product? This can be especially good if it's owned by a smaller company seeking to grow. They also might be looking for great promotional opportunities. You may find a cool partnership. What about selling your book on a place like AbeBooks, eBay or Etsy where you'd normally see used books? Always remember it's never one thing you do that leads to the results. It's all the things you do that combine to create momentum and uncover the opportunity you didn't even know you wanted. Getting creative with your book sales and how your book can help you reach your professional goals is one. But what do you do if your book isn't selling or your sales trickle off in the next chapter? I'll walk you through Book Launcher's signature process for how to boost flagging book sales. Chapter Summary 1. If your goal is to build a business on the back end of book sales, especially if you're running paid ads, selling direct is a savvy way to collect contact information and offer upsells after someone buys your book. 2. Selling books in person requires a little extra prep so you can look like a professional. Having items like permanent markers, a tablecloth, a way to collect and process payments, copies of your book, and an enthusiastic attitude can go a long way. 3. Selling direct takes more effort to set up, and there are more logistics involved, like how to deliver your books to readers. But it can be worth it to make more money and learn about your buyers. 4. Get creative about how you reach readers with your book. You don't need to sell your book in bookstores. In fact, having a book in unusual places almost always gets it noticed. Whether it's a running store, garden store, gym, or a specialty gift shop, you can find a cool place to get your book in your reader's hands.