#269: Consider Selling Your Book in Bulk

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelley Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Have you considered selling your book in bulk? Welcome to this marketing minute. My name is Shelly Hitz.

And I'm CJ Hitz.

And today we want to talk with you about a few things that you can do to set your book up for bulk sales. And if you've already written your book, there are things you can do to still do this. And so we are, you know, so excited to share this with you because this is something that. That has worked really well for us. So when you write a new book, especially in the process of, you know, considering it, one thing we want you to consider is how to set up your book for bulk orders. So, cj, what are bulk orders?

Yeah, so you might have a Sunday school class or a school or an organization, a company that really likes your book, and they want to say, order 150 or 200 for their group. So, you know, those are nice orders to get.

Yeah. And the most common would probably be book clubs, and for our audience of Kingdom writers, Bible studies. So book clubs and Bible studies or book studies. But also like what CJ Said, you know, companies, it could be nonprofits that want to give your book, you know, to donors. It could be a subscription box company. We've had a partnership with a subscription box company. They buy 10,000 copies of our book several times. Books several times a year. So different books. And it's been a great, great partnership that has begun. But. But one of the things that helps you be ready for these kind of opportunities is, especially for the book clubs and the Bible studies, is to include a reader's guide. So actually, CJ and I were brainstorming his next book in the car ride on the way home from Crested Butte. We were there. I went skiing a little bit, and we spent a little time in the mountains. We love having these little mini trips. But we were brainstorming his next book. And I mentioned this to him, didn't I, C.J. like, you might want to consider with this book because it's going to not just be a devotional, but more of like, you know, a chapter book. Consider having a reader's guide, because then it's set up for studies or book clubs. And so what this looks like is typically you. You'll have discussion questions in the back of your book that can be used by these groups. You can use this for fiction or nonfiction. So book clubs love reading fiction books together and then having some questions that they can talk about when they get together. And so, you know, you can have these questions in the back of your book if you've written a Bible study or, or a book study that can be used with church groups. Like I said, this is another avenue where your book can be purchased in higher quantities. And my book, Broken Crayons Still Color, has definitely been that kind of book. And so we get a lot more print orders on Amazon than we do Kindle because groups are using this. So even if it's a group of five or a group of ten, instead of just selling one book, you're selling one multiple copies of your book. And it can really have a greater impact as well. It's not just about the sales and the money, it's about impact. So when you're having these kind of questions and groups are going through them together, imagine how much more they're going to apply the content and even the themes of your fiction book. They're going to apply that even in a greater way to their lives.

Yeah. And it, when you set your book up this way, it allows you to be able to go the marketing direction of going after groups and reaching out to groups that, you know, there are 10 or, or 100 or 200, you know, depending on who you're reaching out to, that would be a good fit for that book.

Yeah. And so, you know, you can set your book up in this way and on. You can look on my book sales page on Amazon for Broken crayonstool Color. But I write in a bulleted list what comes with the book. And I personally decided to do videos with a fill in the blank viewers guide. There was different things that groups could use. And I naturally haven't done a ton of marketing specifically to churches or women's ministries and things like that. It's just naturally been something that people realized when they see it on Amazon because I made it very clear on that sales page that this is intended for individual or group study. And what are the resources that I created for the groups? And they're free. They don't have to buy an extra box with the DVDs and things like you would like with typical big name, you know, Bible studies and so people really like that. But I want you to also consider maybe doing some outreach, so maybe reaching out to women's ministries in a certain denomination or Maybe your book is set up for counselors, and so maybe there are some counseling agencies or different places that you can reach out to and see if they want to buy in bulk for their clients. Maybe your book really works well with certain nonprofits. You know, I want you to be brave and consider reaching out. And I know it's hard, it's scary to put yourself out there, but you can always give them a digital copy to review and preview. And the worst thing they can say is no, right?

Yeah. For those of you that write children's books, Christian children's books, you might want to reach out to a Christian elementary school.

You know, where there's already a ton of students and maybe there's going to be a book that a teacher wants to read with the students and maybe, you know, they're each taking that book home and then they're discussing the chapter, you know, the next day with the teacher. But yeah, there's Christian schools all over this country that have kids that may be a great fit for your children's book.

Yeah. And a great option for those of you that are interested or willing to do speaking. I know right now we're still in the midst of the pandemic, so there's still not, not a ton of in person speaking engagements going on. But when that opens back up, and we are having faith that it will, a great option for a speaker is to have a bundle. So you're going to speak to their audience and their audience, every person in that audience will get a copy of your book at a discounted price because they're buying in bulk. And so you can actually have that in your contract and work it out so that it works out for both you and for them. They get a really great quality, you know, gift to give to their employee or their conference attendee or that someone that's coming to their women's retreat. But then you also get to be able to have greater impact. Right. Besides just speaking with them. They're gonna take home your book, but also more income as well. And so that's something to consider. And even with these days of COVID you can do a virtual talk and still mail those books to be given out to the audience. So there's ways to do this in multiple ways to get bulk or orders. But we want you to think outside the box.

I'll never forget the story comes to mind about this motivational speaker that was booked to speak in the Bahamas and his, the group that booked him said, hey, do you happen to have a book that we can give each of our attendees. And this was going to be a conference where there were 10,000 people and this gentleman, you know, didn't have one, but he, he basically lied. He said, oh, yeah, I've got a book to give out. Well, he, in the time between that booking, I think he had about two months, he put something together that was a perfect fit to give that audience, to leave them tangible tips, you know, from his talks. And by the time that conference rolled around, he had.

A book ready and 10,000 of those copies to go to each person. So, you know, we're not encouraging you to lie.

No, I mean, you can say, I will have a book.

Yeah, but he didn't even say that. He was just like, oh, yeah. It was almost like he got the idea when the person asked him.

Yeah.

And. But that, that's just another great example of why it's good to be equipped with something. If you're endeavoring to speak, then you put that book and you leave that in your audience's hands as well.

And I think our friend Philip Telfer, he runs Media Talk 101, and CJ used to speak with that organization, but I think he was. He went to speak over somewhere in Africa and they bought a whole bunch of his books as well. And so you just never know when you're going to get an opportunity. And so we are obviously today talking about print books and the opportunity to get bulk orders of your print book. And that's why we also recommend that you publish your book in multiple formats. So we sometimes recommend, yeah, get that Kindle book out, but also consider having those print books as well. And so we definitely want you to start thinking outside the box. And as an independently published author, we have a lot more flexibility. I was just talking to C.J. about this recently. We have a partnership with a subscription box company, and that really wouldn't have been possible if we were traditionally published because we probably couldn't have gotten the price down low enough to benefit both us and the publisher and the subscription box company, and for all of it to work out. But it's worked out great for us. And so you have an opportunity as an independently published author to really think outside the box, start thinking and brainstorming. We recommend having business meetings with God, ask God for ideas. And are there companies who could use your books for leadership training or for their employees or maybe as a gift for Christmas? Maybe there's a company that wants to give your book as a gift for their buyers. For example, real estate agents often buy gifts for the new homeowners. So maybe they would buy 100 copies of your book and they would start giving them out. Especially if you have a book that's about that area, that's specific to that area. But start thinking about options outside the box. Don't be afraid to ask. The worst anyone can say is no. And the best that could happen is thousands of your books could go out when you're at a speaking engagement like CJ was talking about, or, you know, with the situation we've had with the subscription box company.

And that'd be a good example of thinking inside the box.

Oh.

Yes, that's so good. But, you know, we definitely have seen the power of selling our books in bulk. That's been the majority of our book sales probably over the past few years. And so. But we also offer discounts ourselves so people can buy our books off of Amazon. But if a group comes to us and says that they want to have a discount to see if, you know, they're going to buy 20 books or whatever, then we offer discounts on our website. And you can see how we've set it up at bodyandsoulpublishing.comprint-discounts the link will also be in the notes of this training. But we, we may change that at some point. But what you can do is as an independently published author, you can go into your back office of KDP or IngramSpark or wherever you go. We typically use KDP and then we order author copies. And so they pay us through an invoice on PayPal and. And then we ship out those. And actually CJ does most of that for us.

It's been a really nice thing to do. We've had several through the years. People contact us. I think of a gal that worked with.

Female inmates, you know, inside a prison.

And she reached out and said, hey, we really love your. Your broken crayons still color book. And we'd like to, to give one of these to at least 20 of these inmates. Can you give us a discount? And it's just so gratifying to be able to just essentially give them the price of, plus shipping of what it costs to print the book. You know, to be able to really just help them out. And we can, you know, vary the price whenever and however we want because we're an independent publisher.

Yeah. And so when I'm talking about giving a bulk discount, I'm not talking about giving the book away. I'm talking about actually making a profit still. But you know what? When God moves Our hearts. We have given books away. So we have given books to a homeless shelter that was going to do my book Broken Crayons Still Color as a study. We've, like you said, we've done it for prisons, for other things, and we can't necessarily do it for everyone. But as God leads us, we love to do that.

We love to give, to have the option.

Yes. And as an independently published author, you know, we can get our books for low prices. And so as God leads us, we can give back. And we love to do that. It's like a tithe. Right? And so, you know, these are just several options to consider when publishing a book. But also books you already have for book or book book orders. And you know, include a reader's guide in the back of your book. That can be discussion questions. This can be for fiction or nonfiction. And you know, consider, are there other companies that might want to buy your book in bulk or for speaking engagements? Consider putting that as, as an option. So they can just hire you to speak or they can purchase, you know, this bundle, they can hire you to speak and get a copy of your book for every attendee and then consider giving bulk discounts even off of your website and doing that manually yourself in that way. But we hope that this has gotten the wheels turning and that you will consider really setting your book up for bulk sales. So if you do this and you have a reader's guide in your book, you can let your readers know that you have additional resources for book clubs on your website. So in your book you can let them know you could have a page on your website, maybe that you have some additional resources for book clubs. And this could be a standalone page on your website or you can have them sign up to an email list to get information. But we also have an in depth training in Christian Book Academy all about how to make your book interactive. So I encourage you to check out that specific training as well. And cj, why don't you go ahead and close us in prayer for this particular training.

Father, we thank you so much for another episode and a time that we can.

Can chat with, with those that are watching, listening, interested in publishing their books, getting their message out there. I ask Lord, that you would fuel each person listening, watching right now with ideas, fuel them with ideas that can expand their reach, their horizon, their impact with their books. And we pray that you would open up doors for them that.

They wouldn't have been able to open on their own without receiving sort of a download of a great idea from you. So we just thank you for each person and the impact they're going to have in. In groups as they set themselves up with their. With their reader's guide and.

Having resources that really appeal to large groups. So we just give you this and we ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Amen. So thank you so much for joining us. I hope that this has really inspired you and we will talk to you next time.

God bless you guys.

Bye.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy, where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom Writers.