Getting to know you

As I have said countless times before, one of the hardest things about being an author today is getting your books noticed in a very crowded, very busy, very diverse marketplace.  In the old days, an author handed their manuscript over to a publisher, who distributed it to bookshops which sold it to readers.  Nowadays, with e-books and self-publishing, books sold in supermarkets and via Amazon, it is all but impossible for the individual author to know where to direct her marketing time – for yes, reader, that befuddled author is me.

Thankfully I am not alone in my befuddlement.  MK Tod is another writer of historical fiction, and for the fourth time she has put together a survey into readers.  It takes about ten minutes to complete, and will help authors like me to better understand what sort of books modern readers like to read and in what format, and how readers want to hear about books, communicate with authors, get updates, etc.  So if you could spare the time to take part, that would be marvellous.  Here’s the link.

Armed with the results, I will be able to decide whether it’s worth continuing with Twitter, and/or this blog, and/or the proposed monthly Sam updates (which only a dozen people have signed up for, including my own husband because he values a quiet life).  I’m very keen to avoid the approach of several authors and publishers, which is to put “BUY THIS BOOK!” on Twitter every sixty seconds – I’m much happier with the idea of building interest in Sam and the Regency period.  But how to do that?  I’m hoping the results to this survey will help, so please do take part and distribute it as widely as you can.

The book-buyer’s marketplace

Whenever I give talks about writing – and I’ve spoken in libraries and bookshops, and to book groups, WI meetings and the Rotary Club – people are always fascinated to know about the economics of self-publishing.  Telling them how much it costs to self-publish – nothing! – always surprises them.  (Of course writing a book costs a great deal in time, and you might well choose to spend money on professional editing services, or a cover designer, or a pretty template for the layout of the interior, but you can actually upload a book to a self-publishing service for no payment at all.)  But what really surprises them is how little of the purchase price eventually makes its way back to the author.

If I sell a paperback via Amazon – cover prices are £7.99 and £8.99 for the Sam books – I eventually get about £1.30 of that sale.  If I supply bookshops directly – which entails me ordering the books myself and then selling them on to the bookshop – I get about 50p per book in the end (and, in one case, I am actually subsidising a bookshop because I think it’s the right thing to do, and I lose about 20p per copy that they take…).  And if I sell an e-book – Amazon lists them for about £3.10 – I eventually get about £1.10.  I’m not eyeing up that retirement villa just yet!

And a very interesting article on this subject – where to buy your books in order to best benefit the author – has appeared on the website of the Society of Authors.  It’s a very illuminating read and, as you might imagine, flies the flag for independent bookshops and local libraries.  If you have any choice at all in how you consume your reading material, it’s well worth having a read – some of the observations will surprise you.  (Although much of it is concerned with traditionally published books – they talk of buying in bulk from distributors, which is obviously only a pipe dream for the self-published – it is still useful to have the marketplace dissected in this way.)  Click here for the article.

Every bookshop in the land

I can imagine that you think I am just sitting around, gazing out of the window and eating bonbons.  Far from it.  My latest project – apart from “Plank 5”, of course – is to figure out how to get the Sam Plank books into more bookshops.  My ploy thus far has been to woo individual booksellers with silver-tongued emails and then go in person with a delivery of books.  This is (a) time-consuming, and (b) not practical on a country-wide basis, much as I would love (now here’s a retirement project) to visit every independent bookshop in the UK.  And so I have gone the traditional route.

As I understand it, the majority of booksellers – from the small to the large – buy their stock from book distributors.  King among the UK book distributors is Nielsen.  They get their stock, for selling on to the bookshops, direct from publishers.  And, through a combination of dogged determination, charm, begging and a gradual sea-change in the attitudes to indie publishing, I have managed to persuade Nielsen to recognise me as a publisher.  I have a login and everything.  And associated with me as a publisher are the four Sam Plank novels.

In theory, therefore, a book buyer can go into any bookshop in the land and, when they ask for a Sam Plank novel and find the shelves bare (apart from in Heffers and Davids in Cambridge, Toppings in Ely and Daunts in Cheapside, of course), demand that the bookseller order one for them.  Said bookseller then logs into his Nielsen account, looks up Sam Plank and voilà! there he is.  Order is placed, book arrives and reader is satisfied.

What I am a little hazy on is what precisely happens in between.  I know that when Nielsen receives an order for Sam Plank they will forward it to me – his publisher – for fulfilment.  And I know that I am responsible for pronto delivery to the bookshop that has ordered him.  However, I do not know who has to pay for postage; I am assuming that I do.  And, more critically, I do not know what royalty I get from Nielsen-generated orders.  This is uncharacteristically lax of me, I know, as I am usually pretty hot on royalty levels and all that.  But in all honesty the Nielsen website is so (whisper it) unfriendly that I simply couldn’t find definitive answers to my questions, and so I have decided to wing it: I’ll wait for my first statement from them and work it out from that.

Of course, to get a statement I will need to have an order or two.  And so far: zilch.  I am torn between wanting at least one order so that I can see how the system works, and terror that I might get dozens of orders for multiple copies that I am entirely unequipped to fulfil.  After all, in order to supply copies I need to order them from America (we’ve been through this before), and I keep only limited copies in readiness.  As ever, I’ll keep you posted.

Sam returns to the library

I think that the hardest thing about self-publishing is not the writing, or even the publishing – but the promoting.  Although I have run my own business for many years, it has succeeded through word of mouth rather than thanks to any spectacular marketing efforts on my part, and so I do struggle when it comes to thinking of ways to promote Plank.  But one thing I have found is that the more effort you put in, the more people are willing to help you.

For instance, back in September last year I took part in a “meet the local authors” event at our main city library.  I arrived early, smiled a bit manically for several hours, and stayed to help tidy up.  Over four hours I sold eight books and (the real delight) was able to talk about Sam and Martha to lots of people.  I also told the lovely organiser that any time she wants to trot out a local author to talk about writing or police history or Regency times or self-publishing, I’d be delighted to be involved.

Well, I live in an area of Cambridge called Chesterton, and every June we have a Chesterton Festival.  When I saw the 2015 festival being advertised, I contacted my nice library lady and suggested that it might be fun to hold a talk at our local branch library here in Chesterton.  And because I made the effort to suggest it, and said that I would talk for free, and because it brings people into the library, she thought that it would work.  And so here is my little advert in the festival flyer – top-right of page 3.  I don’t expect a huge audience, but I shall go along with a stack of books to sell and the notes on self-publishing that the ladies of the WI enjoyed, and see how it goes.  And if no-one turns up, the joy of a library is that I shall have plenty to read while I wait.

Amazon buyer profiling

I do like to keep you up to date with my marketing efforts and frustrations.  One of the brainstorming ideas was to do some research into the profile of the buyers of my novels, in order to learn more about them so that I can target others like them.  Now, most of my books sell as paperbacks or Kindle books through Amazon, so that had to be my starting point.  I Googled myself cross-eyed but could find nothing on how to get a buyer profile from Amazon, so I emailed them.  And here is their reply:

Thank you for contacting us about the query you have had regarding contacting buyers of your books.

I looked into this for you and need to advise that Amazon is unable to provide buyer information to sellers, the reasons for this is due to identity protection of buyers much like we closely guard seller information. You may have noticed that buyer email addresses are always encrypted when submitted via the Seller Central system, this serves for the purpose of protecting buyer information.

I am sorry that I was not able to come back to you with some better news, however I do not truthfully advise on Amazon policy.

Sadly, I think this last sentence contains a typo, and the writer does in fact truthfully advise on Amazon policy, which means that I can whistle for any buyer profiling.  I am certain that Amazon has this information – not least, they use it to generate their “Others who bought this, also bought…” recommendations – but they’re not sharing it.  Back to the drawing board (or, in my case, the bathmat and the drawing pins).