Promotion, Publicity & Distribution Part 1 for book self publishers provided by Self Publisher Resources- Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Darwin, Canberra, Hobart, & Australia-wide! 

Promotion, Publicity & Distribution
For Self-Publishers 

Promoting Your Book

There are two aspects of ‘promotion’: publicity and advertising. The difference between the two is that publicity is free, whilst advertising is paid for. However, good publicity can result in ‘free advertising’.

Love of Books provides fantastic marketing tips and idea packs with consultancy packages. 

Publicity

When promoting your book, keep in mind that it needs to stand out from the thousands of other books that are published each year. Booksellers and book reviewers receive literally hundreds of catalogues, information sheets and review copies of ‘bestsellers’ each month, and will need more than your personal guarantee to be convinced that the book has something to offer them. Emphasize your book’s unique qualities clearly and interestingly, and provide all the necessary information about your book (keeping in mind that sometimes less is more). There are many avenues for publicizing your book, and you should plan your publicity strategy even before the book has been printed.

Press Releases

What is a press release?

A press release is a short notice of something the media might be interested in using as a story. You can send your press release directly to media or to a newswire. Your press release should be well-written before you submit it to the media.

 

If you believe that your book is unique in its subject matter or takes a new approach to a subject, or if there is an interesting story behind your decision to self-publish your book, newspapers, magazines, radio and television programs may wish to interview you about it. Send a press release about your book to a range of publications and programs, and be sure to address them to the appropriate person. Pay as much attention to writing your press release as you did to writing your book.

Remember that you need to grab the attention of the editor or producer who makes decisions. Offer them something timely, new or quirky, but make sure you approach the relevant industry contacts for the type of book you are publishing: if your book is light-hearted, don’t approach a serious, current affairs magazine or program.(If you are not confident about speaking on radio or appearing on television, don’t approach them. Also, don’t expect to be paid for any of these appearances; this is ‘free advertising’ for your book.) One of the best resources for deciding where to promote your book is Margaret Gee’s Media Guide (published by Information Australia), which lists contact details for media outlets all over Australia.

Review copies you will need to set aside a number of copies of your book for promotional purposes. Sending out review copies can prove to be an expensive exercise if you don’t achieve your goal, so before you send out finished copies, plan your strategy. 

You may decide to send written material only, stating that a review copy is available on request. Be sure to establish the reviewing policy of the publication in question. There may be particular guidelines that you should follow to increase the chances of your book being reviewed; a magazine may commission books for review, rather than accept unsolicited material. (For example, D W Thorpe’s book industry journal Australian Bookseller & Publisher does not review books in every issue, and reviews books two to three months ahead of their publication.) As well as general publications, target any specialist publications that might be interested in your book.

Many clubs and associations have their own member newsletters and are always keen to review a new product that relates to their special interest. You might also choose to send a review (or ‘reading’) copy to any bookshops that you think may be interested in your book. Many bookshops like to support self-publishers, particularly local authors. If you have a good relationship with your local bookseller, talk to them about the possibility of promoting your book with them. You may find that they will support a reading and signing session in their store if your book will be of interest to their local market.

When sending review copies, include an information sheet providing details about the book’s subject, some information about the author, the price and format (hardback or paperback), the book’s ISBN and your contact details.

Word-of-mouth while you can’t control word-of-mouth publicity for your book, you can tell as many people as you can about it, and be proud of your achievement.

Word-of-mouth publicity can also come about as the result of booksellers recommending it to their customers, or readers recommending it to others. It’s one of the best forms of publicity you can hope to get.

‘AusBiP’/‘GNAB’ Be sure to complete the forms and provide a copy of your book for listing in D W Thorpe’s Australian Books in Print and consideration for inclusion in Guide to New Australian Books (see Chapter Three – Australian Books in Print). This is free publicity which ‘advertises’ your book to booksellers and librarians.

Public Speaking

Advertising

If you are going to pay to advertise your book, you want to be sure that you are spending your money effectively. You can pay to advertise your book to both booksellers and consumers, but if you have limited funds, you should concentrate on letting booksellers know about your book through advertising. Don’t advertise your book until you have finished copies to supply to booksellers Customers want to be able to buy something when they want it, and booksellers need to be able to have your book on their shelves in anticipation of customer demand.

 Trade publications such as Australian Bookseller & Publisher www.booksellerandpublisher.com.au and the Weekly Book Newsletter   are ideal places to advertise your book to booksellers. If you do decide to pay to advertise your book directly to customers, you should consider advertising in special-interest publications and bookshop newsletters as well as newspapers and magazines, as they may be less expensive options. You may also be able to purchase mailing lists from special-interest groups, so that you can ‘direct mail’ advertising material and order forms to them.

Australian Book Review
The Bookseller (UK)
Publishers Weekly (USA)
Bowker’s Bookwire (UK)
Good Reading Magazine
LOGOS
Weekly Book News / Australian Bookseller and Publisher

Selling Your Book

When publishing a book, consider whether or not you want to sell it, or whether you’d rather just supply it to certain people (say your family, friends, local library, people within your writing group). If you decide to make it available outside of this ‘circle’ – to retail outlets for example invest time and energy into promoting and selling your book. You may wish to pay a professional to handle either the promotion or distribution, or both, but even if you do, be aware of the options available to you. You will want to be confident that the person you are paying is doing a good job, and you may wish to do additional promotion yourself.

Distributing Your Book

All the promotion in the world will come to naught if you cannot follow through and provide copies of your book quickly and efficiently. You can choose to distribute your book yourself, or employ a distributor or agent to supply your book to booksellers for you. Download our Distribution List

Doing It Yourself

The biggest disadvantage of managing distribution yourself is that it takes time and is an ongoing job. You need to be easily contactable (by phone, fax, and, increasingly, email), and able to provide quick turnaround of orders. You will also need to be vigilant in your accounting and offer standard terms of trade to booksellers.

Read more: Marketing & Distribution Part 2 

Terms Of Trade

‘Terms of trade’ are the terms under which you supply your book to booksellers. If you complete your form for free listing of your publisher details in Australian Books in Print (see Chapter Three), you will be asked for details such as what discount you offer, whether you charge for freight, whether you have a ‘small order surcharge’, and what your ‘returns’ policy is. These are your ‘terms of trade’, and if you choose to supply your book yourself, you need to understand these terms and think carefully about them. Your terms of trade are very important decisions, and should be based on sensible business principles.

Freight – ‘FIS’ stands for ‘Free Into Store’, which means you bear all the costs of getting copies of your book (regardless of quantity) to the bookshop. ‘FIS + service charge’ means that you apply a set charge for supplying any quantity of your books. ‘Freight charged’ means that you charge the bookshop for the actual cost of sending the books to them. As a self-publisher without the distribution facilities of a large publisher, you will probably want to charge freight at cost.

Small order surcharge (SOS) – As the name suggests, this is a charge for supplying a small quantity of books, usually based on the number of copies ordered or the net value of an order. For example, a publisher may impose a SOS of ‘$5 on single copies’, or ‘$5 on invoices under $50 net’.

Returns – ‘All orders firm sale’ (FS) means that booksellers must pay for all copies ordered and cannot return them. ‘Sale or return’ (SOR) means that a bookseller can return unsold copies, usually within a time frame specified by the publisher. You might also wish to offer your books ‘on consignment’, which means the bookseller takes a certain number of copies of your book, pays you as they are sold, and can return unsold copies within a certain time frame. If you choose to sell your books at firm sale, booksellers will expect a higher discount for ‘taking the risk’ on your book.

Discount – You need to offer a discount to booksellers to sell your book for you. When planning to self-publish your book, you need to include this discount in your costing; if the GST-inclusive retail price of your book is $14.95, you will not, of course, receive that amount for each copy! Discounts may range from 10% up to 60%, but ‘standard’ discount is 33-40%. You may wish to offer a range of discounts based on the quantity of books ordered – see SOS above.

GST – You should ensure that the GST inclusive recommended retail price is quoted on all your promotional and other material.

Faulty copies – If your book is faulty in any way – for example, mis-bound, or damaged in transit to a bookshop – booksellers will expect to be able to return copies to you and receive either a credit or a replacement copy. As the publisher usually bears the cost of returning faulty copies, you may wish to specify that the bookseller can ‘return title page’ rather than ‘return whole book’.