Have you ever wondered how independent authors sell their books in Barnes & Noble bookstores? It’s a great venue with lots of foot traffic. Everyone who loves books enjoys going into a Barnes & Noble store. They are big, well designed, comfortable and full of books. You can make an entire evening of hanging out at the store. Read on for information on how we got our vampire novel New Breed carried by all of San Diego’s bookstores.
1. Make An Introduction
You need to introduce yourself to the store manager or community manager of your local Barnes & Noble bookstore. To do this, first be sure that you are wearing professional attire. Remember that first impressions are important. Next, go to the store and find the Customer Service kiosk. The manager is often there helping customers. When you meet the manager, shake their hand and introduce yourself as a local author. Explain that you would like to have your book sold in their store. They will ask you a series of questions such as the genre of book and whether it is carried by a wholesaler. They are more likely to be interested if they can buy stock from one of their already established suppliers like Ingram or NookPress. Make it as easy as possible for the manager to get your book and feel comfortable doing so.
2. Ask About Author Events
You want your book to sell and so do they. All businesspersons want to convert inventory to cash and profits. Ask the manager if they hold author events at their store. Author events are speaking engagements, meet-the-author book signings, author book readings, and so forth. See this link for an author event M. A. Marrissette participated in.
If the store does not hold author events, ask the manager if any of the other stores in the area do. They will usually point you in the right direction and give you a contact to speak with. If the store does hold author events, ask if you can be scheduled for the next event. Many store, such as the Grossmont Barnes & Noble show author events on their store’s online calendar. See this link for an example.
3. Show Up On Time
When meeting with a store manager, do not show up a few minutes before the store closes. Have some decency! The store manager will be busy with end-of-day activities and will not have any time to meet with you. Be sure to call ahead or meet during the day or early evening. When you are scheduled for an author event, be on time. Your professionalism is a reflection on you as an author. If you arrive late, sloppy, in street clothes and unprepared, it will be highly unlikely that your book will continue to be carried by the store.
4. Be Prepared
When you attend your first author event at Barnes & Noble, be well-prepared. Print up business cards and bookmarks to hand out to potential customers. Highlight yourself is with a large foam-backed poster with the book and author’s name. Some of the other authors wore costumes of their characters and had other “stage props” to draw attention to their table. You should also have an “About the Author” sheet displayed on your table so customers may learn more about you. Bring extra book copies with you in case you sell all of the store’s stock. You will need to sell the store’s copies before they allow you to sell your own. It’s only fair, after all. Have a nice pen to sign books for customers. They love this!
On our first author event, we sold dozens of books earning us many repeat events with the store. They loved us and the fact that New Breed was selling very well!
5. Meet With Other Stores
After your first author event, meet with all of the other Barnes & Noble stores in your city. Just as before, make an introduction. Tell them that you had a great author event at their other store and would like to participate in any author events this store may have. By doing this, you will book many more events, increase the number of stores carrying your book, and generate more income from sales of your book.
Other Stores
Barnes & Noble is the king of bookstores. However, there are many more bookstores who are just as willing to work with you. You can use these same tips to work with Book Star, which is another bookstore chain owned by Barnes & Noble. These tips also work with your local independent bookstores. However, when working with local bookstores, you may need to sell books on consignment through them. Small retailers are less willing to risk money on new authors. We will go over how to sell books on consignment in a future article.
We look forward to seeing your books sold in Barnes & Noble soon! Best of luck to you!
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I am a newly published author, and am looking for new venues for my book sales. This article was very helpful. Thank you!
Thank you for your kind words! It is our mission to help authors. We do not charge authors access to the website and never will! As published authors ourselves, we went through a lot of trial and error before finally getting published and seeing sales numbers! This is why we chose to launch 80percentdone.com. We wanted to share what we learned with others so that they might have an easier time becoming successful authors. Best regards and good luck!