Always Carry Copies of Your Book. Period.

 A short post here from my vacation in Suttons Bay, MI.

 

 

 

It’s simple advice, really. Do you have a book? Is your book available in physical copies?

 

Then ALWAYS carry copies of your book with you.

 

Always.

 

Have a couple in your car, have a couple in your laptop case, have a couple in your office (when we all have offices again)

 

Have a couple in your suitcase too!

 

This vacation is a microcosm of my advice.

 

I could have sold 4 or 5 books this week. We vacationed with friends and family (no worries, we were all strictly quarantining, masking, sanitizing and wiping down our wisdom teeth and pinky toenails prior to the trip).

 

As we were packing, I almost thought about bringing some copies of my new book, The Neighborhood Division: Stories. Then, I thought, “No, vacation is not the time for a book sales pitch.”

 

The thing is… it wouldn’t have taken a pitch. It would have been completely organic. The book came up naturally as we all talked about what we had going on in our lives.

 

And, people asked whether or not I had copies with me for sale. I would have made sales right there on the spot (and could have offered discounts because I didn’t have to ship)… and I could have signed them personally.

 

But, when people asked, I had to say, “No.”

 

They were genuinely disappointed.

 

We talked about how they could order them, how they could Paypal me, how I could sign and then ship, etc.

 

But, there’s a lot of steps in the process now. My guess is only a handful if any of these sales will now actually happen.

 

When selling books, you have to cut out as many steps as possible. If it’s “well, go to this website, and then click “buy” and then that will take you to paypal, and then you fill in your credit card information…” well, a lot of people simply won’t follow through with “all that work.” (Why do you think Amazonopoly has a BUY NOW button… they are appealing to our self-created need for speed and instant gratification).

 

I promised to keep this short. I also have some swimming to do. So, again, the advice.

 

If you have physical copies of your book… ALWAYS HAVE COPIES WITH YOU.

If you find my blog posts instructive, please consider purchasing a copy of my new book of short stories, The Neighborhood Division, as a donated payment for the "class."

From the Publisher (preferred): here

From Amazon: here

Book Trailer: here