Bookstores: To Be or Not to Be (In)?

When you self publish, you should be prepared for certain questions.  One common one is, "Are you in any bookstores?"  Your answer should be, "Yes."

I admit I originally got us into a few bookstores because I thought it would be kool.  I knew Phoenix Books, our neighborhood independent bookstore, had a section for local authors.  Why not us?  Phoenix said yes.  Full of Power & Success, I went on to two other independent bookstores in nearby neighborhoods: Dog Eared Books on Valencia and Alley Cat Books in the Mission.  Great names and fun places to spend your money.

I didn't think of chains but other people did.   "Why aren't you in Books Inc. (local chain)?"  I said to myself: Get real, Ricky.  Ginger Snaps is a self-published book we did on blurb.com.  No chain is gonna take it.  But I buy books from Books Inc. so next time I went I noticed that the Castro Books Inc. had my friend Vince Meis's self published books, Eddie's Desert Rose and Tio Jorge.  It's like Gingers: Once you notice us, we're everywhere.

How important are bookstores though?  Well, we are asked more often "Is it in bookstores?" than "Can I buy it on Amazon?" so that seems like a hopeful sign for brick and mortar.  However, don't expect to sit back and let bookstores sell your book onto the NY Times bestseller list.  My own experience is: if you self publish you better self sell.  If you can get into bookstores, great! but it's just one way to sell your book.  Doesn't it make sense to use every way?

What are they?  Online sales outlets are essential.  We're tied to blurb.com but you should definitely get your book on amazon.com and Barnes & Noble online.  Take your book on the road at readings, especially beyond your friend network.  Do an ebook edition; it aint that hard.  Authors I meet who are making a living at writing say they make more money off ebooks than print.  Sell your book on your website or blog.  Ask your author friends to sell it on theirs.  Also, people like free content.  Seth Harwood is the Master of Free Podcasts, followed by a paperback edition.  Take a look at his site.

Happy selling!

(If you think of other ways to sell books I haven't mentioned here, please let me know.  We all can learn from one another.)

Check out our Ginger stuff!

   Ginger Snaps: the Book http://blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527
   Ginger & Gingerphile tshirts http://gingergingerphiletee.logosoftwear.com

Setting Up Shop

Merchandising is not a dirty word.  It means selling stuff and, if you're going to publish a book, you might as well try to make money on it.  You can sell more books if you bundle related products with it.

I didn't think of this for our book until I went to a book signing for a Guide for the Modern Bear a field guide to Gay hairy men.  If you're a Gay man, you know from bears; they are the thing right now.  (I'm hoping we Gingers will be the next thing.)  At their event they had books and tshirts for sale.  I bought both.  The tshirt has a drawing from their book: a muscle bear in Jockey briefs.  Got me two date offers.

So I suggested to David we have tshirts.  He brought up the fact that our Ginger market was limited (only 2% of the human species).  What about the other 98%?  I came up with--tah dah!--the gingerphile tee.  So if you like gingers or are one, we got you covered--literally.

I went to Cafe Press, an online design and sales site I'd used before, and designed our tshirts.  They have a store option but I didn't set one up immediately.  When you self publish, you dance as fast as you can, i.e., there are more good ideas than you have time and energy to pursue.  I designed and ordered the tshirts, dude.  Give me a break.  However, recently Logosportswear, which is the actual source of our tshirts sent me an email mentioning setting up a store with them.  I thought: why not?  Maybe I'd been drinking.

Set up was pretty easy though and now we gots a Ginger & Gingerphile Store online.  The good thing about this is that tshirts are cheaper so people who aren't sure they want to buy a $25 full color book are more open to buying a $15 tshirt.  (Those are event prices: we pass along our discount.)  And then they say what the hell and buy the book too.  We wear the shirts at events so they have to stare at them for an hour.  That might lead to sales.  Also, the shirts are RED, which is a motivating color.  Ask any bull.

It doesn't have to be tshirts.  The Modern Bear boys have dog tags and other products.  David is going to sell prints and cards of the book photos.  Someone said we should do a calendar since we have 13 images, one for the front and one for each month.  A little late to get going on it now but a good idea for 2014 maybe.

For now, check out the Ginger stuff we do have:
   Ginger Snaps: the Book http://blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527
   Ginger & Gingerphile tshirts http://gingergingerphiletee.logosoftwear.com

Today's Quandary: Writing While Promoting

We are halfway thru.  Halfway thru our three month publication period, halfway thru our limited edition of 100 copies, halfway thru our eight stop book tour.  Janus times three.  We, David and I, have learned many useful facts, techniques, and how to do's.  But one thing I definitely have not learned yet is how to flog a book and keep writing something new.  I'm working on two stories now for publication but I don't feel very creative at all.  My pilot light is almost off.

Normally, I am--after waking and sufficient doses of caffeine--ready to write: all chipper and eager to spew words.  I like writing in the a.m., for several reasons.  My brain is fresher, my body is more at ease, the world is quieter.  

But promoting and selling Ginger Snaps keeps my mind stopping and starting, at least one body part tense, and my world anything but quiet.  I'm don't like writing in bits and pieces, although I can do it.  I wrote and edited stories to and from work on mass transit.  I prefer chunks of time, knowing I can tippy type my way thru a few hours, which means a lot of words since I write quickly.  Write quickly, edit slowly: those are my modes.  And I'm pretty good at settling quickly back into The Flow.  When all I'm doing is writing....

But planning events is time consuming and execution nerve wracking.  I get wound up before and after, even though I was an actor for 10 years and have spoken or "performed" in front of people for 10 more.  But wait, there's more.  Getting a bookstore to take self-published copies is an act of seduction.  They don't really want you so you have to woo them--literarily, not literally.  Successful seduction takes focus.  And did I really remember everything to put in that box before I shipped it off to New York?

So, how to write while promoting your book?  I DON'T KNOW!  Maybe it's just not yet or maybe (horrors) that's the way it is.  And if you write with the intention/hope of publishing, you have to expect/hope promotion will come.  Like thunder after lightning, sturm after dram.   I am sure this is why I didn't write for publication before.  I just happily sat at my desk, scribbling (metaphorically speaking) away at Happy Ending stories, without a care in the world.  No one's going to read this stuff, I sez to myself.  I didn't care if they did, but I do now.  I'm thru the looking glass, baby, with no ticket back.  

I've been to lots of other writers' readings and several of my own by now.  No one ever asks "How do you write and promote at the same time?" in the q&a.  But next time I'm at another author's reading I will.  And so should you if you're serious about being A Published Author.  Or maybe it won't be a problem for you.  If so, then lucky, lucky, lucky you.

25 Amazon book gift card to the best answer to my question: 

How do you write and promote at the same time?

Check out our book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527

Ginger Books, Going Fast!

We used the rest of our PayPal account today to buy more copies of Ginger Snaps: Photos & Stories, i.e., our book.  Like I said in an earlier post, when we raised money to publish, most Backers put their money into our PayPal account.  We figured we could print 70 books out of PayPal moola and we have.  Promise kept, all you wonderful Backers!  From now on as needed, we'll print 10 at a time out of our own money, reimbursing ourselves as they sell, on our way to selling 100 copies by New Year's.  That's our goal: a limited edition of 100.

We do have one gig past New Year's already scheduled though: the Noe Valley Authors Festival in March. Back in the hood, as you know from another earlier post. Very cool. Hope we still have books.

To find out where we're reading/showing photos next, check out the events listing a droit.  Several people have nagged--uh, asked me to do this.  Tough love but love just the same.  As you can see, next stop on the Ginger Choo Choo is New York, New York.  Yeah, baby!  Back in the Big Apple!  I'm a Brooklyn transplant and David's from Upstate (Westchester).  Point of contention.  David doesn't think Westchester is Upstate but from a Brooklyn point of view, dude, it's way UP!

Blue Light Special!  Kmart shoppers, we sell books and tees at discount prices at Ginger Choo Choo stops.  No comea to the event, no getta the discount.  We will start selling them online in January (if any are left).  We'll know we're hot when copies start showing up used on Amazon and eBay for twice blurb.com's price.

And, if you only read electronically, we will also start selling the ebook edition in January.   Also applies if you're just plain cheap--er--thrifty.

Have a great weekend.  Read a book!

Preview our book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527

There Is a There There

Last night, we were in Oakland, California, the hometown of Gertrude Stein.  Not even early I-80 traffic and very dubious parking kept us from being on time, sort of.  However, due to those famous "unforeseen circumstances", we weren't quite ready when the first folks started arriving.  Luckily, Nell and Matt are two very good friends of mine so we were able to get away with it.

Here's a lesson learned about book touring: Foresee the Unforeseen.  No, you need not be clairvoyant to publish a book; you should just assume something to go awry and not get all freaked out if it does.  There do always seem to be a glitch or two.  Last night one was where to put the screen for the continuous photo display.  We had the space at Farley's East all arranged and then had to rearrange it for the screen, which then made the party impossible, so we had to re-rearrange.

Then, the food and drink.  It was in a logical place when Josh, the Farley's manager, and I did the walk thru but logical turned out to be too far from where people actually hung out during the party.  (Darn those illogical humans.)  Thankfully, my friend Kristin helped me ferry all the edibles to a much better space: the tables vacated by the screen.

This sounds very disorganized I'm sure, but David and I had three meetings about the event, and Josh and I talked several times and did a walk thru.  Sometimes, your life just gets rearranged by the Universe.

But I am painting a negative snap.  The event was anything but negative; it was a success.  We had our biggest crowd yet, people had fun, and we sold a lot of books and ginger/gingerphile tshirts.  Re-ordered tees today.  It's like writing.  You are pushing words towards your planned climax and suddenly the story takes off on the path not taken.  So, Go With the Flow.  The Universe won't do you wrong.

Starting today, we have a little event break.  Yay!  The Ginger Choo Choo is unscheduled until 11.19 in New York, New York.  We need the time, baby.  Final planning for NY, NY! and more planning for post Turkey Day events at Alley Cat Books, GLBT History Museum, and Cliche Noe Gifts.  Besides, dudes & dudettes, it's my birthday and I'm all busy celebrating.

Today's Game:   Guess my birth day & win a present.  What is it?  Hey, it's a surprise!

Preview our book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527

Ginger Snaps Support Network

Our Noe Valley book party was a success!  We had our biggest audience and sold more books and ginger/gingerphile t-shirts than ever.  Le Zinc French Bistro served a lovely sauvignon blanc and cotes du rhone and several delicious trays of hors d'oeuvres.  It was great to see friends from as far away as the North Bay and the Peninsula and just as wonderful to see friends from Noe Valley, USA, as well as elsewhere in San Francisco.  We played The Ginger History Game.  The answers were: 7, Moby Dick, Herman Melville, and Napoleon Bonaparte.  Don't you wish you knew what the questions were?

When you begin publishing, you hope strangers will find their way to your book but in truth it is your friends who find it first.  They are your first level of support.  I feel so grateful to our friends who have come to our first three book events and hope friends in the East Bay and New York will come out as well.  Our final three events will be a test though.  Will people show up who don't know us but are intrigued by the book or think the party sounds like fun or the panel interesting? We feel encouraged to try to make it happen.

For the last year, the Ginger Choo Choo has been traveling under the steam of Rick and David but now it's moving forward on the push push of our friends.  Blanche may have depended on the kindness of strangers but, luckily, David and I do not.

And now a few words about the next stop.  Win!  Free!  Books!  Win a $20 Amazon book gift card if you're the first to answer this question correctly:

                What literary connection do Paris and Oakland have?

Come see us Tuesday, Nov. 6, 5:30 to 7:30 pm at Farley's East, 33 Grand in Oakland's Uptown District, an easy walk from the BART stop at 19th Street, with plenty of street parking nearby.

Preview our book at http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527

French Ginger

Stop #3 for the Ginger Choo Choo is in Noe Valley, our (current) hometown.  For this one we're going French all the way at Le Zinc French Bistro, my favorite San Francisco restaurant of any cuisine.  Check it out at www.lezinc.com  If sweetbreads are on the menu, grab em!  Actually, better use your fork.  My friends Diana Barrand and Max Braud own and run this charming (really) bistro with delicious food and wine.

We are offering some of both at our event this Sunday: complimentary French wine and French hors d'oeuvres will be served. I may try out my college French or ask my twin to translate since she retains more French thru more frequent practice visiting France and other French speaking areas of the globe.  Even the game questions and prizes will have a French twist.  (No, there won't be an all expenses paid trip to Paris, not even Paris, Texas.)

The rsvp's came in at a good clip so we reached our goal and didn't have to tell Diana and Max only three people wanted to come--including us.  If you're in our neighborhood, don't worry about the non rsvp.  Just come on in.  Le Zinc is located in Noe Valley, San Francisco, at 4063 24th Street--one of our two main drags--between Noe and Castro Streets.  We'll be there this Sunday, 3:30 to 5pm.  David and I will be wearing our gingerphile and ginger tshirts, respectively, so you can recognize us.

It's nice to be able to walk to this one--although, on second thought, we'll have to drive the 10 blocks because of the party box with book copies and tshirts to sell, framed photos of the book and easels for atmospheric display, game prizes, etc.  Prizes include gift cards from all the local coffee places--we're like Little Seattle here, a do it yourself ginger kit and ginger chocolate from our excellent chocolate shop on 24th www.chocolatecoveredsf.com, among others just as wonderfully clever or at least useful.

See you Sunday!

Check out our book at http://blurb.com/bookstore/detail/3577527