Your Book is Your Business

Many authors have a dream. It goes something like this:

Their book is published, and it's time to promote it. Their publisher will set up a nationwide book tour for them, jetting them from city to city, where they will sit at a table at the front of the country's largest bookstores, signing copies of their book for throngs of adoring fans. The line of people will go out the front door of the store and spill into the mall or wrap around the building. The news media may even show up to do an interview with the hot new author in town. They will sell hundreds of copies of their book.

Now, back to reality.

Famous celebrity authors may get this kind of treatment, but the vast majority of authors do not. For most authors, especially new, unknown, non-celebrity authors, book signings go something like this:

The author shows up at the bookstore, and the majority of the staff may or may not know there is supposed to be a book signing event that day. If the author is lucky, there is a poster in the store announcing the event, and a table and chair for them to sit at to conduct their signing. If the bookstore has ordered books for the event, they probably ordered about 15-30 copies of the book. There are no throngs of people waiting to purchase the book and meet the author, unless the author promoted the event ahead of time and invited those people there. The publisher did not set up a book tour or fly the author anywhere. Instead, the signing is taking place at a bookstore in the town where the author lives. Most of the attendees are probably friends and family of the author. If the author sells 10 or more books, the bookstore will consider it a rousing success.

If that is the reality, why do book signings at all? There are a few reasons:

1. It's a promotional activity for the book. It helps get the word out to the book-buying public. You will definitely want to sell all of the books the store has ordered, to avoid returns, but it's possible you'll be asked to bring your own copies to sell on a consignment basis at the store. If the event is success, the store may even stock the book.

2. To help drive demand through the distributor. When bookstores order books for the event, they are ordering from a distributor. The more events an author does, the more they get the word out about their book, and the more demand is generated at the distributor from bookstore orders.

3. The author builds a relationship with the bookstore. Authors who help promote their own book signing events and draw more customers to a store are prized by bookstores. Customers that attend signings not only buy that author's book, but they may buy other books or coffee at the store's coffee shop. Everybody makes money and everybody is happy. The store may stock the book and ask the author back for future events.

Some authors won't do any book signing events at all, while others consider them a necessary evil. In truth, they are another means of promoting the book while trying to generate sales and build a brand. Preparing for the signings and conducting them wisely is the key, and we'll cover that topic in another post.