Big Plan for Holiday Book Sales in Shopping Malls

You may know that I spent nearly 30 decades as founder and operator of my own chain of retail stores. That experience was invaluable when it came to all kinds of publishing advantages and I like to pass them on to you when I can. Time magazine ran a piece on how shopping malls are changing in their regular section on the economy.

Many upscale malls are doing very well, but middle-of-the-road malls have lost tenants like crazy. They are filling their real estate with all kinds of businesses like ice rinks, museums, health clinics, and even churches. They also (though this isn’t new) fill empty spaces with temporary rentals. I got to thinking how this could be a trend that could benefit your book because those spaces can be gotten very cheaply by mall standards. And I also figured they would be open to just about any ideas an author came up with.

Here are some ideas you could approach your local mall with:

~Go in with your critique group or other writing organization to open a mini bookstores for the holiday season. It could carry all of your books and any associated merchandise (called spinoffs by the publishing industry) that participants might have. You could hold holiday readings, seminars, etc. in it. And I can imagine the coverage you’d get in the local press with this idea—maybe even the national press that has business pages like USA Today.

~If there is a store window in a space that hasn’t been leased, rent it for the season to showcase your book.

~On a smaller scale, ask the mall administration about their kiosk or cart programs.

~Make your new well-trafficked space into a money making venture. Rent out space for readings, how-to demonstrations, children’s hours, poetry open mics, even to bloggers who want to increase their visibility. And, of course use the space for your own events.

~How about a one-week or one-day rental. Say you have a cookbook. How about a week of cooking demonstrations and book sales before Mother’s Day.

~Capitalize on any big promotion ideas you are already using. I met a man who outfitted a huge motorhome as a rolling advertisement for his book. He could easily use that promotion as the centerpiece for his temporary holiday store. BTW, you may have seen C-SPAN, CNN, etc use a similar idea a tradeshows like Book Expo America.

Hint: My book A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotion: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques (http://budurl.com/RetailersGuide), will help you with these projects. .

Note: This idea can be done quite simply or on a large scale. If you have a big idea, start now for your 2013 promotion. And you may not want to wait for the December holiday season. Mall business is excellent around Valentine’s, Mother’s and Father’s Days, graduation time, etc. If you have a book that involves politics, put your thinking cap on for a bash on the Fourth of July.
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second edition of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

On Taylor Swift, Perfume, and Your Book

Authors Are Retailers Too!

On Taylor Swift, Perfume, and Your Book

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By Carolyn Howard-Johnson

[This is a reprint from Joan Stewart's famous Publiity Hound newsletter and blog. Check it out at www.publicityhound.com.]

I can’t tell you how often I’ve thanked my lucky stars for my retail experience now I’m an author. My husband used to say (Ahem!) “Retail is 90% attention to detail!” If he’s right—and he always is—then the other 10% is marketing.

To reinterpret this, you need a great product—that’s the attention to detail part—whether that’s the store itself or the merchandise you sell. They’re both your “products.” (For authors the product is our book or books.)

But all the detail, product, merchandise or anything else—all that other stuff we’ve poured our little detail-oriented hearts into—goes for naught if we don’t do the marketing.

So how does Taylor Swift fit into this? Well, the LA Times reports on her products (the way she is branding herself which is part of marketing). She has a signature fragrance, a poster by Peter Max (That’s Peter-the-Greatest-Artist-Marketer-Of-All-Time-After-Warhol!), a back to school package, a limited edition combo of a CD single and a souvenir T-shirt, headbands, a songbook, a tin box of guitar picks, boxed greeting cards, a keychain, and a journal. Yes, I’m out of breath!

So, we can learn a lot from her about branding, a big part of marketing. Each of these products fits with her image. But we can also learn that we just need to do it.

Your book proposal, as an example, might include a list of products (other than your book) that could be spun off from your book. Taylor’s journal idea is a good one for memoirists. T-shirts work for just about everyone. But each author’s list of possibilities will be different, just as the list would differ for different businesses on Main Street USA.

One of our stores was in Palm Springs and we had adorable little souvenir pin boxes made with “Carlan’s, Palm Springs” and palm trees hand painted on them. They worked because they were more personal and specific than the usual souvenir with only “Palm Springs” machine stamped on them.

My poetry partner Magdalena Ball and I might someday have art posters of the covers of our poetry chapbook series featuring our collaborating artists Jacquie Schmall, Vicki Thomas, and May Lattanzio. Framed, of course! Learn more about how we promote that series (including a special holiday card offer for the Christmas chapbook) at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/poetry_books.htm.

So, what do you do with your product idea? Well, the obvious first choice would be to get a manufacturer with a HUGE customer base to make your product; they, in turn, get their sales representatives to sell them to retailers who then sell them to the general public.

But what if you're eager to get started now? Try these ideas.

• Use your products as thank you gifts.
• Use your products as souvenirs or parts of promotions like gift baskets or contests.
• Use your products as walking, talking advertisements. As an example, every time someone compliments you on your rose-scented cologne, that's an opportunity to mention your romance novel and maybe give them a bookmark. Your T-shirts are walking billboards. So are your totes.
• Use your products as part of the media kits you leave in the press rooms at tradeshows.
• Use your products as an integral part of parties and events you plan, like a store opening or a book launch.
• Offer your products to charities for their drawings or other fundraisers.

So, put your thinking cap on. What kind of a “Seller” can you be? What fits with your product, your store, your title—whatever that is?

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of the multi award-winning The Frugal Book Promoter (now in an updated and expanded second edition!), www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo. Also part of the HowToDoItFrugally series is the booklet The Great First Impression Book Proposal booklet, www.budurl.com/BookProposals, that helps authors convince agents or publishers of their understanding of spin-offs, retailing, and marketing in general. She also is the author of a series of books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions (www.budurl.com/RetailersGuide).

 

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

Networking Is A Great Word!

Too many authors think of the word "networking" as something only pushy members of the Chamber of Commerce participate in.  Nope. Networking a good thing. Networking is nothing more than building relationships. It is at the root of all great promotion. In fact, it is at the root of our capitalistic economy. So, if you’re having trouble with any aspect of your promotion campaign, consider your networking skills.

As an example, you will have an easier time booking a signing or workshop at a bookstore where you know the staff. You’ll have an even easier time if you’ve funneled your readers to that bookstore to buy your books (and other books, too!) They are sure to notice and be eager to stock your books on a regular basis.

Ditto for sending your online buyers to one store. You’ll be surprised at how your ratings benefit, as an example, if you use links to your book’s buy page at Amazon exclusively. The better your book sells there (and hits their bestseller list in its category) the more sales begin to grow incrementally without any more effort on your part.

The same concept works with almost everything you do for your book. It’s a bit like the golden rule, isn’t it? What your mother always told you tends to work well in marketing, too.

One of my other promotion golden rules is to learn about other industries and from other industries. In the case of authors, the more they know about retailing, the easier it will be to convince a retailer that they would make a fine sales and promotional partners for authors. So, may I suggest my recent book, A Retailer's Guide To Frugal In-Store Promotions: How-To Increase Profits And Spit In The Eyes Of Economic Downturns Using Thrifty Events And Sales Techniques . 




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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including, The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog:

Q&A: So Why Bother with Kindle?

Question:
One of my Yahoogroups.com friends asked if Kindle was worth the time it takes.

Answer: Monica, I have a retailing background (owner of a small chain of gift stores) as well as a publishing one. And we who are interested in selling books are also intrinsically retailers.

As a retailer I believed that one should offer a product in ways that your customer wanted to buy them. Thus we took credit cards even though it cost us money (4% of every sale or some such!) back in the days when other retailers fought the idea of catering to customers that way.

So, is Kindle important? I don't think you'll sell tons of books with Kindle but you might sell a few to people who really, really want a book like yours but want to read it on Kindle. If your book isn't a Kindle book, they'll find a similar one to yours. You lost a sale. That one sale could be your most important of the year. A director? A TV host? Someone who loves to pass around the good word about books he or she loves? Besides, last I looked, there was no charge to get your book Kindled, so why not?
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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author THIS IS THE PLACE; HARKENING: A COLLECTION OF STORIES REMEMBERED; TRACINGS, a chapbook of poetry; and two how to books, THE FRUGAL BOOK PROMOTER: HOW TO DO WHAT YOUR PUBLISHER WON'T; and THE FRUGAL EDITOR: PUT YOUR BEST BOOK FORWARD TO AVOID HUMILIATION AND ENSURE SUCCESS.
Her other blogs include TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com and AuthorsCoalition.blogspot.com, a blog that helps writers and publishers turn a ho-hum book fair booth into a sizzler.