The Born Salesman

Part 9 Now it’s time to sell your books. How in the hockey sticks do you do that?

Let’s assume if you are with a business or an organization like a church you have determined who your audience is in our previous installments. But let’s unpack it for the aspiring authors out there. 

I’m not going to lie to you. Like most things in life, it’s unfair. If you are famous for being famous you might sell books. If something newsworthy happened to you and you write a memoir you might sell books, if you can get the book out before no one cares. If you are on a TV show you might sell books. If you have a lot of Instagram followers, you can potentially sell books. If you and your message are part of the zeitgeist, you have a good chance of getting  a book deal! The thing is, none of these things equal book sales! As James Murphy says, “Luck is always better than skill at things.”

Honestly, most of us would stab someone to be in the positions outlined above. If you can’t check any of those boxes, then read on!

A few years before you try to publish your book, you should start a blog, substack, or get on Reddit and comment a lot on topics that pertain to your work. Get on FB and IG and interact. Ask questions with your posts. Really though,  it’s probably Tik Tok now. Get on Tik-Tok and interact a lot. Ultimately, you want to drive people to content and get their email. You want to grow a mailing list so you can advertise your book to a captive audience. 

Maybe you go Old School? Get an MA (In my first stab at this post I erroneously put MBA, that’s probably a good idea too.) Schmooze the right people and publish in literary magazines, I think you have to use the words “Woodsmoke” in your stories when you have a writing degree. Anyways, get an MA, meet the right people who one day will work at publishing houses and they might be a road to a book deal. Maybe. 

Take any job where you can write. You have to care enough to not die inside but still make some coin to stay in good lodging. But don’t stay in one place too long because if it’s not going to lead to something then you gotta cut bait. As John Fogerty said, “Someday Never Comes.”

After all of this I have 3 bits of advice. 

1. Consistency. -Write a lot and often. Ideally also well, but that’s less important as we hurtle into the future. Content is king! Why did Amazon fork over cash to own Tolkien? Because they're fighting with Disney who has Marvel and Star Wars. If you make good content, consistently, it could lead to something good. 

2. Get help. I know help costs money. But if you are writing a book and want to sell it, get an agent or a marketing person. If you make a record, get a pro to mix it. We live in a world where the internet and computers have made many jobs seem like they are in our reach but that doesn't mean we are good at them. If you get help, you have a better chance of getting further down the road. 

3. Develop a healthy attitude about art and commerce. Get used to the idea that there are a lot of people making a lot of things and you need to enjoy making the work for yourself. As well, what you have accomplished is someone else's goal. That’s true no matter how far you make it. 

I read this article a few weeks ago, the headline is “I realized I would never be an actor-now I’m a big advocate of giving up on dreams.” That headline really grabbed me. Honestly, as the market is saturated, creative people are going to have to come to terms with this. You can read it here. 

Alright, next week, we might do a titling meeting.