Tips for getting your book into the bookstores: Tip 3

Have a marketing plan

Your book will not jump off the shelf by itself. You need to persuade people to buy it. Bookstores expect you to drive people to the store for your book. If they don’t believe you will get buyers into the store, bookstores are likely to give their valuable shelf space to books that they reasonably expect will be marketed and promoted well.

Bookstores often need to be convinced that your book is going to sell, especially if you are relatively unknown as an author or a publisher. So, tell them what your are going to do to make that happen. How much are you going to spend on promotion, and how are you going to spend it? What tasks are you going to perform? Will you advertise? (Please say no!) Will you seek book reviews from trade and consumer publications, newspapers, and other print media? Will you arrange a media tour? Will you have a web site or a blog? Will you promote the book on the Internet? Will you participate in bookstore events related to your book? What other kinds of publicity will you develop? Will you do it yourself or hire a publicist? What else are you going to do?

Be as specific as you can be, even if your book is still at the galley stage. The challenge to publishing comes during the marketing, where the competition for publicity and promotion is as vigorous as the competition for space on the book shelf. Make a compelling case that you are committed to marketing your book more effectively than the publisher next door. The best way to do this is to show that you have a plan to do it.

Tips for getting your book into the bookstores: Tip 2

Stand on a platform

Are you a world-recognized expert? Is yours one of the first names people think of when they think about the subject of your book? Can you add "M.D." or "Ph.D." after your name? Are you a CEO, a lawyer, a chef, or portfolio manager at an investment house? Are you a regular on Court TV? Do you have a syndicated radio show? If so, you probably won’t have much trouble getting your book on bookstore shelves.

If you don’t have those kinds of advantage, you need to establish that you are qualified to write the book, at least in they eyes of readers and store buyers. Calling yourself an expert doesn’t make you one. Just writing the book doesn’t make you one, either. Why should any reader even look at your book when there’s another one right next to it by an author who is already acknowledged as an expert?

That may not be fair or even smart. Authors and publishers alike wish that readers and buyers would accept the book for its own sake, not the name behind it. But that’s not the way the world works. Bookstores know that other things being equal, buyers will choose books because they’ve heard of the author or trust the author’s professional reputation.

Fiction and non-fiction authors can solicit endorsements from writers who have already made their names. If you can’t claim credentials for writing non-fiction, you might find an acknowledged authority to stand behind you, perhaps by contributing a foreword or a chapter, for example, or, even better, by agreeing to be listed as a co-author. If your book is fiction, you can still draw in experts to talk about something you say. The DaVinci Code is fiction, but that hasn’t stopped the experts from giving the book a very visible platform.

Whatever you do, remember that people need to believe that your book will deliver what it promises to. Having authority behind the book doesn’t guarantee that, but it certainly makes it easier for bookstore buyers to give you a chance.