One thing I’ve learned from experience is that many people, shown an inexpensive book in the course of casual conversation, buy it on impulse. If your book costs $20 or less, you can hit a surprisingly high “casual business” sales volume at networking events, holiday parties, and similar venues.

Here’s how:

Don’t leave home without your book; the #1 secret to encouraging impulse purchases is to have something available for purchase. Ideally, take at least 3–4 books everywhere you go.

Keep receipt forms and a pocketful of change (including $1 and $5 bills) handy. Transactions will go faster and smoother if you have several “one-copy” and “two-copy” receipts ready with total cost and signature already filled in; then you only have to add customer-specific details. Being prepared to make change is equally important (although, in a quick-and-casual setting, many people will say “Oh, don’t bother with a few cents change”). Sales tax laws being what they are, it’s virtually impossible to set a price that comes out at a round figure.

Be prepared to accept checks. While many impulse customers pay cash, others still use checks for almost everything. And a sale that can’t be made immediately is often a sale lost for good.

Obviously, credit cards aren’t practical for most “on-the-spot” sales (hence, the “impulse approach” rarely works with more expensive books). But whatever the means of payment:

Tuck two business cards into each book sold. No matter if “this customer already has his/her copy.” Satisfied customers buy additional copies for gifts; they recommend books to others; and they look for the author’s other titles. They’ll need a reference for finding—and directing others to—your contact and book order information.

Practice the mechanics of physically awkward transactions. Seriously. At a mass gathering, the only place to make change and fill out receipts may be in the middle of a standing crowd—and with full arms. Dropping an armload can be embarrassing.

Sign the books you sell. A bonus of buying directly from authors is that copies come personally autographed. Uphold the standard!

Finally, perhaps the most important point:

Remember that this is no place for a “hard-sell” approach. When people become spontaneously interested in your book, you do them a favor by supplying it immediately. An unsolicited and high-pressure sales pitch, however, violates the whole spirit of most gatherings (which are, after all, not about you). Show your book to people when they ask what you’ve been up to, and wait for the possibility of immediate purchase to occur to them. You’ll be surprised how often it does.

Katherine Swarts is a professional writer specializing in corporate blogs/newsletters and other articles. Her Web address is www.spreadthewordcommercialwriting.com.

However, as with any popular venue it’s easy to pass unnoticed unless you work hard to stay visible. If your LinkedIn or Facebook presence isn’t attracting book buyers, consider the following points.

Have you posted a photograph, an interesting bio, and links to your online address(es)? The more complete your profile, the better, but these are the essential elements.

Photograph: People are more likely to investigate further if they see a real face.

Bio: “X is an author from New Jersey” equals instant boredom. Grab reader attention right away, as you would in a book. Identify your genre in the first sentence, note your most important book(s) and other publishing credits, include humor and human interest. But keep to one short-to-medium paragraph. (See “Who Are You?” by Devyani Borade for more bio-writing tips.)

Links: Always include a link to your author/publisher website. If you don’t have one, get one ASAP. Social media accounts and/or blogs are not sufficient online presence—they make you dependent on another’s whims and problems, and can arouse resentment in potential customers who don’t want to register with your host.

Have you utilized SEO principles? Make a list of keywords that customers might use to search for a book like yours, and put every one of those keywords in your profile.

Are you too sales-minded for your own good? Social media etiquette does allow for “buy my product” talk, but frowns on using an account as nothing more than free advertising. New fans and old will visit your page (and buy your books) regularly for helpful and interesting information from your field of expertise—but not if all they ever find is advertorials.

Some authors seem determined that no one will ever read their writing without paying for a whole book. Every online mention of their work boasts about the wonderful changes this material will make in your life—with nary a specific as to how. Finding even a brief excerpt online or in a magazine is an exercise in futility. Even public libraries don’t have the books. This approach is a good way to label yourself paranoid and avaricious in a high percentage of potential customers’ minds. If, instead, you use direct excerpts from your book as social media posts, and note where they came from (with a purchase link slipped in inconspicuously), you’ll draw a triple benefit: enhancement of your reputation as expert and helpful; low-key but highly effective advertising for your book; and saving yourself the work of writing a post from scratch!

Katherine Swarts is a professional writer specializing in articles—from blogs to booklets to press releases. Her Web address is www.spreadthewordcommercialwriting.com.

Unfortunately, that scenario really is “in your dreams” for most writers. If you aren’t sufficiently popular to draw interest on pure name recognition, you may be lucky to get ten visitors and one sale.

There are ways to improve your chances, though. Here are my candidates for the top five things that attract browsers to a book signing or expo table.

1. Relevance. When considering where to exhibit, don’t stop with bookstores and book expos; hold your health-book signing at a fitness center, or display local-history books at your town’s centennial fair. You may actually sell more at a “non-book” event where attendees are more focused and direct competition less.
2. Advance publicity. Give “save the date” cards to your friends. Post announcements—preferably weekly for a month in advance—on all your blogs and social networking accounts. (Even out-of-state fans have acquaintances and relatives in your area.) For individual signings, send press releases to local media—and be sure the host business announces the event in its newsletters/blogs and on its Web site. Provide posters for hosts to display the month of the event. (Incidentally, minimize time competition—don’t schedule signings when half the town is traveling or at a major local festival!)
3. Visual appeal. For an expo, place an eye-catching ad—with book cover image—in the official program. For any event, use a large, colorful banner sign—preferably set high enough to read from across the room. Arrange about a dozen of your books—not so many that they look cluttered—on the display table. Also to avoid a “cluttered” appearance, use a low-hanging tablecloth (solid-colored, preferably white or pastel) to hide your boxes.
4. Giveaways. A bowl or platter of “sweet nibbles” always draws visitors. Offer something more permanent, too; bookmarks with cover images and lists of additional titles are always good. Or provide a premium related to your topic (fudge for a dessert cookbook, tiny stuffed kittens for a story featuring a cat) and marked with your Web address.
5. Good attitude. The number-one quality of every successful business owner. Make eye contact, with a wave and a smile, whenever someone glances your way; few can resist the implied invitation. Smile even when you think no one is looking; it adds to your table’s visual appeal. Remember that rearranging your display, eating lunch at your booth, and leaving the table unattended are sure ways to miss all but the most determined customers. And even if only two people stop all day (one to raid your candy dish and one to tell you your book should be banned) and the air conditioning fails on the hottest day of August, think happy thoughts and save the pity party until you’re out of the public eye!

For tips from the veterans, click to the following articles: “How to Have a Successful Book Signing” by MaryJanice Davidson; “Selling Your Books at a Booth” by Belea T. Keeney; and “40+ Ways to Make Your Next Book Signing an Event!” by Larry James.

Katherine Swarts is a professional writer specializing in corporate blogs/newsletters and other articles. Her Web address is www.spreadthewordcommercialwriting.com.

6. Deadly Gimmicks. No story ever sold solely because the text rhymed; plot and characters are what count, and most writers have enough to do mastering those. In any case, never get cute with the physical manuscript: no neon-colored text; no computer-animated introductions; no glitter sprinkles that drop from a hard-copy envelope (probably to stick to an editor’s best suit). The “gimmick” approach gets attention, all right, but not the kind you want.

7. Deadly Arrogance. If you want to create an instant image of yourself as impossible to work with, just say any of the following: “I know you don’t normally publish fiction/poetry/two-part stories, but my work is so good I’m sure you’ll make an exception.” (No, they won’t.) “My children/mother loved this story.” (Readers who don’t love you aren’t likely to be equally receptive.) “God gave me this message.” (God probably hasn’t warned anyone to buy your first draft or be struck by lightning.) However good your work, you don’t rate special favors before you prove yourself.

8. Deadly Humility. Don’t say you’ve “never published anything”; people will wonder why not. And no one will buy your work out of pity for your unpublished state. Focus on why you’re qualified to publish this thing: note your expertise in the topic area, or your access to knowledgeable sources; and to prove your writing ability, make sure your introductory letter is interesting and typo-free. When approaching agents and editors, projecting self-confidence is vital.

9. Deadly Defensiveness. The dream of writing one’s way to fame and fortune brings out the spoiled brat in many people. They demand that publishers reconsider rejections; they scream “You got that idea from me!” when a remotely similar story appears; they get as far as being accepted and then fight every suggested change in plot or wording; they openly protest every negative review. Such behavior gains a writer nothing except black marks on the reputation.

10. Deadly Quitting. Have you heard of John Kennedy Toole, whose book A Confederacy of Dunces won a 1981 Pulitzer Prize—but who wasn’t around to see it because he’d committed suicide in 1969 after repeated rejections, leaving his mother to carry on the work of finding a publisher? While few writers go to such extremes, thousands give up too quickly. They edit their work over and over but never submit it; they put a manuscript away forever after the first rejection; they stop writing new stories when their earliest efforts don’t sell; they dismiss “we can’t use this, but we’d like to see other examples of your work” comments as token politeness (editors don’t waste time on personal communications unless they see genuine potential). You can be innocent of all other Deadly Attitudes and still kill your chances with this one.

If you harbor any of the DAs and still sell your work, you probably are a celebrity. Or a publisher’s nephew. Or just luckier than the average lottery winner!

Katherine Swarts is a professional writer specializing in corporate blogs/newsletters and other articles. Her Web address is www.spreadthewordcommercialwriting.com.

That expectation is regularly disappointed. Whether you’re selling your work to an agent or publisher, or directly to the public, it can take years to get noticed among the mountains of competition. And blaming “the system” won’t help.

Besides, it’s often misplaced blame. Many writers set themselves up for failure. If you are guilty of any of the following “Deadly Attitudes,” you may be your own worst enemy.

1. Deadly Careless Research. Fiction readers want temporary escape from the real world—but not to cut all ties with it. An obvious factual error can knock the reader back to reality with an abruptness that ruins the story experience. If the population of Tokyo or some detail of a typical police investigation is important to your plot, don’t rely on your memory of something you saw on television; look it up. And look it up in an authoritative source (preferably two or three); never be satisfied with a random Internet search.

2. Deadly Dullness. Even if your facts are accurate, overdoses of straight information put readers to sleep. People want to read about people, not about facts and figures. Remove any technical explanation or historical exposition that isn’t essential to plot clarity. Include plenty of action and dialogue (and remember that a two-page speech by one character is not dialogue).

3. Deadly Stereotyping. Most writers have the sense to avoid blatant bigotry, but “stock character types” are almost as bad. If a dumb jock or popular snob seems essential to your plot, sidestep the “met this person in a hundred pulp novels” trap by adding an atypical personality trait—give your “jock” a taste for Renaissance poetry!

4. Deadly Sloppiness. No busy editor will correct a typo-laden manuscript for a writer who is too lazy to proofread personally. Even with self-published books, mistakes on every page annoy readers and make them suspect you are equally careless with facts. Don’t expect your word processor to do the proofing, either; few spell checkers know the difference between “its” and “it’s.” Word processing and e-mail software can even create errors; so check visually to make sure automatic formatting hasn’t put any tabs where they shouldn’t be!

5. Deadly Thoughtless Marketing. Never just open a market database and start querying publishers in alphabetical order. Read the entries in full; publishers are disgusted with fiction writers’ ignoring clear statements that “we publish only nonfiction.” Read your chosen publisher’s full official guidelines (market guides explain how to locate these). And even if you’re self-publishing, have a clear demographic vision of your expected readers and where to find them; writers who aim at “everyone” never hit anyone.

Probably the number-one reason writers fail is that they expect their talent to absolve them of any real need to work. Writers who succeed know better. No author ever outgrows the imperfect first draft!

Katherine Swarts is a professional writer specializing in corporate blogs/newsletters and other articles. Her Web address is www.spreadthewordcommercialwriting.com.

This needn’t be exceptionally hard—if you know how to help the right consumers find your book.

Here’s how:

• Consider reader demographics. What age, gender, ethnic group, and income bracket read your genre/topic? What are their interests and hobbies? Now, where do they work, shop, and spend their leisure time? That’s where to sell your books. Nearly every club office, specialty store, and nature center has a book rack. Talk to management at every local business whose customers might be interested in your work.
• Play the local angle. Send press releases to town and neighborhood papers and to community magazines. Don’t forget their Web sites. And offer your books to locally owned bookstores, which are frequently interested in area authors’ work even when national chains aren’t.
• Send press releases to trade/hobby magazines and Web sites related to your book’s topic. Better yet, submit a real article on the topic, and mention your book in the author bio.
• Start a Web site for your book(s). Post ordering information, intriguing excerpts, and a related blog. Include the Web address in your press releases and e-mail signatures.
• Print business cards and bookmarks featuring your book. Give these away everywhere.
• Volunteer to speak (on your book’s topic or on writing in general) at programs run by clubs, religious centers, and libraries. Whether or not you’re paid for the presentation, you’ll have onsite opportunities to sell or at least promote your books.
• Trust the power of word of mouth. Refer to your book in social networking. Ask everyone you know who else might like to read the book. Post a “tell your friends” request on your Web site. Remember, though: “hard-sell” approaches work against you. Focus on helping others with your book; and give away plenty of information free!

And when you get discouraged over lacking the advantages that come with a “traditional” publisher, consider the bright side: you keep all the profits, and you don’t have to worry about bookstore returns or about books going out of print prematurely!

Katherine Swarts is a professional writer specializing in corporate blogs/newsletters and other articles. Her Web address is www.spreadthewordcommercialwriting.com.

Why do we let our resolutions die without so much as an R. I. P.?

Perhaps because New Year’s comes only once a year. While “doing it annually” is fine for medical checkups, the “health” of life’s overall balance requires more frequent attention. However clearly we see the beginning and the desired end, nobody gets from one to the other without giving the midpoints due attention. You can’t sell a book if the full text reads, “Once upon a time they lived happily ever after”; you can’t make Christmas come early by turning the calendar from January to December; you can’t walk from Chicago to Houston in three giant steps; and you can’t put “earn $100,000 next year” on a resolutions list and consider it as good as done. If you’re serious about that $100,000 goal, don’t just work hard and hope to hit it: figure out specifically how you can do $2,000 worth of work every week. This also helps you temper enthusiasm with a realistic viewpoint; if you’ve sold nothing yet besides articles, “write a full book manuscript and send the proposal to my first-choice agent” is a more achievable goal than “make the New York Times bestseller list.”

Breaking goals into smaller and more manageable tasks has another advantage: it encourages us to work toward our goals every day. And making every day count gives us something to get up for in the morning.

Resolution for the New Day

I will use today to its fullest.
I will accept its opportunities with gratitude and use them wisely.
I may not accomplish great things today, but I can take one step toward something great.
I will take that step.
I may not be able to meet all my goals today, but I can advance farther toward those goals.
I will not be distracted from them.
Today is all I have for now.
I will not squander or devalue it.
I will use it as the precious one-of-a-kind treasure it is.

Katherine Swarts
Spread the Word Commercial Writing
“Anything Worth Writing Is Worth Writing Right”
http://www.spreadthewordcommercialwriting.com

Ready to write your first book?

More power to you.

Ready to live in luxury from the royalties?

Time for a reality check.

I won’t waste space with a lot of statistics on how hard it really is to make money writing. That approach is not only boring and negative, it’s futile.

Everyone who conceives the perfect book expects to be the exception to the rule, the one whose genius is immediately recognized and rewarded.

Actually, the apparent “exceptions” are those writers who mix plenty of hard work with their talent—from the beginning onward. No one ever creates a perfect first draft. Don’t take my word for it; ask authors who’ve been selling books for twenty years. And ask those successful authors how many editors rejected their early manuscripts; how many times they rewrote their first books after acceptance; and how much time they still spend sending out press releases and sitting at sparsely visited book-signing tables. No, the publisher won’t “take care of everything.” If a book’s own creator doesn’t care enough to work at popularizing it, why should anyone else?

If you’re not discouraged yet, that in itself is a sign you may have what it takes. There are many resources on the specifics involved (try www.writersdigest.com and www.writing-world.com to start), but here are a few key points for key stages:

• Idea: Research why the public (not just your immediate circle) would read this book.
• Proposal: Read editorial guidelines! An amazing number of writers send fiction manuscripts to nonfiction publishers.
• Writing/editing: Get the first draft down as quickly as you like, but edit the whole thing at least three times: once for consistency of details; once for smooth flow; and once for typo-free text.
• Selling to the public: Send press releases to your local paper, the trade journals, your college’s alumni newsletter. Create a Web site and e-newsletter. Print business cards and bookmarks. Remember: even a published book won’t sell itself.

Unless you’re already famous, in which case thousands of people will buy a collection of breakfast-menu tweets if your name’s on the cover. But in that case, you wouldn’t have to bother reading “how-to” blogs.

Katherine Swarts
Spread the Word Commercial Writing
“Anything Worth Writing Is Worth Writing Right”
http://www.spreadthewordcommercialwriting.com