Promoting your store with technology, social media, and the help of authors and puppets. (The puppets are optional)
(Right click/Alt click and save as)
(Right click/Alt click and save as)
Twitter:
• Maintain a list of authors writing in the categories and genres you sell.
• Ask authors for seasonal or topical recommendations and read-alikes.
• Share pictures of your displays and events.
• Be clear about your specific mission and goals. (For example, YA novels are considered children’s books, but many children’s bookstores focus on early readers. Authors are less likely to pull out the marketing shotgun if they have a clear target.)
Website:
• Provide your mailing address in HTML/plain text—not in an image.
• Include a staff page with pictures; point out the person responsible for event planning.
• Make it easy to link to your website/shopping cart/AbeBooks account.
• Use free, author-generated content, and/or make it available for customers to download.
Technology:
• Whether you provide WiFi for your customers or not, make WiFi available for visiting authors.
• For technology-enhanced visits, provide a staff member to help facilitate online interaction. (Someone to Livetweet the event, or to read questions from streaming video chat rooms for authors to answer.)
• Ask authors to sign stock, and give them purchase information to share with their readers.
• Consider a Virtual Visit. Authors can sign stock ahead of time, or provide bookplates, then schedule a Skype visit to speak to your patrons in real time from anywhere in the world.
• Consider a Co-Visit, featuring a live appearance in your store paired with a remote visit of an author elsewhere in the world via Skype or Facetime.
Marketing for Authors by Saundra Mitchell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
