Is there any point in getting shelf space in the New Title Showcase at BookExpo America if you're self-published and have low sales? Do buyers really browse books there and pick them based on how they look and whatever info they get in the catalog? I've toyed with the idea of splashing out a bit and getting my novel shown there, but quite frankly I can't imagine it helping. Any thoughts?
Self-published books at BookExpo America?
- Thread starter Gregmose
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Just IMHO, I doubt it helps unless you have some method to offer the book under standard terms (deep discount, returnable).
It's one of those things - I want to believe it could help, because I'm tired of marketing to cheap-book-hunters on the Kindle Boards and other 'indie' novelists on goodreads. I live in France so even my door-to-door with the independent bookstores is limited to, well, one English bookstore within a hundred miles of me. I can do standard terms fine - I'm genuinely my own publisher via Lightning Source - but yes, I'm inclined to agree that unless someone is there really working to sell the thing, and unless I have real sales (measured at least in the hundreds, not in the scores or dozens), then I'll just have some buyers smiling and my admittedly kickass cover art but no one actually stocking the book. Well, there's 225 bucks I can spend on something else. Wine, wine sounds good.
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I doubt it would be hepful. Although I am not self-published, I recently attended the LA Times Festival of Books, where my book was displayed for 2 days and I signed for 2 hours. The 2 hours of signing netted me 9 books in sales. The 2 days of display netted me zero.
I don't know about BookExpo America: but the book fairs that I'm familiar with, like the London Book Fair and Frankfurt, exist mostly for editors and agents to buy and sell rights to books, rather than for booksellers to find interesting new titles to stock on their shelves.
There are some book buyers there, of course; and some self-publishers might just shift a few copies. But it is very unlikely, and very expensive to try on the offchance that it might just happen.
There are some book buyers there, of course; and some self-publishers might just shift a few copies. But it is very unlikely, and very expensive to try on the offchance that it might just happen.
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