ISBN databases and how to maximise your exposure to the book retail industry.

Arpeggio said:

Just wondered what your thoughts were on the databases Bowker and Nielsen and how to maximise your exposure to the book retail industry.

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I think you're looking at this the wrong way round. Booksellers don't browse Nielsen's listings to find books they might consider buying, but many retailers won't consider listing or stocking your book unless you have that ISBN.

If you want to "maximise your exposure to the book retail industry" then getting an ISBN for your book is a parallel step which will enable those retailers to order and track your book through their systems once they know about it. For that to happen, you need to employ good sales and marketing techniques, first and foremost.

I’m wondering because a couple of months ago I signed with Lighting Source for the USA and AUS wholesale contracts but have no sales for them yet. I have retailers buying my books for the UK (I assume having seen them on Nielsen) and the US population being 5 times greater yet no sales, so I can take this to mean that the US and others outside the UK do not look at Neilsen but instead Bowkers Books in print and Global books in print? If you’re not on Bowker I’d recommend it, their 250 word synopsis is free unlike Nielsens which costs £180 to have displayed.

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I strongly suspect that your sales are coming from other sources, and not because your books are listed on Nielsen's database. That database is passive: it doesn't sell books to anywhere, it just showcases them to people who already know about them, and go and look them up.

By signing up for a wholesale contract for your print editions, all you've done really is to get your books added to these wholesalers' lists (and perhaps added to their stock levels--I don't know the details of your contract, obviously). Those books will now sit in their warehouse, or in their listings, and will do nothing more.

If you'd signed up for full distribution, your book would be added to sales catalogues and sales teams--both by phone and on the road--would actively sell the book to bookshops, which would get it on the shelves and in front of your potential readers. At that point, if you've published a good book and published it well, those readers will notice the book and buy it, and your sales will go up. If your book isn't so good, then you'll not see so many sales. But remember that distributors are very selective about the books they take on and expect high levels of sales and a good marketing spend from the publishers concerned: if you've self published you're very unlikely to qualify, I'm afraid.

Arpeggio said:

I should have mentioned that I know that the sales I get on LS are to retailers and not real customers (although I know some do get bought by readers as I have a website linked within the book and can see the correct kind traffic consistent with having bought one). All my books are non-returnable so as far as I am concerned they are sales (all be it slowing down when retailers then have to or can't shift their copies).

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Those booksellers might well be buying the books because customers have walked in and ordered them.

I will be taking care of marketing. For me for print LS POD with non-returnable is not a worthwhile method to correspond with marketing efforts because it is unpredictable as to which retailers stock my books and at what time, for me to direct my efforts. For ebooks however LS is fine as eBooks are always “in stock” so I will use LS to correspond with marketing efforts on ebooks. Otherwise for print I'm also on CS which as you might know are always "in stock" on Amazon, I have a few sales on there but I am soon to start marketing and advertising.

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With all due respect, Arpeggio, I don't understand what you're saying here. I'm sorry.

For LS I am only looking to continue with the non-returnable books being available to retailers for them to buy if they want.

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Then you're going to have to reconcile yourself to bookshops only ordering your books in when they have a firm sale, I'm afraid--which will limit your sales in both physical and online retailers.

So although you say it's down to marketing and promotion which I very much agree it is and (I am working on this now), for the LS print aspect I was just looking to increase pocket money to serious pocket money.[/FONT]

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Again, I don't understand. I must need more coffee. I'm so sorry.

As far as I am aware those databases are used not to drive sales of books, but as a product to sell to people marketing services to the self-published.

You can buy database dumps and subscribe to them, with or without ID data.

You don't actually need the ID data because your database expert can combine multiple purchased databased dumps (some of which included identifiable data) and combine them to create marketing targets for specific criteria like age, education, book purchasing behaviors, etc.