Writers Must Use Books to Sell Books

The Rule of Use

Part 2 of An Author’s Guide to Hand Selling Books
by David A. Rozansky, Publisher, Flying Pen Press
Readers, Writers & Royalties columnist
October 8, 2007

 
[This is the second article in a nine-part series]

 
In the previous article in this series, I gave a general overview of why authors should sell their own books. In that article, I gave a list of the seven rules we teach authors about how they can hand sell their own books.

To quickly review, these seven rules are:

1. The Rule of Use. Authors must use books to sell books.

2. The Rule of Sales. Authors must be mentally and logistically prepared to sell their books.

3. The Rule of 3 Feet. Authors must tell everyone that comes within 3 feet about their books.

4. The Rule of 200. Authors must prepare a list of 200 contacts and work those contacts as their core fan base.

5. The Rule of 5x5. Authors must make five separate contacts, five times a day, and try to sell their books.

6. The Rule of Writing. Authors must keep writing new books.

7. The Rule of Crowds. Authors must sell their books before large crowds, preferably on the Internet.

This article will discuss the first rule, the Rule of Use, in detail.

 
The Rule of Use states that to sell a product, you must use that product. For book authors, this means that if you want your readers to buy your book, you must use your book.

How does an author “use” a book? If the book is a how-to book, it is quite clear how to use the book, but otherwise, the way to use a book is in any way possible. Preferably, authors should read their book, perhaps as often as once a month. Never mind that the author wrote it, and is probably sick to death of looking at it.

A book means many things to different readers. In talking up one’s book to a potential reader, it is important to identify what is in the book that will be appealing to that reader. The secret to this is to be so well informed about every page of the book that matching the reader’s interests is intuitive.

However, books can also be used as doorstops, as pot holders, as coasters, as paper towels, as fire kindling. It is important to know how the book is used in the home. Does it sit on a nightstand for a month? Is it stolen at the laundromat all the time? Do you tend to read it at the dinner table? At a fine restaurant? At McDonald’s. The more an author reads the book, the more they will know these answers.

It is also necessary to use competing products. For writers, this is easy. Read more books. Read a whole lot more books. Be certain you are reading books in your genre or subject. There are authors who write romance that cannot stand reading romance. However, readers expect authors to have read the same books they do, and the trends in books will dictate how to approach potential buyers for an author’s book.

This knowledge mostly comes into play in the course of a conversation about books. If an author can start a bibliophilic conversation, he will quickly identify those people who are most likely to enjoy his book, and why. This leads to natural segues that lead to the ultimate question, “So, what do you write, anyway?”

“Competing products” doesn’t just mean books. A book is only one medium. If the author is a novelist, then it is incumbent on her to see all the other ways the readers are using their leisure time, the time that could be used reading a novel. A novelist should go to the movies, watch television, read the newspaper, play video games (if his readers play video games). In doing so, the novelist will discover good arguments for why readers should spend more of their time curled up with a good novel.

Authors of non-fiction should focus on how readers learn the kinds of things that the author is trying to teach. Where do the readers get their information? Is it the Discovery channel? Museums and Libraries? The Internet? By knowing what resources are available to readers, the author learns a slightly different argument: How does the book make it easier and faster to learn what’s inside than other books or media do?

Kelli Mix, author of The Game Day Poker Almanac Official Rules of Poker (ISBN 978-0-9795889-2-1) is a perfect example. Mix is a professional poker player and an author. She is an expert player, often placing in the money in large tournaments and playing to win in high-stakes poker games. She volunteers with poker associations, and she gets to know many of the poker professionals. While she is very familiar with the rules of poker, she makes it a point to bring the book to the poker table. She reviews the rules in her book often, so that when challenged with an obscure ruling, she can point to chapter and verse in her book what the rule should be. Other people see this, and they then ask to buy the book.

Another benefit to reading one’s own book is that after a while, the flaws in the writing that were not visible when the book was release and seemed minor after the first time someone mentioned them become increasingly glaring. Knowing the flaws in a book clarifies the reader experience, and this will help the author distinguish the readers who will love the book from the ones who will burn it (remember what I said about kindling).

Authors should realize that using a book means buying a book. Where do buyers buy the book? What problems do they encounter? Is the book overpriced? Underpriced? Is the cover attractive next to other boos on the store shelf? Is the Amazon page doing everything it can to attract attention to itself?

In addition to being a user of the product, the Law of Use also dictates that authors must observe how everyone else uses the book. This will reveal buying patterns, reading patterns, and buzz-marketing patterns that the author can learn from, and eventually use to find the right buyers in large quantities. Smart authors go to their local bookstores whenever they can and watch the customers for trends and patterns.

Reading, and using other media that the readers do, makes an author one of the readers. Hand selling begins with establishing a rapport with the prospective buyer. This means that in order to sell a book, the seller must be a user of the product, must be one of the buyers himself.

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In the next installment, I will discuss The Rule of Sales. To subscribe to the entire series of articles on the topic of An Author’s Guide to Hand Selling Books, please click on the “Subscribe to this Group” button at www.ReadWriteRoyalty.Gather.com. To receive all of Mr. Rozansky’s articles, subscribe at www.FlyingPenPress.Gather.com.

David A. Rozansky is the publisher of Flying Pen Press. He has been in publishing since 1987, and has more than one million published words under his byline. Flying Pen Press is at www.FlyingPenPress.com.

Flying Pen Press is the publisher of Kelli Mix’s authoritative poker rule book, The Game Day Poker Almanac Official Rules of Poker (ISBN 978-0-9795889-2-1, trade, $19.95). Visit www.KelliMix.com to buy a personally inscribed copy of her book, or to play poker with her in the Kelli Mix Carroll County CASA charity poker tournament on Nov. 10.