Blogger: Rachel Kent
When I was camping up in the Sierra Nevada mountains two weekends ago, I came across a little library outside of the camp host’s camper! I was surprised to see the book cart, but I think it’s a great idea for a campground. I’ve been on many trips where I run out of books to read and there aren’t many bookstores in wilderness areas.
One of our Books & Such clients, Amy Lively, was recently sent a picture of her book How to Love Your Neighbor Without Being Weird inside of an Amish hardware store. Books can end up in unusual places!
When it comes to marketing a book, it’s easy to get stuck in a rut. Authors (and publishers) can fall into the trap of doing the same things over and over again. Not thinking creatively about marketing could be limiting the sales and the influence of your book.
Now, I don’t think that heading over to your local Amish hardware store to pitch your project is necessarily the right step for you, but maybe there’s a local coffee shop nearby that would enjoy hosting a local author for a brief reading? It would likely be mutually beneficial. You could do a reading and bring some books to sell and the coffee shop might get more business that night. It doesn’t hurt to go ask and it could be fun!
And maybe your book won’t reach many people at a campground in the California wilderness, but can you think of another unusual place you could send a book or two that might lead to some great exposure for you?
What is the most unusual place you have seen books?
Perhaps it is not an unusual place, but it might be a fruitful one. Laundromats in campgrounds often have a rack of books. Placing books in the communal laundry of a large apartment complex or in a neighborhood laundromat with an invitation to borrow and return when finished could be both a service and a sales technique. Include a bookmark featuring the books you have on the market.
Great ideas, Carol!
Great idea to include a bookmark!
My husband and I have often considered becoming “host campers” when we retire. A lending library will definitely be available at our campsite. ?
I could see myself doing this in retirement, too!
The women’s locker room at my gymn has a four tier book shelf. I regularly deposit books there. I’ve also given away books in my Zumba class. (The Navy SEAL book was in great demand. I gave away a half-dozen copies on my birthday).
I always donate copies of my book to the church library, have read one story for the book club and sent copies of my book to places in Coronado named in my story.
And placed a copy in the tiny library on the corner just up the street.
I’m not sure, however, there’s been much ROi as a result.
ROI is hard to measure, for sure.
Cigar stores often have smoking rooms equipped with armchairs, TVs, magazines,,,and books.
* Not what you might expect. I’ve seen –
– The Prophet
– Richard Bach’s “The Bridge Across Forever – A Lovestory”
– Various histories by Churchill (well, I guess that’s a given, considering venue)
– And several books by the ubiquitous Beverley Lewis, whose stories of Amish life are probably found in every country on earth, and have undoubtedly been placed aboard the Mother Ship for Elvis’ reading pleasure.
* Usually the TV’s off, and the patrons are quietly reading…books.
Bev Lewis?!!! That is surprising. 🙂
Our local public pool has a cart you can borrow from to read poolside.
Nice! And a good idea.
Our local VA hospital has stacks and boxes of books that people donate and are available for vets to take.
I also sometimes donate used magazines to my doctor’s offices (who typically have a terrible selection – falling-apart, 2-years-old)
The American Legion is a good place to leave books; they will deliver to disabled veterans.
* Speaking of ‘vets’, our vet’s office has large coffee-table books available; they’re easier to hold open than either a smaller hardcover or magazine when you’re waiting with a curious pooch.
My 3 boys built a very tippy treefort in our backyard with no adult assistance whatsoever. Then they grabbed blankets and pillows and their pet chickens (yeah, they didn’t ask me about mixing pillows and pet chickens, we had words about that) and even grabbed their favorite books and scrambled up into the tree to snuggle and read and just be outside. Anyplace is a great place for books.
Here is a link to some pics of the fort. The first pic is of a little bird that got caught in the coop, then come the treeforts. http://www.kristenjoywilks.com/blog/?p=5108
Just visited the site, saw the pictures of the tree fort, and can say – everyone reading this, GO THERE! It’ll be your smile for the day, only it will last a for more than a day.
Kristen, you have a cool blog – but I didn’t see a way to subscribe by email. Does such exist? (I did see the RSS feed in the upper-left corner, but it too me awhile to figure out what it was.)
Yes, I know ‘took’ has a k in it, and that it’s not implied.
OK, yeah, and clicking on RSS gave me a printer’s pie of computerese…and I’d really like to subscribe, somehow.
Andrew,
I need to look into this. Because I am so very un-techsavvy that I have no idea why it won’t work or what to do. I shall e-mail the guy who hosts it for me who actually knows something about computers. All I do is write the blogs and click “post” oh…and I know how to schedule them for a different day. Yay me!!!
Kristen, I just finally figured out how to add FB and Twitter Buttons to my blog. Have mercy! It’s only taken me months to figure it out. I’m so not techy. I’m doing the happy dance!! 🙂
Yay, Shelli. I’m so proud of you. Un-techies unite!
You can ask one of us techies to figure it out and then walk you through it, too.
A more useful rallying cry for writers:
Bad spellers of the world: untie!
Wow. That fort does look a little scary. 🙂
There are various Navajo churches to whom I’ll be sending my books. As well as a few Native American Bible colleges.
Most unusual places I’ve seen books? Hmmm, well, I did *bring* Joanne Bischof’s books with me to the Altiplano in Bolivia, and to the very quaint Hostel Santa Cruz in Sucre, Bolivia.
My roomate was the one who saw them. 😉
25 hours left … too funny!! 🙂 You’ll make it.
In a Zen monastery in a place that has to remain unnamed, I saw the collected works of Zane Grey. Which brings to mind a riddle…
Q – What did the Zen monk have for desert?
A – An ice cream koan.
* Bad enough? OK,. here’s worse…
Q – How many Buddhas does it take to change a lightbulb?
A – None. They’re already enlightened.
* No, not disrespectful…both were told me by a Buddhist monk.
DESSERT! Buddhists don’t eat sand and sage.
My favorite place was at Bryant Park in NYC but the public library hosts that site. It’s a borrowing library. I’d post a picture but not sure how to so I posted it here (http://www.instagram.com/nkwrites). The Strand also sells books at Central Park where millions of tourists stop by every summer.
I loved the coffee shop idea. A local shop has a book swap. We sometimes drop one and take one. I never thought of putting my own there. Not a marketer… great ideas.
Unusual places? Well, my daughter just asked if we can part with all the old and favorite toys that are still in the toy box that is “still” in her room and fill it with books! 🙂 We are running out of space for books. 🙂 I guess the sensible thing would be to replace the toy box with a bookshelf, but the toy box does make a nice chair. 🙂
Shelli, you could pull the box away from the wall and put a bookshelf behind it. My kids each have 4 bookshelves in their rooms. No free wall space. My son also has stacks of 20-quart plastic boxes with the books placed so you can read the titles.
Great idea, Carol! Thank you. 🙂
Brick and board bookshelves. Rustic. Cheap.
Andrew’s jokes reminded me. (Thanks for the chuckle, Andrew.) When I went to Japan, I took bilingual Japanese/English Bibles (very inexpensive from American Bible Society) and left them in the hotel nightstands. I had a Japanese friend write in them that they were a gift to whoever wanted to take them. In the ‘90s, owning a lot of books was a prestigious thing in Japan. I don’t know if that is still the case. I need to investigate the appeal of American romance novels in Japan. It might be worth web-marketing there.
A bed-and-breakfast might be willing to let you provide copies for their living room area. Ski lodges often have commons as well.
Ooooh, ski lodges. What a great idea. We live in the Northwest and there are several great places to ski. I should investigate…and go skiing.
We have lots of skiing in New Mexico, too. I’d ski green and meet the Texas youth group kids while my husband skied black until his ACL surgery. We only saw each other at lunch. I would have probably enjoyed a good book by the fireplace at least as much and saved the cost of the lift ticket.
I appreciate this series you’re doing, Rachel, about unique marketing. So many great ideas, and the comments are terrific as well. Thank you!
When I was a kid, we used to go to a place called Hartstine Island for occasional vacations. They had a community center with a pool, ping pong tables and–a library! I used to check out all the Hardy Boys books I could get my hands on and spent the week reading out in the woods. Sheer joy! We went back there a few years ago and I was excited to leave a copy of my debut novel. I wrote a little message inside about how much the place and the library meant to me. The thought of someone sitting in those same woods reading my book…It gives me goosebumps! I don’t know that I’d call it marketing, but it’s still thrilling!
I love this idea!
Great post resulting in great ideas. Thanks, Rachel. I donate copies of my book on post-abortion recovery (Over Coffee, We shared Our Secrets) to pregnancy resource centers and also to Christian Library International, an organization that supplies books to prison libraries.