BOOKISH: It’s a Barnum and Bailey World

I have a writing friend who is self-published. In drumming up sales, he bought ads, putting money into Amazon and Facebook. How much money, I don’t know. I’m afraid to ask.

“Nothing happened,” he said.

“What do you mean by nothing?”

“I haven’t sold a book.”

I can’t say I’m surprised. Self-published books don’t sell. Any self-published book. If a self-published book did sell, then I’d be surprised.

My friend is talking about renting a stand at a book fair. Authors stack books on desks and hand sell these to the passerby. Not sure this works. See above. And I’ve been to enough events to get an idea of success rates. Now, I can’t buy any more books. If I bring one more book home my house will explode like that Monty Python movie where the fat guy has one more chocolate.

So I can’t buy their books, but they invariably give out book markers. These I can bring home. And when I check out their books on Amazon and Goodreads, the picture is clear. With two, or four, or six ratings they aren’t selling books. When you have 6,000 ratings, you’re selling books.

That’s what you see with a name publisher. If an author doesn’t have thousands, or at least hundreds of ratings on Amazon and Goodreads, that author won’t have a name publisher for long.

My friend might try a book fair. Or he might not. He’s conflicted, and gets irritated when I question throwing around more money. I’ve seen it before. Writers will trust the industry more than their own good sense. As for myself, I use Hemingway as a guide. I’m not doing anything he didn’t do, and he didn’t hand sell books. That’s not to say I’m doing everything he did do. I’m not divorcing three wives (or even one wife), stall out after two good books, become a blowhard tough guy caricature, and drink away my talent.

Then again, he did sell a lot of books. Maybe I should reconsider.

Nah.

So I’m not hand selling books. It’s demeaning. It’s ineffective, when profit is measured by volume, and volume means thousands and thousands. Your hands couldn’t move fast enough.

But here’s the pickle. I recently attended an author reading at our library. I wouldn’t call him a big name author, but big enough, with a big five (or is it big four?) imprint. After the reading, and the question and answer session, he sat down at a desk. On that desk were books. A whole stack of them.

His books were for sale, cash only. To his credit, he seemed terribly embarrassed. The first customer didn’t have enough money. He gave away the book. The second had too much and couldn’t make change. He gave away the book. I’m not sure, but I think he gave away all the books.

This is my take. Somehow, someplace in his contract he had to hand sell books, at bookstores, libraries, whatever. I realized his pickle might become mine. I have a novel I’d like published. And if it means a big five (or is it big four?) contract, sign me up.

You might even see me at your own library with a stack of books. BTW — yours is free.