Following on from Lynda Bouchard’s post on the Treasure Hunt for Author Publicity, I wanted to share a few thoughts about what drives a reader to a book… hopefully your book! It all begins with the “impulse buy…”
When my children were young, we were concerned, as most new parents should be, that they not be too spoiled, and that they grow up with some measure of fiscal responsibility. So the rule in our house was, no impulse buys. If they saw a toy or piece of clothing they wanted (toys for the boy, clothing for the girl of course) they couldn’t just buy it on a whim. We’d head back to the store (or not) a couple weeks later if it was still something they really, really wanted.
Typically by that time the newest, hottest, must-have was either no longer of interest to their young wandering minds. Or, it was on sale – offering up another life lesson, never pay retail!
Of course there was one mighty exception to that rule: Books. Because of course our other desire for our kids was that they learn everything they could about absolutely everything!
We’d head to the local Barnes & Noble once a week, and there they could pick whatever book(s) they wanted, as could their book-greedy parents. Venturing out to the bookstore became a family ritual, bolstered by lattes for the adults and hot cocoa or lemonade for the kids. And happily for us, no amount of school work, friends, baseball or horse backriding distractions came between us and our impulse-buy excursions. Once a week, we were proud book geeks. On the ride home we’d talk about our finds and why they struck our fancies…
The consequences were that they both learned to read –and to love books– at a very early age, and felt empowered to choose their own reading material and pursue their own interests. My son gobbled up creepy R.L. Stine, then the Harry Potter series, then found more fascination in non-fiction, devouring every book of obscure facts he could get his tiny arms around. When he had bad dreams he bought books about dreams and what they meant.
My daughter read every horse fiction book on the planet, then quickly moved through any available YA and right on to adult tales of vixens and vampires. A sudden fascination with Egypt brought a collection of Egyptian history and architecture to our shelves… My interest in gardening brought vibrant color (despite my inability to keep a plant alive – a girl can dream). My husband sought new thriller and mystery fiction, then eagerly searched the author’s other work. Then there’s the dozen books on Da Vinci and… well, you get the idea.
Today, the family library is two stories tall, jam-packed with treasures we’re each unwilling to part with – a sort of family history of our interests and impulses over the the past 20 years. Sure, nowadays we all have e-reading devices, iPads and Kindles, but we still succumb to the impulse buy at the local book store, too, and will always enjoy curling up on the library couch and turning real pages…
But the great news is that impulse book buying, thanks to this brave new digital world, is easier than ever. Books remain a top selling online category, despite extensive online marketing of everything from music to cars. And why not? Books are portable, inexpensive, interesting, and let us each delve into subjects that fascinate us… helping us, as Lynda aptly put it, “discover who we are.”
Let’s turn that around now and ask yourself the critical question about your own book(s): What will distinguish my book from all those other books on the shelf (physical or virtual) that will make it my readers’ ultimate impulse buy?
It’s a trick question – there are so many right answers, from seeking book reviews and book clubs, to schlepping out to the indie book store, to arranging book signings in non-traditional places, to blogging to your unique reader subset, to doing online giveaways and carrying on conversations in the social media space to…
There’s only one wrong answer – do nothing and just hope.
So tell us, what makes your book the ultimate impulse buy, and for whom? We’ll share those answers with readers everywhere via our own social media, too, so make your comments count!
Creator of Where Writers Win, Shari Stauch has been involved in publishing, marketing and PR for 30 years. She is also the principal author of the WWW blog, and speaks at conferences around the country. The Where Writers Win team’s newest collaboration is The Winner Circle – vetted book review directories, book clubs and other cultivated resources for emerging authors.
Shari,
What a wonderfully evocative post about the wonder of books. Thank you for sharing this. Imagination is far more important than knowledge and books help to ignite our imaginations.
What makes one book stand out from another? Titles, covers and most importantly – great writing! No amount of fancy cover art can overcome a badly written book. It’s like a betrayal to the reader!
I hope your children appreciate you ….and your fab library!
Aw, thanks Lynda! Yes, they do appreciate us and the fab library – it’s helped them become the magnificent creatures they are! Great point about imagination… where would we writers be without it, eh?!
Shari Stauch, is that your family’s two-story library in the photo? Wow – I’m impressed.
You tapped into my memory box with your post. When our older daughter was young, one of her favorite bedtime books to have read to her by my husband was an I Can Read book by Dr. Seuss – Go Dog, Go. One evening her sister, 18 months younger, picked it up and read it through, hardly missing a word. Several nights later we determined Suzanne had memorized the words, partly by the drawings and partly by looking at the words and teaching herself to read Go Dog, Go. They both now are prolific readers.
In one-year diaries in the first half of the 1960s I wrote nightly entries, never missing a night. They are being transcribed in my blog, A 1961-65 Park College Diary.
My last entry will be April 25, 2015, 50 years to the date after I graduated from Park. My plan is to have A 1961-65 Park College Diary published and for sale at the 50th anniversary reunion of our graduating class which will be a part of the campus Harvest Festival in the fall of 2015.
A fabulous story!!! Yes, that’s our library and we as children also learned to read quite early. Started with the famed Bobbsey Twins (bought one every weekend for 99 cents with my dollar allowance) then Nancy Drew, then Margerite Henry, whereupon I decided I’d be a writer some day 🙂 If you want an incredible trip down nostalgia lane, Pat Conroy’s My Reading Life is brilliant – got me to thinking about all the books I’d read and been influenced by… delightful stuff!
It’s true that you can’t tell a book by its cover; it’s equally true that a great cover can cause a reader to pick up a book and take a look a the the back side-which MIGHT lead to an ‘impulse buy.’ I paid a couple of artists for the rights to my covers (see them at http://www.mckendreelong.com), and for my genre, Historical Fiction/Civil War/Western, they are outstanding. The value has been proven to me directly whenever I’ve displayed them at gun shows and fairs, but has also been confirmed by results in bookstores. Book managers that constantly reorder from me tell me that the books are either on an ‘end cap’ display, or are face-out on the shelf. Stores with mediocre sales have my books spine-out, invariably.
I’m unknown. NO ONE is going to walk into a bookstore like City Lights in Sylva NC and ask for a book by McKendree Long, and yet 16 books have sold there. Booksellers At Laurelwood, Memphis, has sold 33, and little Bitter Creek Books, Vernal Utah, has sold 34. Most of my books were sold in the Southwest (go figure), yet stores 200 miles apart with identical demographics have wild differences in sales: 20, face-out versus 3, spine-out.
What you can do about that is report the difference to the ‘mediocre’ managers and ask that they give you some exposure. And pray. Some authors actually visit stores and shuffle books a little to place their own face-out. Book store owners probably disapprove of that, unless your book starts selling. Then they love it.
Excellent insights, Mike! And great advice, too… Agree – I loved your books but was indeed first attracted by the well-executed covers. Now, get yourself registered to PubSmart – we want you here (and I promise plenty more knowledge to increase your sales!