How to Sell More Books at Your Speaking Engagements

Here’s a great nugget for how to sell your books during speaking engagements, from The Publishing Game: Bestseller in 30 Days, by Fern Reiss.

1. Before your next speaking engagement, autograph copies of your book and put an “Autographed Copy” sticker on the front.
2. Place one book on each chair. During your time at the podium your audience will be looking at your book, feeling it, and hopefully making it their own.
3. When you’re done speaking, announce that if they would like to buy the copy that was on their chair, they can see you at the back of the room (or talk with whomever you have handling sales at your book table). If not, they can give the copy to someone else you’ve designated to pick up unsold books.

Apparently this idea has resulted in dramatic increases in book sales at speaking engagements. It’s a professional way of making an “assumptive close”… you’re assuming that everyone will want one, so you’re making it easy for them by putting your book in their hands—literally!

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Holiday Greetings

The staff at WinePress would like to wish you a very blessed and happy holiday season.

The WinePress management team has a short presentation to bring you holiday cheer.

Blessings!
WinePress Staff

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Increase Your Visibility Via Social Networking

Terry Burns, literary agent for Hartline Literary Agency, says:

I’m in a half dozen writing groups including ACFW, Western Writers of America, Panhandle Professional writers and a number of others.

I social network in Shoutlife, Facebook, Book Marketing Network, Christian Authors Network, Good Reads, Jacketflap, Edgy Christian Fiction Writers, Shelfari, and I even have a small presence on Myspace, plus others.

I do it to increase visibility and to keep a finger on what the writing community is talking about. Obviously I can’t participate to any degree on all of these so I lurk a lot, but I do watch the subjects that are being discussed, sometimes just scanning content, other times reading, and sometimes participating.

It probably has a lot to do with the number of submissions that I’ve received as an agent. I can’t document what it has done for book sales, but I believe it has impacted it significantly. I believe it to be very helpful for my career and my reputation.

Am I shortchanging the groups by being in so many and participating so little? Probably.

On the other hand, it gives me the advantage of watching what is happening over a wide range of internet activity, insights that I accumulate and pass on where appropriate, which is a tradeoff for the groups.

To this point I consider it beneficial or I wouldn’t be participating to this extent.

Parenting expert, Brenda Nixon, author of Parenting Power in the Early Years: Raising Your Child with Confidence — Birth to Age Five (who, by the way, had her WinePress book picked up by Regal!) says:

I’ve used Shoutlife and other groups to make new “friends” and for socializing around the virtual watercooler. Writing can be a lonely profession so it’s healthy to reach out to like-minded people. On Shoutlife, I’ve shared some Web sites and articles on parenting (since that’s my forte) and also some speaking/writing tips to help my Shoutlife friends.

I can’t measure in numbers if social networking has made an impact on book sales. Probably, social networking has been more about creating an Internet presence and gaining exposure for my expertise, products and services.

Related article:

• Promote Your Blog on Social Networking Sites

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How to Collect Sales Tax on Book Sales

If your publisher sells and distributes your book, they will handle the sales tax collection, reporting, and payment.

If, however, you purchase copies of your book at the wholesale author discounted price and sell them (at the retail price) to your customers, you will need to collect sales tax and pay it to the state in which you live.

Here are some steps to make tracking sales tax easy and relatively painless:

1. Set up separate checking and savings accounts dedicated to your business, so you can accurately track and report your book sales. If you already have a business account, report your book sales along with your other business income.
2. Deposit all proceeds from the sales of your book into your business checking account.
3. Pay all expenses relating to selling your book through this checking account as well.
4. Transfer or deposit the sales tax collected into your business savings account so monies are available when its time to pay state taxes. Do not spend the sales tax money on other expenses.

How do I pay sales tax and who is it paid to?

Sales tax is paid to the state in which you live.

• Each state has its own rules and regulations regarding sales and sales tax.
• Contact the Department of Revenue in your state; they can provide you with the forms and information you need for reporting your sales tax and, if required, reporting book sales.
• Typically, if your book is sold to a customer outside of your state no sales tax is required to be collected.

In the Washington State, where our publishing company is located, we not only collect and pay sales tax; we also report and pay tax on the total amount of the retail book sales within our state. (Washington does not have a state income tax).

The WinePress accounting department is always happy to answer questions our authors have concerning royalties and expenses.

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Promote Your Blog on Social Networking Sites

By Jinger Jarrett, author of Internet Marketing for Free

Blogging is one of the easiest ways to get high rankings in the search engines. If you write about a popular topic that you’re passionate about, you can get a lot of readers.

The problem is that a lot of bloggers rely on search engines as their main source of traffic. If you write on a topic that people search for frequently, it’s hard to get your blog to rank high and you won’t get many visitors, much less find the readers who are looking for what you are writing about.

So, to get more traffic to your blog, you need to find more ways to promote. One easy way to do this is with social networking sites. The advantage of using a social networking site is that you have a lot of options when promoting.

When you create a profile on a social networking site, add a link to your blog. This lets others know you have a blog, and hopefully, they’ll click over to it and read it.

If you don’t have a blog, then you have the option of using the blog available on the social networking site, if one is offered. This will allow readers to read your content. You can post product reviews, articles, tutorials, and even videos or audios you’ve found on your topic.

The only disadvantage with using the blog that’s built into the social networking site is that, while your blog posts are public on the site, they won’t be picked up by the search engines. It’s best to have an external blog and cross-post some of your entries to the social networking site.

Be careful about making your content too commercial.
Otherwise, you might get banned from the site.

If the social networking site allows you to add RSS feeds, add your blog’s RSS feed to your profile.
This saves you time, because your blog entries will automatically show up on your profile. Sites that don’t offer blogs, like Orkut (a social networking site operated by Google), give you this option.

I like using RSS feeds on my social networking site profiles because my profile is constantly updated and I’m always providing new content to my visitors and readers.

Another advantage to using RSS feeds is that readers will have to click through to your blog to read the entire post. If you offer an email subscription, this gives you another opportunity to get the reader to subscribe to your blog.

If the social networking site offers forums or groups, add a link to your profile in your signature file.
You just need to know a little HTML in order to code your link unless the site offers an editor that will code it for you. Again, avoid being too commercial. Your goal is to get others to click through your link to your blog and subscribe, not sell them something.

Many social networking sites have private messaging, as well as bulletins you can send out.
When sending out private messages, you don’t want to spam or try to just sell the person something. Make sure you are friends first. With bulletins, try to write a catchy headline and make your bulletin newsworthy. Use a soft sell. Don’t make others feel as if they’re being sold to.

Want to learn how top marketers use social networking to expand their businesses? “Social Marketing Success” teaches you how to easily bring in more profits in just a few minutes a day.

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