Selling Books - Part 3

The retailers who carry my books are a big part of my sales team. But I get the most satisfaction from one-on-one selling, also known in the book biz as “hand-selling.”

For one thing, the profits are larger, since I don’t have to pay the retailers’ commission, which can range from 20 to 40 percent. There are still expenses involved, since I usually sell at special events like book or heritage fairs, or at a speaking engagement. Most of the time, there’s a cost involved for renting space, plus there’s mileage expenses and the time invested.

Occasionally I have attended events where I haven’t sold a single book, let alone enough to cover my expenses. But that has become the exception, for a couple of reasons.

One is the War of 1812 clothing I usually wear to events. Almost all my books are historical non-fiction, and some relate to the War of 1812, so it’s a nice fit. But the clothing also gets loads of attention, especially when few other people are wearing period outfits. I have Bob Blakeley to thank for that, since he’s the one who persuaded me to get involved in War of 1812 re-enacting.

Bob and I do a lot of events together, and invariably he wears militia tunic. The colour, scarlet, and all the gold braid just fascinates people, and once they start to ask questions, it’s easy to direct them to the books we’re selling.

Sometimes, though, we’re at an event where people are a little distracted or overwhelmed because there is so much going on. That’s when our opening pitch comes in. Bob’s better much at this than I am, although I’m learning. Most of the time, I’ll just say hello and let people look over the books themselves. But we’ve found that this isn’t quite enough in many cases.

So Bob has developed a couple of opening lines. Sometimes he tells people that they’re looking at the very finest books on Canadian history. More often, he’ll say something like, “Cheryl and I have written nearly every book on this table.”

That usually gets people’s attention, although we have had a couple of people (both men) who didn’t believe us. One actually called Bob a liar; the other mumbled something about Pinocchio. What caused those reactions is anybody’s guess, but we think there are a lot of people out there who assume we’re booksellers, not the authors. So now we post little signs and make sure we mention that we’re the people who wrote the books.

Obviously we can’t present an unbiased opinion about our books, but we certainly know the subject matter and can talk them up, at great length if necessary. And our approach is pretty friendly. No hard selling, just talking about an aspect of Canadian history that interests us, and, we hope, interests the prospective customer. Now, they won’t all buy – some just aren’t readers, some don’t have the money, some are simply more interested in the social aspect of the event rather than the actual history. We know this going in, so we aren’t disappointed.

But what we try to do is get every person to take away something physical – a business card or a list of our books, anything with contact information that might eventually lead them or a friend to make a purchase.

Another factor that seems to have increased our sales is a team approach. For more than 20 years, I sold all my books on my own at various events. My husband is simply not interested in books or history. Teaming up with Bob has been one of the best things that ever happened to me. There are the obvious benefits of having an extra person around to handle busy times. But there is also something else going on, which Bob and I have discussed at length. Some women are not comfortable dealing with a sole man, some men are not comfortable dealing with a sole woman, some couples are not comfortable dealing with a sole person of either sex. Some people are not comfortable dealing with the only person in the room in a period outfit. But when there are TWO of us, most of the obstacles disappear.

What also helps is that Bob and I have complementary skills and really enjoy each other’s company. For instance, after we unload everything at an event, he usually wanders off to smoke his pipe and get us coffee, while I set up. I move fast, and I’m quite tense when setting up. When he comes back, he usually makes a few adjustments to fine-tune our display, but by this point the hard part is done and I’m much more relaxed. Just by getting out of each other’s way for a little while, we set ourselves up for success. Similarly, because we share common interests and a strange sense of humour, we really enjoy ourselves at these events. And THAT – the positive vibes we’re sending out – more than anything else, brings in the customers. We’re just having so much fun they have to come by and talk!

Underlying all this is our fundamental faith in our books. We believe they’re good, otherwise we wouldn’t have written them. And, although they’re aimed at a small niche market, we also believe they’re important. We want people to share our enthusiasm for history, and our joy in writing about it. Yes, the money is important – we have to buy groceries and pay the rent. But one-on-one sales goes way beyond that. It’s a way to connect with readers and get immediate feedback.

And it’s a lot of fun.

Next time: Speaking to Sell