Selling Books...What If?

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief for Southern Writers Magazine

You've got a large broadcasting company and a large cable company unable to come to terms on fees to be paid and the cable company goes black on those channels for a short period of time, customers can’t see their shows…then the cable company puts the shows back on. Possibly to prove a point? I would imagine the broadcasting company got the message since negotiations have resumed as of this writing.

It got me to thinking– what would happen if publishers and bookstores were at odds over how much money is charged and the bookstores decided not to carry that publishers books. What would happen to the authors published by those publishing companies? That means no author whose book was published by that company would be carried in some bookstores.

In today’s arena, it is imperative that authors have many avenues designated to sell their books. Authors need to be in bookstores but they also need their books in other places they can refer the readers.  Perhaps authors should have their book for sale on their own website or at least be prepared to add it there should the need arise. Many authors don’t want to get involved with the day-to-day selling, and I can understand that, but sometimes it is necessary.

That is one reason we designed our bookstores. For our guest posters on SWM's blog, Suite T, we are in the middle of updating our bookstore. What that means, is everyone who guest post on Suite T will have his or her name mentioned in the Suite T Store. People can go there, click on your name, and it will take them to your books.  We also have the bookstore for every author that is in our magazine. Then the third bookstore, is for up and coming. We are working every day to get the names of authors in those stores.

If you don’t see your name in Suite T’s bookstore, please let us know. You can  staff@southernwritersmag.com and give them your author’s name and the name of your current book. We will take it from there. We will then give you a button to put on your website/blog so people will have another place to come to buy your books.

The more places people see your name the more books you will sell.