I welcome Lisa Raby of Nerd Girl Industries to discuss getting books into bookstores beyond Amazon. Lisa explains why bookstores matter, including passive income opportunities, access to new reader communities, free promotion through author events, and bookstores ordering back catalogs.

The myth that traditional or hybrid publishers automatically get books into more bookstores is false since publishers only push marketing for a specific percentage of titles, leaving most authors responsible for their own marketing, event scheduling, and social media, regardless of publishing method. Advanced Reader Copies distributed physically or electronically through platforms like NetGalley help booksellers decide whether titles fit their collections, though ARCs cannot legally be sold since they're unfinalized copies.

Check bookstore websites for submission information first, then email or call keeping communication short and polite. Create a one-page sell sheet in PDF format including cover image, title, publisher, page count, two to three sentence blurb, and professional reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, or book trade magazines rather than Goodreads or Amazon since booksellers read trade publications for purchasing decisions. Include accolades or awards bringing credibility.

Contact bookstores about a month before publication date for new titles, but work with your back catalog first to solidify relationships and prove your books sell before pushing new releases since bookstores plan events up to a year in advance. For authors with multiple genres under different pen names, research each bookstore's collection balance and create separate sell sheets for each book.

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Hey friends and future authors, this is Lynn "Elikqitie" Smargis, back again for another episode of Publishing for Professionals. Today, we have a fabulous guest expert for you. But before we jump into today's show, I want to give a big welcome back to my return listeners. Thank you so much for joining me again, and a big welcome to my new listeners. Make sure you hit the follow and subscribe buttons.

to get the professional writing and publishing information dropped straight to your podcast player or your YouTube channel every week. Today, I have an incredible conversation lined up for you. I'm joined by Lisa Rabey of Nerd Girl Industries, who originally aimed to work with clients inside the learning environment. She works with how-to materials and personalized instruction as key tools. She is a fabulous educator because I know her from...

her coming to my writing group and doing a workshop. She has over a dozen classes for creatives and small businesses such as social media, website management, as well as diversity and inclusion, which is a really big one nowadays. And also getting your books into bookstores and libraries, which we are going to be talking about today because that's a really hot topic with my ghostwriting and book editing clients. Lisa, thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. I'm pretty excited about this.

I'm super excited because when we talked, when you did this class for my writers' group, I was like, "My gosh, this is perfect to have you come on because I have so many people asking me this exact question: 'How do I get my books into bookstores?'" And a lot of people feel like they have to have a publisher to do that, but we're going to talk about that piece in a little bit. So the first question I want to ask you, Lisa, is when I know a lot of people really love getting their books into bookstores.

Why is it important for people to have their books in bookstores and not just on Amazon?

Passive income. That's like the big one, right? You get passive income. You have the bookstores ordering your books or your audiobooks. You can get—you know, audiobooks are still a huge deal, especially in the physical format. It is okay. So passive income is a big one. It is opening yourself up to a new community. It is getting the bookstore to get your back catalog. It is, in a way, free promotion by giving author talks...

...or signings, or working with them on some kind of event. I actually, in a class—I taught this class for another writers' group—and a question that came up which really shocked me: "Why should I bother?" After I had listed all this stuff on the benefits of having your book in a bookstore,

she wasn't convinced. And in my head, I'm like, "You're literally opening yourself up to a whole new community of readers. Why would you want not to have that opportunity?" Right? So, especially since you can do so much more promotion, and most of it is going to be free for you in a physical space, or even in a virtual space, because a lot of bookstores do virtual events. So you can do that on...

So why would you not take advantage of that opportunity?

I actually did not know that bookstores do virtual events. That's super cool. I may come back to that later. But so one of the things I know some people do is this "spray and pray" method of getting their books into bookstores where they just have like a form email, and then they just, you know, blow it out to every indie bookstore they can find on Google Maps within a certain range. So why is that not a great idea to do, Lisa?

So the big thing is that bookstores are going to curate their content or their collection to the community. So you would not send—if you wrote a horror novel, you would not send an email to a romance-only bookstore, right? Because that is not who your community is. And people actually do that. Like they literally just take the list and, as you said, essentially spam out the entire community that's within a certain amount...

...of space. Lack of research is huge. Lack of finding out what that community supports. Lack of having a one-on-one discussion with the manager or the book buyer or what have you. Creating a sell sheet—or not creating a sell sheet—and a sell sheet is essentially a one-

page document that has a cover image of your book along with vital information such as title, publisher, you know, all that good stuff, blurbs, accolades, whatever. Not providing that in the email, making it very clear in the email that you are not willing to understand the community and the market. There are a lot of...

...missteps a lot of authors do, and it's very frustrating because I don't know where they're getting this information from, because it's being repeated over and over again. So it's coming from somewhere, and whoever that person is dispensing this information needs to stop because it's causing more heartache than it is being beneficial.

Yeah, that's like in the podcasting industry for some reason; people kept saying, "Yeah, get a Blue Yeti if you're doing a podcast," and that's definitely not the mic you want to use. It's the same thing with the book thing; someone keeps saying that—nobody knows who—but it's not good information. So okay, a couple of questions based on what you just told me, Lisa, and this has been super informative so far: What questions do writers need to ask when they call a local bookstore...

to find out if their book is a right fit.

Can I speak to your book buyer?

Yes, you can.

And this is just similar to authors trying to get their books into libraries, right? They assume whoever's answering the phone is going to have the authority to do the book buying or collection development. And that's not true. Now, this is not to say the book buyer or the assistant manager or the manager, whoever's responsible for curating the collection, won't answer the phone, but don't launch into your spiel if you're calling them without asking...

to speak to the person you need to speak to because chances are that person is going to take a message and not deliver it.

Exactly. Yes. Yeah. That's really important to know—that you're actually speaking to the person who is the one who's going to make the decision and you're not speaking to an assistant or sales team member. Because that is absolutely correct; nine out of ten times, even if the person has good intentions, there are multiple people that work at that bookshop and it might not get to them. Okay. So, should you send an email out first or is it better to just call them on the phone...

and be more personal and speak with them one-on-one.

This is a very difficult question to answer. And the reason is that each bookstore operates differently. Some welcome the emails and will have a form on their website for you as an author to fill in and submit; others prefer phone calls.

I would say do a little of both. First, check out the bookstore's website to see if there's information in relation to submitting your book title and proposal, right? So that would be the first thing I would do. If you can't find any information on it, the next step would be to

You're going to have similar results regardless of your email or call. If you call, preface it by saying, "I'm a local author," or "I'm an author and I would like to get my books into your bookstore. Who do I need to speak to to see if that's a possibility?" Be very polite. Don't give your name. Don't give the title of your book. Don't go through your entire spiel because, again...

...whoever is answering the phone more than likely is not going to have the authority to do book collection. But do ask for the name of the book buyer. So just be very polite, direct, and succinct. In the email, if you decide to go the email route, keep the email incredibly short. You're going to want to create a sell sheet, which is something I mentioned a few minutes ago. You want to attach that sell sheet in PDF format, not as a Word doc.

So Google link it—don't link it to Microsoft Office—just do an attachment. And you need to persuade them why you should have your book in their store. This is where the research comes in. This is understanding the community. This is where, for example, we have a local bookstore here in my village that is open to local authors. I walked in and spoke to the owner...

...and said, "Hey, I have these books available. Would you be interested in selling them in your store?" And she said, "Sure." And it was really that easy. But I had done my research and knew whom to speak to. So that is the very important thing. And again, keep it succinct and to the point. Booksellers do not have the time to read...

a long diatribe on why they should buy your book. Because chances are that email is getting deleted.

Right. And that sell sheet—I know you were saying send it as a PDF. And the reason is a PDF, no matter what computer or software you have, you can download a PDF and easily read it. Whereas if you have a Word document and someone's on a Mac, then they might not have that. So yeah, obviously always send a PDF. And then on your sell sheet, should it only be one page? Yes. Okay. Only one page. And then what are the key components you want to have on your sell sheet? I know you mentioned a few earlier.

Yes.

I recommend going through Bowker and buying your ISBNs directly rather than being dependent upon the publisher if you're going indie-published...

...or if you're doing it on Amazon and using their ISBNs. Typically those won't revert over to other stores. Number of pages. You want a very succinct blurb—two to three sentences. I'm a big fan of: if you can't describe your book in two to three sentences or have an elevator pitch for it, you have no idea what you're writing about. Do you have reviews?

You want the reviews on the sell sheet. Now here's the catch: no Goodreads reviews, no Amazon reviews, no BookBaby. If you're on NetGalley, you need to get your book professionally reviewed in book pages, Publishers Weekly, Kirkus. All these magazines I have mentioned do have, if you're an indie publisher...

...a section for you to submit to get your book reviewed. Those count because that's what the bookseller is reading. That's where they're getting their information about the book. I mean, there's other ways as well, but when they are going and doing their purchasing on what's up and coming, not only are they taking into consideration what's being sent by publishers, but they're also taking into account what the recommendations are...

...through these magazines and periodicals, and also what the community is asking for as well. So stay away from Goodreads, Amazon, Barnes & Noble. You know, you need a professional review. And do two or three of those. Somebody has asked me, "What if I have accolades of some sort?" Definitely add that on your sell sheet. Definitely mention, especially for this book, if this book was a finalist for something or it won an award.

Or you won an award. Definitely mention that as well because that's another positive thing. You're bringing some credibility to your work. So that's definitely huge.

Nice, awesome. That sounds great. Okay, my friends, we're going to take a quick break right here. I am really excited to have Lisa back for the second half because I have some more questions to ask her about how you get your books into a bookstore. So stay tuned. We will be right back shortly. Thanks.

Hey friends and future authors. I'm back with Lisa Rabey of Nerd Girl Industries and we are talking about how to get your book into bookstores, which is a super hot topic. And Lisa has been dropping so much value here today on this episode. And if you know someone who is a published author and they're looking to get their book spread out into more places, make sure you share this episode with them today, either from YouTube or share it from your audio podcast player. Okay, Lisa. So before, we talked...

...a lot about the basics and we talked about, you know, how to approach bookstore sellers and things like that. And you also mentioned making sure that your reviews are by professional reviewers, not on Amazon or Goodreads. A couple of other questions that I had: Is there, if you're contacting a bookstore, a better time to call? Like, I'm assuming don't call on the weekend because they're going to be super busy.

Don't call during the holiday season. Pretty much plan for anything from the first week of November to after New Year. That is going to be a no-go time. Most—well, I shouldn't say most, almost...

...all indie publishers that I know know ahead of time when their book is going to be coming out. So whether they're actually going through a small publishing house or they're doing it themselves, they have a timeline for when the book is coming out, right? So you want to time asking the bookstore to work with you on when to contact them. So if you know your book is coming out in June, I would probably start calling around mid-May...

...and say, "Hey, I have a book coming out," or what have you. Or if that feels too soon to you, which I totally understand, then kind of push it up to around the date that the book is coming out. Definitely also suggest author signings or author events. Holidays are huge; you want to make sure you tie into those holidays. If you write horror, you definitely want to do Halloween. If you do romance, you definitely want to do Valentine's Day.

Here's another tip, if you write holiday romance, those gotta be out in September.

yes.

September and October are the big months when all the holiday romances start coming out. So you need to definitely stay away from the times that I listed, but also keep in mind that bookstores do event planning as much as a year in advance. So that's when you start facilitating those relationships. And it's even more beneficial if you have a back catalog...

...because that's the way they can test you to see if your books are going to be worthwhile to have in their store, right? So if you have a back catalog, definitely make suggestions to do an author signing, and that will help solidify a relationship with the bookstore. It'll also allow them to know, "Hey, this particular author sells well, is popular, the event was well attended," or whatever the case is. We're definitely going to keep them on our "to buy" list.

Got it. Okay. So for a timeline, if you're looking to get your book into a bookstore, you want to make sure you have your—let me ask you this question because this is what I don't even know: Can you get your book professionally reviewed before it's published? Yes. Okay, awesome. Okay. So timeline-wise, about a year ahead if you can manage this in your marketing plan, you want to start reaching out to bookstores and say, "Hey, I have this book that is publishing next year."

Or is a year ahead too far?

A year is way too far in advance. I would, for your marketing timeline, take into consideration your back catalog and the exact date it's coming out, because having a sell sheet with reviews—to quickly go back to answer your question—if you use NetGalley to distribute your books, or you can get author copies to send out as an ARC...

You definitely want to do that as well before you go ahead and start promoting for the actual publication date. Those can be submitted to the magazines and newspapers that I listed. Also, getting it published in local newspapers is beneficial as well. So we can add that onto your list. A year is way too far in advance.

You're building your audience. They're getting to know you as an author, especially if you're doing events. Work with the back catalog first before you start pushing new titles. But if you have a new title coming out, I would say about a month ahead of time.

Got it. So what about someone like myself? So, like, I have four nonfiction books and then I'm now writing some fiction. So what about people like me who have two—and my fiction's under a completely different pen name because I want to make sure I have consistency and branding. So what about people who have two complete different genres? Like, do I go in with two sell sheets or do I sell one type of book at a time? Like, I go in and sell my travel gluten-free...

And then if they like that, say, "Hey, by the way, if you're interested, I also have this romance book."

That could get confusing. Absolutely. So the question would be: did you do your research on the bookstore? So that would be the first thing. Then you definitely want a sell sheet for every different book. Don't combine all your books on one sell sheet. You want to research—again, I'm going to keep harping on this; it's going to be the big thing you need to do—if you walk into your bookstore and they have a small...

Right.

...cookbook section or a health and wellness section compared to, let's say, their fiction section, then your nonfiction isn't necessarily going to work there, whereas your fiction might. So research is going to be the big, important thing. Now here's another thing too: you can approach corporate stores like Powell's. Well, I don't know, would Powell's be corporate?

No, actually, I think they're considered independent. They are the biggest independent bookstore in the Pacific Northwest. And for those who don't know what Powell's is, if you ever come out to Portland, Oregon, go to the main Powell's. It is a spiritual experience for any writer.

Yeah, so I mean, even Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Half Price Books have individual buyers in their stores. So you can go in; they still have titles that are coming in through corporate that are being dispensed, but they still have an independent book buyer. So you can still talk to them as well. And they will also work with you on the programming.

So just because it's Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million, don't feel intimidated by going in and talking to somebody. Yeah, especially as far as book news goes, Barnes & Noble has completely revamped their marketing and their programming. And they're putting a lot of the books that are getting sold in their stores—they're putting it back in the hands of the local stores.

It's less being distributed from corporate decision making to local decision making.

That makes way more sense too from a marketing standpoint. It's like, why would you want to try to push a book that's obviously not a good sell in that community? So, my gosh, this has been so amazing, Lisa. I know my listeners have gotten a ton out of this because it's been really great information. I think—and I don't think I asked you this one question, which was one of the most important questions I wanted to ask you:

Does going with a publisher get you into more bookstores? Because I have a lot of new authors who tell me they want to go with a traditional or hybrid publisher. And I ask them why. And usually, one of the first two reasons is they believe that they'll get into more bookstores because publishers have more connections.

Nope.

And why is that? Just because it's just as easy for you and me to go and talk to a bookstore as a publisher, I'm guessing.

So the reason being is that there are tens of thousands of books that are published through the Big Five and the smaller indie process that are actually larger. Chronicle Books would be an example of a small indie publisher, but that's quite huge. With that being said, they only push marketing for a specific percentage of their titles. So just because you are getting published through a...

...smaller house, or if you're getting published through traditional publishing methods or a hybrid publisher, does not mean they're going to spend the marketing time and energy on you to get your books into bookstores. And what is important—we did kind of touch upon this real quickly—is having an advanced reader copy, both physical and electronic, which is super helpful to have, primarily getting a print copy into the hands of the bookstore.

...because that's how publishers do get their books into bookstores: they send out the ARCs and then the ARCs are taken home by the booksellers. The booksellers read them to make recommendations to buy or what have you. So if you want—this is not a foolproof method, though; don't take that as being foolproof and absolute. My understanding from people, my author friends that are both trad- and indie-published, is they are still the ones who have to put in the marketing work.

Scheduling most of their events, the social media, the marketing plan—everything is still falling onto the author, unfortunately.

Yeah, that's what I hear a lot of. And so when you say ARCs for people who don't understand what that means, could you give a really brief definition?

Yeah, an advanced reader copy is essentially a copy of the book. It may or may not have the cover image on it. The cover image, if there is one, may or may not be the final image. The book has not been fully edited yet, so they do recommend not to copy or quote the book until after the publication date. But the idea of an ARC is for the booksellers to get a feel for the story...

...and make a decision, and the reviewers as well, on whether or not this is a good title to have included in their collection. You cannot sell ARCs. And that drives me crazy when I go into indie booksellers and they're selling the ARCs because that may not be the finalized copy of the book. That's actually illegal.

Yeah, I was going to say that's not legal for copyright reasons.

It is illegal, and there is a local bookstore near me that does this and it drives me absolutely insane. If you are done with an ARC and you don't want to keep it, recycle it. Don't sell it.

Put it in one of those little lending library things too? Or no, that's not a good idea.

It's not the finalized copy of the book. So if something changes, you know, you're not going to get the full story. But anyway, the point is...

An ARC can be a print book, it could be a manuscript of the book, or it can be an ebook of the book that is not published yet.

Correct. And NetGalley does accept applications from India authors.

Got it. And then I know when you have a beta reader, that's when people use ARCs, but people typically call that their beta reader book. But that's the same thing as an ARC, which is an advanced reader copy that people say, "Hey, this book is not completely edited yet, but I want your opinion on it." And they send it to their beta readers for feedback. Awesome. Well, Lisa, this has been so informative. I know everyone who's listening has gotten a ton out of it. If they didn't have their notebooks out, I know they're going to get them out.

And they're going to rewatch this or re-listen to it and write down a whole bunch of notes. So I know that there are going to be people who are going to want to get in touch with you. So for people on YouTube, you can see the banner at the bottom of the screen. So Lisa, for people who are not on YouTube and are on the audio version of my podcast, can you tell them how to get your special coupon code that you're offering to my listeners?

If they go to nerdgirl.net—N-E-R-D-G-I-R-L dot net—forward slash shop, they can get 20% off of any of my products. And it does include a—well, since 15 minutes isn't quite a lot to cover everything that Lynn and I went through today, I do offer the workshop in full, which lasts about an hour. And it also works with libraries as well.

I have other workshops and I also have other how-tos and downloadables. And if you use the coupon code, hiLisa, you get 20 % off your purchase.

Awesome. Sounds great. Lisa, thank you again for coming on today for the episode. This has been so valuable, and I know people who are listening got a ton out of it.

I hope so. I'm really excited to be here. So thank you for having me, Lynn.

You're welcome. Thank you for coming. All right, my friends, you know I love to work with new and repeat authors to get past their mindset, writing, and publishing hurdles so you can have a smooth publishing pathway and be confident with your books. And if you're not sure where to start, you can go to www.writeforyou.me and book your complimentary discovery call. I'm ready to stand by your side and walk you through the self-publishing process. Until next week, this is Lynn "Elikqitie" Smargis reminding you to keep writing, keep dreaming, and keep creating. Your book...

is waiting to be born.