Setting up Book Signings.

All personal matters aside, this blog is also designed to help aspiring authors get their books out there. Aspiring authors for some reason think they need to set up book signings to sell books, sort of like using the "if you build it they will come mentality."

Of course that makes sense unless one understands that chain bookstores and sadly a LOT of Independent bookstores only survive because of the money brought in by authors published by large houses (you see at one time there was no such thing as self-pubbed or small press or *gasp* POD.)

The first store I'd like to let you know about in detail is Books-A-Million, the third largest book retailer in the nation or so that's the claim I saw. Don't know how or when this was decided but assuming it's the truth, that's what they are.

I have one in my immediate area and a few not that far away. The workers there are quite nice but that's about as far as that goes. Like Barnes & Noble and other chain stores there is a CRM to set up signings for an author. It is quite the joke though and here's why. Most Small Press publishers have finally figured out that not only is it prudent to print their books using Print-on-Demand but it is also prudent to make their books non-returnable so that chain bookstores won't order their books on a whim or at the coercion of some overzealous bookseller at BookMasters(a POD distributor) who wants to earn a commission and doesn't seem to care that the publisher is going to eat all those books when they're returned because said book didn't sell during the time they were in the box in the bookstore's back room. And by eat I mean the publisher NEVER EVER sees the returned book again because no POD ever accepts returned books back. It cost them too much. Lightning Source does offer to print publishers a NEW book for $2.00 which helps recoup SOME of the printing fee but small press still EATS returned books ALWAYS.

Now back to BAM. Google it if you want but BAM uses two distributors. Both distributors ONLY sell returned-from-the-bookstore books and/or books acquired through liquidation. When a small press/POD publisher calls to see about setting up a signing they are told they are not in BAM's system. It doesn't matter whether your book shows up for sale on-line, you have to be in BAM's "system." They'll tell you that you have to send a form or contact their "home" office. Well, I've tried this quite a few times and even once accidentally overheard two individuals talking/laughing, whilst they were transferring me. "It's that crazy lady again. Do you want to talk to her?"

My guess is that there is no form and there is no way for any author to do a signing at BAM. But then, who would want to when all they sell are books that neither the author or the publisher ever made/make money off of. Yes, the large publisher's made their money. They sold a gazillion books to the chain bookstores initially, as is standard mode of operation, (this is how they achieve best-selling status without ever selling a book to anyone,) those books that don't sell are then sent back to the distributor who then sells the leftovers to folks like the distributors BAM gets their books from.

BAM now has quite a few of my hard copies of Never Ceese for sell because my first publisher liquidated over 4000 when they went under. They also have copies of Forever Richard because BookMasters, for lack of a better term, STOLE, returned copies and sold them to earn more money that my publisher nor I never saw. The real rub was when I went into my local BAM and was told I WAS in their system with Forever Richard and was allowed to do a signing. A month later when I wanted to help get rid of the other fourteen books that were on the shelf, I was told I was no longer in the system.

Fact is, I was never in the system. Local store folks thought I was because Forever Richard was in stock. They got in trouble which is fine because I was sure hotter than hell knowing that I sat there and made an attempt to sell stolen books that I of course would never see one dime from and neither would my second publisher who worked so hard to help me get out there.

But yes, that's how BAM operates. They simply order books from two distributors who dabble in returned-from-the-bookstore books or liquidated books. I'd like to say I made that up but you can google it yourself. I apologize if you don't have a BAM in your area and don't know what I'm talking about. I'll cover Barnes & Nobles next. ;D






large published authors can bring them because for the longest time large publishers was all that existed.

To help out I do post every now and then the chain stores I've gone to