Dear Author,
Here is a story I heard recently that I think you need to hear too.
There was a man whom after he finished youth service in the Northern Part of Nigeria was instructed by God stay back and sell gala. At that time, gala wasn’t an household name among those in that environment.
He obey the instruction and began marketing to shops and individuals. Soon he realized that shop owners only invest in stuff that have popular demand. He began asking questions on how to increase demands. According to the story, God told him to send people who lived amongst him and loved gala to go to those shops and place a demand for gala.
Not long after, the shop owners began calling him to get gala.
I do not know how true this story is but it sure has valuable lessons but would love to streamline it to benefit writers who are authoring books.
First, you wrote a book and that is great. Congratulations.
You choose to publish in hard copy format which is a huge investment. But taking it to bookshop for sell would mean you pay attention to a few things and one of them is to create demand for your product.
Do personal publicity for it. Use your social media platforms. Share bits from your book. Talk about it. Shops would ask for your books. The reason why they won’t ask is if they feel the demand is poor and the potential of selling your books would never be converted to a kinetic stage.
Bookshops are there to help you is just so the channel of distribution is closer to your consumers.
And there is nothing wrong mentioning the name of the bookshop where your books can be found. It’s called partnership.
If you decide to do it alone, you may not be able to keep up with supply and demand especially is your audience is wide.
Don’t go shouting, “Bookshops don’t like to sell my books,” ask “how I would get them to sell my books.
I would stop here even though I know that story is rich and holds more lessons than I have shared.
I hope this blesses and informs someone.
From Your Friend,
Onyebuolise Grace Ngozi.
Leave a comment