Whitney Spotts, from Schuler books gave us a quick drink from a fire hose on how to promote your book.

This was aimed specifically at independantly published hardcopy books being promoted at bookstores (like Schuler's), but the advice was relevant to just about anything.

It's best to get your books distributed via Ingram or Baker & Taylor. Specify that these are to be handled as guaranteed sales. This will cost more, but the bookstores won't touch stuff that they have to hold forever whether it sells or not.

Schuler's offers a 60/40 split for consignment sales, plus a $25.00 consignment fee. We're pricing our books low, so we only see about $1.00 of profit in our 60% of the cover price (after we pay shipping, etc), so that means we've got to expect to sell 25 books at Schuler's to make this worth setting up.

Things that help you publicize your book:

1. Cover - it should match the genre and not look amateurish.
2. Reviews - from a legitimate source
3. Author photo - go to a real photographer and get something professional looking.
4. Press kit - cover of the book, author photo, blurb, reviews or
5. Mailing list - maintain it yourself or use mailchimp or Constant Contact.
6. Author website - Buy your own domain name, don't be hosting.org/my_name
7. Social media: Facebook, etc. Posts should be about you and your work about 1 in 4.
8. Goodreads - Good for reviews and general activity.

When approaching Schuler's to promote your book (like a signing)

• Send an email query to Whitney
  Include:
  1. Press kit.
  2. Contact info.
  3. A way for her to review the book (epub, or send a hardcopy)
  4. High resolution copy of front cover

• Do whatever you can to make this easier for Schuler's.
  Ideally, everyone will make money from the event, but the reality is that it costs them money and time to set up the event, and the sales are unlikely to match that cost.

Schuler's doesn't do many single-author signings. If you're Kim Harrison with a multi-thousand fan-base, you'll fill the bookstore.

For the rest of us, it's better to group several folks with similar readerships together. Each author will bring ten or so family and friends to the event, so you'll end up being exposed to readers who don't know your stories, but might just like them.

One of her big watchwords was to be professional. That goes for proofreading, cover art, author photo, etc.