If you publish a book on your own, how can you get it to find its way to national bookstore outlets?

[Ck]

self-publishing....is there any hope to get the book to go national?

[matthewherch]

It will take a good amount of money and diligence on your part. I have self published 2 books so far and was able to sell about 300 copies, mainly to friends, relatives, and my online advertising campaign. Lulu.com has services offered to distribute your book to national retailers. But, like I said, it will cost you.

However, you could simply buy a bunch of copies, sell them locally and give them to your libraries. This way, people could see them and wonder where to get them at. Put your contact info inside.

[hp_resource]

It's very unlikely. Successful self publishing leads to your book being available on Amazon.com, which is nothing to scoff at, but more than that is nearly impossible.

Hope that helps!

[Atsuko_Chan]

Major bookstore outlets do not sell self-published books on their shelves. People can special order your book if it has an ISBN number, but they would have to know that your book actually exists and major bookstores won't help you with marketing. You're better off going in the traditional route--finding an agent and letting him or her find a publishing house for you.

[akaMaryn]

I wish you'd asked this before you self-published, because if your book is fiction, that's not the way to go. As you're realizing, most sales of fiction still take place in stores, and stores do not carry self-published books simply because they do not sell.

Why don't they sell? I haven't read your book and would not say this if I had, but the plain fact is most self-published fiction simply isn't good enough to compete with fiction from paying publishers.

Marketing a pay-to-publish book is damned difficult. Many of the avenues open to traditionally published authors are not available. Chain bookstores won't host signings or carry copies (although they will order them for customers). Newspapers, magazines, TV, and radio don't want your press releases and won't do interviews. The library system won't accept free copies. Writing- or book-related conventions won’t let you set up a sales or autograph table, don’t want you on their author panels, and forbid you giving away promotional material.

The author's blog, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and other electronic self-promotion efforts seem to have little effect in terms of increased sales for fiction.

About the only marketing I've seen have any effect for self-published fiction authors is active participation at forums and chats dealing with the subject of your book. Find your niche market and determine where online they hang out. Some sites may allow you to discuss your book *if someone asks about it* (but will ban you for bringing it up more than once). Some may allow a link to a point of sale in your profile, or to your blog or web-page which in turn links to a point of sale.

You'll sell a few more copies than you might have, but overall, like most self-published novels, regardless of quality, total sales will probably remain below 100 copies. More often, the number hovers somewhere around 2/3 to 3/4 of your total number of friends and family members. This compares pretty unfavorably to the thousands of copies a moderately-selling book from a conventional publisher can anticipate.

I’m sorry not to be able to offer much real hope for promotion, but I figured you’d rather hear the truth than sugar-coated lies which might cause you to waste your time or money.

So instead of worrying about getting this one in stores, start writing the next one and place it with a publisher.