As I confirmed the hour-long appointment with my technician to have one of my car tires replaced yesterday, I contemplated what I would do to pass those minutes, since I was certain that sitting in the repair shop was not on my list of effectual time usage. Realizing that I would be within walking distance of my local mall, I considered a bit of retail therapy until a better, more apropos idea came to mind.
Having just recently restocked the inventory for Revealed, I could not help but to explore what other marketing strategies I could implement in order to gain greater exposure for my debut novel. On a whim, I Googled “How to Sell an Indie Book at Barnes & Noble” and was stunned (if the pages upon pages of results were any indicator) to find that my search was not a random or isolated one. Selecting a blog link outlining how fellow independent author Brendan Leonard took book-marketing matters into his own hands, I literally hissed with laughter at how he visited random B&N brick and mortars across the country to reverse-shoplift his book onto shelves!
Granted, for as ingenious as this idea was and a page clearly taken from the Russell Simmons/Curtis Blow Fake It ‘Till You Make It Handbook, there were several issued here that would be definitely insurmountable for little ole’ indie me:
- What you should know about me is that I am a bean counter by trade and a coin counter by nature. If I went the Brendan route, I would essentially be committing to giving some product away. Not that it couldn’t be chalked up to marketing cost, but would I really be willing to part with one of my books with no guarantee that it would even be selected (or if discovered as a bookshelf interloper, tossed)?
- How could I ensure the final resting place of my book? Sheesh, just the thought of giving away one of my babies without the certainty of her final home still has me completely triggered.
- If said baby happened to get sold, how would B&N be able to reconcile the revenue (since clearly, I’m not an author in their database)? Would they even seek me out or would they blackball me as a literary menace?
The more these questions and concerns ran rampant in my mind, the more I realized that the plan was bold and audacious…and right up my alley.
Within an hour I had crafted the perfect proposal, and had stuffed a freshly minted copy of Revealed into my computer bag. En route to the repair shop, I rehearsed and edited the pitch I would woo the store manager with:
“Good afternoon. I was wondering if, as a high grossing local store of one of the biggest global bookstore chains, you’ve considered ways in which to maintain a competitive advantage in the marketplace? Yes, I’m so glad you asked! One such forward-thinking way would be by supporting local indie authors like myself. As you can see (pulls out book while maintaining eye contact) at no cost to you, you’d received inventory for the purpose of product placement to support our literary works. Not only would it grow the market of home grown authorship, but in this case, it could highlight genres like contemporary romance and women’s literature in a creative and organic way!”
With a winning smile, and my semi-glossed cover image, how could I lose?
After dropping off my car, walking across the street to Barnes & Noble, purchasing a pastry from their café (lest I be accused of soliciting or worse), I built up my nerve, wiped away the buttercream frosting from my top lip and went in search of the most managerial looking employee in the store. After a few minutes, I spotted two such individuals and observed them carefully. What ultimately ended up happening surprised even me. Instead of acting on my adrenaline and audacity, I assessed the employees, not as vehicles of opportunity, but as agents for obstacles. And the more I watched them, the more I allowed my perspectives of these individuals (one with shaggy blonde hair, terse lips and a vacant expression; the other with a protruding belly, thick bifocals and an unforgiving comb-over) to discourage me into believing that they would never be interested in my proposal or my book.
Defeated and with a sugar high to boot, I left B&N. Needing encouragement as I made my way back to the repair shop, I rang my S.O. to tell him what stupid shenanigans I had almost embroiled myself in. After listening quietly and intently, he reminded me of two important things:
- I had egregiously judged and stereotyped two people in much the same way that I oftentimes vocally condemned when observed being done by others.
- Accepting defeat was not a familiar characteristic that he was used to hearing from me.
It was the last thing he said however, that arrested the breathe in my lungs. He told me not to believe that there were no bad shots taken in life, because there absolutely were; namely the ones that we did not have the skill or capacity to take. With that though, he expressed that there are worse shots taken in life and those are the ones where we have the opportunity to line the ball up perfectly, yet allow the shot clock run out on us.
Suffice it to say, my shot will never expire again.
