Selling books online has never been easier—even for those of you storing boxes of paperbacks/hardcovers in your garages. You can move those books out once and for all. Order fulfillment and shipping is also easier now thanks to Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA).
Selling books online is made easier with Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA)
On this blog, I often discuss ways you can sell more books through strategic blogging and digital publishing. But where does that leave those of you who have already printed a few hundred books that are collecting dust in boxes in your garage?
Selling Books Online is Not Limited to Digital Books
I had coffee with an aspiring author just last week. We were discussing the most effective ways for him to sell his non-fiction idea when he mentioned his father is a poet. Years ago, his father had self-published a poetry collection the old-fashioned way—by printing a few hundred copies of it at a local print shop. He’d held one or two bookstore signings after that and sold 40 or 50 copies to local supporters.
But he was surprised to learn that “bricks and mortar” booksellers and libraries will only purchase books through established distributors. They simply won’t deal with individual authors on anything more than a per-event consignment basis. So, like many others, he found himself stuck with several boxes of books, unable to sell them. Nobody had told him it would be this difficult using the traditional book distribution system.
Today’s Book Distribution System Makes Life Easier for Indies
Today, all you need is a website address to direct traffic to and people everywhere can find you. An Amazon ecommerce webpage like this one is perfect. Here, you can write an enticing book description and upload a cover image to promote your title. Then you can simply drive traffic to that webpage from all over your province/country—never mind your local community. And you can rely on Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) to house and ship those books for you.
But, like anything else, it’s not a simple “set it and forget it” type of system. You can’t just list the book and walk away. It is still necessary to actively drive traffic to that webpage, and strategic blogging is the easiest and most cost-effective way to do it.
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