Customer Reviews

Beyond the Bookstore with CDROM

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Every page of this well-researched book has ideas that can help you sell more books--from a few to a few hundred thousand.

It doesn't take long for a publisher to learn that bookstores are not the best places to sell books. Huge discounts, long waits for payment (often six months or more), and the dreaded returns make bookstores less than attractive markets. So what's a publisher to do? Find other places that will buy your books.

'Beyond the Bookstore' is your map to finding sales opportunities. The 79 strategies give specific information that will help you identify special markets for your books, locate the people who will buy from you, and make the sale. Some of the special markets identified include warehouse clubs, supermarkets, corporations, book fairs, airport stores, catalogs, museum stores, book clubs and home shopping networks. Strategies include lots of how-to, with success stories, detailed tips and contact information.

These strategies will work for large publishers, small presses, self-published authors, and (in many cases) Print on Demand titles. There are even strategies for leveraging your content to create new products, in addition to books. The CD-ROM included with the book walks you through the process of creating a detailed marketing plan and timeline.

I had high expectations for 'Beyond the Bookstore,' and those expectations were exceeded. If you want an easy to follow, step-by-step plan to open new markets for your books, you need 'Beyond the Bookstore.'

Cathy Stucker
Special Interests Publishing

If you can get your book into traditional bookstores, great. But don't overlook the many other lucrative markets out there. Brian Jud's "Beyond The Bookstore" does an excellent job of describing these markets. But he doesn't stop there. Brian explains exactly how to break into special markets and provides detailed, useful contact information.

Ever wonder how to sell your book directly to libraries? On page 159, Brian points out there are at least 117,418 libraries (including public, academic, and school) across the United States. In the pages that follow, he explains exactly how to market to libraries, and he includes contact information for library wholesalers you may want to work with. He ends this section with a true story of an author's successful library book tour.

In addition to explaining how to approach places like Target & Safeway, airport shops & museum stores, Brian gives practical pointers on everything from promoting perpetually to getting book reviews.

A valuable resource which I'm benefitting from immensely in my ever-growing search for new markets for my book. I highly recommend this book to every author. Don't limit yourself -- think outside the box! Beyond The Bookstore will open your eyes to greater opportunities and point you in the right direction.

-- Graciela Sholander, http://dreamitdoit.net

You've invested a great deal of writing time and energy into producing an excellent manuscript or a nonfiction book proposal. Now put yourself in the shoes of the acquisitions editor. Each year you receive literally hundreds of these proposals from literary agents and authors. How do you find a proposal that stands out from the crowd? (Hint: It's not the proposal on colored paper.)

For the last several years, as an acquisitions editor, I've been on the receiving end of these proposals and manuscripts. I love to find an author who knows the necessity of a sales partnership with the publisher. These authors understand it takes more than an excellent book but they need to actually work at selling large volumes of the book. Beyond the Bookstore helps the author better understand about how books are sold.

Have you ever read the sales numbers of a particular book and wondered how that particular book ever sold in the bookstore? Some of those big sales numbers have been outside the bookstore. In fact, more than half of all books sold each year are sold outside of bookstores.

Beyond the Bookstore is a valuable resource for any writer to think outside the box. Jud covers 79 specific strategies for generating "special sales." A special sale is anything outside of the traditional bookstore setting. As you read this book, you determine which ideas are appropriate for your book then incorporate these sales ideas into your nonfiction or fiction book proposal. When you include this type of information from the beginning of the publishing process, it will show your publisher your good intention to be proactive in the sales process. Proactive authors who understand how to sell books are attractive authors to any publisher.

Reed Business also produces Publisher's Weekly and this book is loaded with current statistics and contact information such as, "Today, the worldwide book market approximates $90 billion. Almost one third of those sales occur in the United States. Over the past ten years, the amount of sales through traditional outlets is decreased by 11 per cent (down 19 per cent without factoring Internet sales), and sales through non-bookstore outlets have increased by 8 per cent."

Three major advantages of special sales include control over your destiny, customization potential and nontraditional market segmentation. As an additional resource, this book includes a CD-Rom to help generate a marketing plan and give the right emphasis for each market channel. Yes, your publisher should generate the marketing plan but they only can give each book a limited amount of potential. Only the author has the passion and intense interest in their book.

Use this book to increase your sales and strengthen your book proposals.

The reason I didn't gush all over this book and give it 5 stars is because it is not easy to put these ideas into action. It is 5-star reference material, but let's see us actually DO these things without the need for expert assistance.

This book is one of the few true classics of book marketing to date. Book marketing at the time of this writing (in the early 21st century) has become a process of selling an "information product" rather than promoting something you have penned. If Shakespeare were alive and authoring today he would need this book, because as Mark Twain once quipped, "A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read." Books no longer sell themselves, and publishers don't sell books either. They print on command (versus print on demand) and make deals to get space in bookstores. It is up to the author to make sure those books sell, or they end up as "former authors." If YOU want YOUR BOOK to sell you really need this book, because more books sell outside of bookstores than ever will (ever again) IN bookstores.

But herein lies the problem. Most authors are not salesmen. Getting a sporting goods corporation (or let's just say "WalMart") to carry your books is not as easy as popping by HQ and chatting up the VP of merchandise. This is not a "fun" book to read. It is not an easy book to implement, but if you can manage to do 1/2 of what Mr. Jud advises you will surely be a millionaire several times over.

This book will NOT help you sell books on Amazon. It will not help you make cool myspace pages, and it won't teach you how to do radio interviews. But if you want to sell your books to mega-corporations, associations, conventions, magazines, retail chains, or doctor's offices, this is the ONLY book that can help you. The book is expensive and it is detailed (see "customer images" above for proof of that) in ways that will make your brain swim, but that is why it is such an invaluable resource. This will undoubtedly be the textbook for future marketing students and book publicity professionals. I only wish that it came with an in-person instructor and a few pots of coffee.

Beyond the Bookstore is imposing and emotionally detached, but don't you dare let that stop you from buying THIS book. This book is indeed full of "stuff" you need to do to sell a lot of books in places you never thought of (which is the point of reading this book). If you ever want to break the 10,000 books sold barrier (the absolute minimum number of copies sold to be considered a "best seller" in any sense of the term) you need to know what is in this book. Perhaps there will be a companion WORKBOOK someday that will help the author (you) actually complete some or all of the ideas covered in this text. [That was a blatant hint by the way: this book needs a workbook]

I like what Brian has done here and I wish him well. After all I gave him $50 of my money (+ s&h) so I "support" him. I hope that in the future he will pen a more author-friendly version that actually holds your hand along the process. An excellent companion to this book is "The Complete Guide to Book Publicity" by Jodee Blanco I believe. Nice girl. Well written. Knows her stuff too. Check out John Kremmer as well. Then come back to THIS book for more ideas. At $50 a copy though, do not let this book out of your sight.

First of all, I haven't written a book (yet) but like a lot of people...I have an idea!

From experience with the authors whose books I've edited, I know that writing the book for most people is ten times easier than the dreaded self-promotion/marketing.

Beyond the Bookstore truly covers the A-Z of finding other places and ways to sell your book--other than being listed on Amazon or B&N webpages or on a bookstore shelf.

Author Jud offers 79 easy-to-implement strategies for selling more books--and make more money. (When a book is sold through the big distributors, they take 55% and often discount the book's face price as well.)

The complementary CD-Rom can help even the "slow-to-get-it" person follow every effective step in both the production and marketing process. The what, when and who will prevent the missteps many of us take (or don't take).

Are you getting your share of sales to non-bookstores? Worldwide the book market is almost $90 billion--and every year about 50% are sold in non-bookstore markets.

What are these markets? Discount stores, airport stores, gift shops, museums, schools, libraries, warehouse clubs (Sam's/Costco), catalogs, book clubs, niche markets, book fairs--and to corporations when appropriate.

The content isn't for the faint hearted because the author expects you to want to sell more books--and that you will do what it takes. If you are NOT that person, don't bother reading Beyond the Bookstore.

And the trouble is,
if you don't risk anything,
you risk even more.
--Erica Jong, author and poet


Priced at $21.99 through our link on Amazon, if you are an author and really want to promote your book, this is a BARGAIN--it is an impressive "how-to" class in one book you can return to often.

I got the idea reading through the book that if the idea has EVER been thought of, Jud has it in this book. It's comprehensive. It's easy to understand and use. If you are a published author or want to be--and if you understand that you must be part of promoting your book, the steps for marketing and the bonus CD "make it easier."

Armchair Interviews says: Beyond the Bookstore by Brian Jud is an excellent (and essential) addition to your sales effort! Why invent the wheel? Get behind Jud's ideas and push--and the effort won't feel so "uphill."

Brian Jud provides a wealth of ways to sell books that most people have never considered, and make more money in the process. You won't find a more thorough treatment of the subject, from someone who has been there and done it. Once you start reading this book, you'll wonder why you ever even thought about trying to get your book sold in a bookstore. Thanks for helping broaden people's horizons to more of what's possible.

I'm a newbie to the field of self-publishing, so I have read every book that I could put my hands on about this subject. This is, in my opinion, the best, most useful book out there in terms of marketing your books.

The book arrived in the mail today and I read it cover to cover and just put it down (I'm passionate about bringing my books to market). It is thoroughly researched, comprehensive and very practical. I especially appreciate that Brian Jud "gets" marketing. Publishing isn't about publishing what we want to write it is about meeting consumers' needs. This book teaches you how to do just that.

Thanks, Brian.

Melinda Thompson

Brian's book is so full of fabulous tips and ideas, I don't even have enough time in the day to apply them all...that's a good thing. It's always better to have more than we need, rather than less. I think it's also helpful to readers because different ideas will appeal to different readers, so any author or aspiring author is bound to find something that appeals to them.

One of the best features about the book is the CD-Rom included. When I first received my book, that was the first thing I did...pop the CD in my computer, listen to his intro and get started on the calendar, timeline and marketing plan. Incredibly useful tools for getting started in moving beyond the bookstore. I applaud his efforts to help aspiring authors market and sell their books in creative ways through creative outlets.

Beyond The Bookstore" is a terrific book about selling your book to everyone else other than a bookstore. I met Brian while co-presenting on a panel at a Learning Annex seminar in NYC on the topic of book marketing. I covered the topic of book publicity, he covered selling books. Brian Jud says since more than half of all book sales come from outside bookstores it's important to target these markets. Mass merchandisers such as Wal-Mart or Costco, gift shops, airport stores, home-shopping networks, book clubs, libraries, network-marketing companies, catalogs, associations, government agencies, corporations, educational markets, retail stores and military branches all buy and sell books.

Brian walks you through creating a special sales plan, where to find the people you need to contact to make your pitch. If you really want to sell books outside the bookstore market then buy Beyond the Bookstore.

As a book publicist it's imperative for me to keep up with all of the great books and magazine articles being published on the topic of book marketing and book promotion. I've read dozens and dozens of books on book marketing and this one is on my top ten list.

Scott Lorenz
President of Westwind Communications, a public relations and marketing firm that specializes in book marketing and author publicity.

This is a great book with many ideas on where to market your book other then the bookstores. Very inspiring and yes, a notebook is needed to make notes for your own book marketing specifically. I missed some practical information on how to reach the right person in a company to pitch too, but overall a must-have for every writer.