Hello Everyone,

We’re back with the conclusion of our four part online bookstore series. In this installment, we talk about a genius substitute for selling your own books.

Conclusions… and The Perfect Alternative To Selling Your Own Books:
The four lessons we’ve featured are the main reasons we’re convinced selling books on your own site can work against you. Not only because these sales erode your time, money, and word of mouth exposure opportunities, but because they may put you in conflict with your local bookstores, and may even be a violation of your contract with your publishing house.

But is there an alternative? A way to garner higher profits from your books, get the contact information for every customer who purchases, and avoid the hassle of payment processing, etc?

The answer is yes.

This week, I talked with Tracey Higley of SignedbytheAuthor.com, and asked her to put together some information about her revolutionary company and the support they provide to authors.

Here’s what Tracey had to say:

Signed by the Author.com allows you to list your book through a simple submission form, and then refer your readers to the site to purchase autographed copies of your books. When a reader orders a signed copy, Signed by the Author.com forwards the order, along with a postage-paid shipping label, to you. You sign a copy, attach the label and send the book. The labels have Signed by the Author’s return address, so there are no privacy issues. And each quarter, Signed by the Author pays you 75% of the retail price of all books sold.

Signed by the Author.com provides the benefits of selling books yourself, without the hassle. You receive your reader’s contact information for future follow-up, and a much higher profit margin on the sale. Your reader receives a personally signed copy. But you are saved the time and aggravation of setting up a shopping cart and dealing with the credit card transaction and shipping fees. You also benefit from Signed by the Author’s extra marketing on your behalf, like home page features of your books, and our monthly newsletter to our customers which can feature your news, contests, and giveaways. There are also opportunities for cross-selling. Readers shopping for other author’s books will see your books on our site.

Signed by the Author.com is a great alternative to setting up online sales yourself, and gives you much more in return than other sites where you would refer readers.

Here at PulsePoint Design, we encourage all our clients to offer Signed by the Author links on their books pages. Not only for all the reasons Tracey listed above, but also because the human touch of a signed book is a wonderful way to develop customer loyalty.

We also suggest that clients include affiliate links to Amazon and/or Christianbook. Because, to paraphrase what Steve Weber said earlier, “People are going to buy there any way.” So make purchasing your book on these sites easy for your visitor through providing links, and get a little of the profit in the meantime. Don’t make them fight to buy your book from their vendor of choice!

Stop back soon for our in-depth article on Book Video Trailers.

And, in the meantime, remember:

Sell your work…not your soul

Posted on December 7th, 2007 by admin
Filed under: Web Wisdom