It is my hope and belief that somebody reading this blog will someday publish a book and wonder how to navigate certain book marketing scenarios. Here’s one:
Getting organized to send your novels, but not yourself, to a major book fair out of the country.
As mentioned in my last post, my book kiddos will be heading to Germany to a big book fair in Frankfurt in October. They get to go because I took advantage of an opportunity through IBPA (Independent Book Publishers Association) to have my books displayed at the book fair. Besides sending them my three books, they also asked for a 3-book, single flyer that required a boatload of information, including the publisher’s name, a 15-word or less description of each book, prices, and ISBNs. Also, since my books would be displayed on one of the top shelves, I should send “sell sheets” for each book. Those pages would go inside a binder for prospective publishers to peruse.
That was something I hadn’t expected. Fortunately, my contact at IBPA sent me samples. I spent the whole morning in Adobe Illustrator, working on formatting and background colors. Frama-12 took the longest to set up, but once I had a format, I “borrowed” it for Hutra and Aylen Isle, using colors that matched each book cover. I can’t say formatting was the hardest part, even though it took forever. No, my biggest hurdle was proofreading each page.
I was on a tight schedule because everything had to be received in time for the folks at IBPA (in California) to get all the books and contact information sorted out ahead of time so they could print out a book catalog to go with them to Germany. That tight timeline meant I couldn’t send my flyers/sell sheets to friends who could catch mistakes that I might miss.
I’m glad I didn’t print anything at home. Not just because my printer only prints in black and white, but because I would have wasted a ton of ink. Every time I thought my sell sheet looked perfect, I’d reread the directions and discover I missed a crucial piece of information. Like the book’s price. Oops.
At one point, I found I’d typed the number six for one of my ISBNs when it was supposed to be a five. I’m glad I found that one!!
I double and triple-checked and read each form out loud, hoping I’d catch typos. If not, … at least I wouldn’t be there to feel embarrassed in person. 🤣
A time finally came when I had to say the sell sheets were done. I copied everything onto a flash drive, packed my books, and headed to my local Staples, “Make more happen,” one-stop shop to print and make use of their UPS counter to mail everything.
The parking lot is crazy now that a new Chick-fil-A, a new Target, and a moderately new LA Fitness share parking spaces with the dollar store, the pet supplies store, a sushi place, a Hallmark store, MyEyeDr. And, of course, Staples.
On the plus side, while you sit in traffic, waiting for your turn at the stop sign, you can enjoy the enticing smells coming from Chick-fil-A. 🤣
Right. So, I finally made it to Staples. And surprise of surprises, all three copy machines were available. I pulled out my flash drive with all my PDFs to print. I stepped up to the middle machine with flash drive in hand.
I looked high and low, left and right. I could not find the USB port. I marched up to the “copy” counter – except if you want copies, you have to do that yourself. After the Staples guy finished with a customer who wanted to send a package through UPS (at the UPS side of the copy counter), I said, “Isn’t there a USB slot in the copy machines?” He informed me there was. “So where is it?” He might have sighed to himself. He probably thought, Why do I have to help customers in the DIY part of the store?
He followed me to the machine and pointed. Okay, yeah, it was there, but in my defense, it was camouflaged. He walked away, leaving me to the “simple” task of accessing the printer using a credit card. For reasons nobody can explain, I’m rarely able to properly swipe a card through the scanner thingy. Ask anybody who’s ever stood next to me when I try to swipe my member card at Panera’s, or behind me in line at the prescription counter when I need to swipe my HSA card. But I can shove the chip end of a card into a slot like nobody’s business.
At the copy machine, I slid my card into the chip slot with great confidence. And got an error message. What?! I tried again. Error. And again. Error. I moved to the third copy machine. Error. Error. Error.
I trudged back to the “copy” counter to let the guy know I required his assistance one more time. He let out another stifled snort and followed me back to the copy machine. He stood by while I demonstrated that his machine did not like the chip part of my card. Naturally, it worked with him standing there. Maybe the machine recognized him. I wanted to tell him, “I’m really not this incompetent.” But I doubt he would have believed me. And then I lost the cap to my flash drive while I was there.
By the time I finished making copies and carried my box of books and flyers to the UPS side of the copy counter, the employee who, no doubt, pegged me as a worthless “Boomer” was replaced by a friendlier guy.
I should mention here that I didn’t have a nice sturdy brown box to send my precious cargo. Nope. I used a DeWalt work boots box. I won’t call the yellow and black cardboard box flimsy … but it kinda was. When I set it on the counter and told him I wanted to send the box to California, he said, “In that?”
I asked if he had any other ideas. He just shrugged, like he’d seen worse packaging come through that had survived the trip. I said, “It’ll need lots of tape.” He expertly taped it. Whether or not he used enough tape remains to be seen.
He popped the taped box on the scale. Six pounds and two ounces (in case anybody wondered about the title of this post). Now I know how much two copies of each of my babies weigh.
Next, he asked if I wanted to send my package the cheapest way. If I did, it would arrive in California by Wednesday. If I chose to pay $50 more for the next step up in pricing, it would arrive … on Tuesday. You can’t make this stuff up.
Now that I’ve sent the kiddos on their way, I’m giddy with excitement. The rational side of me knows the odds of a foreign publisher wanting to produce my books in another language are not in my favor. Still, the dreamer in me can picture my French teacher friend using my newly translated book to teach her students.
I’ll keep you posted. 😊