The Clean and Green Club

Shel Horowitz’s Book Marketing Tip of the Month

With a book about traveling around Mexico in an old VW van, Rich Ligato’s choices of venues may be different from yours. But whatever kind of book you sell, there will be perfect places to sell it–places that have nothing to do with bookstores or websites. Use your creativity, and some of Rich’s techniques.

For lots more creative book marketing ideas, I recommend my own Grassroots Marketing for Authors and Publishers–click here to learn about it.

–Shel Horowitz

Guest Tip By Rich Ligato

We have had the greatest success at unusual events. Our book is a
travel narrative about our three year journey in a VW campervan and
we’ve sold at…

Grape Stomp / Wine Tasting: One weekend, we set up at a the
Julian Grape Stomp and sold 20 books. Drunk people make great customers.

Art Nights: Here in San Diego we have two different “Art Walks” where
local galleries serve finger food and wine to attract buyers. We
simply set up a table next to our van and sold 25 books. The art was
so expensive yet everyone wanted to go home with something.

Farmers Markets: Our local farmers markets charge $20-25. We always
sell between 15-20 books. We secured local radio, tv, newspaper and
magazine interviews at our farmers market. The farmers markets
offer the perfect opportunity to practice sound bites. When the
interviewers asked questions we were practiced and ready with a short,
interesting, funny answer.

Car Shows: Our local car show allows anyone to set up and show off
their car for free. Nobody seemed to mind that we were selling books too.

Travel Club Meeting: We set up at the Discover Baja Travel Club and
sold a bunch of books.

The best thing about these venues is that we get to keep the entire
purchase price. At bookstores signings you generally have to give
them 40-50%. The most important thing is that you put yourself out
there. At first it is uncomfortable. Before you know it…it will be
fun.

Oh, and we always ask the buyer if they would like us to sign their
copy. It’s amazing how the simple act of signing a book causes others
to think “I’ve got to get one too.” We will go for an hour without
selling a book then suddenly someone will purchase one, we’ll make a
big deal of signing it, and the frenzy is on. We’ll sell a pile in 10
minutes.

Rich Ligato
www.vwvagabonds.com