“How I Made the Most of Bookish Merch”
Who doesn’t love bookish merch?
From candles, soaps and character prints to stickers, bookmarks and more, the creative ways to engage your audience through merch are endless. Not every piece of bookish merch will work for every book, but by being strategic about the type of merch you provide, you can grow a larger audience and gain unique marketing exposure.
Know Your Goals
As authors and entrepreneurs, it’s important to remember what it is we are hoping to accomplish as we navigate new opportunities, so when I started thinking about bookish merch, I began by going back to the central goal I have for myself and the Crimson Time series. For me, that goal is two-fold: share the stories of women in the past and encourage women today to own the narrative of their individual story. As an author, publishing coach and historian, this goal encompasses most of the main facets of myself. It also acts as a ‘north star’ that guides my decision making and the things I decide to pursue or let pass by.
With this in mind, I thought about how I could leverage bookish merch to accomplish my goal of sharing the stories of women in the past and encouraging women today to own the narrative of their individual story. I came to the conclusion that I could do this by using my success as a catalyst for other women to succeed. I never want my success to be a solitary thing, but rather something that also helps to bolster others and gives them permission to pursue their dreams alongside my own. I would encourage authors to have a similar mindset and think about how they can use their platforms to uplift others. The best way I could think to do this was to collaborate on merch with other small businesses and female entrepreneurs.
Know Your Audience
Not only did this align with my goal, but it also really connected with my audience. It’s important to keep audience in mind no matter the book or brand decision because what an author does needs to align with the wants and needs of their audience, otherwise, the action will fall flat. Since I currently write Young Adult Historical Fantasy, my target audience for the Crimson Time series is fiction readers, specifically within the YA genre. From cultivating a social media presence, I know most of my readers are on IG and members of the bookstagram community within the platform. This community, especially when it comes to YA novels, have an immersive, fandom mindset as well as a small business mindset. They want merch that will continue to envelop them in the worlds of the books they read and intentionally seek out and support small businesses.
Ask Your Audience
Since my audience is largely on Instagram and active in the bookstagram community that I am also a part of as a reader and an author, I primarily used Instagram to hone in on the type of merch I wanted to have and the small businesses I hoped to collaborate with. I started by putting up an Instagram story and asking my audience what type of bookish merch they were most interested in. I did this a few times, first with a “question box” sticker that allowed them to directly tell me what they liked and second as a “quiz” sticker that allowed them to choose between the four types of merch I had the most people request. From there, I narrowed it down to candles, soap and character art as merchandise people would be willing to purchase and put up another story asking my audience if they had an recommendations for small bookish businesses I could collaborate with for each of these items. After I felt like I had enough options to choose from, I looked at each of the businesses on Instagram as well as their websites so I could get an idea of their products and brand identity.
Engage First, Ask Second
Before reaching out to any small business, I made sure to follow them on Instagram and engage on their posts. The reason this is an important first step is because it builds relationship. Other accounts and individuals will be more willing to work with you if they see you are genuinely interested in them and their business instead of just what you can get out of a collaboration with them. I also purchased items from their shops similar to the ones I wanted to collaborate with them on so I could check the quality of the item and make sure I was endorsing a business/product that I liked and felt comfortable supporting/promoting.
Be Genuine In Your Outreach
The messaging itself varied between the small businesses I reached out to and what our interaction had been before I proposed a collaboration. The first bookish merch I decided on was a Crimson Time themed candle made by Novel Candle Co. I had already interacted with the owner on Instagram for quite a while and bought several of her candles before reaching out to her for a collaboration. It helped she could put a face to a name and that she knew I had purchased candles from her before. She set me up with a wholesale price, which most small businesses will do if you buy in bulk, and walked me through choosing the scent combination and label design that would best fit the book. The candles were so successful that we did a second collaboration for an Adelaide candle, based on my main character.
The second bookish merch I decided on was themed soap, one for Crimson Time and a second for the secret society (Red Rose Society) I created in my book. For these, I collaborated with The Soap Nook, a subset of Filice Boutique. The owner is a fellow indie author who I connected with in the bookstagram community. I’ve read some of her books and she has also read Crimson Time, which was an added bonus to working with her. I am also a rep for her business, so again, I knew the quality of the product I was asking for beforehand. This was probably the most informal of my outreach because of the friendship we had before I asked for a collaboration.
The third bookish merch I decided on was character art. I wrote a scene for Crimson Time’s sequel, Fractured Past, that I knew I really wanted to see as character art. For this one, I also asked people for artist recommendations and ended up going with a designer/animator that I went to college with. Other alum of your school(s) and fellow/former classmates are great people to ask for collaborations with because you already have the commonality of your school. You may be surprised by how you can mobilize your networks to find collaborations for merch, speaking engagements and more. People are often willing to help if you simply give them the opportunity to and make the ask.
Don’t Be Afraid To Ask
All of the businesses/individuals I reached out to were pretty prompt to respond and to agree to a collaboration. The answer is always no if you don’t ask, so don’t be afraid to reach out. Just be sure your outreach is genuine and out of some semblance of a relationship first instead of cold. Also make sure you are flexible with their business schedules. Many artists and small businesses will put a line in their Instagram bio or on their website that will tell you if they are open or closed for commissions/collaborations. If you see one is closed, you can still reach out to them, but be sure to mention you understand they are currently closed and would like to collaborate when they open commissions again. I had this experience with the second candle collaboration I did. Ashley at Novel Candle Co. was still in the middle of making candles for a sale she had just done, but appreciated me reaching out and told me to follow up at the end of the month when she was finished with orders.
Succeed Together
I’ve really enjoyed my experience with bookish merch. It has allowed me to collaborate with some incredible individuals, help promote other small businesses/female entrepreneurs and offer something fun for my audience to keep them in the world of Crimson Time. As I do with my books, I ask those who purchase merch to take pictures and tag both me and the small business I collaborated with in them when they receive or use the merch to help spread the word to their audience and reignite the excitement for the series. I’ll usually do this by including a brief thank you note with each package. I share those tagged posts to my story and the small business usually does as well, offering additional marketing to their audience. As each collaboration/merch has gone over so well, it’s allowed me to continue to try new items and collaborations to further my central goal and include others in the journey with me. There isn’t necessarily anything I would have done differently, but I’ll be sure to continue starting these new opportunities with a personal connection/relationship. I’m always trying to think of fun and different ways to engage my audience with merch and enjoy the experience so much more when I can help others succeed alongside of me. When done right and in collaboration with others who share a similar goal to your own, merch can work collaboratively to further your brands and mobilize your community.
