Publishing in the B2C era
Patronage and direct sales, social media and newsletter: there is a definite trend in publishing whereby writers are reaching out directly to their readers. An interesting concept not only for book promotion, but also sales.
Given how publishing has evolved, it is no longer such a crazy idea for an author to put their own books directly into a bookstore themselves. However, why not take it a step further? Why not sell directly to your readers without the middleman (using an eCommerce platform)?
Writers spend time — sometimes a lot of it — building a community of readers through a blog, a website, a newsletter, etc. They collect followers on social media and make the effort to converse, engage and create real relationships with their existing and prospective readers.
Then, when it actually comes to buying their book, they send them off to a third-party store. It’s a lose-lose situation. Firstly, the writer spends all that time and energy connecting with readers only to pay a hefty fee to the bookstore. And secondly, it’s less convenient for the reader, who would prefer to be able to purchase the book directly on the spot.
It’s the same story for publishers, whose websites display and promote their entire catalogs without actually selling it!
Why not sell directly on your website?
There are many easy-to-use tools for selling goods, including books and ebooks, directly on your website. The best tool by far has to be StreetLib Sell. I’m not usually so categoric in my opinion about our tools, but I have good reason to be. While there are many companies providing similar tools, none are just quite as convenient and simple as ours. I am yet to find another solution that allows you to create your own fully-fledged bookstore, linked to your own website, as easily as StreetLib Sell:
On top of that, if you only have a couple of books to sell, you can just add a widget instead of a whole bookstore:
Our tool is completely free: you’ll just split the percentage earned for sales — the 30% that usually goes to a third-party store — with StreetLib in return for the eCommerce and technical platform.
What happens next?
After creating your bookstore or widget, any person visiting your website can instantly become a reader without ever leaving! And as an added bonus, you get more royalties! And as an added added bonus, your reader will feel like they are genuinely supporting your work, rather than some international corporation.
