Sharon A. Crawford’s latest in the Beyond series

Sometimes we focus on promoting our books through social media only. Sometimes we focus on e-copies only.

Let’s not forget that many books still come in print too. Sure they are available online, but sometimes the bricks and mortars bookstores can be a selling resource too.

And it may not be as difficult to get them to carry your book. Especially if you have a distributor. Especially if you do events with writing organizations that you belong to – and those organizations are sponsoring an event in a bookstore.

Not trying to turn back the clock here. There are other instances of media that didn’t disappear just because something new didn’t come along. Think TV. Think radio. Think print newspaper and magazines. They have just all changed and expanded on how they present. But some variation of the original still exists.

Back to bookstores. First, my Beyond mysteries series are not self-published and my publisher through the distributor (Ingram for those interested) has had my books placed online at various bookstores – Barnes and Noble in the United States for example, and Indigo-Chapters in Canada. But anyone can go in any bookstore and order in a copy of Beyond Blood and/or Beyond the Tripping Point. The bookstore will just order through Ingram.

That’s not exactly in the store, though. Here’s my story on that.

I belong to Crime Writers of Canada. Every April CWC holds the Arthur Ellis Short List party at one of the main Indigo Bookstores in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. As part of the celebrations, CWC published authors are invited to read. Well, not all members, but 12 to 16 or so – first to sign up, first to read. That means Indigo has to order in print copies of these authors’ books. Any not sold at the party go into the bookstore’s section. It really helped that Beyond Blood was available through Indigo Chapters online.

Indigo/Chapters is a bookstore chain in Canada and once in one bookstore (especially a big one), it helps to get the book in others. So I’m doing this now. So far I haven’t had to go into a big spiel to pitch my book – at least with this chain. With other smaller independent bookstores – chains or not – I may have to use the competition angle.

It also helps that I write in the mystery genre. Mysteries and romances are selling well, in Canada, at least.

Meantime,  you can get e-copies of Beyond Blood and Beyond the Tripping Point online at my publishers at http://bluedenim.skemantix.com/books/beyond-blood/. Print copies and e-copies – Kobo – available (among other places) at https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/home/search/?keywords=Beyond%20blood%20and%20Sharon%20A.%20Crawford

Cheers.

Sharon A. Crawford