Marketing To
Libraries
If you dream of seeing your book on library shelves, Spring is
the perfect time to contact them. Most libraries buy books at the start
and end of their fiscal years, and for many libraries that year runs
from June-July, according to American Library Association figures. That
gives you just enough time to whip up a promotional mailing to all the
libraries you think might be interested in your work. And if you don’t
have promotional materials ready to roll, remember the university
libraries will often have a buying cycle that starts and ends with the
academic year – so you have time to prepare a late-summer campaign
targeting academic institutions.
If you are unsure of where to begin
in constructing a mailing to a library, you should take a look at the
Publisher’s Marketing Association site (http://www.pma-online.com). PMA is
an association for the education and support of independent authors.
Founders Tom and Marilyn Ross have organized co-operative mailings for
several years, and their public library mailing deadlines are at the end
of April, May and June – just in time for peak library sales. Mailings
to libraries at academic institutions go out in August.
To become part of one of the PMA mailings you will have to join
the association, create a flyer (PMA gives you specifications and
recommendations for content and style) and have them printed and shipped
before the deadlines (again, PMA has lots of helpful information).
All is not lost, however, if you
miss the peak buying seasons, as most libraries make purchases
throughout the year.
Other Ways to Attract Library Attention
At the very least your book should
be listed with Books
In Print, the database produced by R. R. Bowker, of all in-print
titles.
Reviews
play an important part in a library buyer’s decision to acquire a
title. There are several publications that are very important to target
if you wish to attract library attention. Many of these have a policy of
not accepting self-published books, although if you have created a
publishing imprint and your presentation is flawlessly professional, you
may be able to ‘forget’ to mention that the book is self-published
and succeed in obtaining a review. Competition for space in these
publications is fierce. It is not enough to tell the reviewer the plot
or subject of the book, you must give them information about marketing
plans, potential audience, everything a major publisher would do.
The major publications read by
librarians are listed at the end of this
article.
Making It Easy to Order
For your book to be ordered by a
library it must have a Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN)
– a number distinct from the International Standard Book Number (ISBN)
and one that is used by libraries for their ordering process. This is
can be obtained (by US publishers) through the Library of Congress’s
Preassigned Control Number application program (for more information
visit the Library of Congress’s guide for publishers online (http://www.loc.gov/loc/infopub/).
Cataloguing In Print (CIP) information is defined by the Library of Congress a
prepublication description of a book that is likely to be widely
acquired by libraries. For this reason it can be difficult to obtain CIP
information if you are a small publisher (and therefore less likely to
be launching a nationwide marketing campaign) and the Library of
Congress states that it will not give create CIP information for
self-published or subsidy-published books. While it helps librarians
understand more about your book, CIP information is not essential. Even
without CIP information however, you should still be able to obtain a
Library of Congress Control Number (LCCN).
Publications read by Librarians:
Kirkus Reviews, 200 Park Avenue South, Suite
1118, New York, NY 10003. Tel. 212-777-4554.
The New
York Times Book Review, 229 W. 43rd Street, New York, NY 10036.
Tel. 212-556-1234 (http://www.nytimes.com/books/)
Publishers
Weekly, 245 W. 17th Street, New York, NY 10011. Tel.
212-463-6758. (http://www.publishersweekly.com)
The Horn Book
Magazine, 56 Roland Street, Suite 200, Boston, MA 02129. Tel.
800-325-1170. (http://www.hbook.com)
Specifically for children’s and young adult books.
***
I’d love to hear
your comments on this article: was it helpful; have you had success with
press releases, marketing or editors; is there anything I missed that you would
like to know about? Send your comments to jd@jdwrite.com.
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