How to Sell Books

The buzz word for authors these days is 'discoverability.' After all, what is the point of  publishing your book if no one reads it? And how is anyone going to read your book if they don't know about it?
This may be less pressing with ebooks which don't incur all the production and distribution costs of physical books. Whatever form the books take, it must be possible to cut corners for writers on a tight budget, determined to see their work published. But publishing any book still costs money, time and effort. Someone has to do the work, and put in the hours.
Whatever their expenses, self-published authors don't want to be exploited. Yet a shocking 98% of self-published authors fail to even cover their costs. It seems that making money out of aspiring authors is a mega-industry these days. Someone is making money, and it's certainly not the authors.
Regardless of whether they are traditionally published or self-published, all authors want readers, whether because they provide them with an income, or for personal satisfaction. In order to survive, books ('products') need readers ('customers'). In this respect publishing is the same as any other business. Publisher and author enter into a symbiotic relationship. Successful books benefit everyone involved in their production: agent, publisher, production team, technical team, editor, proof readers, sales team, distributor, publicists, translators, bookseller, reader... it's a long list, right down to the modest author who kick starts the whole process.
What can authors do to find readers? That is the big question. Whether we like it or not, the stereotype of the author as remote and isolated in an ivory tower is largely defunct. Most authors nowadays accept that speaking at literary festivals and signing in Bookshops is part of the job.
But the best marketing comes from readers. Word of mouth is the most powerful marketing tool, and it's one that is impossible to control, except by writing books that readers want to read and recommend to their friends.
So the author's job is still to write the best book they can. Some things never change.

Blinding with the obvious

There was a time when good manners and ways of approaching people were common practice. Now it seems everything must be assessed and accredited. In an age when family support groups are dwindling, external corroboration is taking off, whether it be via social media or ‘professional’ certification. These certificates are not given out for free. For a degree, diploma, driving test or piano exam, someone is footing the bill. But these processes answer a basic human need for validation.
Now Waterstones is setting up an academy where employees will be taught how to sell books. They will study modules with titles like: ‘Engaging your customers’ and ‘selling to customers’. This has been announced amid a fanfare of self-congratulation, as a UK “industry first”, a professional qualification in bookselling, run in partnership with the University of Derby - who are presumably not offering their support gratis. The Senior Learning and Development Manager at Waterstones said: 'We are delighted to be working with the University of Derby Corporate on developing this innovative course for booksellers.’ (University of Derby Corporate?... A bookseller managing to sell books is an innovative idea?)
As if that wasn’t enough to demonstrate the bookstore chain’s belief in the symbiotic relationship between education and books, Waterstones has reassuringly announced its commitment to the academic books market.
Oh, and on 26th April Waterstones is closing six of its twelve bookshops on university campuses, in Birmingham, Bradford, Coventry, Derby, Keele and Swansea. (No fanfare.)