Marketing and Selling Your Book to Libraries

One of the biggest dreams many authors and writers have is to see their book on a library shelf. Getting your published book(s) into libraries, including public, municipal, state, university, research, and private libraries can seem like a challenge. How do you accomplish your goals and reach your dreams of selling your books to libraries? Although there is no guarantee that a library or librarian will buy your book, there are several general rules and guidelines one can follow in maximizing their chances.

Target Your Local and Regional Libraries

Most local and regional libraries actively seek books that are written by local authors and/or published locally. They are often especially interested in those books written about or that take place in the library’s city, region, or state. As a library books are often selected based on whether the content is written for the general reader or for the specialist or practitioner. Public libraries focus on books written for the general reader, while university and research libraries focus more on specialist or practitioner books.

Make Sure Your Book Has All The Necessary Features

Most libraries only accept books that have been commercially published. Some indications of commercial publication are a sturdy binding, preferably with the title on the spine; a title page clearly stating (on either the front or the back) the author, title, publisher and date of publication; an International Standard Business Number (ISBN) listed somewhere on the book or the jacket; and a price listed on either the book or the jacket.

Because books in most libraries get heavy and sometimes careless use from the public, librarians often look for ones which are sturdily bound, preferably sewn or glued. Spiral and comb bindings do not stand up well in libraries. Likewise, books with pages designed to be filled in by the reader, or torn out, do not fit in a library setting. Books that include objects such as toys, or crafts kits are also not appropriate.

Read more tips on selling and marketing your book your library here.

Salman Rushdies New Novel: Magical Realism at its Best

Salman Rushdie is often best known for his novel The Satanic Verses: A Novel.What many don’t know, however, is that he does magical realism in a way that is often not encountered in today’s fiction. The Enchantress of Florence: A Novelis at once a tale of Renaissance Italy, India, and most of the seas in between. It is a story of travelers, magical princesses, and the richness of desire and love. Deeply philosophical and profoundly lonely, The Enchantress of Florence: A Novelis bound to be one of Rushdie’s most popular novels.

Akbar the Great, whose realm stretches from Kabul to Bengal, is as mad and melancholy as Hamlet; despite his many wives, he lusts after a queen he dreamed up ”in the way that lonely children dream up imaginary friends.” Then a Florentine magic man calling himself Niccolò Vespucci arrives in Akbar’s court with a yarn about a common relative: a sorceress descended from Genghis Khan, a good witch at the center of a great fable. Qara Koz, a beautiful mysterious princess who bridges both Asian and European worlds with her powers of enchantment and sorcery becomes war booty.

Read more about Salman Rushdies book The Enchantress of Florence here.

Magical Realism and the Dark Goddess: Short Stories

Recently I had to move. Packing up boxes and boxes of books is not my favorite thing, but unpacking boxes of books is quite enjoyable. You get to see old books that you read summers ago, reminiscing on what you thought of the story, the characters, what you were doing when you read the book, etc. In the process of unpacking my books, I stumbled upon one that I had read earlier this summer but had never gotten around to reviewing. Looking over The Power of the Dark Goddess and Other Stories,I was curious as to which pages I had dog-eared and why. Pages 15, 29, 78, 97, and 112. What was it about the story on these pages that captivated me earlier this summer?

Continuing to flip through the book some more, I ran across the original letter author George J. Bryjak had sent with the book. In it he referenced the story “Sunday Morning” and how it might be of particular interest to me.

Well, the story Sunday Morning happened to be one of the pages I had dog-eared. I began re-reading the story as it was short, only five pages with a nice black and white line drawing included. Telling the story of an indigenous religious man who has an awakening of sorts, the story struck me for its clarity of prose and ability to incite the imagination. My mind continued to wonder after the story was well over: did the rains come once the traditional gods were worshiped again; what happened to the small dusty Church where Father Ibarra had his realization; is this story not a metaphor for some of my own awakenings as I am continually drawn towards traditional beliefs and practices of my ancestors?

Read more about the Power of the Dark Goddess and magical realism here.