Timewaster's Guide Archive

Very, true.  However, I think if a book were to make it nationally, even if it didn't make it to the extent that Harry Potter or The Da Vinci Code did, the local bookstores would benefit from it.  If Wake Me When It's Over had a national audience, people would hear it's from a local author, and about LDS culture, and many would probably go to a DB or a Seagull to buy it.  But we don't know if WMWIO would have a national audience, because it's only pushed to a Utah audience.

I guess I'm saying that Seagull doesn't have to fear competition from Amazon, and Covenant should welcome the opportunity to market outside Utah.  Both would benefit.  A good example of this might be The Chosen, a Jewish book about the Jewish culture, but a book that was excepted by many, many people outside the Jewish faith.  

We're just starting to see movies about LDS folks start to have a market outside Utah, and I think books could do the same thing.

Hmmm, maybe it wasn't Seagull.  Here is the quote.

"I was doing a signing at an LDS bookstore", says Nelson. Beside me was a rack of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. I'd only sold three of my books that day. Dan Brown, who wasn't even there, not only outsold me, he outsold Gerald Lund and Dean Hughes as well. I thought to myself, the LDS market needs a Dan Brown, someone who writes well and has a strong story to tell. When that happens the market is going to break wide

 And I got that from here:

http://www.latterdayauthors.com/wforum/viewtopic.php?t=756&start=30

Mustard, it looked like it was $65 to open an official account on e-bay.  Maybe we, and a few other covenant authors should either push Covenant a bit harder, or band together and split the cost/headache, to have our books listed.

Here is some more info...  You have to have distribution rights, and maybe we don't have those.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/subst/partners/direct/direct-application.html/ref=gw1_mm_3/002-0554067-7056827

We had somebody quote the J. Golden Kimball/Spencer Kimball joke in sacrament meeting (Do it, dammit!).  So if that is ok, then anything in my book is going to be fine.

Well, except for maybe the dog named farding.

So I did my first booksigning on Saturday, down in St. George.  The funny thing about books signings, I'm starting to learn, is that people tend to think that you are kind of like a used car salesman. If they make eye contact with you, then you are going to jump up and ask them, "what will it take for me to get you to buy my book today."

The end result, being that I sit in a crowded book store without any human contact whatsoever...

So I'd love to meet any of you face-to-face.  Don't even buy my book, just come in, look me in the eye, and say, "hey." I'll probably start weeping.

18-June- West Jordan Seagull- 11:00a-12:30p
18-June- Redwood Seagull- 2:00p-3:30p
25-June- Ogden Seagull- 10:00a-11:30p
25-June- Riverdale Seagull- 12:00p-1:30p
25-June- Layton Seagull- 2:30p-4:00p
9-July- Family Center Seagull- 11:00a-12:30p
9-July- Bountiful Seagull- 2:00p-3:30p
16-July- South Towne Seagull- 11:00a-12:30p
16-July- Fashion Place Seagull- 2:00p-3:30p
30-July- American Fork Seagull- 10:30a-12:00p
30-July- North Orem Seagull- 12:30p-2:00p
30-July- South Orem Seagull- 3:00p-4:30p

This is a very good discussion, I hadn't thought of many of these aspects before.

I have always felt that my book could have a larger audience (Though that may just be delusions of grandeur).   In fact, when I sent it to Covenant, they originally turned me down because my book didn't have anything LDS in it.  I added a 2 page introduction that mentioned Family Home Evening, and that was all they needed.

But, as MSID said, Seagull definitely pushes Covenant's books.  I'm in four different spots in Seagull, probably 50-75 books total.  But when I went to a Deseret Book in Las Vegas, there were only four books total.  

However, I would still like to be on Amazon for the reasons EUOL mentioned.  I wasn't on Seagull online until a few days ago.  Most of my sales are going to come from in-store sales.  I wager that few come from seagull online.  I'd rather be on Amazon and be possibly reaching a nation wide audience, because there is probably no way that I can reach a wider audience than those Utahns who happen to shop at Seagull.

Is it possible for me to open up an account on Amazon?  Eat the $65 and just sell my book for the price I can get them at Covenant?

There is a thought...

Oh, and by the way.  Thank you to the powers that be for giving me a corner of this site.  I will link to here from my web site (the link from here should be working now... )

I'll be down south in July.  I think I hit three utah county stores in one day...

Anybody done any podcasting?  I'm going to try and get permission from Covenant to post the first chapter of my book in text, as well as 'podcast' the first chapter of the audio book.

Podcasting doesn't look too tricky, but we will see.  I'll post here when/if I get it on my site.

HOM, you mentioned once that Covenant was thinking about trying to market book outside the LDS market.  Do you know if anything came/is coming of this?  Have they tried it?