Dear Bookseller

The literary world is more challenging than ever before. With an ever-increasing reservoir of titles in all genres, competition from massive retailers with seemingly limitless amounts of money to run their businesses, plus evolving technologies and new forms of entertainment, some days the future indeed looks bleak.

As a former business executive, I understand you can’t regularly stock significant quantities of my titles. But I want you to know I’m willing to work with you and hope you’ll consider a relationship with me. Let me outline some ways that might work to our mutual benefit.

  1. When customers inquire about my titles, if you’re a customer of Ingram Content, you can order any or all my titles regardless of your location. Ingram terms and conditions apply, with a healthy bookseller discount from the suggested retail price for your country. If something goes wrong with your customer transaction and you lose the sale, you have Ingram’s return policy available to you.
  1. If your business is within a 3-hour drive of Downtown Toronto, in any direction, in the US or Canada, I’m willing to work with you to schedule an author signing event. I’ll ask you to order books from Ingram before your event (I’ll also help you select the title mix and quantities) for display and sale. At the promo’s end, you may return any unsold books to Ingram or display them for sale, again with Ingram’s return policy available to you.
  1. I’m a skillful salesperson and co-authored NEEDs Selling Solutions. I ask you to schedule me as your only author promoting during the day of the event. Stores are usually pleased with the sales results, and I assume all my travel expenses, with no store participation requested. I typically like 6-hour store promotions and will work with your store to generate optimum floor traffic with social media promotions and advertising. 
  1. If your business is outside that 3-hour drive area, I can still work with you and your customers via Zoom. Do you organize book club meetings at the store? Would you like me to appear online and chat with your group? With your confirmed order to Ingram for the book club orders, I’ll happily schedule one mutually convenient slot for up to one hour with your book club.
  1. I link my website visitors with https://bookshop.org/contributors/gary-d-mcgugan in the US and https://uk.bookshop.org/contributors/gary-d-mcgugan, encouraging readers visiting my website to consider supporting indie booksellers and help generate income for both organizations.

With eight current titles and more on the way, please consider working with me. We can benefit despite the barrage of competition and tough market conditions!

Sincerely,

Gary