A Suggestion For A Better Way To Sell Books

Okay, so I’ve got an idea for a Project I want to pitch that I hope other folks can take up and run with because I think it would be pretty cool and also help ease the stress of a lot of Independent Authors. It’s basically just a Platform for Independent Publishers and Authors to connect with Readers and sell their Books that has a few key features that I think could help it to become a viable alternative to the big online booksellers whose algorithms shape the entire Industry.

But before getting too far into a solution, let’s look closer at the Problem so we can see where exactly the biggest issues lie – which is the easiest part because this particular Problem is actually pretty simple (it’s the same basic Problem as all Artists face, this is just the 2020s Independent Author version of it):

Fishing For Readers In Algorithm-Infested Seas

Before we move on, there is an important point that I need everyone to keep in mind as I present my Solution to this Problem: the Present Book-Selling Landscape dominated by big corporations like Amazon and Barnes & Noble and Google, etc is just ONE Solution to this Problem – I am merely looking at ways to solve the Problem differently so that we can get some better results.

That’s also a good segue into the most important bit of nuance of the Indy Author Problem – which is of course that massive corporations set the Rules that everyone else has to follow or at least learn how to navigate – and the 2020s version of that means that you have to dance to the tune of proprietary algorithms that have the primary goals of maximizing profits for said massive corporations and not actually connecting Authors with Readers in a way that makes the Cycle of Text Creation & Distribution run smoothly.

These algorithms are set up that no matter who “wins”, most Indy Artists are gonna lose (especially factoring in Quality of Life, and why wouldn’t we?), but if you want the Cycle of Text Creation & Distribution to run at all then you’d better dance to that tune – including a lot of Marketing and Advertising and Self-Promoting that tons of people just have a really hard time doing simply because it goes against their personality.

If I had to guess I would say that this is not that rare of an issue for Independent Artists of all stripes.

Taking the algorithmically fuckt part of the Present Publishing Landscape into account, we can narrow down our quest for a better Solution considerably:

How do we create a Platform that helps Independent Authors get their Books to Readers in a way that (a) minimizes the amount of Marketing and Advertising and Self-Promotion stuff that acts as a Barrier To Entry and/or Source Of Constant Stress for so many Authors and (b) helps Authors to actually Make A Living?

In order to answer the first part of that question, let’s look at what all that Marketing, Advertising, & Self-Promoting is supposed to accomplish.

Building Fandoms/Readerships:
Cutting Through The Noise

Ultimately the purpose of all Promotion type work is to help the Text find Readers who will then throw the Author some Money in exchange for access to the Text so the Author can continue to Create new Texts while also managing to live Life.

The Promotion work is meant to help potential Readers know about your Book in the first place so that they even know that it’s an option when they are looking to shop for their next Book. So you have to “cut through the noise” of the algorithm and all the other constant ads and informative sales pitches that people are inundated with on a daily basis.

A bit daunting, yeah, but when we step back from it for a moment and look at from a Reader’s Perspective – which I’m pretty sure we’ve all been developing far longer than we have our Author’s Perspectives – there are a lot of ways that we hear about new Books and Authors.

In deed, many of us have been reading since long before we ever heard of an online search engine – and enjoyed other related art-forms such as Music and Film as well. We managed to find new things to read, listen to, and watch in spite of our digital disconnectedness – we had other kinds of connectedness in those days. The wildest part is that those other forms of connectedness all still exist in the digital age! Plus all the digital stuff, too!

Anyway, to help get our juices flowing in the right direction, let’s list a few ways we hear about new Books and Authors to get us started:

• Recommendations from other Readers (peers)
• Recommendations from Experts (librarians, teachers, etc)
• Hearing favorite Authors talk about their influences in interviews
• Seeing a familiar Author’s blurb on the cover of a Book
• Book Reviews and other stuff by Critics
• Seeing what Books are next to the Books you already like on the shelf at a Library or Bookstore
• Finding new Authors in Short Story Anthologies

Okay, I think that is more than enough to point us in a good direction, so let’s mix these and ingredients and bake these brownies.

To Grow A Fanbase:
Or Building Communities of Readers

Okay, so everyone has heard terms like “Growing a Fanbase” or “Community of Readers”, mostly because it’s a good way to think about what any Author wants to do with their Work – and like growing anything it takes a lot of different kinds of Work at different stages.

The Problem is confounded because having a heckload of different Authors each do this on their own is kind of not a very good strategy for growing robust communities, to say the least. Readerships and Fandoms are not zero sum games between Authors – and selling Books shouldn’t be either, because telling Stories certainly isn’t.

Of course some Authors will be really good at doing the Promotion side of Distribution in the Present Publishing Landscape, but I bet even those who it comes to naturally still find it to be one of their greatest sources of Stress – and the people who just plain aren’t good at it, or don’t have the Time or Resources to do it in sustainably as a way to Make A Living? Well, bummer for them.

Growing Communities As Communities: A Makes-Sense-To-Me Approach

But what if we tried to Grow Fanbases and Communities of Readers as a Community? I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that this would be way more effective for everyone and also way less Stressful and may even cut out the need for a lot of the Present Publishing Landscape’s version of Marketing, Advertising & Self-Promotion. Worth a think-over at least?

So, let’s see where we’re at:

We need a Platform where we can Grow Communities Of Readers & Fanbases, but remember we want to do this as a Community – so what we really want is a Platform where we can Grow Communities of Readers & Authors & Editors & Fanbases (within those Communities).

There are three key features that I think together would accomplish the goal of Growing Communities Of Readers & Authors & Editors that can replace a lot of the Marketing and Advertising that the Present Publishing Landscape requires. There are some other features that I think would be good additions, too, but there are three that give the Platform its general shape.

Just to get one out of the way real quick, there should be Forums for Readers (and Authors and Editors, too of course) to post on to talk about the different Texts – and not have customer reviews on individual Book or Author’s pages (you’ll see why in a second). I think people are ready for Forums attached to different websites again, and an Independent Books Etc Website I bet could drum up quite a bit of traffic from that alone. I’ll come back to this again later, but I want to talk about two other possible features first:

(1) Reviews by Authors and Editors who are members of the Platform and (2) Curated Digital Bookshelves.

What’s In A Review?

An important lesson that’s out there for anyone to take from the past couple of decades is how big a factor Reviews can be in shaping economic behavior. Yelp-style Reviews and Amazon-style Reviews have definitely affected the way that pretty much every business conducts itself and I bet that most Authors in their role as Person-Needing-To-Make-A-Living could attest.

So the question is then: What style of Review will help shape the kind of Community of Readers, Authors, Editors, & Fandoms that we actually want? Well, let’s look at what we already do and have been doing well before any digital attempts at building this kind of stuff.

Referring back to the list I threw together earlier about how we hear about new Books and Authors, the first thing that jumps out is:

Recommendations Galore!

• Recommendations from other Readers (peers)
• Recommendations from Experts (librarians, teachers, etc)
• Hearing favorite Authors talk about their influences in interviews
• Seeing a familiar Author’s blurb on the cover
• Book Reviews and other stuff by Critics
• What’s next to books you already know you like on the shelf at the Library or Bookstore
• Find new Authors in Short Story Anthologies

Whether they be from a friend or a teacher or an Author talking about what they’re reading, there are three basic parts to any Recommendation, and each of these parts can play a role in shaping Communities and Fandoms: The Person who is doing the Recommending, the Text that is being Recommended, and Why.

Navigating Virtuous Circles:
Independent Authors’ & Editors’ Reviews

We all know to avoid Vicious Circles because of negative feedback loops, right? But we should also be seeking Positive Feedback Loops when starting anything new. Symbiosis, am I right? That’s all I mean by Virtuous Circles, by the way, in case you were only acquainted with their Vicious cousins.

Anyway, to answer the part about The Person doing the Recommending we need to talk a little bit about the basic structure of the Platform.

To me it should be some type of Cooperative type of Membership for Independent Authors and Editors and Publishers – and one of the “duties” of Membership could include Reviewing other Texts on the Platform – the frequency I’m sure could be hashed out, but honestly shouldn’t be too much of an issue and here is why:

Using a Shared Love Of Reading For Good Instead Of Evil

Unlike a lot of Marketing and Self-Promoting, this is something pretty much all of us naturally do with Books we like anyway – we tell other people who like to read about this Awesome Book we just finished and what we got out of it and what we think other people might get out of it, too.

**And in case you were wondering, I think the basic tenor and style of all the Reviews should be “here’s what I got out of this and/or this is a good example of a thing I like” because I think it fosters the growth of Communities exactly like the ones I think a lot of Authors and Readers want to be a part of. If you didn’t find a Book worthwhile to read, then you don’t Recommend it even with qualifications or Review it all if you don’t want to, right?**

Assuming every Author and Editor had a Page, their Page would include links to the Texts that the Author or Editor has Reviewed – which itself represents a personal canon of Fandom that Readers can follow. This is a particularly useful feature when establishing sub-genres and micro-genres, but even more importantly it’s a feature that I think most Readers would love.

But wait there’s more! Those links would go both ways of course – of course a Book’s Reviews would be on that Book’s Page, and so every time an Author or Editor posts a Review for someone else’s Book they are essentially creating a link to their own Page as well – and if you are doing this for Books that potentially have a large overlap in Readership with your work then you just did yourself a favor as well, didn’t you? Symbiosis, am I right?

And for Authors trying to break into a Genre: chances are if you give a lot of Reviews then eventually some of those Authors will at least read your Book and possibly Review it in return –and honestly, if you find yourself giving a lot of Reviews and no one is Reviewing your work in return then you should probably think about finding an Editor to work with or attending a Writer’s Workshop.

Furthermore, even if people don’t click on the link to your Author Page when reading the Reviews you left for someone else, they more than likely saw your name – and if they see your name pop up on multiple Books they end up purchasing and enjoying, then it seems plausible they’d eventually click over to your Page when searching for something new.

Okay, I think that’s good enough to get you to see what I’m getting at with the Reviews – I just want to highlight one more thing about them as a transition to talking about Curated Digital Bookshelves:

As mentioned above, you can use this kind of Author/Member and Editor/Member Review System to shape Sub- or Micro-Genres in literally any direction you could imagine just through the use of tags or hashtags in the Reviews alone. Honestly, I think Patterns would occur naturally that happen to coincide with those Sub- and Micro-Genres, but I also think there is a better way to use these Patterns, and if you guessed I was gonna say “with Curated Digital Bookshelves” then you would be absolutely correct, so let’s dive in.

Curated Digital Bookshelves:
Let The People Browse, Dammit!

I know we all love scrolling through endless search results, but sometimes we really just want to Browse before we find a our next read. At least in my experience, most digital browsing for Books just doesn’t scratch that itch like brick and mortar Libraries and Book Stores. Algorithms can only do what algorithms can do.

So let’s see if we can shape a Platform to give us more of that Browsing a Library or Used Book Store feeling. I bet if a Book Selling Platform captured even half of that feeling it would become popular pretty damn quickly and remain popular longly. Just sayin.

Okay then, let’s bake these cupcakes:

First off, I think that The Book Case and the Book Shelf are both good units for Browsing – and should work well as a template for an Independent Booksellers Platform, too.

To see how this translates, let’s start with something that Digital Bookshelves can do that we all wish brick and mortar stores could, too: put the same Books or Authors on multiple shelves at once – like, wherever they belong.

Using that as our starting point, I think that Curated Digital Bookshelves – along with the Review System that would of course tie in with it – have the potential to accomplish the same thing all the Marketing and Advertising and Self-Promoting is supposed to do, but better in every way. Let’s see why:

I’m sure everyone can imagine quite a few more ways to organize Digital Bookshelves, but I want to focus on just one more way: one that I think could help to give the Platform that special Something that keeps people coming back when they are looking for something new to read, and it goes back to the last non-algorithmically based ways of finding new Authors: Short Story Anthologies.

Don’t Mourn: Anthologize!

Let’s say that an Editor or an Author really wants to promote some new Micro-Genre that they’re seeing develop, so they put a call out for Short Stories in that Micro-Genre to put together an Anthology that will serve as the basis for a Bookshelf that will include at least one Book for sale from each contributor.

So now when Readers are Browsing they see a Bookshelf with a really niche Micro-Genre that looks interesting but they’re still not sold enough on it to go in for a full novel, they can read through the Anthology and see if there are any Authors who they connect with and then boom! Here’s the link to their Book that is a good example of that niche Micro-Genre.

Honestly, I think using Anthologies to shape Bookshelves would be awesome for a lot of reasons. Let’s see a few:

• First, as a Reader I would definitely use these to find Books to purchase, because I already do this anyway with Short Story Anthologies that aren’t connected to a Curated Digital Bookshelf. I think a lot of other people would do the same tbh.
• You can print limited runs of these for the Contributors to distribute at Conventions and the like.
• They would help Editors connect with Readers more, and for Editors who really want to be a part of that side of the Industry, too, then doing these kinds of Anthologies is probably the best way to foster that, because then Readers get a glimpse of who they are vis-a-vis the Creative Process
• It’s a reliable way for new Authors to connect with already established Readerships
• It’s a good way for Authors and Editors to connect with each other, which may lead to collaborations that wouldn’t have happened otherwise, and some of those might yield some pretty awesome results – plus who doesn’t like making new friends?
• You can either distribute them for free as purely promotional, or what I think is a better idea, if being sold through the Platform then giving deals for bundling Anthologies – BOGO stuff, or 1 for 10, 2 for 18, 3 for 25 type stuff. It could also be set up that these Anthologies are published via the Platform itself so that the proceeds from the sales of the Anthologies are used to finance the Platform and could then be priced accordingly.

Getting in on a Bookshelf Anthology is a good way for traditionally published Authors to take part in the Platform and the community it could offer as well – find an Independent Publisher who specializes in publishing novellas to attach one to the Anthology’s Bookshelf.

Seriously, if The Murderbot Diaries only teach us one thing, let be that the People yearn for novella-length stories – and a really great introduction to a new author.

I’m just saying that using Short Story Anthologies that act as explorations of niche micro-genres that are connected to Digital Bookshelves of novella-length books that in turn act as introductions between Readers and new Authors as a foundation for an Independent Book Selling Platform is so much better than anything an algorithm could spit out and would benefit everyone involved – Authors, Editors, Publishers, and Readers.

I don’t know, it just seems like a far better way for Readers to find Authors telling the type of stories they want to read than exists today. Besides all of the other problems with the Present Publishing Landscape, it’s a fucking slog to find anything as a casual Reader.

Again I will say: any digital Book Selling Platform that makes searching for new Books half as enjoyable as Browsing a brick and mortar Library or Book Store would become inevitably become popular and as long as it is guided by the desire to build a Community of Readers, Authors, Editors, and Fandoms then it will be far more profitable for all of the Authors involved than anything guided by the profit motive.

I would use it, anyway.

Some Final Thoughts On Scalability & Other Reasons Why This Would Be Cool AF

Okay, so I think I described the Review System and the Bookshelves and Anthologies enough for people to see how they could work together to give shape to the Platform – now let’s look at a few other considerations.

I’ll start with Scalability because I think other suggestions for the Platform will naturally peak their heads out and about while I discuss it.

One of the reasons I think a Platform like this could become one of the default spaces for Readers looking for a new book is because it can start off fairly small, with a few Independent Publishing Houses that already have a decent amount of Authors and Texts in their inventories as well as some already successful (ie well-known Authors with a reliable Readership) Independent Authors – and then add new Authors and Editors at a pace that works for the Platform and the people doing the behind the scenes stuff to make it actually work.

Book Store Browsing As A Template For Site Navigation

However Bookshelves and Bookcases get structured – I personally think there is a lot of room to play with these organizing tools that can ultimately enhance the Browsing experience – they should be extremely useful for users to navigate the Platform, and because they are meant to have overlapping Authors, Editors, and Texts, they provide an infrastructure to build on that makes it easier for new Authors and Editors to plug into the Platform and far less overwhelming than trying to “cut through the noise” of proprietary algorithms.

The Reviews act as a different navigation infrastructure for the Platform as well, which criss-crosses with the Bookshelves and Bookcases in all types of fun and twisty ways which ultimately help to reinforce the overall sense of Browsing and thus the usability of the Platform.

If Independent Publishers got together and created a Platform that was easy to Navigate and reliably connected Readers to Books and Authors they end up enjoying and even loving – then people will keep coming back to it, and if it does both of these things really well it could even become the first place a lot of Readers go when looking for their next Book.

If enough Authors (or Publishing Houses) with aready robust Fandoms and Readerships got on board at the beginning, then a Platform such as this should have enough initial users to get a running start and build momentum. Then the biggest questions would be about how easy it is to Navigate and how much there is to do on the Platform to keep users interested – but that shouldn’t be too hard to come up with because there’s a lot of stuff that people already do that would translate well.

What About Them Bells & Whistles?

First, having Forums attached for Readers to discuss Texts with Authors and Editors and other Readers is probably a good idea, especially if the main goal is to build a Community of Readers, Authors, Editors, and Fandoms, and of course, the more people there are talking about specific Authors and/or Texts the better, right?  Especially if those discussions will get picked up by parasitic algorithms such as google’s.

But there’s an awful lot of other things that could help to fill out the structure of the Platform – podcasts and interviews, Author Panels, read-alongs, etc, etc. I think that the more of that kind of stuff that can be included as part of the basic structure of the Platform, then the more time people will spend on Browsing the Platform which makes it all the more likely that when Readers are going to purchase a Book (or whatever), that this Platform will be their first stop.

And because this Platform is primarily concerned with building a Community of Readers, Authors, Editors, and Fandoms, all the other features that people would want to add should be shaped by these considerations, too – Virtual Author Panels for each of the Bookshelf Anthologies, which in themselves would serve as valuable resources for defining and shaping every level of Genre in the years to come (because if they are good and insightful and useful for understanding Genre and Theme then lit teachers absolutely will use their favorite ones in classes from the earliest grades through university – of this I have no doubt).

Give It Some Time To Marinate

Anyway, I’m gonna stop here because I think that if there are any people who have both the capacity and the desire to create such a Platform, they would by this point be thinking of their own details to add or change.

I hope there are people out there who will take something like this up, or who are already working on something similar, because I would definitely shop for Books on such a Platform and I really do believe that a lot of other Readers would, too.