Should Authors Sell Books in Person or Market Them Online?

Like many first-time independent authors, I faced a decision that had little to do with writing and everything to do with what came afterwards. When I finished writing SEETHINGS, I knew the novel would not sell itself.

Should I fill the boot of my car with books and take them wherever potential readers gathered?

Should I approach cafés, libraries, book clubs, markets, bookstores and roadside businesses?

Should I arrange talks, conduct signings and try to sell copies one reader at a time?

Or should I attempt something less physical but potentially much larger?

Should I find my market online?

No path promised an easy answer. Each required persistence, time and money. The difference was where that effort would take me—and how many readers I might eventually reach.

I had already seen the face-to-face method in action.

Many years ago, Margo and I paid about twenty-five dollars each to attend an author evening at Rendezvous in Dayboro, Queensland. Rendezvous was part café, part bookshop and part gift shop: the sort of intimate local venue that seemed naturally suited to an author talk.

The author was Kathryn Delaney. Her book carried the memorable title Infinitely More Interesting Than a Loaf of Bread: A Journey to Places, Penfriends and Purpose.

The title had done its job. It caught my attention and remained in my memory long after the evening ended.

The book was a travel memoir about an Australian woman journeying through the United States and meeting people she had previously known as internet penfriends. The premise sounded promising. Margo and I arrived curious and prepared to listen.

Our admission included nibbles, white wine, an author talk and the opportunity to buy a signed copy of the book. Kathryn explained what the memoir was about, discussed her experiences and read sections aloud while Margo and I listened attentively.

The presentation lasted about two hours.

There was only one problem.

By the end, neither of us wanted to buy the book.

Despite its title, the evening had convinced us that a loaf of bread might’ve offered more interest.

That sounds harsh, but the experience taught me something important. Margo and I had already demonstrated interest. We had paid to attend. We had set aside an evening. We were sitting in front of the author, listening carefully, with physical copies of the book available for purchase.

Everything required for a sale was in place.

Yet the presentation did not increase our desire to read the book. It gradually used that desire up.

The event became an extended sample that answered the purchasing question too thoroughly.

Instead of leaving us wanting more, it left us feeling that we had already heard enough.

When the author becomes the advertisement

At the time, I was still writing SEETHINGS and wondering what I would do when the manuscript was finished.

I had seen authors carry boxes of books from town to town. They approached cafés, bookshops, libraries and community groups. Some left copies on consignment at roadside businesses or tourist stops. Others arranged talks and signings, hoping that personal contact would turn interest into sales.

It seemed like one of the most direct options available to an independent author.

I could load the car, take the novel to readers and explain it myself.

The benefits were obvious.

A reader could meet me, ask questions, pick up the book, inspect the cover, read the description and have the copy signed. If interest developed, the book was already there. There was no need to remember the title, search for it later, select a format, create an account or wait for delivery.

Desire and purchase could occur within minutes.

But the Dayboro evening revealed the danger.

When the author is the main attraction, the book becomes dependent on the author’s ability to perform.

Writing and public speaking are different skills. An author may write vividly on the page yet struggle to hold a room. Another may speak confidently but continue too long. The wrong extracts may be chosen. Too much may be explained. The author may give away the emotional substance that should have remained inside the book.

A reading should open a door into the story.

It should not lead the audience through every room, show them the plumbing and wiring and then ask whether they would like to buy the house.

The Dayboro presentation gave me a model of grassroots book marketing, but it also showed me exactly how that model could fail.

Later, I encountered an author who improved it considerably.

Letting the characters sell the novel

In Western Australia, I worked with an author named Linda, author of Secrets Mothers Keep.

Linda’s novel was closely tied to Western Australia. Its characters, locations, history and folklore gave it a natural connection to regional readers. People living in the places linked to the story could recognise the landscape, understand the social history or feel that the novel belonged partly to their community.

For some books, local selling is not merely a fallback. It’s a sensible starting point.

Linda also understood that one person reading entire chapters could flatten a dramatic story. Her solution was to let the characters take charge of the signing nights.

Bree Hartley and I played two young lovers whose new romance was interrupted when my character was called away to war. They had begun imagining a future together, only to have that future reduced to letters passing between the battlefield and home.

The correspondence unfolded across about a year.

At first, the letters carried optimism, affection and hope. The young man believed he would return. The young woman waited at home, still connected to him through the words travelling between them.

Then the tone changed.

My character was being altered by what he saw. The hopelessness of war was replacing the confidence he had carried away with him. His letters became heavier and more distant.

The young woman’s life was changing too. Home did not remain frozen because he had gone. Eventually, she found someone else to date.

Our job was not simply to read dialogue.

We had to turn optimism and hope into sadness and change.

The audience needed to hear two people moving apart while they were still writing to each other. My character was losing his innocence to war. Bree’s character was discovering that time, distance and loneliness could reshape loyalty.

Linda selected the passages carefully.

Neither Bree nor I read entire chapters. The pieces were short and arranged to create an emotional progression without giving away the main story. Linda understood that the purpose of the performance was not to explain everything or burn out the listeners.

She spoke for roughly twenty minutes to introduce the book, its background and the performers. Bree and I carried the dramatic section. Linda then returned to close the event, speak with readers, sell copies and sign them.

It was far more effective than the two-hour presentation I had seen in Dayboro.

The audience was not merely told that the characters were interesting. It heard them.

The signing night became part author talk, part reading and part theatre.

For about eight months, Bree and I worked with Linda at these appearances.

Then the figures caught up with the idea.

Linda calculated that paying two actors at each event consumed too much of the money generated by the books sold that night. The performances improved the experience, but the extra sales did not produce enough profit to cover the actors.

Bree and I were removed from the format.

Linda continued without us for the remainder of her two-year project.

That taught me another lesson. A marketing idea can work artistically and still fail commercially.

Why Linda took to the road

Linda knew I had a novel approaching publication and was interested in hearing how I intended to market it.

She knew about ebooks, but digital publishing was not a direction she felt equipped to pursue. Computers, ebook formats, electronic readers and online sales systems were outside her experience.

That lack of technical confidence helped determine the path available to her.

It is easy to say that an author should create an ebook, build a website, start a mailing list and promote the book online. But someone must understand those systems or be willing to learn them.

Linda understood physical books.

She could place them in a car, contact a venue, arrange an appearance and hand a copy directly to a reader.

She also had cartons of printed stock.

Those books had already been paid for.

Every box represented money tied up in printing, paper, covers and freight. The copies needed to be sold. Leaving them stacked in storage would not recover the cost of producing them.

The product itself helped dictate the marketing strategy.

If an author already owns hundreds of printed books, taking those books to readers may appear more practical than waiting for strangers to find them online.

Her novel’s regional connection strengthened that logic. Local history, familiar towns and Western Australian folklore gave community groups, libraries and regional readers a reason to pay attention.

Linda’s decision to take to the road was not foolish.

It suited the book, the stock she owned, the audience she could identify and the marketing tools she understood.

The real question was whether it made money.

(I remember seeing copies of her book being sold at truck stops and souvenir shops during our road trip to our overnight stay at a Monastery)

Selling books is not the same as making money

I asked Linda whether the two-year travelling and signing campaign had worked.

She and her husband had driven across Western Australia, arranged appearances, delivered books, met readers and supplied stock. They had paid for fuel, accommodation, tyres, servicing, meals and the ordinary expenses involved in keeping a vehicle on the road.

When they compared the value of the books sold against what they had spent, they reached a sobering conclusion.

They had broken even.

They had sold books. They had met readers. They had built recognition and created enjoyable events.

But financially, two years of effort had produced no profit.

This distinction is important for any independent author considering face-to-face selling.

A signing can look successful.

The stack of books becomes smaller. People queue for signatures. Photographs show smiling readers holding fresh copies.

Those are sales.

They are not necessarily profit.

The expenses are less visible.

Nobody photographs the fuel receipt, the motel room, the replacement tyres, the vehicle service or the boxes of unsold stock being loaded back into the car. The time spent organising venues, travelling, setting up, packing down and collecting consignment payments is rarely given a dollar value.

Linda had improved the signing-night model. She chose short passages, used performers and gave the characters control of the emotional material.

Even then, the actors became too expensive.

After removing us and continuing on the road, the wider campaign still only broke even.

That answer helped me choose another direction for SEETHINGS.

I chose to find readers online

I decided not to sell my novels from the boot of a car.

My reasoning was simple.

I believed I could reach readers far beyond my driving range.

If I marketed physically, geography would define the size of my audience. I could visit only one café, library, bookshop or town at a time. Every event required another arrangement, another drive and another room full of people.

When the evening ended, I would have to begin again somewhere else.

Online, the potential market was not limited by the distance I could travel or the number of books I could carry.

A reader elsewhere in Australia could discover SEETHINGS. So could someone in Britain, America, Canada, Ireland or New Zealand. I did not need to be standing beside the novel when that discovery occurred.

An article could remain online after I finished writing it. An excerpt could be read at any hour. A podcast could be heard long after it was recorded. A page discussing dark psychological fiction, troubled relationships or moral ambiguity could lead a reader towards the trilogy.

Instead of transporting cartons, I could let the material travel.

That was the opportunity.

The difficulty was finding an audience.

The internet provides theoretical access to millions of people. It does not make them interested.

Building an online market required me to write far more than the novels themselves. I created articles, excerpts, author pages, personal reflections and material connected to the themes explored in the fiction.

I had to learn about websites, search engines, internal links, descriptions, images, reader behaviour and the words people use when searching for something to read.

Physical marketing asks an author to find rooms containing readers.

Online marketing asks an author to build entrances readers can find for themselves.

That is no less arduous.

The rewards are simply different.

What I lost by choosing online marketing

I do not believe online marketing wins every part of this comparison.

A signed book sitting on a table has an advantage that an online listing cannot fully reproduce.

It is present.

A reader who has just heard an interesting passage can pick up the book, feel its weight, turn it over and read the back. The author can answer a question and write a personal message inside the cover.

The reader can pay and leave with the book.

Desire, purchase and possession may happen within minutes.

That physical availability creates a question I cannot answer.

How many copies of SEETHINGS did I fail to sell because the book was not sitting on a shelf or table at the exact moment someone became interested?

There is no report for an abandoned thought.

I cannot count the person who heard about the novel, intended to search for it later and forgot. I cannot identify the reader who would have bought a signed copy after speaking with me but would not complete an online transaction.

I cannot measure the customer who needed to hold the book before deciding it was worth purchasing.

Those lost sales almost certainly exist.

I simply do not know how many there were.

A physical book can take advantage of an impulse immediately. Online selling adds distance between desire and entertainment.

At a signing, the sequence may be:

Hear about book → inspect book → buy book → take book home → read book.

Online, it may become:

Discover author → read article → notice novel → follow link → inspect retailer page → choose format → enter payment details → order book → wait for delivery → receive book → begin reading.

Every extra stage creates another place where the buyer can disappear.

The reader may become distracted. Postage may seem too expensive. The sales page may be left open and forgotten. The paperback may be ordered, but the initial enthusiasm may fade while the buyer waits for it to arrive.

Ebooks remove the delivery delay, but they do not remove every form of friction. A digital book can be purchased instantly and then disappear into a device already holding dozens of unread titles.

Online retail provides reach and convenience.

Physical retail provides immediacy.

That is one of the most important weaknesses of the path I chose.

What I gained

The advantage of online marketing is not that every interested reader becomes a buyer.

It is that the work can continue reaching people without requiring me to repeat it in person.

A signing night reaches the people in the room. A useful article can be discovered again and again. A physical event has a beginning and an end. A search result may continue introducing an author to readers years after publication.

The work can accumulate.

One article can lead to another. Several articles can support a central page about the novels. A reader may first encounter me through a subject related to the fiction, return later, recognise the name and eventually become curious about the books.

That journey is slower and less visible than watching someone buy a paperback from a table.

It may also lead to readers I could never have reached by driving.

This was the trade-off I accepted.

I sacrificed physical immediacy and almost certainly lost some impulse purchases. In exchange, I created the possibility of reaching people beyond one town, one region and one evening.

Which method is better?

For some authors, face-to-face selling may be the better choice.

A charismatic speaker with a book tied to regional history, specialist knowledge, local folklore or a recognisable community may do well at talks and signings. A reader living in the places depicted may feel an immediate connection to the story.

An author holding cartons of books already printed and paid for may also need to move that stock.

Technical ability matters too.

An author comfortable with websites, digital publishing and online retailers has options that may feel inaccessible to someone who does not understand those systems.

A hybrid approach may be stronger than either method alone. An author can appear locally while using those events to collect mailing-list subscribers, create photographs or video and produce online material that remains useful after the event.

But anyone considering the travelling model should calculate everything.

Do not count only the books sold.

Count the fuel, accommodation, meals, printing, freight, retailer discounts, vehicle wear, performers and unpaid hours. Decide whether the event is meant to earn money immediately, create publicity, move stock or build a long-term readership.

Those are different goals.

The same discipline should be applied online.

Do not assume that publishing a website creates an audience. Count the years spent producing material, learning systems and improving discoverability. Global availability is not the same as global attention.

I cannot claim that online marketing is easier.

I can say that it suited the kind of author business I wanted to build.

I didn’t want every sale to require another drive, another carton of books, and another room full of people. I wanted the work I completed today to still be able to find a reader tomorrow.

I wanted to reach beyond my driving range.

So I chose to find my readers online.

Some books were probably not sold because I was not standing beside them when curiosity struck. Other books reached readers in places I would never have visited, through pages that continued working while I was elsewhere.

Linda’s method suited her regional story, her printed stock and the marketing tools she understood.

Mine suited the reach I wanted and the technology I was prepared to learn.

One method carries books across the land.

The other sends ideas ahead and waits for the right reader to find them.

Neither path is easy.

The important question for an independent author is not merely:

Which method sells books?

It is this:

Which method suits the book, the audience, the author’s abilities and the kind of writing life that author is prepared to build?

–Michael (Dark Fiction. Author of SEETHINGS (the first book), free for a limited time)