by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
Fortunately, the olden days of being a self-published writer are over. Those days involved keeping large quantities of paperback novels in your garage or closet or even carrying them in the trunk of your car as John Grisham famously did for his first book (he had a small publisher instead of self-publishing…but the distribution wasn’t there).
Today, it’s all about POD, print on demand. Amazon’s KDP Print (formerly CreateSpace) and IngramSpark wait until there’s an order from a reader to print a book. No inventory or storage required.
Because it’s so easy, it’s also easy for me to get very absent-minded about my own personal inventory.
Not knowing your home inventory is a bad thing for many reasons:
Do you know how many copies of your latest release you have? If not, you may be surprised when you run a giveaway during a blog tour and find that you don’t have a copy of the book to sign and send to the winner.
If you have a book signing or are appearing at a conference, you may think you have copies of your most popular titles (and that’s always what readers ask me when I’m at an event…”What’s your favorite book?” Since I hate answering that question, I refer them to my most popular books with readers). But you may be showing up at your event without the first book in your series.
Sometimes a reader may email you and ask for a signed copy of a particular book to be sent as a gift for a family member. There will be a delay if you must order a copy to be sent to you before sending it along to the reader.
Another problem is having too many books. What if you don’t know how many books you have? Maybe they’re in a box under a guest room bed or stowed in a closet, yellowing. I had old author copies from my days writing for Penguin and recently sold them for a $1 apiece at an event. Yes, they sold out, but I also managed to undercut my own full-priced books.
If you have an Etsy store, as I do, you may regularly get requests for signed books…for whichever book the reader left off on in your series. Again, a delay will occur if you have to have copies sent to your house first.
I have done all of the above. Sometimes more than once.
Now I have more of a system to prevent the embarrassment of looking unprofessional (and for me, it’s definitely an embarrassment).
When I have a new book release, I order several copies for myself.
When I accept an invitation to an event, I put two notes on my calendar: one noting the date of the event and the other to remind myself to order books for it. (Note: for other traditionally published or hybrid mystery writers out there, I’ve found the best place to order my trad pubbed books is through independent bookseller Mystery Lovers Bookshop. They frequently run 20% off sales and offer free shipping with orders over $50. It’s nice not to pay full price for my books. And you’re supporting an indie bookstore in the process.)
I keep a list on my computer of ordered books…the dates I ordered them and the titles. Whenever one sells, I adjust the number in stock. When it hits a certain threshold, I order more.
Unless you do tons of events, you really don’t need too many titles on hand. I feel comfortable having just three of each title unless I’m going to a signing where I know I’ll sell a lot of books…then I like more of the first books in a series, more of reader favorites, and more of my latest release.
How do you manage inventory as a writer? How many books do you keep in stock at your house?
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Hi Elizabeth – as you rightly say … keeping a record of all things is essential – you’re running a business and you need to know where ‘you stand’ – so keeping tabs of everything is so necessary … saves lots of time and panic stations … control over one’s publishing life makes sense for the rest of your home life. Cheers Hilary
It’s the kind of thing that does take up time on the front end, but saves a lot of trouble later! Hope you have a good weekend, Hilary!
I have a couple copies of each of my books.
It’s cheaper for you to order your books from a bookstore than your publisher?
When it comes to Penguin RH? Yes, at least for me. I pay full retail price for those books (I did get author copies originally from them as part of my contract, but those were from 2010-2014 and any remaining are pretty yellow now, ha).
You know, it’s funny you would take up this topic, Elizabeth. I’ve just been thinking about how many copies of my books I have and/or should have. It’s important as you say to have an inventory. I think that’s especially true for when you do events, try to get your books into stores, and so on. Deciding how many copies to have on hand is a challenge when you’re low on space, but I think it’s important.
It’s tough to gauge. I probably do 1 or 2 events a year where I’m selling books in person, which isn’t a lot, but boy I can mess it up. I think, for me, the best way to handle it is to have at least *one* copy of *all* of my books (at 30 books, this is already a storage problem, ha). Then 1-2 more on hand of my top-sellers. If readers buy a copy from me online, I need to immediately replace the copy. Then, 8 weeks out or so from an event, assess and buy.
Unfortunately, it’s not really a problem for me. Not a huge number of people clamoring for my hard copies. When I first started, I order paperbacks ten at a time. Now, I order five and hope that eventually I’ll find people to sell/give them to. I try to keep a couple of each in my trunk – cuz ya never know who you might run into. Which reminds me… I’m out of one title entirely and I know I need to restock the trunk.
I guess if I ever get to the point where I’m moving hard copies, I’ll build a spreadsheet or something. Actually, I probably should do that anyway. Lord knows I have spreadsheets for everything else.
It’s tough. I usually have a looonnng stretch where I don’t move any copies. Then, suddenly, I have an emergency on my hands. “OH! I don’t have any books and I have an event next week!” I have not, historically, handled this at all well because I think I’m lulled by the long stretches of little movement.
A spreadsheet would be an easy way to track it all.
And sometimes no matter how careful you are with your inventory, you’ll still be short books. (I ordered books after our con two weeks ago so I’d have them for a writers conference tomorrow. They are being delivered MONDAY. Of course!)
That’s so frustrating! Same thing has happened to me before. I try to allow 8 weeks now, although I think that’s ridiculous.
I hadn’t thought of some of those reasons to have books on hand! I can EASILY imagine being caught out without what you need/want on hand! :)
It’s funny how very *long* it took me to create a system! So easy to forget this stuff. :)
Great timing on this post. I was just considering renting storage where I could create a shipping system, because my house is so small. Taking time to pull inventory from under beds is too much time away from real writing work. Im gad I’m not the only one with storage issues:)
And It’s good to know authors fit on Etsy.
There are some really nice author ‘stores’ on Etsy! Mine is minor league. :) But it’s a nice way to send books out to readers who want to gift signed copies.
Really, with POD, we only need to worry about a few books at a time (but when we have a *lot* of titles, it becomes a little more problematic. I do still see more $1 book sales in my future…)
This is an awesome reminder. Thank you.
Thanks for coming by, Tina!