What can publishers do next?

Imagine you walk into your local bookshop and start browsing. You look at several titles but nothing catches your eye. You look at your watch - almost time for your train home. The book you have in your hand looks interesting. You look at your watch again.

The store owner sees you are pressed for time. He takes the book from your hands and tears off the front cover and the first fifty pages. "Here. Take it with you and read it. If you like it,  come back and I'll sell you a full copy."

Stunned, a little horrified at the concept of ripping up books, and  at the unusual sales technique you read the part book on your way home and decide that you will buy a full copy tomorrow.

A month or two later, after you've purchased a few books in a similar way from this bookripper, he grins and hands you a full paperback with a difference. It's free, made up of the first fifty pages and front cover of a number of different books - ten of them. After each book section there's a page with what would normally be on the back cover and a QR code. Scanning the QR code with your smartphone allows you to buy the e-book version or you are offered a discount paper book at the bookshop.

The bookstore manager tells you the story behind this unusual book. "I get a lot of books on sale or return. I have limited shelf space so most of the books which are delivered end up being returned. The publisher usually ends up pulping them. Rather than pulping the entire book I asked the sales rep if I could return just part of the book and give the rest out as a promotion. He asked his boss and he agreed.  I've been doing this for a while and my booksales are up quite a bit. The end result is this new book of samples. If you decide to buy an ebook version - just enter the code on the sticker from the back cover and I'll get sales commission on that too. Enjoy"

Now wouldn't that be nice?

Can a bookshop make money from ebooks? Yes!

Bookshops everywhere are worried. There's a revolution going on and they are losing sales because of it. The revolution is that of ebooks!

Oh I know there are those who say 'I love the feel and smell of a proper book' but these are mostly people who have not yet got an ebook reader. Once these people have got their hands on one it doesn't take long for them to change their minds. That means fewer sales of paper books.

Yet we all still like going to the library and browsing the books in a bookstore. Having found the book we like do we then buy the paper format or simply make a note of it and look it up at Amazon later to get it in ebook format? I have to admit, I've done the latter many times but felt guilty that I've denied the bookseller a profit from the sale. He/she has, after all, helped me in my book purchase.

So how can the bookstore make money from ebooks? I think there is an answer, and one which is simple to put in practice.

How a bookstore can cash-in on ebooks

The bookseller makes use of the many affiliate programs offered for ebooks. Smashwords seems to offer the best one but there are others such as Amazon and iBooks. Here's how to do this:

1. If you, the bookseller, have not already joined an affiliate program then sign up for them at:
   Smashwords - https://www.smashwords.com/about/smashwords_affiliate_documentation
   Amazon UK - https://affiliate-program.amazon.co.uk/
   Amazon US - https://affiliate-program.amazon.com
   iTunes (iBooks) - https://itunes-signup.partnerize.com/signup/en_us/itunes
2. If you do not have a Twitter account then sign up for that at
   https://twitter.com/
3. For Amazon, add the site stripe to your Amazon account
   https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/landing/tools.html
4. For Amazon, on your computer navigate to a book's page at Amazon and click the Twitter button on the associate site stripe toolbar
   
   
   Copy the text as far as the 'via@...
5. If you're using the far more profitable Smashwords affiliate account the links are even easier to make - see here.
6. Paste that text into a QL generator page on Internet. I use the QR Code generator at http://goqr.me/
   
   At this stage you can edit the text to include the price and any other details you wish to include.
7. Copy the QR code generated and paste it into Word for further editing as follows:
   
8. Print this out on a self adhesive label and fix it to a bookmark provided by the author. You can leave a stack of these at your sales desk, insert them in books or fix then to a thin card placed inside the back cover of a book (or on the back if there's space). You might also need to make a few posters advertising your ebook service and where the customer can get a free QR code scanner app for their mobile phone. (Try QR Droid) 

Customers browsing your books can scan the QR codes and buy the books immediately using Amazon's 'one touch'. You get the commission on the sale. 

Of course there is no reason why this should be restricted to using Amazon as an ebook provider. If an author comes into your store promoting his/her books negotiate a deal with them to sell their ebooks through Smashwords - Not only do they support more reading devices but they provide a higher royalty rate to the author - 85% and the affiliate rate can be set so that you get a higher commission on the sale than you would get from Amazon 30-40% would seem fair. (I give 35% affiliate commission at Smashwords)

You might also contact authors and invite them to send you some bookmarks featuring their book with an area on which you can stick your QL code.

You might even end up making more money from ebooks than you do from paper books and you won't have to do a thing at the till!

And authors? Try making and having printed some bookmarks. Here's some examples: