306. Your Guide to Getting Your Books in Libraries with Eric Simmons

Author and ESE CEO Eric Simmons discusses the importance of getting your books into libraries, the steps to take in this pursuit, and tips on bettering your chances of getting sales in this special extended episode to kick off the new year!

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Get in contact with Eric and start your library journey today:
Library Contacts “Database"
Library Consulting Services

Check out the other resources recommended by Eric:

• Get Your Book Into Libraries Now – Eric's YouTube interview with April Cox.
• How To Get Your Self-Published Book Into Libraries – His podcast interview with Joanna Penn.
• “How To Get Your Book Into Libraries” – For several years, this article was the top Google search result on the subject out of 2 billion “hits.” 
• “Get Your Book Into Libraries” 
• Library Marketing Services

Transcript

Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the author-focused podcast that takes a whole-person approach to everything related to both writing and editing. No matter how your book is published, you have the opportunity to also make it available to libraries. But why should you want to? And once you realize why you should, what steps do you need to take to see it someday on library shelves? Author, speaker, and CEO of ESE, Inc. Eric Simmons has even written a book on this exact subject and he's here to share how to get your book into libraries.

Jennia: Well, first, I'm so pleased to have you here!

Eric Simmons: Well, thank you, Jennia. It's a pleasure being here!

Jennia: Could you let listeners know a little bit more about you and maybe why you first became interested in this subject?

Eric Simmons: When I started out, Jennia, I decided to self-publish my memoir.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: And when I released the book I started having good sales through Amazon. The first six months I did really well. And then after that I experienced what I call the roller coaster effect. Some months my book sales would be high, some months they would be low, some months flat.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: And I come from a background—I spent over three decades in corporate America where I was in sales and sales management. And in that world we are used to quotas and being able to forecast sales. I had no way of being able to forecast my book sales. So I thought about some different avenues for doing so. To try to get my arms more around what was happening with my books in terms of sales. I thought about book clubs. Contacted one of the largest book clubs in the nation. Unfortunately they had already selected the books that they were gonna be reading for the next year.

Jennia: Ohh.

Eric Simmons: So I was at the end of their decision making cycle. The next thing I thought about were bookstores. And I talked to several independent bookstore owners and each said, "Well, Eric, we'll buy your books, but if they don't sell, we'd like for you to buy them back." That's called a consignment arrangement. And that just really didn't fit what I was looking for. In the back of my mind I always thought about possibly marketing my self-published works to libraries. Part of the reason for that was I wasn't so interested about the prestige of getting my books into libraries. I was more interested in having libraries prove the credibility of my books.

Jennia: Hmm.

Eric Simmons: There was an organization, a company called Kirkus, that a lot of libraries used for their book reviews.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: Kirkus does that upfront work, so to speak, for libraries. But I had a $1,000 budget for my first book, the Kirkgus Review at that time was about 425, maybe $450. So it was outside of my budget. And the concern I had about doing an outside review was well, what if I got a bad book reviewer?

Jennia: Right. Yes, exactly.

Eric Simmons: What if the individual gave me a poor rating but I really had a good book?

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: I couldn't go back to a library and say, "Well, here's my Kirkus book review," and I would have been out of 425 or $450. So I sort of bet on myself because my thinking was the library world worked probably a lot like the computer world that I was in with IBM. If a business purchased an IBM computer then one down the street that may have been a competitor or a similar-type business been in the same industry, they heard, "Oh, well, Jennia's company just got a new IBM computer. I need to look at doing the same because I don't want to get behind competitively." So I bet on the fact that libraries would be a referenceable business. And it turns out they are very much referenceable. I started out—I built a database using an Excel spreadsheet. I'd gone online and pulled the top 100 largest U.S. libraries.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: And I went to each library's website and I found the highest level decision makers that I could, whether it was the CEO of the New York Public Library or if it was the branch librarian at a small local library. And once I found those decision makers, I started emailing them. I emailed the first 50 and then I emailed the second 50. On my second round of emails I got a hit. Washington University in St. Louis, one of the most prestigious colleges in the U.S., purchased my memoir.

Jennia: Oh nice!

Eric Simmons: And so when I had an academic institution purchased, I said, "Well, let me try to focus a little bit on academic institutions." So I started down that path. The reference of Washington University certainly helped. But what I came to discover, Jennia, was the sales cycle for academic libraries could be up to six months. However, when I managed to get my first book into a public library, the sales cycle was much shorter.

Jennia: Oh really?

Eric Simmons: And so I shifted my focus to public libraries. The snowball effect or the reference effect absolutely came into play. Once I got into one public library, other public libraries started to buy my self-published books. Today I have 396 copies of my self-published works in 336 libraries worldwide.

Jennia: Wow, well done!

Eric Simmons: Oh thank you! Now my focus is not on libraries outside of the U.S. but the distributors that I'm using that helped me get my books in the libraries, they market around the world. So that's why I have some libraries outside of the U.S., but my core focus is within the United States.

Jennia: Ohh, interesting. Yeah. So you talked about—you said the word sales. And I've heard some people, and I'm sure this is incorrect information, talking about how they don't think that they'll see sales when they put their book in a library. And I'm guessing that they just imagine that it's going to be that one or two copies in circulation, and then they won't see any other income from it. So I'd love to hear what you think about that.

Eric Simmons: That's great. Two years ago, Library Journal did a generational reading survey. And what they found in the library marketplace, 62 percent of adults surveyed purchased the same book that they had borrowed.

Jennia: Ah!

Eric Simmons: And for millennials, 77 percent of millennials reported that they had bought another book by an author whose book they had previously checked out. So when I started marketing my books to libraries, I thought the recurring sales or additional sales could happen from other branches.

Jennia: Mmm, mhm.

Eric Simmons: See, I'm in Atlanta, and the Atlanta—the Fulton County Library has about 28 branches. So I felt if I got my book in one branch, the opportunity would be 27 other branches. But depending on budgets and things like that, that might not happen. But research has shown if a person checks out a book, they're very likely to purchase that book. So what happens when I'm selling my book to libraries, I'm actually getting additional sales down the road that I might not be able to attribute directly to that library, but that's where they are coming from.

Jennia: That's so interesting!

Eric Simmons: So it's a win-win. And it really surprised me that—And when I saw that Library Journal survey, it blew me away because I said, "Wow, I never realized that."

Jennia: Yeah, I didn't either. I mean, I know that I personally have, but that's anecdotal evidence. That doesn't really mean anything. I think that just really shows the importance of doing it. Because like you said, with those statistics, it's so easy to think, okay, I sold one copy to a library, and then just assuming that it stops there, but no, not at all.

Eric Simmons: Exactly. And my initial thought about if I had a library with 28 branches, I would get 28 books, that didn't happen to me until late last year. My latest book—the Cleveland Public Library had about has 28 branches. They purchased 28 copies of my book for each branch location. I was doing cartwheels.

Jennia: (laughs) I can imagine!

Eric Simmons: That's the only case—Now I've had some other libraries where I've gotten my books into four or five, six branches maybe, but not every branch. That was the first time that that happened. So the opportunity exists if libraries have multiple branches and the additional sales could come from people checking out an author's book, that could lead to additional sales.

Jennia: One of the things I've read about is the Library of Congress control number. Is that something that authors need to look into?

Eric Simmons: I don't use the library control number very much. I focus more on the ISBNs. I'm more focused on that because librarians are going to want to know what is the book's ISBN. In my approach to libraries, Jennia, what I'm doing is I'm emailing a letter.

Jennia: Okay.

Eric Simmons: But that letter, and I've had numerous people tell me this, it's really a sales sheet.

Jennia: Ahh, yeah.

Eric Simmons: In that letter I have a picture of my book cover. I have a synopsis of what the book is about. I try to position the book in terms of where it would fit. In my case, adult nonfiction. I have the book's ISBN. And I have the entities that my book can be purchased from. One of the biggest purchasers or procurers—companies that libraries procure books from is Ingram.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: They are, for me, the key, I would say probably over 70 percent of my library book sales are through Ingram. And their online self-publishing tool is called IngramSpark. It would be the equivalent of Amazon's KDP.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: So I would share with your audience if you're interested in getting your book in the libraries, you definitely want to distribute through Ingram. And so, in my case, ISBNs—because I asked that question of librarians—

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: —when I started out and their interest was more so on the ISBN, the identifier that they would use to purchase the book.

Jennia: Yeah. That's interesting just because it goes against a lot of the other articles that are written about it.

Eric Simmons: Right.

Jennia: But I also don't know the people who've written those articles have gone to the same links you have and have talked to as many librarians as you have either.

Eric Simmons: Right. I'm sure it has some merit and it could be helping me, but my experience right now has been—the focus has been more so on the ISBN.

Jennia: Yes. You've talked about the key decision makers and how you've contacted them, but how do you identify who they are?

Eric Simmons: It's interesting. My sales background—IBM taught us to do what's called top-down, bottoms-up selling. And what that means is you go to the highest point of the organization that you can, whether that's the CEO, the CFO, the C-suite level. But you also wanna sell at the bottom, the people that are actually doing the work because they're the ones that are going toa be using the computers or using the applications. Or, in this case, at the bottom of the decision-making tree could be branch personnel, it could be the adult librarian, it could be the children's librarian. Even though I don't focus my books on—focused on children, but you want those people included because they can be influential recommenders.

Jennia: Mmm.

Eric Simmons: So when I started building the database I was focused on people at the top and I was focused on the adult librarian. And I came to learn probably the most important person in the purchasing tree at libraries is called the collection development librarian. And that person can wear multiple hats. If it's a small library, the head librarian could be the collection development librarian. And larger libraries like the New York Public Library, they'll have someone that is specifically responsible for the acquisition of books for the library. [They] may have multiple people in the library that large, but that is key person, the collection development librarian. Once I found out that that person was key, where I could, I put that person's contact information in my database.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: A lot of those individuals don't list their information because they'll be bombmbarded by people because they do other things then purchase maybe books, they may have other purchasing power. You know, air-conditioning facilities type stuff. So it just depends on the size of the library. So where possible I have the collection development librarian in the decision-making tree within the tool I'm using along with decision makers that are higher up and adult services librarians.

Jennia: And is all this communication done through email or did you ever make phone calls or go in person?

Eric Simmons: That's a great question. I started out with my sales background making phone calls. And I actually had a phone script and everything (Jennia laughs) that I was going to say to the librarian. And I pick up the phone and I said, "Hi, Jennia, this is Eric Simmons. I was calling to tell you about my latest book, Not Far from the Tree. It's my memoir about my life being raised by a single parent." And I tell the library and the librarian gets all excited and I say, "Well, will you buy my book?" And they go, "Well, Eric, why don't you send me something over?"

Jennia: Mmm.

Eric Simmons: Every librarian—I made 10 phone calls and all 10 librarians asked me for information about my book. So my whole strategy of approaching librarians changed. I said, "Oh, I can't make these phone calls." And because I wanted to sell nationally, I couldn't—you know, I can't get to every library personally, physically. But now you're also talking about profit loss.

Jennia: Mm.

Eric Simmons: You know, to try to travel to go see libraries, whether I'm using gas or not, and your book royalties might be, on Amazon, averaging like $2.50 per book—

Jennia: (laughs) Yes, so sad but true.

Eric Simmons: —It's losing proposition to get in your car. So I had to change my strategy and I said, "I've got to come up with emails." I've got to email. And so it took me a couple of cycles before I realized what information a librarian was looking for. And they're basically looking for the metadata that self publishers are adding in the Amazon KDP and IngramSpark and Barnes and Noble and others. I mean it's the metadata, but I'm presenting it in a sales-like manner.

Jennia: Yeah.

Eric Simmons: Okay? It's the metadata, but I'm using my information in such a way—I'm trying to help the librarian make an informed decision.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: What does the book cover look like? Is it attractive? Where can I purchase it? Okay, give me the short version. I want the elevator pitch, Eric, I don't want a diaribe. I don't want 10 pages on why I should buy this book. I need it short, compact, and sweet. Be concise. I try to do that. And then I try to position where the book will fit. Adult services for adults, nonfiction. And then I always ask for the business. I always say, "Once you've had a chance to review my book, I would be honored if you would add it to your library's collection." I always ask for the business in my correspondence. So all email, I use Microsoft's Mail Merge Capability for my emails. The downside of that is you only can do 300 emails per day.

Jennia: Oh darn (laughs).

Eric Simmons: And I've got the database up to 6,000 contacts.

Jennia: Oh my goodness.

Eric Simmons: Go from 3,000, in different variations, from 3,000 to 4,000 to 5,000 to 6,000. Some of my customers that have purchased the database, they get the 6,000 version and they use Mailchimp and they send out an email to everybody. And I advise against that. And the reason why I advise against that is because you don't know if your information letter is appealing to the librarian.

Jennia: Oh, that's a good point.

Eric Simmons: Right. If you send it out, send the whole database out, all 6,000 contacts, and if the librarians don't like what your correspondence is saying—

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: —you can't probably contact them again for another six months. Because if you contact them any sooner, they're gonna think you're nothing but spam.

Jennia: Right.

Eric Simmons: So my recommendation is send out 100, 200, maybe 300 emails. See what that's like. See what kind of feedback you're getting. If you're getting no sales, you need to refine that intro letter.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: And so what I did, I did it like that. I did it in baby steps. And once I found a letter that I got three, four, five sales, I said, now I can send this out to more people.

Jennia: Yeah. That's excellent advice. And that feels a lot like what you hear about different marketing strategies just across the board. You know, even if you're going to be on social media or whatever to try out whatever it is, yeah, then make sure that you're actually getting the feedback that you want to be receiving or that you are getting that engagement or whatever metric you're using to measure whether or not it's a success.

Eric Simmons: Exactly. Exactly. When your listeners are thinking about the library marketplace, data shows that it's a $30 billion segment.

Jennia: Oh wow.

Eric Simmons: It's huge. And worldwide, about $1.4 billion are spent on books. No, I'm sorry, in the U.S. 1.4 billion are spent on books—

Jennia: Yeah, just in the U.S., that's pretty amazing.

Eric Simmons: Yeah. So it's a big market.

Jennia: You talked about, is your book cover attractive? And then you also talked about using a certain distributor, so making sure that you're using IngramSpark. So it sounds like if someone's going to put their book into a library or try to get their book in a library, they need to start thinking about this almost from day one when they're writing. Because you can't just go back and change your cover. You can't just easily switch your distributor. So what are some other things they need to be thinking about early on, let's say, before the book has even launched?

Eric Simmons: Well, one of the things, and it's just a pitch for you (laughs), I would have an editor.

Jennia: Aww, thank you (laughs).

Eric Simmons: No, seriously! I would. My budget, unfortunately, for my first book, didn't allow it. And so I've sort of gone out on just a leap of faith that I've done good editing because I may use Grammarly, as an example. But I think having another set of eyes—I mean, one of my books, I got such tremendous feedback on my latest book. It was incredible. I had an editor, and I just missed a lot. So I think it's valuable to have another set of eyes to give you feedback on what you've written because you've written it and it sounds good to you, but it may not sound as good to someone else. And I'm using about eight or more distributors for my books. There are companies that you've probably never heard of. I never heard of them. IngramSpark, of course, is one. Draft2Digital is another. Blurb is a company that I use. StreetLib, Publish Drive. There are some companies that distribute books that are much smaller than Ingram. Companies like Broad Art or the Yankee Group. I'm using Barnes and Noble. And the way you can find out, your listeners can find out about who those companies are is you just Google. Just Google list of companies that distribute self-published books.

Jennia: Is there a reason for using multiple distributors and not just one?

Eric Simmons: I believe in going wide. What I found is I was the only using Amazon at first. And as I spoke with librarians, there's some librarians that don't like Amazon. They view them as a monopoly.

Jennia: Well, yeah.

Eric Simmons: And most librarians are buying books from other sources other than Amazon. One of the things that Amazon does for you to sell your book to libraries through them, you have to use their ISBN.

Jennia: Ohh.

Eric Simmons: You can't use your own, you can't buy one from Bowker, as an example, and use your own, you have to use theirs. So I used to use each distributors ISBN because that way I could track my book sales much better. I knew what I was getting from Amazon, I knew how much sales I was getting from Ingram. But lately I've started buying my own ISBNs from Bowker. And so now I can't quite tell what source because it's the same ISBN.

Jennia: Oh right.

Eric Simmons: But you've got two options available to you. Use the self-publishing entities' ISBNs or buy your own. If you're very meticulous and want to track where those sales are coming from, you probably want to use the distributors ISBNs. But for me, I'm at a point now in the selling of bookstore libraries—I'm very comfortable with just having a singular ISBN. But you'll have a different one for your paperback, you'll have a different one for your ebook, and you'll have a different for your hardcover.

Jennia: Well speaking of that, does the book's format matter? Is that going to weigh heavily one way or the other? So if you only have an ebook versus if you have a paperback, hardback, and audiobook, does that matter at all or give you more leverage one way or the other?

Eric Simmons: I think it gives you more flexibility of getting your book in the library the more formats you have. I don't do a whole lot of hardcover sales with libraries because of their budgets. Most of my sales are paperback and ebooks. There's a lot of different data out there on how many paperback books libraries are purchasing and how many ebooks they're purchasing. And the ebook numbers over the years have been growing quite significantly, but I think paperback still might be in the lead. My last book is the first book I've actually put out in hardcover, but I offer the librarians both paperback and ebooks, and I provide those ISBNs to them in my correspondence.

Jennia: Oh, nice. I do think it would be interesting to see how it's even broken up by books acquired by which target age range they're made for. Because I would think picture books are probably going to be more likely—just thinking even about our library and what they had in the picture book section. They're almost all hardcovers just because those little hands, it's so easy to accidentally rip a cover off.

Eric Simmons: That's a great, great point. I would imagine there are decisions based on the number of uses or checkouts of a book as to what type of cover that might be used. Now, something interesting, the New York Public Library has a research library that has purchased about four or five of my books. And what they do is they take the paperback and they convert them to hardcover if the books aren't already available in hardcover. I thought that was interesting. But because they were research library, they wanted the book in hardcover because it could last. The life of a hardcover book, I believe, is about 75 years. And that's why they transferred my books over to hardcover. I thought it was pretty interesting that they did that.

Jennia: Yeah, now that you said that—So I used to volunteer quite frequently in our children's school library, and we would have those little plastic covers, but they were very hard. Yeah, we use those for children's books that came as, like, a paperback chapter book, for instance, just to give it some more durability.

Eric Simmons: Oh, okay. Okay.

Jennia: So what about a book's price or how you choose to price your book? Is that going to make a difference?

Eric Simmons: I think it does with libraries. The way I think about libraries are they have tight budgets and, you know, they go into the year perhaps with a budget, and then they purchase books throughout the year. And so I view them as being frugal. I just go into it saying, "Okay, they don't have a lot of money to spend on books." So what I do is something pretty simple. I look at the type of book that I've written, I go on to Amazon, I find a similar book. I look for books that have more than—like, four or more stars, preferably, like, 4.2, 4.3 or more stars—that's in the same category as my book. And I'm looking at what other authors are pricing their book at. I'll take four of those books—

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: —And I'll pick the average. And then whatever that average comes out to, that's what I sell my book for. So now I'm competitive. I'm not selling lower than what other people are with the same type of book and I'm not selling so high that it will cause people not to wanna buy my book.

Jennia: Ah.

Eric Simmons: So I go to market with that price because I was spending an enormous amount of time, Jennia, trying to figure out how to price my book.

Jennia: Yeah.

Eric Simmons: I mean, I was pulling my hair out. And I said, "Well, wait a minute, why do that when you've got an idea of what other people are charging based on books that are on Amazon, the world's largest bookstore—online bookstore?"

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: So rather than stress out about how to price my books, I use something that—what the marketplace has already accepted. The price range that the marketplace has accepted. Now, with libraries, one of the things that IngramSpark recommends is that you discount your book by 55 percent.

Jennia: Okay.

Eric Simmons: You could discount it less than that, but they recommend 55 percent. I started discounting my books around 30, 35 percent. I didn't get a single sale from libraries. As soon as I jumped to 30, up to 55 percent, I started seeing sales. So now that I've cut my price by 55 percent in the library marketplace, if my book is $13.95 on Amazon and I've cut it 55 percent for libraries, for a library, I'm gonna sell my book—I'm gonna put it at $14.95. I increase the price of my book for libraries to compensate for that 55 percent discount. Because what I'm trying to do with libraries is come with the same royalty or close to it that I would get on Amazon. And the way you can figure that out is whatever distributor you're using, usually their self-publishing tool will show you what royalty you're gonna get based on how you price your book.

Jennia: Yeah, I think there are other royalty calculators online, too, that you can use, even for people that aren't sure which distributor to use yet, which route to take, yeah.

Eric Simmons: Absolutely. So my rule of thumb is at a minimum, I'm gonna charge a library one dollar higher at a minimum than I am retail because they're gonna get the 55 percent discount.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: Okay? So that's the strategy. Don't price your book to libraries the same prices you're doing in the retail market. Because you're gonna lose money or your royalty is gonna be so low you're gonna be—it's not gonna be worth your time.

Jennia: Oh, yeah, that's good to know because I bet a lot of people don't even consider that when they're thinking through how to do this or why they should do it.

Eric Simmons: Right. Correct. I write to try to inform people and share information that I've learned. I try to share that with others. But I've also invested time in doing so, in creating my book. So for me to want to make a profit is only fair. And that's what I strive for, to make a profit. So yeah. And when you're trying to get your book in the libraries, like, me, I got very lucky. People saw how—what I was doing and they started asking me for help. And I realized that that could be a potential business opportunity for me. So I would encourage your listeners that once you start trying to get your book in the libraries, try to maybe have some other business or some other way that you can keep getting additional revenue from that library marketplace. If that makes sense.

Jennia: Yeah, it does. And so it's something I talked to with a marketing professional and so she had said something about that too. Like, even with your book, just in general, do you have another lead into something? Is there something associated with this book? We see with kid lit all the time: Do you have a curriculum package? Do you have an activity book? Do you have a stuffed animal?

Eric Simmons: Exactly. That's exactly what I'm referring to. I mean, just—you could be creative. Maybe if you're a children's book author, you might have a T-shirt—

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: —you know, that goes along with your children's book. Well, while that might not be directly tied to the library that purchase your book, you can make people aware of it. And then they might purchase that T-shirt off your website or some other source.

Jennia: Yeah, even just, like, coming full circle with our conversation. So my kids were really little—the first time they ever read a Llama Llama book was because we got it at the library. And then just like you were saying, we ended up buying all the Llama Llama books to have them at home just because sometimes there'd be, like, that favorite one that was already checked out and that'd be the one they wanted to read that night over and over and over again (laughs). Yeah, then you go out and you buy, like, the Llama Llama greeting card and the stuffed animal and the pajamas, and yeah—

Eric Simmons: Yeah, there you go. Right.

Jennia: —just continued forever (both laugh). Well, is there anything you would advise authors not to do when they are trying to pursue library placement for their books?

Eric Simmons: I would encourage you not to be overly aggressive when marketing to librarians. Studies show librarians are—They tend not to be overly aggressive people. They tend to rely on information to help them make an informed decision. So I wouldn't press them too hard. That would be one advice. The other I would say try to market to as many libraries as you possibly can. And don't give up, because I view it very much as a numbers game.

Jennia: Ah.

Eric Simmons: The more librarian contacts you have, the better your chances are gonna be to get your book in the libraries. It's all predicated upon having a well-written book, of course. And it also is dependent upon what are the readers of that particular library most interested in? Because that's what that collection development librarian is there to do. When people come in and they begin to ask about a certain type of book, it's that librarian's job to make sure that that type of book is available.

Jennia: Mmm.

Eric Simmons: But if your book meets criteria that a library is looking for, you want to get that out to as many libraries as you possibly can. My latest book, the Cleveland Library, purchased 28 copies of it. My one email campaign, I had about 55 library purchases.

Jennia: Oh nice!

Eric Simmons: I have—In my intro letter, I have all 55 of those libraries. Now, I won't put—If it goes up to 100, I won't put all of those. But I just give librarians a sample size of, "Here are your peers that have the book already."

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: To create a comfort level to let them know that the book has already been taken a close look at by other libraries.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: To give them that comfort level. So reference sale. Don't push them too hard. Don't have your email be over one and a half pages. I mean, if it's over one and a half pages on an eight-and-a-half by five, it's probably gonna be a little bit of overkill. I have the expectation that their time is as valuable as mine. And so because I feel their time is valuable, I want them to be able to pick up a document or look at it on an email and get an idea right away if they want to learn more. That's my approach. To summarize what I'm trying to say, is when I'm marketing my books to libraries, I try to put myself in that person's shoes.

Jennia: Mmm.

Eric Simmons: I try to ask myself, if I received an email from Eric, what would I want to have in it that would give me enough information to buy his book? That's my approach.

Jennia: Well, it seems to be working very well.

Eric Simmons: (laughs) It has been. I've had success, I'm proud of it. I'm happy about the way things have turned out for me.

Jennia: Well, before we end, are there any resources that you'd recommend for listeners who want some additional information or might have additional questions?

Eric Simmons: Some resources—one would be this podcast. I've been interviewed twice by Joanna Penn, and if your readers don't know who she is, she's one of the foremost self-publishers in the world. So you could go online and Google me, you can Google "Eric Simmons" and "libraries" and you'll probably be able to find a plethora of things and information that I've put together or that I've done for people to help them get their books in the libraries.

Jennia: Alright—

Eric Simmons: I actually have two books. One book is Getting Your Book Into Libraries and the other is Self Publisher’s Toolkit. For those individuals that are new to self-publishing, I take them through the process, but I also then give them a market that they can immediately go into, which is libraries. So there are two books out there for you as well (Jennia laughs). One other thing, let me say this to you: Some people might say, "Well, how many emails do you send before you've been able to get your book in the libraries?"

Jennia: Ohh, that is important—

Eric Simmons: In my case, it's been 3.89 emails. So basically I'm contacting libraries once a quarter before I get a sale from that library. So that goes back to why I think it's important not to send the entire database at one time.

Jennia: Mhm.

Eric Simmons: Because it's taking me—and I've been doing this about four or five years—it's taking me four emails to get a sale. If you haven't been doing this for a period of time and learning what works and what doesn't, if you send out that entire database, you're, you know—you just, you're hurting your chances. right?

Jennia: Right, yeah. Mhm. And then to be the out for that entire buying period and then you have to wait again. But even the four emails is a really good conversion rate when When you think about—like, I think social media, they've said people have to see it a minimum of 10 times before they're likely to click on it. Yeah, when you make that comparison, four seems like almost nothing.

Eric Simmons: I agree with you. I think it's a great success rate. I really do.

Jennia: Well, thank you again. And I'm very excited for people to learn from this episode!

Eric Simmons: Well, I hope it's been helpful, Jennia. And um, I just hope this This time together has been meaningful and helpful for your listeners.

Jennia: I'm sure it will be. I mean, it's been meaningful and helpful for me, so that's a start.

Eric Simmons: That's great.

Jennia: And thank you for listening and be sure to check out this show notes for additional information, including all of Eric's links. If you enjoyed today's show, I would love it if you could share the link with a friend. And then please join me next week when DJ Williams will be here to describe how to create an immersive world for teens. Thanks again!