There are several factors to consider when deciding how many books to have on hand. For one, you will need to consider your audience size and how many copies of your book you expect to sell. If you have a large audience or have multiple events on your calendar, you may want to have more books on hand than if you have a smaller audience with no events in sight.
Another factor to consider is the cost of printing and storing physical copies of your book. Printing and storing books can be expensive, so you will need to weigh the cost of having books on hand against the potential benefits of having them available for readers. Do you have room for a pallet of books or just a few boxes? Books are heavy and need to be stored in a climate-controlled environment.
The good news is the decision of how many books to have on hand is a personal decision you make and you can start small and go bigger as needed.
For example, if you are a new author with just one book under your belt, you may want to start with a small number of books on hand, such as 50 or 100 copies. This will allow you to gauge demand for your book and avoid being stuck with a large number of unsold copies.
On the other hand, if you are an established author with a large audience and a schedule full of speaking events, a book tour, or consignment opportunities, you may want to have a larger number of books on hand, such as 500 or 1000 copies. This will allow you to take advantage of economies of scale and reduce the cost of printing books.
Even when planning to distribute books directly from your website, take into consideration the traffic your site receives. Are you currently selling anything else from your site? Do you have a marketing plan in place to sell from your site?
The decision is yours and yours alone to make. As an author coach, I don’t want my authors with boxes of books they don’t have a plan to sell so we either need to strategize a marketing plan to sell them directly or to sell them digitally. Either way, you need a book marketing plan.
Follow for more tips and marketing plan strategies. In the last blog, we covered whether you should have books on hand as an author. This week, we’ll cover how many.
