It's a new season. "The Shopping Cart Man" is still self-published. I'm not in any major bookstores. How will I move inventory?

I've pinged a dozen or so small bookstores. Two have placed orders for books. Others haven't responded. Two others (the BYU Bookstore, and Hallmark in the mall) have agreed to review the book, and I'm waiting hear back. (I'll have to stop by again...) And, my friends who run a seasonal shop in the mall called and said they're going to do it again and invited me back.

Meanwhile, the biggest sales point in the US - outside of bookstores - seems to be Amazon.com. I studied up on it and applied for, and was approved as, a vendor for them. They also approved the book. So, now I'm trying to get it noticed on their site.

I've learned that simply posting a page there isn't enough. You have to get it into their search engine. Your book has to show up as one of the "customers who bought this, also bought this" results for people browsing the site. The way to do that (short of paying the $10k to get into their top-line marketing program) is to get family and friends to get their family and friends to search for the book, review the book, and even buy the book. The more activity around the book, the more likely it will get noticed by the search engine.

It's an ongoing struggle, but one I'm currently pursuing. I'll add more later...

Read the original "Lines of our Times" post here.