Have you ever considered creating merchandise for your books? Now
is a great time to get started. With a wealth of new internet businesses
catered towards helping you create, print, and deliver custom merchandise with
just a few clicks, there has never been a better time to start creating
merchandise for your books. It is now possible for every author to test the
waters with little to no investment involved.
Here are a few pieces of advice for authors considering creating
custom merchandise for their books. I hope it will motivate you to consider
giving it a try.
Authors can and should be skeptical about diverting any time or
energy away from the daily activity of writing and publishing their work.
Marketing and blogging about one's books is not too dissimilar from selling
shirts, pens, or other gizmos. The benefits of being even moderately successful
at merchandise has rewards that few can deny. Improved outreach to fans can
help authors sell more books. A few sales of branded shirts or backpacks can
improve one's financial situation so that an author can spend more time
writing.
Consider getting started with freebies
Who doesn't like a free item? I know I do. Even if it is
something of low value that I don't have an immediate use for, I'm still likely
to accept a freebie if offered to me. When the term merchandise is thrown
around it can often be assumed that it is a re-monetization of the current
brand or brand assets. For example, t-shirts one can buy at the end of a concert
to commemorate the experience or keychains one picks up after a long day at a
theme park are not free. These types of merchandise are purchased in a sale
transaction. Without the time and place, ie. concert or theme park, and without
the brand printed on them, the sale would never have happened. Imagine going to
your favorite band's website and selecting a blank or random shirt and paying
money for that. It's a scenario that just doesn't make any sense.
My first piece of advice would be for authors to consider
starting with giving away free items before trying to make money selling products.
In the end, merchandise is meant to promote one's book. If the point is also to
make money, free items are also a great way of upselling one's writing, a
win-win situation for everyone. Free items don't have to be expensive.
Bookmarks, pins, and even pens can be bought cheaply and are useful items for
prospective fans to hang onto. The great thing about paper items such as
bookmarks, gift tags, and postcards is the ability to print high quality items
at low cost and at scale. Business cards and brochures don't have the same
value when given away as the previously mentioned paper goods. However they are
all printed on the same machinery. This means that you find great deals when
getting them printed. When someone is considering purchasing a hard copy of your
book, consider offering a bookmark to go with it, perhaps a bundle deal will
push a few more conversions.
Slow and steady wins the race
Merchandise can be as cheap as a two cent bookmark or as
expensive as a cell phone case, jacket, or backpack. When beginning your quest in
manufacturing goods, a quick search online will bring you to some fantastic
looking products to get your book titles and name on. It's easy to see t-shirts
and bags and think that they required some type of large costly effort to get
started. With all the advanced imaging software, product mockups can look
extremely realistic. For example, none of the t-shirts or tote bags available
for purchase in my online
store actually exist until someone buys them. After you upload your
graphics, it's as if the product is real, even before it has been made. I know
I have spent hours browsing the wide range of embroidered hats, duffle bags,
and notebooks and imaging what type of logos and designs I could bring to life
on them and how great they would all look. But don't break out your credit card
just yet. Selling merchandise, even to your existing followers is by no means a
get-rich-quickly-overnight scheme. It's simply another avenue to help generate
revenue or promote your work and thus it must be approached with caution.
If you want to make a few freebies for your upcoming book event,
try printing bookmarks on your home printer. Stop by your local craft store for
a do-it-yourself set of buttons or pens. For pens to be custom, they don't need
to be printed using expensive machinery so the print is applied directly onto
the plastic. I've seen DIY pens where you simply slip a piece of paper inside
and the graphics will show through the clear plastic. A similar effect could be
achieved through putting stickers on the exterior of a pen. Remember, if you
are giving away things for free they don't have to be perfect. A pack of 10 or
20 units of any free item will do just fine to begin with. Even if the cost per
item seems expensive at first you will be gaining valuable information about
what works and what doesn't. If the pens help upsell your book, you won't see
them as nearly the same cost. The next time around you will be able to make use
of bulk deals and different manufacturing options. Trying out a new means of
customer acquisition and sales techniques are best done slowly and over a long
period of time.
Get started quickly
This point might seem counterintuitive to what I mentioned
previously about taking your time, but equipped with a long term and low budget
mindset you should be looking to start as soon as possible. In just a few
minutes you can try out different types of merchandise and see how your
audience responds. With just a few tweets or as an addition to your email
newsletter, you can see how your audience responds. No author should put off
trying it out just because it seems like the process requires an excessive
amount of time or money to get started.
Whatever you may have in mind, be it a t-shirt, framed picture,
or keychain, don't hesitate to just dive right in and begin. It can be useful
to see the types of businesses and services available on the Internet these
days even if you don't decide to move forward with using any of them.
I hope these tips have impressed upon you just how simple it can
be to create merchandise for your books or author brand. If you have any
questions or would like any other information on the subject please feel free
to reach out to me at anytime! I love hearing from authors and writers.
Melissa Chan, is the founder of Literary Book Gifts, an online
shop of bookish t-shirts and tote bags. She loves designing book merchandise
for classic titles and authors. If any authors are interested on going on a
blog tour and are seeking a giveaway prize please get in touch with me, I would
love to offer the prize to help promote your book!
Have you tried out creating merchandise for your books? Has it
worked for you? Let me know in the comments!
