The only people who really know why your book succeeded or failed.

There is so much Paul and I have both learned as booksellers that authors, agents, editors. . . no one else in publishing never gets to see in that last second of the transaction.

Poised before going to talk to booksellers in San Diego tomorrow about his own book which comes out in July (and just got a rave starred review), Paul wrote a genius post on CitizenBookseller this week about how in-store hand selling still drives sales long term better than anything else. And for authors it's still such a black box. Especially with the fragmentation in media today and everything balancing out to 3.5 stars on Goodreads if it's well reviewed enough.

I am not sure agents and editors get this. Because when I am in pitch meetings and I talk about what I see in the store, they treat it as an afterthought. "Oh yeah, we love indie retail sales, sure. . ."

Even one Indy store can drive meaningful sales. A smart strategy to reach out to dozens of them? It can make a big difference.

Consider some staggering numbers on how our TINY 1,000 square foot store in a 40,000 person town has moved numbers on individual titles.

From his piece:

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"A few examples: If you’ve been into the store recently, and asked for a mystery or thriller recommendation, you’ve likely heard me rhapsodize about Keigo Higashino’s 'Malice,' Laura Sims’ 'How Can I Help You,' or 'Geiger' by Gustaf Skördeman. If you like golden age mysteries, I’ve almost certainly tried to nudge you towards 'The Affair At Little Wokeham' by Freeman Wills Crofts, which is like a Columbo mystery written in the 1920s.

What do these recommendations have in common? Well, for one thing they are fantastic novels, and I know you’ll love them. But for another, they were all books that were first recommended to me or Sarah by other independent booksellers.

Sarah heard about 'Malice' from Christopher’s Books in San Francisco. I picked up 'How Can I Help You' from a recommendations table at The Bookshop in Nashville. 'Geiger' came from either Christophers or from The Writers’ Block in Vegas (it was a while ago). 'Little Wokeham' was from Dog Eared Books in San Francisco.

Just yesterday I recommended 'Little Wokeham' to another indy bookseller across the country. I think she’ll love it, and start hand-selling it to her customers. And so the chain will continue.

And what is every link in that chain worth for an author? Let’s consider some numbers:

We sold a little over 250 copies of Higashino’s 'Malice' last year in paperback, most of them from either the front recommendation table or through Sarah or me hand-selling it to customers. We’ll likely sell even more this year, now that Macmillan has raised our credit limit. [SARAH NOTE: We could sell 1,000 copies of Malice if Macmillan gave us as much credit as EVERY OTHER PUBLISHER. It sells out as soon as I put it on my table with my note card on it. There is so far no limit to how many copies we can sell.]

According to Bookscan (the database that records national book sales), 'Malice' sold a total of 1665 copies in paperback last year, country-wide. That’s pretty decent, given the book has been out for more than a decade.

But still, that means our little <1,000 square foot store accounted for 15% of all sales last year of 'Malice.' And, if the numbers hold, then by the end of this year we’ll likely be responsible for almost 5% of all US copies of the book ever sold in paperback. Again, this is a book we only knew about thanks to that initial recommendation from Christopher’s Books.

Or how about this: According to Bookscan, 'Geiger' sold just 53 copies in hardcover country-wide last year. One day I’m going to insist that someone at Hachette explain to me why they’re not promoting this incredible thriller better to booksellers, and why it’s not available in paperback. But still - we have it in hardcover and we love it and so, of those 53 copies sold nationally, our little shop accounted for 35 of them. That’s 66% of all sales last year! [SARAH NOTE AGAIN: 'Geiger' also sells instantly. In paperback, we would have "Malice" numbers, but a lot of people don't want hardcover by a pool. That's the only reason we don't sell more. That 53 does not telegraph a cap on appetite only the balance of needing to stock 20,000 other titles.]

There are roughly 2500 independent bookstores in the US. You can imagine the difference it can make to sales when a few hundred of them start telling customers about a book they love, either a new release or a semi-forgotten backlist title. (For the brilliant 'Geiger,' if 250 other stores sold the number of copies we did last year that would be 8,750 additional hardcover copies.)

We live in an era of micro-micro-micro media. A gazillion Tiktoks competing with a billion Instagram posts with a million Substack posts. So much noise, so little signal. On the other end of the attention spectrum, most people don’t ever see the thoughtful reviews in Library Journal or the similarly influential Publishers Weekly, Kirkus, or Booklist - except as truncated quotes on a bookjacket. ('Geiger,' with its 53 hardcover sales last year, got a starred review in Publishers Weekly. This is not mentioned on the cover.)

Goodreads and Amazon reviews are so polarized as to be irrelevant (we live in a world where every book is destined for 3.6 stars based on 1,000 reader reviews). Maybe the NY Times book review still has real mass-market clout, or NPR, but I’ve seen rave reviews in/on both that haven’t translated to a single customer order in store.

Meanwhile, in-store word of mouth and hand-selling still works, every single time. I see it every day, when a customer overhears me excitedly recommending, say, 'Wired For Story' or 'Prey' to someone else and asks “what was that book you were just talking about?” Ten minutes later we’ve sold a half dozen copies.

Of course the inverse is true too. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched a customer pick up a critically acclaimed book or the latest hardcover from a celebrated author only to have their companion interject: “Oh, no, I hated that one!” And back on the shelf it goes. Same when a customer asks for my opinion on a book that I really couldn’t get in to. My frown speaks volumes. No sale.

No amount of positive reviews or media appearances will ever be strong enough to counter that single moment of negative word of mouth at the point of sale.

Just as no starred review or NPR appearance can ever beat the power of indy booksellers handing a copy of your book to a customer.

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The lesson here? Everyone has dismissed book tours and in store events as a relic of the past, and with good reason. They are expensive and everyone hates them. We hate holding events in our store too.

But that doesn't mean independent book stores aren't vital to your sales strategy. If it were my book, I'd be thinking, "How do I get an equivalent of the Best Bookstore excited about my book in each major market? How do I start building those relationships well before I need them?" Why aren't good agents doing this? Why aren't good editors?

Forty stores like these in your back pocket could help make something a bestseller.

Reps know this because it's their job to know it. And this is why the reps don't waste our time with books they don't love. They know their credibility with us is vital, because the stores can make or break their titles when we get behind them.

A lot of authors are overlooking a fascinating channel by dismissing independent book stores or they are going after it in the wrong way. Be nicer to indy bookstores and support them.

You would not believe the authors who swan in, demand we carry their books and leave without buying anything. Your role here is not to make demands. It's not a good look to offer to "let us" close our store and host an event for you, for free, that people will probably not attend. We've had countless authors tell us it's a bad business decision for us to say no to their event. That doesn't get them further.

Instead, imagine we are the reader you need to sell most. We are the ultimate influencer. Get us excited about your book. And we will get the captive audience of people who have walked in wanting to buy a book excited.

Paul read me what he was going to say In San Diego to the assembled booksellers. It was good. It made the point that the AI dies in the first chapter, so this really is an AI thriller for people who don't want an AI thriller. He brings up the nun-bookseller character, the two women at the core of the plot, the twists and turns. The confession letters the AI sends out all over the world from crushing guilt before killing itself, exposing people's secrets and lies they asked AI to help them with. He's also noting his starred review and that Library Journal essentially called him the next Michael Crichton.

He has not wasted a lot of their time. But in one paragraphs, he's told them:

• It's about AI, but barely. Important because readers hate books about tech.

• Badass female protagonists. A Nun! That really doesn't sound like a tech thriller.

• A bookselling nun! (Booksellers love characters who are booksellers! And Paul is a bookseller!)

• Confession letters go out all over the world exposing people's secrets! Always good hooks when something mysteriously happens all over the world one day and then we deal with the aftermath. Because people start thinking "whoa. . . what would mine be?" Booksellers know from pattern recognition these do well.

• Library Journal is one of a handful of sources booksellers treat as shorthand for what's good so they don't have to read thousands of galleys. They give out very few starred reviews. So now they know it is empirically one of the better written books coming out, which isn't always the case for thrillers.

• "Next Michael Crichton" = just like in startup pitch decks, we like to anchor to things we know.

He hasn't made demands of the book sellers. He's made this easy for them. They know the book is well written (by someone other than him they trust), he has a strong comp in Crichton, yet there are female protagonists, and a compelling hook around these letters and this nun.

I added one thing: "Tell them who it's for. Tell them it's the book you give to people who come in looking for a Lucy Foley. The people who want something to read by the pool or on a plane who want something just messed up enough the hours will fly by, but not so messed up that their vacation is traumatizing."

If an author came in and told me the equivalent of those things I'd order a dozen copies, sight unseen. And move it to the top of my personal TBR pile.