Hawaii Five-Go! How to Sell Your Book

By Jody Worsham, co-author "Kin We're Not Related to"

All rights reserved for Author’s “Birth of a Salesman”

After giving birth to a new book, I am like those first time parents who greet you at the door and shove their new baby in your face with "Look what I made”… only I add “Here, take it home with you.  It’s free.”

Wanda Argersinger, my co-author, keeps telling me I have to SELL the book, not give it away, but I view it as spreading the laughter about.  If I give it away, they will laugh and maybe tell their neighbors "No you can't borrow my book, buy one of your own."  So far I have spread the laughter to Boston, Louisiana, Dallas, Blooming Grove, to my dentist,  family members and one to a total stranger.

I am afraid I am not a salesperson.   I don’t think I could sell life rafts on the Titanic.

 I don’t mind driving around with “Kin We’re Not Related To” letters stuck to the rear window of my suburban.  I can wear a t-shirt with the cover of our book splattered on the back.  I can even convert a normal white blazer into a “book jacket” with pockets for the paperback books.  I can create a miniature cardboard outhouse and stack the books inside for a table display.  I can drill a hole in the book and tie it to the outhouse door and advertise it as a “clean humor.”  I can drop the tailgate on the truck and sit in the Wal-Mart parking lot, where people hawk puppies, with a big sign saying “Funny Book for Sale”.  I can dress up in a white wig, cat eye glasses, purple polyester pant suit, and make a you-tube book trailer with no problem.

 It seems I have a knack for creative marketing and no fear of stupidity; just don’t ask me to come up to people and say “Buy my book.”

At the rate I am going, I cannot afford to write a second book without taking a second mortgage on the farm.  So far I am my own biggest customer at Create Space Books.  If my loan goes through, I may single handedly  move “Kin We’re Not Related To” from 1,543,908 to #1 on Amazon’s Best Seller List.  If everyone in your town has our book, it is probably because I flew over in a helicopter dropping books out by the box full.

I really need to overcome my aversion to self-horn-tooting and selling if for no other reason than so my children can go out in public without a bag over their head.   There is only one thing to do:  hire a salesman named Daniel. 

Then I can say “Book’em, Dan-o.”