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3 Steps to Parlaying Random Encounters Into Book Sales (Without Being Pushy)

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Stacks of colorful books next to a shopping cart

We’re pleased to introduce today’s guest Nicole Waggoner, author of the novel Center Ring, and award-winning teacher of upper-level English and Literary Criticism courses.  Beyond her literary acumen, Nicole has an uncanny gift for connecting with random strangers on and offline and parlaying her new friendships into book sales.  She’s here to tell us about how she does it — in a way that is not only subtle and anything but “sales-y,” but also wins people’s hearts.

You can learn more about Nicole and Center Ring on her website, and by following her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Welcome, Nicole.

3 Steps to Parlaying Random Encounters Into Book Sales (Without Being Pushy)

Imagine you’re standing in line at the post office. You’re tired, but definitely not as tired as the lady with two fussy kids directly behind you. You’ve been there, and it’s not pretty. So you offer to let her cut in front of you.

The next night you’re in line at the movie theater concession line, waiting to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. You strike up a conversation with a man who also has tickets to see the movie. You share some laughs over the franchise’s reincarnation.

You may think these random encounters may sound like nothing but inconsequential connections, here today and gone tomorrow.  And it may seem they have nothing whatsoever to do with writing or books.  But quite the opposite: for me, each one has turned into an opportunity to sell books.  

As a recently published debut author, I know the feelings that accompany the many stages of the publishing process all too well. After years of hard work and waiting followed by the uncontainable excitement of getting to hold a final copy of the novel in your own hands at last, the biggest, most nerve-wracking question sets in: will anyone actually buy it?

You may not think that connecting with random strangers would make for a great sales strategy, but this grassroots approach has worked like a charm for me. Without realizing it at first, I built up a method for steering unplanned conversations toward Amazon shopping carts without being predatory or feeling in the least bit slimy.

Over time, I honed it and began to call it my “Simple, 3-Pronged Intro-Pitch-Sale” approach.

Here’s what it looks like: [Read more…]

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