{"id":4329,"date":"2015-04-27T06:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T10:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4329"},"modified":"2015-05-11T06:34:23","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T10:34:23","slug":"a-bookstore-for-invisible-authors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=4329","title":{"rendered":"A Bookstore for Invisible Authors"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"book

Gulf Coast Books, Fort Myers, Florida (photo: facebook)<\/p><\/div>\n

A great idea recently came out of Florida\u2014and, no, I am not talking about aspiring Republican presidential candidates. According to a Publisher\u2019s Weekly<\/a><\/em> story by Judith Rosen, the first bookstore dedicated to self-published authors opened in Fort Myers earlier this month. The Gulf Coast Book Store was launched by two self-published authors: Patti Brassard Jefferson, who writes and illustrates children\u2019s books and history author Timothy Jacobs.<\/p>\n

The store addresses one of the biggest difficulties facing self-published authors\u2014the near-impossibility of getting their books into stores<\/a>. In traditional book stores, self-published authors\u2014who conservatively publish some 450,000 books per year\u2014are essentially invisible. Even books published by small presses may have difficulty appearing on store shelves if the publisher doesn\u2019t invest in relationships with book distributors. Distributors\u2019 sales teams are the people who promote a new author\u2019s book to book store buyers. (A useful discussion of the difference between book wholesalers and distributors<\/a> is here, a distinction many publishing services gloss over.)<\/p>\n

At Gulf Coast, which is located in Fort Myers\u2019s Butterfly Estates, self-published authors\u2019 works are not vetted, but writers must be local. They can rent shelf space for three months for $60, plus a $15 set-up fee. In return, they receive 100% of every sale. (Bookstores willing to take a local author\u2019s books typically do so on consignment, and the author may receive only about half of each sale.) Gulf Coast can offer these full returns because it doesn\u2019t need staff. Butterfly Estates\u2014which includes shops, a caf\u00e9, and butterfly conservatory\u2014handles sales and credit-card processing.<\/p>\n

In April, the store offered books by 36 local authors, plans to add 16 more in May, and currently has no spaces available. Each writer can display up to 10 books, and the 10 may be all the same title or multiple titles. Authors can display promotional materials\u2014bookmarks, brochures, and the like\u2014and are featured on the store\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gulf Coast\u2019s space is available for book signings, too. For Jefferson and Jacobs, \u201cthe store is about building community and helping other authors,\u201d writes PW<\/em> contributor Rosen. Though Gulf Coast provides a tiny solution for now, if it caught on elsewhere, indie authors would rejoice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A great idea recently came out of Florida\u2014and, no, I am not talking about aspiring Republican presidential candidates. According to a Publisher\u2019s Weekly story by Judith Rosen, the first bookstore dedicated to self-published authors opened in Fort Myers earlier this … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A Bookstore for Invisible Authors - on the shelf, at last!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[62,122,63,64,68,104],"tags":[419],"class_list":["post-4329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-authors","category-book","category-marketing","category-promotion","category-publishing","category-the-morgue","tag-publishing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-17P","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4329"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4337,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4329\/revisions\/4337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}