A Little Marketing Help, Please

The main audience for Avalon Books is the library market. Avalon has ordering plans for bookstores and individuals, but its largest consumers are libraries. We all know that Avalon is a smaller operation than, say, Harlequin, so their marketing budget is smaller, but we also know that many libraries would benefit from a subscription to the Avalon collection.

You can help!
[I'll speak to our US Blog readers here; those of you in other countries, please adapt to your local system.]

Note down a few names of the Avalon authors who post on our blog. Then search for the author's name in your local library's catalog. Some of you can do this from home.

Check any books that are listed in the results to see if they were published by Avalon and have a publication date between 2005 and 2010.

If yes, then it's a good bet that the library knows about Avalon Books and has an order in place. How about sending them a note to thank them for making the books available?

If no, then it's time to make a request--as a reader, as an author or as both. You may make the request to the Reference Librarian, Acquisitions Librarian, or the staff member responsible for ordering books. Staff at the library will direct you.

In these tight budget times, they'll want to know why you think an Avalon Book subscription would be a good addition to their collection. You might say:

• I love reading them because the authors tell great stories [or whatever encourages you to read Avalon]. I think others will like them, too. Here's the web site (www.avalonbooks.com) to learn more.
• An Avalon subscription is an easy, economical way to get 10 new romances, mysteries, and westerns into the collection every other month. Well-written, wonderful, and wholesome (the 3 W's) stories that appeal to a broad group of readers.
• Hardcover binding means less repair and maintenance for the fiction collection.
• Avalon's a respected publisher in the business, and they've been around for over 50 years. Libraries and readers have come to rely on the consistency of quality and service from this publisher.

This is a win-win-win activity--libraries get good fiction on the shelves; authors get their books in the hands of more readers, and Avalon makes some money to continue supporting fiction authors. What's not to like?

Use these longer summer days to do your own mini-research at your local library. Talk up Avalon Books. Become a part of the grass-roots marketing department. I'm heading to the Durham County Public Library right now.

The Avalon fiction community thanks you!