What if you broke all the rules they tell you for building an indie author career?
Maggie Beeler doesn't run ads. She doesn't post on social media. She barely sells on Amazon. She built her author business by attending 30 to 45 events a year, setting up a table at everything from craft fairs, markets, bars and bookstores to niche events. Why don't most indie authors do the same? According to Beeler it's because "A lot of indie authors have this precious mindset where they think that their books are just going to sell themselves. And that is not the case."
In this episode, Maggie breaks down how she picks events worth paying for, what to say to someone walking past your table, why she scaled her display down instead of up, and how to pitch a book in fifteen seconds to a person who has never heard of you.
We also get into Tropetails, the cocktail and mocktail book for bookworms that she turned into a genre-inspired drink mix brand, now stocked in roughly 100 retailers. Plus, what you actually have to put in a bookstore's hands to make them say yes to stocking your book.
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FIND MAGGIE BEELER
Website: https://margaretcbeeler.com
Tropetails: https://tropetails.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/margaretcbeeler/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@margaretcbeeler
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THE PINT & PORTAL AUTHOR PODCAST
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Time Stamps
00:00 Your books are not going to sell themselves
06:48 Nine years to finish the first book
12:51 Why she only sells in person
16:29 Finding events worth paying for
21:45 Working the table without being weird about it
34:03 Pitch the tropes, not the plot
36:54 Tropetails: turning a book into a product line
41:57 Getting into 100 retailers
58:05 Selling in person in the age of AI
1:01:47 Her number one piece of advice
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