Next Sunday's NYTimes book review has an entertaining essay on how to
sell books on the street by Henry Alford. Here's the URL, but I
think you have to be a subscriber to look at it -- or wait until next
Sunday to buy the paper and read it:
http://select.nytimes.com/preview/2006/05/07/books/1125006797824.html?
pagewanted=1&8tpw&emc=tpw
"How to Sell Books by Really Trying"
By HENRY ALFORD
Bookselling really is a matter of one-on-one "hand selling" — as my
recent impromptu sidewalk sale showed
Here is a gem:
"The shrewd salesman, I realized, can spin gold from straw, and so I
thought up a talking point for each book. "This book will make you
very popular at parties," I'd say of the "Homeowner's Guide to
Fastening Anything," an instruction manual that has a lot to say
about hinges and duct tape. To anyone who gravitated to my old travel
guides, I'd say, "Who needs trendy?" After visiting two local used
bookstores to compare pricing, I decided to charge 50 cents for
paperbacks and a dollar for hardcovers."
As you contemplate going forward with the photoforum book, there may
be some advice in these pages! :-)
Seriously, I think you've produced a great book and I wish you great
success with it.
Roger
