My Books Are in a Local Bookstore

I’m excited to announce that The Inventor’s Slave and Hunger Is the Best Sauce are now being sold in a brick-and-mortar bookstore in the city where I live in South Korea.

Here’s how it happened:

I went in to buy a planner (because I needed help in keeping track of all my self-set publishing deadlines) and was greeted by a Korean employee eager to help me using his English skills. Our conversation expanded from planner requirements to travel, language study, and other topics. And then I found myself saying, “Do you sell English books? I’m an author.”

He said he’d have to check with his boss, and I expected her to respond with a polite shut-down, but instead she said, “Bring your books in and we’ll see.”

So I brought my books in and she decided she would try to sell them. I only gave them a single copy of each book (shipping to Korea is expensive and that’s all I had on hand), but she says if those sell they will contact me to order more.

It seems like part of the indie author experience is being denied by brick-and-mortar bookstores, so I’m grateful to have been accepted by one here. My situation probably differs from most indie authors’, though, in that this was a very casual and impromptu agreement, and that these are English books being sold in a South Korean bookstore that primarily sells only Korean-language books. What English offerings they do have are typically textbooks for English study or classics that have been adapted for English language learners. It may not be the ideal market for my books, but I won’t let that keep me from being excited!

I wanted to post about this experience, though, in case there are any other indie authors out there who wonder if such things are possible. To that I say: you never know unless you try! So take a leap and see what catches you.