Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Does Chapters/Indigo Support Canadian Authors?

Chapters/Indigo is a major Canadian book retailer through its “bricks and mortar” and online stores. And in my opinion Chapters/Indigo does not fully support Canadian or local authors. Allow me to give you two examples:

  • My most recent book, “Win-Win Influence: How to Enhance Your Personal and Business Relationships” (www.win-wininfluence.com)
    was published on June 23, 2012. Within a week, it was available for sale on the Internet at all Amazon stores around the world (USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, Canada) and at Barnes and Noble. Today, almost three months later, in addition to the retailers mentioned earlier, it is available for sale at ebay.com, alibris.com, uread.com (India), booktopia.com.au (Australia), fishpond.co.nz (New Zealand) plus many other online retailers, but not at chapters.indigo.ca. This, despite the fact that my book is listed in Library and Archives Canada’s Cataloguing in Publication (CIP) program (CIP enables the cataloguing of books before they are published, and the prompt distribution of this cataloging information to booksellers and libraries. This statement comes from the Library and Archives Canada website).
  • Chapters/Indigo to their credit does provide shelf space for local authors (for authors in large metropolitan areas, there can be considerable competition to have your books displayed on these shelves). However, if you are lucky enough to have your books on these shelves, your books are not listed as being available in the store’s inventory system even if your book is listed in Chapters/Indigo’s internet database.
As a result, even though your book is prominently displayed on the “local interest” shelves, the vast majority of in store shoppers are not aware of your book and its availability at that store, especially if it is a genre other than “local interest”.

I have found independent bookstores provide much better support for Canadian authors. For example, if they don’t have it on their shelves, they are very helpful in looking up its availability and ordering it for you. In fact, Ottawa based Singing Pebble Books (www.singingpebblebooks.ca/) has copies of my books on their shelves and my books are listed in their online catalogue – something that seems to be too difficult for Chapters/Indigo to accomplish.

This inaction by Chapters/Indigo has a negative impact on both me and Chapters/Indigo. My book sales are affected as the many regular Chapters/Indigo shoppers do not have access to my book while Chapters/Indigo is impacted as I am not able to list them as a supplier of my book in my various promotional activities. Thus I send these potential book buyers to Chapters/Indigo’s competition.

What would I like Chapters/Indigo to do?

At a minimum, I would like Chapters/Indigo to:

  • Include all books that are listed in the Library and Archives Canada’s CIP program in Chapters/Indigo’s online database within one month of being published.
  • Include books that are accepted for placement on the Local Authors shelves (only those books with an ISBN) in that store’s searchable inventory database.

I welcome your thoughts either supporting or adding to my views or providing evidence to the contrary.

Saturday, September 1, 2012

Win-Win Influence: How to Enhance Your Personal and Business Relationships (with NLP)

Press Release

Roger Ellerton’s book, Win-Win Influence: How to Enhance Your Personal and Business Relationships (with NLP) was recently published by Renewal Technologies Inc. (www.win-wininfluence.com). According to Roger, “This book is not a quick read nor “tip of the month” book. It is for people who are serious about improving their win-win influence skills with others, be it at work or at home.”

Roger draws on his training and experience as a former university professor, federal government executive, certified management consultant and certified NLP trainer to illustrate his work with real life examples and present influence as a four step process that anyone can follow. His book is based on a principle promoted by Zig Zigler, “You can get anything in the world that you want, if you help somebody else get something they want.” The tips and processes draw their elegance and effectiveness from NLP – one of the best, if not the best, models for understanding and improving your communication with others.

According to Roger, you are continually influencing other people whether you are aware of it or not. And would it not be useful to work on having these influence situations turn out better for both of you? One error that people often make, including some seasoned sales professionals, is to present their idea or product in a way that makes sense to themselves; that is how they like to buy into an idea. But we are all different and have different “buying strategies”. You need to present your suggestion in the way that the other person can see the benefits they will gain and in the way they like to process information and to buy.

Patricia Fry (Ojai, California, patriciafry.com) says, “I recommend Roger’s book to anyone who can use assistance in enhancing his or her personal and business relationships. I'm convinced that anyone can learn how to become more successful in social and business situations and this book definitely offers steps in the right direction.”

According to Ronda Degaust (London Ontario, lifepotentialdevelopments.com), an internationally recognized life coach and trainer, “This book offers simple methods for moving from features to benefits, identifying what is important for the other person, establishing rapport, reading nonverbal behaviors and addressing potential objections.”

Win-Win Influence is Roger’s fifth book. Other books include: Live your Dreams Let Reality Catch Up and Parents’ Handbook: NLP and Common Sense Guide to Family Well-Being.

Roger Ellerton helps individuals and organizations to learn, to address challenges at work and at home and to get more of what they desire in life. He has accomplished this as a tenured faculty member at the University of New Brunswick, an executive in the Canadian federal government, a certified management consultant (CMC), coach, trainer, author and international public speaker. Win-Win Influence may be purchased from any online book store or through the website www.win-wininfluence.com.