Before attempting to convince a retailer to carry your book, you may want to create a book sell sheet (also called a “book one-sheet”). A book sell sheet provides quick facts to retailers aiming to convince them to carry and sell your books.

You’ll find this is useful to include if when introducing yourself to retailers (either via email or in person) or as a cheat-sheet for you to follow when speaking to them on the phone. It adds an aura of professionalism to you and your book.

In a single 8.5 x 11 page, the sell sheet provides the following info about your book, including:
• Book’s title
• Why book is appropriate for retailer to carry
• Synopsis of book
• What reviewers say about book
• Marketing plan for book
• Brief author’s bio (focusing on why author is qualified to write this book)
• Where book is available for purchase

You’ll also want to include a picture of the book’s front cover and a bullet point list of information that appears on your Amazon.com page: title, author, ISBN, format, size, publication date, pages, list price, and book’s audience.

Assembling this information isn’t just a good idea for pitching your book to retailers but for your other promotional efforts. It can be molded into a press release or be sent to media to get them interested in your book.

Of course, you may need to revise the sell sheet slightly depending on which retailer you pitch the book to. For example, if you’ve written a book about education, a teacher supply store in a large city a few hours away from where you live may want to sell it because they carry a large number of books about that topic, while your hometown mom and pop bookstore may carry it only because you’re a local author.