Patricia Wrede

For the traditional publishing industry, the publisher handles the vast majority of selling to readers, too, but there are at least some genre writers who generate direct sales themselves at personal appearances or by setting up their own sales tables at conventions and book fairs.

There are two basic types of marketing: push marketing, in which one tries to get the book prominently displayed in as many places as possible, so as to encourage potential readers who pass by to pick up the book and buy it, and pull marketing, in which one tries to get a lot of potential readers to go to bookstores and ask for the book, “pulling” it into the store.

Authors do both: push marketing to editors and pull marketing to readers.