Win the mile around the house.

Visit as a customer. Note what they actually stock in your genre, who is on the events board, and whether they already have a local-author shelf. Pitching a book they never sell is how you get a polite no.

One page: cover, 40-word pitch, ISBN, publisher, price, discount, returns, and your phone number. Buyers decide in seconds. A stack of unbound chapters tells them you do not know how shops work.

Independents often take local books at 40–50% off, sale or return. Ask what they prefer. Invoice cleanly, collect unsolds on the date you promised, and never sulk if they take two copies.

A signing where you sit behind a pile of books is a gift to nobody. Offer a 20-minute talk with a question the room can argue about, a joint event with a complementary author, or a themed evening the shop can poster. You fill the room — they sell the book.

If the book is only on Amazon paperback with no Ingram listing, many libraries simply cannot order it. Get it into a wholesaler they use, then ask your branch to request it. Donating a copy is a start; being orderable is the job.

Libraries want programmes, not merch tables. Pitch a subject — how a lighthouse works, the history of your town's crime, writing from diaries — and let the book be the takeaway. Bring a signup sheet. Leave the hard sell at the door.

One email to the person who buys for the whole system beats charming a single desk. Include ISBN, a 50-word annotation, and any local angle. Follow up once. Then stop.

Weekly papers still run people pieces. The story is you + a local hook (setting, job, anniversary, event), not 'please review my novel'. Attach the press release. Offer a 400-word extract. Name the editor if you can find them.

Local radio loves a fluent guest with a peg. Send a short email with three question prompts, your availability, and a live event date. Speak in anecdotes, not plot. Have the buy-link ready for the presenter to repeat.

County glossies, alumni magazines, and trade journals in your day-job field will run a paragraph the national papers will not. One well-aimed email outperforms a hundred posts.

Offer to visit (in person or on a call) if they pick the book. Provide questions. A dozen clubs over a winter will outsell a poorly attended launch party, and they talk.

Fringe and regional festivals still have slots for local authors, especially if you can share a panel. Apply early, accept the unpaid ones that put you in a real room, and decline the ones that charge you to sit on a carpet.

A novel about a lighthouse belongs at the maritime museum, not only at the bookshop. History groups, walking clubs, schools, Rotary, and specialist fairs will listen if you talk about their thing and happen to have a book.

One copy in the staff room, the harbour office, the surgery waiting room — with a note and a QR to the buy page — is undignified only if the book is. Track which copies vanish.

Town Facebook groups and Nextdoor punish ads and reward news. 'Launch at the bookseller Saturday, 6pm, all welcome' is news. A cover and a plea is an ad. Post once, reply to everyone, and do not pin it three times.

A handmade shelf-talker from you, or a window that says 'local author', does more in a market town than a boosted post. Offer to write the card yourself. Keep it to one sentence.