I’ve long been told I’m direct. I consider that a compliment. I’m not one to waste people’s time trying to guess what I’m thinking or what I’m feeling. I’ll tell you. Especially if we know each other well, and I know you can handle it.
Some people can’t. I get it. Our society isn’t really built that way.
Take the way we shop, for example. We’ve been trained on the superstore model of shopping. Everything in one convenient place. Not the best of anything, or anything made by that store itself (store brands notwithstanding). But a lot of things.
That can be true. And I certainly do stop by that kind of store from time to time and for specific reasons.
But shopping that way has never been my jam.
When I was a teenager, my parents would take me to department stores to buy clothes. I hated every minute of it. I found them overwhelming: messy, crowded, packed to the gills with merchandise. I had no idea where to even start looking for what I’d like, let alone find multiple things.
Then, I found specialty retail stores. These were organized and focused. I either liked the style of clothes they had or I didn’t. It was easy to see from the window. That I could handle.
Even now that I do almost all of my shopping on my phone, I still shop that way. If I need jeans, I go to the app for the specific retailer whose jeans I prefer. If I need shoes, same thing. I do not buy clothes from the big online super-retailers. Not my jam.
For a lot of readers, big online super-retailers are not their jam, either. But if that’s the only way to buy the book, well, that’s what they’ll do.
For a long time, the only economically feasible way for writers and publishers to sell books was through those big retailers. But thanks to technology that’s advancing at warp speed, that’s no longer the case.
Selling direct is not only doable now, it’s preferable.
Which is how the WMG Publishing Bookstore came about. Powered by Shopify, the site features more and more product weekly. We now have about a third of our ebook inventory available on the site, and we will be adding paper books in the future.
If you want to start taking a look around, may I suggest starting with Dean Wesley Smith’s Bryant Street stories. They’re delightfully twisted.
You can find Bryant Street (as well as all the other series we’ve uploaded so far) on the bookstore’s series page here or jump straight to it here.
And since we’re talking about being direct (both in spirit and in selling), here’s a code for 30 percent off all Bryant Street stories available in our store.
BRYANT30
Just add whatever stories you want to read to your cart and apply the code at checkout. The code is good for the rest of the month.
See, direct is the only way to go!
Allyson Longueira is publisher of WMG Publishing. She is an award-winning writer, editor and designer, working mother, and brain tumor survivor.