Do you buy your own stuff?

I remember reading an article many, many years ago about this author who went around the country in a truck, stopping at just about every bookstore he could find and buying every copy of his book. This landed him on the NYT best sellers list. That's a little crazy, maybe? But have you ever bought your own work or a copy of a magazine or anthology that published your work? I've never had a problem getting free copies of anything that had my work, but there might be something where I want like 100 copies. Also, how many copies is too many?

 

Don't get high on your own supply man.

Also you don't make anything like a copies worth of money off buying a copy. So unless you are planning on opening a second hand book store there really isn't much point in doing that. It might get you some more publicity but you'll lose a lot of money. So definitely don't do that.

I think I can understand why anyone would buy a full copy of an anthology or magazine they were in, to have a proper published artifact of their work. It does matter to see your work in print. I've been in a couple of academic journals and I do have copies of the particular issues around somewhere, just because it's nice to know that it's really there. For this kind of stuff it's nothing more than collecting your press clippings and that's understandable. For books though; don't authors still get author's copies?

 

It would be noticed and any benefit you had from it would likely be nullified when word got out you were buying your own books.

There was a scheme this year by someone to get their book into the best seller list. They offered presales on Amazon, then had a gazillion orders placed while no money changed hands because the books weren't ready for delivery yet. That drove the stats up because Amazon's best seller lists depend on sales in short cycles, best seller that day or that week. Now they could say they were in Amazon's top 100 sellers while canceling the orders before money changed hands.

They were caught and Amazon was none too pleased at the tactic. I don't recall if they pulled the book and I can't find the story easily. If I find the link I'll post it.


Bottom line, your book will either sell or it won't and this kind of shenanigans is unlikely to make any difference at all.

 

Yeah, I'm thinking more in terms of magazines. I'm not trying to boost sales or anything. I just want a lot of copies.

 

If you want to show off to other people then by all means go nuts man It's your money and if you want to rub some people's noses in it then absolutely. Don't go making like a hat out of your published works though. You gotta have more class than that

 

I’m usually content with whatever advanced copy I get. I don’t usually care because the paper I end up writing is not as important as my data. Papers are meant to be easily read and sourced from, but usually has its actual data obfuscated with graphs or things (usually by necessity, as one experiment can produce terabytes of data.)

For fiction, I have a few copies of published collections around, but I didn’t pay for them.

For books, it may depend on who you deal with but I’m fairly certain my father just asks his publisher for more copies and can get them. It’s necessary for promotions and things. That said, I know that every time he’s in a book store, he will find his own books and face them outwards so that the cover is visible.

 

I have, a couple of times. Depending on the number of books you're getting, it can be cheaper to buy them retail through Amazon and get their free delivery than it is to pay Createspace for the at-cost author copies plus shipping from America. Damn sight quicker, too. Amazon seems smart enough to not include copies bought that way in your sales stats, though.

 

I really hope that somewhere there is someone who's job it is to track authors accounts against sales of their own books.

 

I am enough of a spreadsheet junkie that I can see that job being quite therapeutic.

 

Wouldn't it be the most fascinating thing to find out who is trying to inflate their sales figures?

 

I've purchased my own work for giveaways only. I did an Amazon giveaway of 5 ebook copies of UTK to celebrate it's first anniversary of being published. I also bought a physical paperback copy to donate to the DC Books to Prisons Project when they tweeted that they'd had some requests for m/m romance but didn't have anything on the shelf in that genre. It's funny because while I paid full price for all copies, I made some of it back when that quarter's royalty payments came in.

 

I bought a copy of the first of my books that I saw in a real bookstore. Which was stupid, because the contract gave me something like 50 free copies, so I really didn't need another! But it was fun to go up to the cash register with MY BOOK in my hand.

 

, it's the novelty of buying your own book. LOL. It's not stupid at all, I would have done the same. LOL.

 

If I ever finish anything worthy of publication, I definitely would, just for the novelty, but the idea of trying to buy up enough copies to alter sales stats sounds nuts. A paperback is, what, $8-10 bucks these days? And from some brief and random research, authors are generally making a coupe thousand bucks unless their books hit serious bestseller territory, so you're going to burn through all your earnings wtihout making much difference in your stats.

 

@GingerCoffee, is this the one you mean? Handbook for Mortals came up in a discussion here a few months ago:
Updated: Did This Book Buy Its Way Onto The New York Times Bestseller List?

 

For book events I buy copies of my novels through my publisher at a 50% discount. However, there were a few times on Amazon where for some reason the print copies were marked down to a deal even better than that. So I picked up a few copies.

 

Yep, that's the one. It was also discussed over on AW. Thanks, I had a brain block trying to find it.

 

I mean, maybe I'll update this post once I have a 'stuff' to buy, but personally I'd like to own a copy of everything I write, assuming I ended up being proud of it after it was on shelves. I can see a world in which I can't say that about everything that I make. Might even go so far as to seek alternate covers, or special re-releases and such.

 

I usually buy a few copies for friends, family and as proof for new clients

 

Don't most contracts include free copies? Certainly for novels, and any anthology I've been in has had them, but don't magazines do that, too?

So if you're just looking to build your personal archive, you probably don't need to buy. (Unless magazines don't include free copies in the contract...)

 

Magazines do give free copies to writers, but I kind of want to really see it in the bookstore. I can't just go visit my story, can I?

 

My wife and I order our books through CreateSpace for book signings. Our signings have been very impromptu events, but highly successful. That doesn't count for on-line sales. I would not buy my books wholesale from Amazon, because even with free shipping, that would not be competitive with CS. We normally buy in large quantities, usually batches of 16, as it is cheaper, percentage wise, to ship 16 books than one. And we keep a box with all three of our books in a car, never can tell when someone you chat up in the bar about your book wants to buy one. Then there are the "Ask Me about My Book" tee shirts she bought us... believe it or not, we have sold books in parking lots to strangers that way!

 

It was really funny that after I bought the hard copy of UTK for the non-profit (I used Amazon so I could ship directly to them) I got an auto-email from Amazon a couple of weeks later reading HOW MANY STARS WOULD YOU GIVE UNDER THE KNIFE? and I was thinking "All of the stars, it's brilliant!" But no, I did not leave a rating on my own book, LOL.

 

And pay for it with a CC or Check so you are forced to sign for it. And make sure the cashier checks your signature.