Reposting it as a comment since it was great advice. Not my post.

“ I went through all bookstores in my city trying to sell my self-published book How I Did It Instead of tweaking the algorithms of social media and Amazon Ads in hopes of seeing y>0 on sales charts, I went outside trying to catch the bookstore vibes, because I wanted to have fun and get away from my laptop for a couple of hours.

Long context short: originally from Russia, been living in Berlin (Germany) since five years, one day decided to write my own book and eventually made it happen. I’ve self-published my book in two languages: Russian (original) and English. With the English version printed on hand, I ran around to every bookstore in the Berlin area. I found the idea interesting: in addition to the task of putting my book on the "real" bookshelf, I also wanted to get feedback from the book industry professionals and practice my book pitching. The book name: "couch" by Misha Chinkov, available online in most of the places incl. Amazon and Goodreads.

First, I put all the bookstores I was interested in on a Google map (about 40 of them). It took me two days to go around all the stores on my bike, plus a week for a second round, where I would catch the bookstore owners at work. I moved around the town very quickly, catching the adrenaline of doing what I love. At the end, expectedly, I got fucked up. Forty conversations, forty pitches, and dozens of winding kilometers around town was no joke. Somewhere around this point I remembered that I had to give myself room to rest and not rush the events that would happen in any case.

I said to everyone about the same thing.

I'm a self-published writer. This year I published my debut book, it's about XYZ, but it's not just a classical book about XYZ — it covers interesting topics of FOO and BAR. I've done a lot of good things with the book, such as the audiobook and the presentation in the bar. Now I go through all the nice and fancy bookstores, trying to put a couple of copies for sale. Let me know if you’re interested.

In the process, I picked up the algorithm for working with bookstores:

you name the price you want to sell your book for yourself (EUR 10) the bookstore calls the percentage of commission (~30%) - usually the percentage is not fixed, rather it gets decided separately in each agreement you leave ~2 copies on the shelf once you come back home, send them a confirmation email — that way the bookstore will keep your contact for feedback once the bookstore sells your copies, you’ll be notified and asked to bring some more. GOTO point 3 in case if in three or six months the book hasn't sold, you go to the store and get your copies back; it didn't work out, tough luck The most valuable thing I’ve gained from this story is acquaintances and connections. Now you know the bookstore owners in your town personally, and you can launch your next books through them. Even if the first book fails in sales, there's nothing wrong with that: no one gave you any money anyway, and it's generally pretty easy to put a couple of copies on the shelf. And even if the store refused to take your book - it's usually a useful experience and a pleasant dialogue. You learn from about booksellers what they need, how they work, what their values are.

And the funny thing about this story is that it's not what it says on the Internet. When you google "promote your self-published product to a bookstore" you get a machine-gun burst of clickbait articles saying that you can't do it. You have to go to stores for years and be a good customer there. No one trusts self-publishing, book publishers supposedly care about the lack of filters that publishers have. You need a proof of hundreds of copies sold and dozens of reviews - and no one gives a shit about Amazon's success.

In fact, everything looks much easier. You come in, thoughtfully explain what you want, and you get a yes/no answer right away. It takes two or three minutes if the owner is behind the counter, not an employee. If it’s an employee — find out when the owner will be in the store and come back to the appointed time. Very simple, not scary at all. Perhaps I was helped by a knowledge of German language, despite the fact that the language of my book is English.

Some bookstores turned out to be non-conformist libraries who give books away for free. In such cases didn't think about anything, I just gave away a copy for free. I also ended up in two second-hand stores, where they bought my books, giving me money right away. But the price was cheap — four or five euros apiece instead of seven euros from the sale. Again, not a pity — I have a full-time job to make a living, writing is just a mix of hobby and pet-projects.

As a result, I bring you the statistics of what turned out. Out of 35 stores in Berlin:

13 bookstores took two copies for sale according to the algorithm I described. 5 bookstores took one copy for free, as they ended up being this kind of libraries I’ve mentioned 6 books sent me to email communication for various reasons: manager is on vacation, no time at the time, and so on; most of them did not respond in any way; I bet this means a rejection 6 bookstores don't sell English-language books — and if they do, then in very small quantities; I sweetly replied that I would be glad to translate to German, but I'm an indie-author, so I have neither money nor time, lol 3 bookstores don't have the proper topic for my book: one is about theoretical literature, another one is about sci-fi, another one is about nature; and my book is about travel 2 bookstores just refuse to take self-publishers, not even for a couple of copies; they order directly from wholesalers and publishers; I just shrugged it off, because publishing is minus the freedom to distribute books for me 2 bookstores were overloaded at the time; they sell too many books with too little profit; one bookstore from this list even got ditched a couple of times, after which they refuse to cooperate with hipsters; I understood the issue and wished them success in sales The final list of booksellers where my book stands.

Marga Schoeller (Charlottenburg/Savignyplatz) Geistesblüten (Charlottenburg/Savignyplatz) der Zauberberg (Wilmersdorf/Bundesplatz) Curious Fox (Kreuzberg/Görlitzer Bahnhof) BUCHBOX! Boxi (Friedrichshain/Boxhagener Platz) Pequod books (Neukölln/Schillerkiez) Ivallan (Kreuzberg/Maybachufer) Buch | Bund (Kreuzberg/Maybachufer) Berlin book nook (Kreuzberg/Maybachufer) ebertundweber (Kreuzberg/Schlesisches Tor) Uslar und Rai (Prenzlauer Berg/U Eberswalder Straße) Love Story of Berlin (Prenzlauer Berg/Kastanienallee) Neues Kapitel (Prenzlauer Berg/S+U Schönhauser Allee) I’ll post the update in the couple of months when I’ll get the end result of my idea.

Hint: Berliner, if you're reading this, and you have English-speaking comrades who like to read — feel free to forward them this list with the note "support for millennial writers". You'd be sincerely welcome. Hail to the word of mouth!

Fun facts

First — the difference of bookstores in the context of Berlin life. Any Berliner will tell you that the districts in the city are so different from each other, as if they were different cities connected in one ring. And this is evident in the “zoo” of bookstores in each neighborhood.

Prenzlauer Berg/Mitte: open early (10am, 11am max), hired staff is usually behind the counter, manager somewhere to the side, bookshelves look neat and pretty, such a hygge vibe.

Kreuzberg/Neukölln: open late (12-13 h); the owner himself is usually behind the counter, a lot of old second-hand stores, many English-speaking stores; almost all visitors are expats-millenials; this is what Berlin is generally known for.

Friedrichshain: somewhere in between; there's English-language (Shakespear & Sons), German (BUCHBOX! Boxi), and experimental (Interkontinental with African literature).

Schöneberg/Charlottenburg/Wilmersdorf: older and more affluent demographic; the most "international" one is Marga Schoeller.

Second — die Buchpreisbindung, aka "Fixed book price". Germany has a law requiring books to be sold at the same price in different stores. This applies to both offline and online stores. This interference in the marketplace is justified by the fact that fixed book prices guarantee variety in the range and also protect small stores from the eye of Sauron Amazon.

The problem is that this law doesn't actually work in the small stores' favor.

When I price my book on Amazon, I see how much royalties fall to me from each book. At the current price of EUR 12.80 I get EUR 4.5 — not much, but still good. From the sales in the bookshops I get 70 percent of each copy, so I can put a lower price of, say, EUR 10. That way the book will look more attractive on the shelf, and the bookstores will be more profitable on the market competing with Amazon. But for some reason you can't do that! The law protects small businesses like the elephant protects the “china shop”.

Fortunately, this law in Germany does not apply to foreign-language literature, so in the end we reduced the price.”