The Porter Brothers, armed only with determination and a good long distance plan, called 1,100 book stores and got their book placed in… 1,100 bookstores! We hope their story will give you the information and inspiration you need to repeat their success.
Porter Brothers Barn Storming Book Promotion Tour
By Glenn & Steven Porter
The Porter brothers, Glenn and Steven, wrote their true life-wrecking story, a book called “Porter Brothers Tragedy: The Untold Story,” released Jan. 1st, 2016 and published by Page publishing of New York City. The Porters sent their book to Readers’ Favorite in August of 2016 for a 3 Express Review package received one 4-star and two 5-star reviews.
The Porters, being extremely poor, had no money to pay for book promotion. What they had in their favor was a great story, a 5 star rating from Readers’ Favorite and a great telephone calling plan called Teliphone U.S.A..
The Porters called general interest bookstores that sold new books in their home state of Maine and got a very favorable response. Next, they called every general interest bookstore in Boston that sold new books and had even more success. So they took a leap of faith and called every general interest bookstore in New York City that sold new books and had overwhelming success. Next was L.A., where they enjoyed the same results.
With their confidence sky high, the Porters decided to get really serious with their barn storming book promotion tour and made plans to call every general interest bookstore in the United States that sold new books. Barn storming is a practice that went out of style in the 1930’s. When people wanted to sell something, they would ride on a wagon from town to town hollering loudly about what they were trying to sell.
The Porters called bookstores in every city across America with a population of at least 100,000. Over a 44-day period, Steven called over rest bookstores in the United States. Steven only called bookstores that were general interest and sold new books. Glenn eliminated bookstores on Steven’s calling list that primarily sold used books, children’s, adult, religious, metaphysical, text, comic and medical books. Steven did not call bookstores that were rated as inexpensive or remaindered.
When they finished with the US, the Porters applied their calling model to Canada, England and Wales, using their Teliphone U.S.A. calling plan for 3 cents per minute. The Porters used the same strategy that they used in the U.S.A., calling each city from the largest to the smallest (min population of 10,000).
From October 25th, 2016 to April 7th, 2017, Steven called over 1,100 general interest bookstores that sold new books in four different countries and got their book placed in each one! Steven told every one of the bookstores that our book is published by Page publishing in New York City and what a great publisher Page is. Steven described our book briefly and about its 5 star rating from Readers’ Favorite, which always garnered a positive response. We truly believe that our 5 star rating from Readers’ Favorite gave us that extra measure of credibility that helped convince each of the bookstores to carry our book.
We want to offer our genuine thanks to Readers’ Favorite for all their support and advice, and we hope this article will help other authors get their books in bookstores around the world!
