Early on at Quill Driver Books we discovered that an author who could take credit cards would sell three times as many books as one who was stuck accepting checks and cash only. Today, with everyone using debit cards, it’s even worse.
So, when one of our authors was speaking at a large event or was going to put up a table at a book fair or similar event, we would pack up one of those machines that took the card’s imprint and the multi-part forms the machine used and send it all off to our author . We would also send instructions on how to use the machine and a request to please have the buyer write his phone number on the form.
After the event, the author would return everything back to us including the completed forms. We would run the charges, credit the author’s account with the revenue, and write the author a check.
Often things went wrong. The card either didn’t imprint legibly, was rejected by the bank, or the customer would forget they bought the books and challenge the charge through their bank when they got the bill. Those were invariably the charges for which the author had failed to get the buyer to write down a phone number.
For years we continued to do this because, one, we wanted to sell the books and, two, for many authors, the income from sales of their books (we give most authors a 50 percent discount on their books and also pay regular royalties on books they buy) is an incentive to attend the event. If the author sold 50 books he or she would reap something like $500. Ok pay for a three- to four-hour gig that also promoted their book.
Eventually, for some reason that isn’t clear to me now—maybe it just got to be too much of a hassle, we drifted away from this practice. Both Quill Driver Books and the author are the poorer for it.
Enter technology. Now, thanks to a new start-up company named Square, any author with a smart phone can easily take credit cards. Watch this video by Kevin Rose and be amazed at the ingeniousness of it all.
Just a Write Thought.