The name of my business is “Balboa Books.” It is a fictitious book seller I have created for the class. This is a target market analysis that will be used to determine how the company should market itself on social media.
According to publisher’s weekly, book sales grew by 8.2% in 2020. 751 million units of print books were sold and 251 million units were sold of Ebooks. Despite this growth, according to Statista, book sales are still 42% lower than they were in 2007. Although there is an explosion of books available, most do not sell that well. Most, actually, only sell about 200 copies per year. Books continued to be sold mostly by Amazon and Barnes and Noble in the United States.
Although this looks bad for anyone wishing to start a new bookselling business initially, there is still an opportunity here. According to Ryan Raffaeli, a Harvard business professor, Independent bookstores have rebounded since their low point in 2009. Raffaeli studied why bookstores did not get essentially wiped out and he found three things that kept bookstores afloat and able to fend off competition from online retail, community, curation and covening. He writes that independent bookstores survived by,“stressing a strong connection to local community values.” They also survived by curating a selection of books that went beyond what was on the New York Times best seller list, and did so by developing personal relationships with the customer. The third aspect covening, was essentially to put on community events, like book readings, open mics, lectures etc.
What are the consequences of social media use of my fictional business for this? Since this fictional bookseller is based somewhere in San Diego county, that means the account will market itself as much as possible as a part of the San Diego community. It will highlight events by local authors and artists at the store. It will interact with other explicitly San Diego accounts in a good natured and fun way. It should also market rare books not often sold by major retailers to give the store more of a unique feel. Overall, the account should feel like it is run by a person, not a faceless corporation.
Works Cited:
https://ideas.bkconnection.com/10-awful-truths-about-publishing
https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/20-068_c19963e7-506c-479a-beb4-bb339cd293ee.pdf
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