How do small presses prepare sales sheets?
- A sales sheet is the one-page document that sells a title to the trade.
- Five sections: metadata, pitch, comps, audience, ordering info.
- Metadata includes ISBN, format, price, page count, and pub date.
- Ordering info tells buyers exactly how to stock the book.
- It is built for booksellers and distributors, not readers.
Small presses prepare a sales sheet as a one-page document aimed at the trade: metadata (ISBN, format, price, page count, pub date, BISAC), a sharp pitch (the hook in a few sentences), comps (comparable titles that place the book), target audience (who buys it), and complete ordering information (distributor, terms, how to order). It is a selling tool for booksellers, librarians, and distributors — not a reader-facing description — so it leads with the facts a buyer needs.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Booksellers and distributors decide whether to stock a book from the sales sheet, often in under a minute, so a missing price, a vague pitch, or absent ordering information can cost the sale. A complete, well-built sell sheet gives the trade everything needed to say yes and place an order. For a small press without a sales force, the sheet often does the selling on its own.
Chapter ii·What to include
- Metadata: ISBN, format, price, page count, pub date, BISAC.
- A pitch: the hook in two or three sentences.
- Comps that position the book for the trade.
- Target audience and key selling points.
- Ordering information: distributor, terms, how to order.
- Cover image and any endorsement quotes.
Chapter iii·Example
A small press builds a one-page sell sheet for each spring title: cover image, full metadata block, a three-sentence pitch, two comps, the target reader, a blurb, and the distributor and ordering terms along the bottom. A regional bookseller scans it, sees the price, the comps, and how to order, and places an opening order — all from the single page, with no rep call needed.
WriteLoom holds each title's metadata, pitch, comps, and ordering info together, so building a sales sheet is assembly, not a hunt.
See WriteLoom for teams