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As a retail bookseller, one of the most exciting aspects of my job is interacting with authors.  The relationship between authors and booksellers, ideally, is mutually beneficial.  We have a common goal: sell some books.  As a bookseller, I’m much more likely to do that with an involved and enthusiastic author.

In the spirit of continued goodwill between authors and booksellers, here is some advice from a fairly successful independent bookseller to authors who are getting their start.

1.  Be nice.  Do you really catch more flies with honey than with vinegar?  Absolutely.  This is the most important and least frequently heeded advice I give to authors, especially those just starting out.  A good attitude and friendly demeanor will open a whole lot of doors when dealing with retail professionals.  When you work in customer service, you have to deal with some unhappy, rude folks.  It’s just comes with the territory.  If you make it your business to avoid the ranks of the disgruntled masses, my gratitude will get you one step closer to having your book on my shelves.  On the other hand, if you get me on the phone and tell me that you don’t think I was raised right because I haven’t had time to review your memoir, I’m not stocking it.  Period.

Once your book is in the store, there is nothing that makes me happier than selling books by authors I know to be genuinely nice people.  Most other booksellers I know feel the same way, so be nice to them.  Also, be nice to the reps at your publisher, because they’re the ones selling the books to us.  Generally, just be nice.

2.  Make sure your book is available.  This sounds like a no-brainer, but the easier it is to get your book the better.  If you know the name of the sales rep I should be dealing with at your publisher, put his or her phone number in the packet you send.  If it’s available from a wholesaler like Baker and Taylor or Ingram, make that clear up front.  If you’re self-published or with a very small publisher, I strongly recommend making sure that at least one of the big wholesalers carries your book.  If the book sells and the only way I can get more is to call you directly, it may or may not be worth my time to get a hold of you.

3.  Include all pertinent information when you make first contact.  Did you go to high school two blocks from my store?  Has your family lived in our town for a hundred years?  Do you teach at a local elementary school?  Is your cover art a photo of a local landmark?  If so, please tell me!  Mind reading is not an ability included on my admittedly impressive resume of personal skills.  If there is a particular reason you think your book will do well in my store more than others, lead with that.  Well, introduce yourself first, and then tell me about your mother’s book club that meets down the street and has a hundred members that are all dying to buy your book.  Remember, I like selling books just as much as you do.

4.  Get on Twitter.  This might sound like silly advice and you might think it’s not for writers who are serious about their craft, but get over that attitude quick.  Yes, Jonathan Franzen doesn’t like Twitter, but he doesn’t need personal contact with booksellers to ensure we stock his book.  After you win the National Book Award, maybe Twitter becomes a bit redundant.  In any other case, it can be an invaluable tool.  Twitter allows you access to a community of people who successfully work in the book business.  Publishers, editors, agents, bloggers, booksellers, and authors are all represented.  Participating in a community of like-minded people will feed you creatively and professionally, and Twitter is a very easy way to get involved.

Hopefully these tips will offer some insight into the minds of independent booksellers.  I think that the folks who make an effort with booksellers without a doubt have more successful events, more publicity for their books, and higher sales.  We love books, and we are constantly looking for the next fantastic piece of literature to champion and the next great author to get excited about.  Be committed to your work, because we’re committed to books. Also, be nice.

For example, one of the biggest faux bits of logic I’ve been seeing is that “If the mass market paperback is $7.99, why can’t I get the e-book version from the get-go at that price?” Well, the fact is $7.99 for mass market paperbacks only works if you’re printing tons of books. It’s also important to note that many authors never get their books published in mass market format because the publishers rightly have estimated that based on hardcover and trade paperback sales, that particular book won’t sell enough copies in mass market. So they don’t reach the $7.99-a-book threshold, which includes the print-a-crapload-of-copies threshold.

Other examples show a basic misunderstanding of distribution, or of the fact that the actual physical printing of a book is a fraction of the cost of producing a book.

But what I find most inexplicable is the level of venom directed by some readers at publishers, and by extension writers, like some kind of scam is being perpetrated upon them. It’s especially ironic given that the book industry is usually dealing in unit sales of an individual book of under 20,000 copies, whereas other forms of entertainment like movies and music are dealing in unit sales of over 100,000 copies. In other words, there’s not much room for price discounts.

What’s led to this sense of entitlement? Here are some possible factors, beyond the basic fact of there being lots of free content on the internet.

—The proliferation of free book downloads offered by publishers and writers.

—The constant attacks on copyright, and thus the overall idea of “ownership”, on highprofile blogging platforms and websites.

—General attacks on software limiting a user’s ability to copy an e-book, especially attacks that don’t do so in the context of respect for the creator’s wishes or need to make money from their work.

—Deep discount pricing of e-books by entities like Amazon to encourage the sale of e-books.

—Google’s book scanning project, which, under the guise of “fair use”, has made significant portions of hundreds of thousands of books available online with no regard for the rights of the writers of those books.

Have these factors led to this sense of entitlement? I don’t know, but it’s worth thinking about. It’s also worth noting that we often cause problems for ourselves as authors by thoughtlessly adopting whatever hot new media idea pops up on the internet. In some cases, I think we begin to contribute to our own disenfranchisement in doing so.

If this sense of reader entitlement proves to be pervasive or becomes the norm, then writers will be in a tough position, and the only way to make money on e-books will be to retain the rights yourself and self-publish–meaning you will also have to become your own editor, your own typesetter, your own distributor, etc.

Although you can self-publish more easily today than in the past, it’s not going to help you that much unless you are a celebrity like Wil Wheaton, someone with an existing high-profile platform like John Scalzi or Cory Doctorow, someone who is already a bestselling author, or unless you are prepared to basically become your own publishing house (involving a series of skillsets that most people don’t have).

In such a scenario, if e-books do eventually dominate the marketplace and physical books have only a fraction of their current market share, it’s entirely possible that unless this situation resolves itself into a compromise whereby readers actually show respect for the creators of the stories they love that we will see one of the largest mass extinctions of published writers in the history of literature. They’ll still be writing–but they’ll be largely invisible, and also unable to even dream of writing full-time.

My feeling is that it won’t get that bad, but we as writers have to do our best to make sure it doesn’t–by educating readers and doing our part as writers to make sure that our actions don’t contribute to the problem.

(For the best series of posts on the subject, including the Amazon-Macmillan fracas, visit Jay Lake’s livejournal.)

One thing about my recent five-week book tour behind Finch and Booklife that I particularly loved was getting to read in so many great independent bookstores. Indies are extremely important to the well-being of book culture and often serve as strongholds for author events. This month, Indiebound has listed Finch as one of its Indie Notables, something I’m very proud of.

You can find some longer descriptions of indies in my book tour reports for Omnivoracious, but below the cut I’ve written downpersonal impressions of the indie bookstores I visited during the tour–including some little-known facts about each. A huge thanks to each and every one of them.

I’m also rolling out the new Finch negative campaign ad video (see above). Friends and fans from all over the world contributed to the video. After some bugs in moviemaker, Matt Staggs stepped in to finish it, including doing the voice-over. If you like the book, please feel free to post the video and a link to Indiebound this month, along with your own praise of the indies. Thanks.

BETWEEN BOOKS (Claymont, DE) – Tucked away in a strip mall and run by Greg Shauer for the last 30 years, Between Books is the ultimate science fiction/fantasy bookstore. Greg doesn’t do returns, and so you can find all kinds of hidden treasures. I felt lucky I only had about half an hour to browse, because I could easily have spent a thousand dollars or more. The ambiance of the store is both inviting and wonderfully jam-packed with books—and Star Wars mobiles and all manner of other genre-related paraphernalia, including comic books. The place has the feel of a shrine as well as a bookstore, and the laidback, friendly Greg is a living reference text on genre fiction. In short, Between Books has substance and heft for hardcore fans while still being welcoming to a casual SF/fantasy reader. The place looks like it should smell musty, with weak sunlight penetrating and mixing with fluorescent lights to reveal floating golden dust, but it only resembles an old library. Little-known fact: The bookcase in the back left corner of Between Books conceals a passageway to a series of tunnels that lead to a uber-library deep beneath the earth. Over the years, the Claymont artist community has built a cultural bomb shelter in the space. If the end of art as we know it ever occurs, still there will be a safe place.

THE BOOK ESCAPE (Baltimore, MD) - More of a bookmine than a bookstore, this is one of those classic places that you feel will still be there in a hundred years. Looking through the store is a constant process of discovery and delight. It manages to be as comfortable as someone’s livingroom and as scholarly as a library. Here you do see the dust motes dancing and hear the creak of wooden planks under your feet. The area for readings has a similar sense of comfort, with the audience gathered around in a variety of wooden chairs. Little-known fact: Likenesses of ravens have been lightly carved into the underside of every bookshelf. But Poe’s body is not buried in the basement, despite local legend.

BOOK SOUP (Los Angeles, CA) – Cramped with overflowing plain wooden shelves and tables piled high with books, Book Soup on the Sunset Strip has an eclectic selection—just their music essays section is stunning and unique. Counterbalancing the bibliophile-pleasing clutter, Book Soup has an uncanny knack for placing, for example, a whole display of Europa Editions in front of those readers addicted to such pleasures. The staff is sharp and attentive. Book Soup has an underlying scent of sawdust that, were it to permeate the air above the sidewalk outside would tell passersby “bookstore” as readily as any sign. Little-known fact: When he wants some anonymity, former Vice-President Al Gore dons a cloak and a beret, attaches a Dali mustache, and flits through Book Soup to a room in the back specially reserved for celebrities in disguise. In this back room, Book Soup employees have set up a world-wide command-and-control, using as intelligence points other independent bookstores. While eating a peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich and sitting in a comfy chair, Gore monitors these “bookpoints”.

CHAPEL HILL COMICS Shop(Chapel Hill, NC) – Clean, crisp, and immaculate, with lots of open space and ringed by large stuffed animal monsters, Chapel Hill Comics dispels the usual image of a comics store as cramped and close. Owner Andrew Neal runs a tight ship, knows his stuff, and provides a whimsical and enjoyable browsing experience. The effect is a bit like walking into a world of visual delights. Neal knows modern comics buyers are a diverse group, and the store reflects that knowledge in both style and stock. Another store in which I could have spent a lot of money. Little-known fact: The stuffed animals that ring the store come to life afterhours, animated by the souls of those who in life disdained comic books. Fated to read throughout the dead hours of the night in the Chapel Hill Comics Shop, they find that this purgatory is unexpectedly enjoyable. In the morning, they stare down with envy at customers pawing pages.

CLAYTON BOOKS(Clayton, CA), CA) – Inviting, bristling with books, Clayton is run ship-sharp by Joel Harris, with Vinitha Fredenburgh impressive re the depth of research on incoming authors. A great general bookstore committed to writer events, Clayton Books exudes professionalism and verve. The children’s section is particularly robust. A writer could get used to hanging out in this place. Little-known fact: Joel Harris has secretly made Clayton books not only mobile but amphibious. Should the strip mall in which the store is located ever fail, he will push a button and Clayton Books will lurch onto its foot-treads and make its way, by hill and by lake, to some new, pristine location.

COPPERFIELD’SPetaluma, CA) – Set like a jewel in the middle of Petaluma’s downtown shopping area, Copperfield’s has the space to offer a wide variety of selections, including a downstairs. Brightly lit and festive, the place is the quintessential large indie bookstore—with a knowledgeable staff, places to sit, and a sense of both history and a commitment to the future. Ray, one of the managers, is as savvy and cheerful as they come, with a special affinity for comics. In Copperfield’s you can find a great selection of graphic novels alongside a commitment to the best in literary mainstream fiction. Little-known fact: Ray has arranged the graphic novels section in such a way that it conveys a message in code to Alan Moore, or to any of the army of Alan Moore’s minions that have been sent out across the world to collect such messages. To the rest of us, it means nothing, alas.

FOUNTAIN BOOKSTORE (Richmond, VA) – Run by Kelly Justice, Fountain Bookstore features a crack staff and a handpicked selection of great fiction and nonfiction, in a snug but comfortable space smack dab in the middle of downtown Richmond. If you do a reading in Fountain and your book includes mushrooms or comes with a soundtrack, expect to see a shrine of mushrooms when you enter, and the soundtrack playing in the background. If you mention an arcane name like “Jodorowsky,” expect to hear strange movie titlesand stranger trivia. Little-known fact: Late at night, the Fountain Bookstore shifts from location to location around the world. Sometimes you can find it tucked away in a back alley in Buenos Aires. Other times, it turns up after dark in a crowded shopping boulevard in Berlin or even Istanbul. This is why you so frequently see the staff reading tourist guides and brushing up on their French and other languages. These travels are building toward some greater purpose involving the empty basement of the store, but Justice stays mute on the subject.

MALAPROPS BOOKSTORE (Asheville, NC) – Featuring a café and located in the middle of the cultural Mecca that is downtown Asheville, Malaprops crams an amazing number of books into a relatively small space while rarely seeming cramped, perhaps because the lighting provides few places for shadows to accumulate. The store aggressively promotes staff picks and author events, doing a good job of promoting local writers. Little-known fact: The owner of Malaprops has a strict rule regarding employee hires—they must be able to do ballroom dancing. Twice a year, each employee must enter the Asheville Ballroom Dancing Extravaganza for the greater glory of the bookstore. This fact, however, is the reason that so many employees in the store appear to be walking on air.

POWELL’S BOOKSTORE(Portland, OR) – Whether it’s the main location or the Cedar Hills outpost, Powell’s exudes indie cool. Powell’s Central is so big you can walk lonely as a ghost through its stacks, taking in by equal measure the smell of dust and must, the scent of coffee and cinnamon coming from the café, and the freshness of the cold that periodically blusters in during the winter from the front doors. There are four stories or more of books here, all carefully catalogued and shelved, with a great selection of local zines and authors tucked away in a corner. Wherever you go the stacks tower over you, and you know you are in the presence of both the hip and the venerable. Little-known fact: If you were to remove the roof from Powell’s and stare straight down from the air, you would discover that the positioning of the stacks creates the exact same symbol that figures so prominently in John Dee’s Ars Magica. Further, you would see that Powells’ owners have hidden their gold in compartments in the tops of the supporting walls.

UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE (Seattle, WA) – The figurative and literal giant Duane Wilkins claims the University Bookstore as his kingdom, taking great care with and displaying great affection toward his selection of genre titles. You can find just about anything you want in the University Bookstore, but Duane’s made a special redoubt of the SF/fantasy section, stocking not just the usual suspects but indie press material. Chameleon-like, he’s got one eye on the history of the genre and one on the future. Here’s a bookstore, multi-leveled, in which you will find the unusual and the unexpected should you venture to other sections. Bright and crisp, yet still undeniably bohemian and indie, the University Bookstore belongs to that amazing strip of college stores, bars, and restaurants that makes this part of Seattle so attractive for an afternoon of browsing. Little-known fact: Sometimes Duane Wilkins is writing a hundred-year history of the genre based in part on the secret notebooks of H.P. Lovecraft and August Derleth. What he knows that others don’t fills him with a secret sense of satisfaction akin to glee that he tries hard to hide. Sometimes you’ll hear him muttering “L. Ron Hubbard was an arse,” but this is unrelated to his clandestine project.

Certainly, it has been a tough year for the major chains. Borders Group narrowly avoided bankruptcy when creditor Pershing Square Capital Management agreed to extend the pay-off date of a nearly $43 million loan, allowing it an opportunity to take numerous cost-cutting measures, including the closure of 100 Waldenbooks locations. Competitor Barnes & Noble fared better, but experienced hardships of its own as it headed into the holiday season with reported quarterly losses.

Both chains have already taken steps to capitalize on the growing e-market. Borders Group began selling the Sony Reader in its stores some years back, and Barnes & Noble launched its own branded e-reader this year, the Nook. Further, Borders Group announced plans this month to invest in Kobo, an e-book content delivery service spun off from Canadian book chain, Indigo Books & Music. But is all of this enough to save the brick-and-mortar chain bookstore in America? Probably not.

When it comes to the e-reader’s natural habitat, the internet, Amazon holds the home field advantage. Online since 1995, the company’s website attracts over six hundred million visitors annually, has no storefronts to maintain and is already a trusted name in e-commerce. The Kindle reader is estimated by some to already hold up to 60 percent of the US market share in e-book sales. Further, along with big box retailers Walmart and Target, Amazon is putting the squeeze on chain bookstores in the hard copy arena as well by offering selected popular hardbacks for as little as $9 a piece. From any perspective, it doesn’t look good for the long-term future of the big chains.

As the reading public becomes accustomed to e-readers, the market for paper books will grow smaller, limited to collectors of special editions and a dwindling sliver of customers who refuse to embrace e-reader technology. Chain bookstores may wake up to find their commanding share of the American marketplace greatly diminished, forcing them to cut fat, consolidate resources and focus on winning the hearts and minds of local customers. In this arena, they may face great competition from not only Amazon and whatever e-reader platform that’s left to pick up the crumbs, but also the surviving independent bookstores, many of whom have had years to sharpen these very same techniques in their own war against the once-mighty chains.

Matt Staggs is a literary publicist and the proprietor of Deep Eight LLC, a boutique publicity agency utilizing the best publicity practices from the worlds of traditional media and evolving social technologies. He has worked in the fields of public relations and journalism for almost a decade. In addition to his work as a publicist, Matt is a book reviewer and writer whose work appears in both print and web publications.

]]> http://www.booklifenow.com/2009/12/a-grim-future-for-americas-bookstore-chains/feed/ 8 http://www.booklifenow.com/2009/11/james-crossley-on-the-booksellers-perspective/ http://www.booklifenow.com/2009/11/james-crossley-on-the-booksellers-perspective/#comments Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:00:59 +0000 Jeff VanderMeer http://booklifenow.goblindegook.net/?p=98 As noted on Monday, I’m kicking off my book tour this week. Tonight I’m at the University Bookstore in Seattle with Cat Rambo and Cherie Priest. Tomorrow I’m at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. Friday, Nov. 6, I’ll be appearing with Jay Lake, Cat Rambo, and Jeff Johnson at the Press Club in Portland–and then doing a solo reading at Powell’s in Portland on Saturday. Sunday, I’m doing a Booklife workshop at the Hugo House in Seattle, and then a lecture titled “Bookwork for Booklife” Monday night, Nov. 9, also at the Hugo House.

Here, he shares some tips for writers in their dealings with booksellers. – Jeff

(James Crossley)

(1) If you’re reading at a bookstore or participating in any other similar event, remember to be gracious. Audiences are forgiving of many faults, but they don’t usually enjoy arrogance. One writer’s opening appearance in front of a substantial, welcoming crowd consisted solely of staring at the lectern and saying, “I’ll read for about fifteen minutes, and then I guess we’re supposed to move on to a Q&A session, but hopefully we can dispense with that, because I don’t really see the point.” Now, these kinds of appearances can become tiresome and repetitive, but there’s certainly a better way to express discomfort with the process than by announcing, in essence, that you don’t want people to buy your book.

(2) Your graciousness should extend particularly to the store staff. Ideally, a reading will result in some immediate sales, but for a writer without an established reputation, the more significant impact will come later on as booksellers spread the word to their customers. If your book is of interest to the staff, it will be one that’s remembered and recommended, and making a good personal impression can only help in this regard. I worked with a woman who was a big fan of a journalist who’d co-authored a couple of edgy and informative books about marginalized industries including punk music and adult films, and she heavily promoted his work whenever she had the chance. She was delighted to help arrange an event for him, but in person he proved bizarrely hostile and demeaning, and by the end of the evening she’d been reduced to tears. Thereafter, his sales fell off more than slightly, not surprisingly.

(3) When trying to convince a retailer to carry your book, similar rules apply. Before you pitch whatever it is you’d like to sell, check the store out in person if you can and be honest with yourself about whether you can imagine a place for your book on its shelves. A shop that emphasizes business titles and vacation thrillers may not be suitable for your young adult novel. Try to engage with the staff about the place and what they like to read and sell, not in an artificial way, but to size up how well your book fits in. If you find someone who seems amenable to what you have to offer, expect to give away a copy to sway the decision maker. A bookseller will pay far more attention to an actual book than she will to a postcard or flyer. If you can’t make an actual visit, at least research online as best you can to better target your approach.

(4) When you’re communicating with a retailer, be conscious of how he’ll sell your book even if he hasn’t read it. What’s its intended audience? Don’t say everybody, provide a specific hook. “It’s great for fans of smart, action-oriented historical fiction, like Patrick O’Brian’s books,” or “It has a very contemporary setting, but the characters are discreet and the story unfolds gently, so it has more appeal to the Jane Austen crowd than it does to Sex & the City viewers” or “It’s for literary readers who find Pynchon too simplistic.” If there’s a local connection, highlight it. You may feel as if you’re reducing your work to a caricature, but once you’ve shown that your book can sell to somebody, you’ve established a beachhead of sorts and word of mouth will begin to push it in other directions.

(5) If at all possible [if you don’t have the support of a traditional publisher], make sure your book is available through the major distributors such as Ingram and Baker & Taylor. The terms won’t be quite as favorable to you as they would be if you supplied copies yourself, but easier availability makes it much more likely that your book will be stocked. Many independent stores will work directly with you, however, especially if you’re willing to consign your book. Self-publishing no longer carries the stigma it used to, but customers are still concerned with aesthetics, so pay attention to the design of your book if only to make sure it doesn’t stand out in a negative way. This is an area where an expert can really be of service.