If Your Significant Other Works in a Bookstore, Send Them These Links. We Guarantee You You'll Get Lucky Tonight.

School Library Journal has the names & contact info of 75+ authors willing to visit your shop's book clubs...via Skype. Yes, there's always a hitch.


Vromans takes on the controversial concept of 'Free,' offering a list of ways in which bookstores might use it. Stick around for the comments, where Inkwell Michelle blabs our secret plans!


Green Apple Books has come up with a way of dealing with 'local authors' (i.e. demanding print-on-demand types) that is both sensitive and sensible. Needless to say, we're stealing it.


Brews & Books has a brief bit describing a simple Twitter technique indies can use to check out what books & authors folks are Tweeting about in their neighborhood. Turns out, voyeurism is not only fun, it's profitable!


The wrinkle-free faces at ABA Emerging Leaders continue to use their youthful energy for good, coming up with dozens of ways to drive sales in September. This changes nothing, though. I still begrudge them their lack of varicose veins.

Now go on -- get sexin'!

Inkwell Interjects

Brief backstory: While reading the following article this morning, I literally snarfed my coffee. I immediately wanted to respond to some of the more ludicrous statements made by the speakers quoted, but couldn't think of an even-handed way of doing so without basically reprinting the whole piece. Then it hit me: Why not re-print the whole piece, inserting my opinions as I went along?
So's I did.

All bold print is from the original article. All anorexic print and the accompanying illustrations are mine.

(Oh, and a special note to Brice Wallace, the author of the article:
Please don't sue me. I'm not criticizing you here. I'm only criticizing the folks you quoted.)

Technology is a new chapter for booksellers
By Brice Wallace
Originally published in The Deseret News on Friday, Jan. 30, 2009

Chalk up booksellers as another industry group challenged by new technology, but they were encouraged on Friday to jump aboard the tech train rather than compete with it.

A panel at the opening of the American Booksellers Association's winter get-together suggested that booksellers see technology — such as e-books — as an opportunity rather than a threat.

"We've all got to figure out how to use online to make our businesses work," Bob Miller, president and publisher of HarperStudio, part of HarperCollins Publishers, told a group of about 450 people in Salt Lake City.

Nan Graham, editor-in-chief of Scribner, said booksellers need to "figure out" their "territorial role" in the e-book industry. Panelists suggested a few ways booksellers can do that, including serving as guides and experts for their customers.

"All you need to do is shout-outs every day for things you think are of value. You all have expertise as influencers that you have to make use of online," Miller said.

"There is so much noise out in the marketplace and people are asking for direction — how to find the stuff that's worthwhile — and you guys do that," said Morgan Entrekin, president and publisher of Grove/Atlantic Inc. "You take ownership over your business, because you have a knowledge base of your local community. And I think that that's going to create great opportunity for you."

Panelists said all independent booksellers need to blog as a way to capitalize on their expertise. One bookseller said a video blog propelled a local wine seller to online prominence, expert status and huge sales for his business. "When we say you should blog, we really mean that a 20-year-old on your staff should," Miller said, evoking laughter from the audience.

Miller said such use of technology may not produce results quickly, but it also is not expensive. "It costs (virtually) nothing to do, but nobody's doing it," he said.

Inkwell interjects: Er...actually, plenty of people are doing it. But the sad truth is that while blogging about one's favorite books is a wonderful way to waste work hours (take it from me!), it does little to increase the sales in one's store. The reasons why are simple. The reader is already online. How and where do you think they're going to impulse buy the book that you're shouting-out? (Answer: Online.) Even if the bookstore's blog links to their own online store, the average shopper is still going to take the extra five seconds to compare prices with Amazon. And until publishers offer the same discounts to indie bookstores as they do to Amazon, Amazon will always be able to offer the lower price. So while posting staff picks online might help to establish some sort of 'identity' for your store, it doesn't really do much to rake in the cash.

Miller also said booksellers should not expect customers to pay full price for various versions of the same book. His preferred model is a customer buying a book and, while at the register, paying a little more for an e-book version and a little more for an audio book version. "Capture that sale in your store at the register," he said. "If we set up a battle between the digital and the physical, physical will lose."

Inkwell interjects: This is terrible advice. Record stores (remember them?) briefly tried this, and we all know how well that worked out. No one wanted to go to a store to purchase a song off of iTunes when they could do the same thing from home/work/via their cell phone. The same argument can easily be applied to e-books.
Oh, and about audio books -- they aren't going to provide miraculous monetary salvation to any bookstore. Last year, 'real world' retail sales made up only 27% of all audiobook purchases. And the numbers are dropping. It is foolish to try and sell 'new media' using the old methods.

A couple of panelists cited statistics to keep the e-book threat in perspective. Roxanne Coady, owner of an independent bookstore in Connecticut, said that if e-book sales doubled annually for the next five years, they would total $1.2 billion but still account for only 5 percent of total book sales.

Entrekin predicts e-books to be 3 percent to 10 percent of total book sales in five years. "I'm not quite so convinced that the e-book thing is going to tilt as wildly as some people in the industry are," he said. "Our customers are from six months old to 105 years old, and a large range of those people are not going to quickly move to digital or electronic."

None of the panelists seemed worried about the long-term future of books and the shops where people buy them.

Entrekin said people worldwide "are getting more literate every day, every hour, every minute," and they will eventually turn to books because they are "where the repository and the discourse of our society are."

And bookstores "are the places that are beautiful, wonderful places to go to in the community," he said. "You know, we can't all live online all the time."

Inkwell interjects: I know that I'm coming off like an antagonistic assh*le here, but the fact is, the future of brick and mortar bookstores isn't pretty. To try and deny this in an effort quell the fears of folks making their livings working and operating them is just wrong. Spouting blue-sky bullsh*t like, "People worldwide are getting more literate every day, every hour, every minute, and they will eventually turn to books because they are where the repository and the discourse of our society are" and "Bookstores are the places that are beautiful, wonderful places to go to in the community," solves nothing. Pretty platitudes do diddly to help bookstores survive during a time of technological change and economic uncertainty. Previous ABA panels/seminars provided practical advice, but it seems like all that was offered here were simplistic suggestions and self-important self-affirmations. Hell, if that's all it takes, they could've just passed out Tony Robbins tomes and 'Hang In There' t-shirts and saved everyone a lot of time and money.


One more thing: Even if you disagreed with everything I interjected, please give the author of the original piece their proper click-through count by clicking here. Thanks!

Go, Look!

RocketBomber.com (their unofficial motto: “We Read Boring Corporate Reports SEC Filings so you don’t have to!“) has put up an extensive analysis of what went wrong with Borders in the past few years, and what the teetering giant is currently doing to try and right itself. It's an interesting, informative read, and the author does a nice job of reflecting the fears of those inside the company -- from the boardroom fat cats all the way down to the "kids in college working nights and weekends for beer-and-comic-book money."

Go, look!

(Thanks to Journalista! for the link.)

10 Tips from a Former Traveling Sales Rep...Part 2!

If you missed the first half of AutumnBottom's epic, two part guest column, click here. And shame on you for arriving late to the party.

The Final Five

-Sales Pitch-
We reps think it's wonderful when buyers have looked at the catalogue before we come in and you already have an idea of the titles that interest you and the numbers you might want to order. It's amazingly, wonderful helpful. That said, stay flexible. Or at least give the appearance of flexibility. We've worked hard on our sales pitches and, chances are, the books that we actually HAVE a pitch for are important. It's just nice to have a receptive audience.

-Complaints-
Everyone loves to complain. I'd say it's the "great unifier" because nothing brings people together like kvetching. The company I worked for had a very...unique catalogue. It was about 16 inches tall, 10 inches wide, and 200 pages of flimsy newsprint. Putting a positive spin on it, I'd say something like, "It certainly is easy to spot!" But really, it was just a gigantic pain in the ass, and my buyers never hesitated to let me know.
Chances are, if you have to say to your rep, "I don't know if anyone has ever complained about this..." they have heard it a million, billion, trillion times over. At every single meeting I got a complaint about the catalogue. No, wait, I lie. There was one meeting with a design store in Beverly Hills where the buyer loved our catalogue. Silly Californians.
I'm sorry, where was I going? Oh yes. Complain about the catalogue to me all you want. Complain about having to pay freight or how we print our company's name on the cover of every book, but please, don't punish me for it. As a lowly rep I simply do not have the power to change these things. My buyers telling me that they wouldn't order books until we changed the catalogue just made me think they were jerks. But don't tell them I said that.

-Keep Your Appointments-
I toyed with the idea of making this heading "Keep your *fucking* appointments" to drive home the importance of this topic. As a traveling rep I cannot even begin to describe how annoying it is to take the time and effort to fly somewhere 1,000 miles from home and have the person you were supposed to meet cancel on you when you show up at their store. I completely understand cases of sickness or other emergencies, but when it's simply because you forgot to tell the babysitter that you needed her until 4 pm.... I had one guy in LA who would cancel on me almost every time and it was always because he'd already gone home and didn't want to fight traffic to come back "so maybe we can meet next time you're in LA". Gah!!!!

-Pass Along the Kind Words-
There is almost nothing better than praise. I loved, reveled really, in being told by my customers that they loved meeting with me. I loved that they felt taken care of by me and that I cared about them and their businesses. It was even better when I heard from my boss that one of my bookstores had taken the time to call New York to let her know that I was doing a good job. Something like that goes a long way in assuring job security and letting the muckity-mucks know that the people in the field are taking care of the customers.

-Always Use a GPS-
So this one has no bearing on you, the bookstore, whatsoever. But should a new traveling sales rep happen upon this list, this is the most important thing ever. Buy a GPS and take it with you wherever you go. Expense it, write it off on your taxes, or just eat the cost of it, but it is the most valuable tool in your arsenal.
The first three or four trips I went on, I printed out a veritable encyclopedia of MapQuest Maps and spent all my time in the rental car with my head buried in those print-outs and a map provided by the rental car company. I didn't see any of LA, Calgary, or Portland. But on a fateful trip to Denver I was offered a GPS unit at the rental counter and my life changed. I was able to drive around the city admiring the buildings and the mountains and avoiding pedestrians while a pleasant Englishwoman fed me turn by turn directions. I stopped at Best Buy on my way home from the airport and picked up one to take with me wherever I went.
It made my travels so much easier knowing that when I stepped off an airplane in a strange city I could just plug in my little friend (God that sounds dirty) and I could navigate the city like a native. My greatest fear while traveling was not that the planes would crash and burn or my buyers would block the doorways of their stores (that did happen to a fellow rep of mine) but that I would forget my GPS at home and be completely, utterly lost. See what technology hath wrought?! Anyway. GPS is a gift from God. Go buy one.

Again, if you dug what Autumn wrote, PLEASE CHECK OUT HER LIVEJOURNAL! Homegirl is mad funny and she posts regularly. Oh, and if you work in a bookstore, make sure you print this out and show it to your travelling sales reps. It'll make them feel loved.

10 Tips from a Former Traveling Sales Rep

Ah, a guest column. These are always fun. Fun for me, the blogger, because I get to slack off in my duties. Fun for you, the reader, because my shtick is getting stale and y'all have been craving something better...you ungrateful bastards. Anyway, today's column was written by former traveling sales rep and current bookseller AutumnBottom. (That's her LiveJournal name, anyway. Witness Protection rules prohibit us from divulging her true identity.) If you like what you read here, make sure to check out her LJ. She's funny as f*ck and a brand new mom. Oh, and she's got cool hair, too. The trifecta!

Autumn's caveat: I was only a sales rep for 1.5 years with one smallish publisher, so I can't say for sure if this list would apply to a seasoned veteran of Random House or Simon & Schuster. Besides, I wasn't a particularly successful rep having had a bit too much empathy to push hard for the big sales. But anyway....

- Sales Numbers-
As reps, we're the low-man on the sales chain totem pole which means that we report to sales managers who, in turn, report to points higher on. I was constantly struggling with trying to please my bosses whose sales mantra was "Don't take no for an answer," and trying to maintain my trusting relationships with my bookstores. I guess what I'm trying to say is when your rep is trying to convince you to take a display with 20 copies of a $50 book and seems to keep circling back around to it after you thought you'd moved on, it's because of the pressure from "on high" and not because your rep is an asshole.

-Freebies-
Ask your rep for sample copies. Always. It never hurts to ask and, more often than not, they can get it for you. And, as was often the case with me, remind your rep about your request after a couple of weeks if you still haven't seen your freebie. It's totally not that we don't like you. It's just that we're busy people and things sometimes slip through the cracks.

-Loneliness-
Being a traveling sales rep is a lonely, lonely experience. It only took one week of business travel for the luster to wear off. Sitting in a restaurant by yourself is fun on occasion but when you do it for two to three weeks out of every month.... I was eternally grateful for the few buyers that I became friends with and could count on socializing outside of a business context with when away from home. If you like your rep, and you're willing, invite them out for a beer after work. They'll love you for it and be even more willing to go the extra mile for you.

-High Heels and Weak Arms-
I am all of 4 feet 11 inches tall. For my job I carted around a suitcase filled with 60 lbs of art and architecture books. By the time I finished hauling it out of the trunk of my rental car, dragging it through the gravel of the parking lot, and bouncing over the sidewalk into a store, the last thing I wanted to do was carry it up three flights to the buying office. If you are a brawny buyer and your rep happens to be wearing high heels or shops in the petite department please, please, please, offer to carry their suitcase.

-Free Lunches-
One of the major perks of being a buyer is having your rep take you out to lunch. There is nothing like free food in the middle of your day! However, if you've only bought three books out of the catalogue, for the love of Pete, don't order the lobster in truffle sauce. I'm not saying you need to satisfy yourself with the bar nuts, but try to order according to...well...your order.

Oh, come now. You didn't think I was going to give you all of Autumn's awesomeness in one fell swoop, did you? And rob myself of a second day of slacking off? Not a chance. If you want to read The Final Five Tips from a Former Traveling Sales Rep, your punk asses are gonna have to come back here tomorrow. Until then, you can visit Autumn here.

Added on 12/16: Link to part 2

Books on the Nightstand

Michael Kindess and Ann Kingman, two of our favorite sales reps (Random House), have a new blog called Books on the Nightstand. Now the whole world, not just New England booksellers, has the opportunity to partake of their special blend of passion, insight, and sheer enthusiasm for books! Listening to their podcasts made me want to take the day off and read for the next 10 hours straight. They are that persuasive when talking about books and authors that they love. Check out their blog & podcasts the next time you crave a good book. (Two books I'm adding to my must read list based on their suggestions are: Any Human Heart by William Boyd and Peace by Richard Bausch.)

Spotlight On: Legendary Booksellers

James Lackington
Via blog.seattlepi: "James Lackington was the most successful bookseller of the 18th century.
His legendary shop at Finsbury Square in London was named 'The Temple of the Muses' and when the flag was raised on the huge dome outside it meant Lackington was inside and ready to do business. Lackington revolutionized the book trade by becoming the first bookseller to refuse to sell books on credit. His cash only approach allowed him to offer books less expensively. Lackington also refused to destroy or discard remaindered books and instead sold them at bargain prices for Lackington firmly believed 'that books were the key to knowledge, reason and happiness and that everyone, no matter their economic background, social class or gender, had the right to access books at cheap prices.'"
(For the full article, click here.)

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Via: BeatMuseum.org: "Born in New York, Lawrence Ferlinghetti earned a doctoral degree in poetry at the Sorbonne in Paris with a dissertation entitled 'The City as Symbol in Modern Poetry: In Search of a Metropolitan Tradition'. In fact he was about to become part of a metropolitan tradition himself, because after leaving Paris he moved to San Francisco, which was about to discover the Beat Generation. Ferlinghetti and Peter Martin started a magazine there called 'City Lights,' named after the Charlie Chaplin movie. He and Martin established their offices on the second floor of a building on Broadway and Columbus in North Beach. They decided to open a bookstore on the floor below as a side venture, naming it after the magazine. The City Lights Bookstore became one of the most famous bookstores in the world, and still stands proudly in its original location. Doing double-time as a businessman and a poet, he began publishing original books by himself and others under the City Lights name, most notably the 'Pocket Poets Series.' The idea of Pocket Poets was to make poetry books easily affordable, and the small attractive paperback volumes are still a common sight today. Ferlinghetti published Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl' as Pocket Poets Number Four, and was tried on obscenity charges for this. He was declared innocent, a landmark victory for free speech."
(For the full article, click here.)

You
Born sometime in the last century, you grew up loving books and naively thought that working as a bookseller wouldn't really be like working at all. After all, you'd be surrounded by that which you love most and interacting with folks with a similar passion -- getting paid would just be the icing on the cake! Silly you. This is the same mistake that nymphomaniacs make when they get jobs in the glory hole business. How long did it take you to realize that most of your customers would not be deeply devoted lovers of literature, but best seller/new release whores and self-published writers asking you to buy their books? Still, you pressed on. You dreamed of the day when you would open your own bookstore, pushing aside common sense and an economy that whispered warnings to the contrary. When the local indie you worked at went bankrupt, you didn't despair. You simply crossed the street and filled out an application at the Borders/Barnes & Noble that put them out of business. You weren't being a traitor. Not exactly. You always wanted to work in a bookstore and this was the only option available. So you suffered through annoying add-on sales, unreasonable seasonal sales goals, and illogical corporate mandates, all the while trying to convince yourself that a 10% discount made it all worthwhile. Now you've got frown lines, grey hairs (in your eyebrows!), and your friends and family are afraid to ask you how your day went, lest they be treated to the same Madlibs-variety tirade* that they've heard from you a hundred times before. But hey -- you're bookselling! In a bookstore! Just like you'd always dreamed!

*"I had this (curse word ending in 'ing') customer today who called me an (curse word, singular) when I told them that (obscure book from a college press) has been out of print for (number over ten) years. Then , when I told them I could try and order them a used copy, they told me they'd get it on (online bookselling bohemoth)."

The I's of Bookselling: Independent/Individual

Being a bookseller has its perks. We receive free ARCs (Advance Reading Copies) from publishers months before the titles are available to the general public. Publishers send out these ARCs to generate word of mouth excitement about their books. In this competitive market of selling books, independent bookstores succeed against the odds by remaining close to what they know best...good books. Independents gain the trust of their customers, and this is the reason for repeat business. Lisa See, (see photo above) bestselling author of Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, wrote an article in Publisher's Weekly that is a heartfelt first hand account of the impact even a single bookseller can have on a book. She wrote, "So at a time when the industry adamantly embraces its numbers game, I have a new appreciation for the role of the individual bookseller, who not only brings books and readers together, but can make totally unexpected things happen—one book, one customer, one book group at a time." Her words reaffirm the meaningful connection between authors, booksellers, and readers.

That reminds me of a story. Kay, our best handselling bookseller, is an avid mystery reader. Five years ago, she was enthusiastic about an author she had read for the first time named Harlan Coben. His book, Tell No One, kept her up all night; she shared her discovery with her fellow booksellers, friends, and most importantly, with customers. Over the next three years, Kay sold a phenomenal 500 copies of Tell No One. When our bookstore was planning a Mystery Panel, Kay was determined to have Harlan Coben attend. Unfortunately, his schedule was filled, but he sent Kay a personal email that was funny and very appreciative. Kay was thrilled.

Speaking of Harlan Coben, we're anxiously awaiting his new book, The Woods, which is arriving next week. It is the story of four teenagers who twenty years ago, while at summer camp, walked into the woods at night. Two were found murdered, and the others were never seen again. Four families had their lives changed forever. Now, two decades later, their lives are about to change again.