Comments on: The Top Three Stupid Things Publishers Do (According to an Independent Bookseller)

By: bestcbstore

bestcbstore — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 17:36:20 +0000

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By: preor

preor — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 14:26:47 +0000

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By: Heartburn Home Remedy

Heartburn Home Remedy — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:40:46 +0000

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By: Hoss

Hoss — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:15:53 +0000

Hi Debbie;

Ah well… DeadBooks.com.

By: Debbie

Debbie — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:09:12 +0000

I agree 100% and am attempting to move this forward a little bit ever day. If you know of any really creative ebook developers, please have them contact me. I’m on the hunt!

By: Hoss

Hoss — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:36:27 +0000

And if I might, add just one short comment. I have no where near the experience that has spoken in these posts; I offer this only as a humble observation. I would like both publishers and booksellers to allow the book itself to evolve and change, and then to support those new forms. I feel there is a stubbornness to what a book can and can’t be that makes us all cling to traditional ways of book publishing and selling, insisting at times that if it was good enough for my daddy, then it’s good enough for you. It’s almost as if we fear that the concept of the word on page is too frail in today’s age to allow it to switch from using a horse to using a car.

There will always be room for the traditional form of the book, but I have come to believe that the book can become so much more. I see a time where I’m reading a chapter on the beach using the method of ink on paper, and then with the light of day fading, I move back to my bedroom and decide to experience the rest of the chapter with images and sounds.

All these posts seem to point to a lack of movement in the face of change. And maybe the change has to start with letting ‘the book’ run free. Just a thought.

By: Bob Miller

Bob Miller — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:58:28 +0000

In response to Wendy Hudson’s comment above about booksellers getting into the digital format business: I’m pinning my hopes on Symtio, a division of Newscorp (a corporate sibling) that has already started working with booksellers in the CBA market to sell cards in stores that activate e-book and/or audiobook downloads for various titles. Symtio is currently talking to the ABA and all the other major booksellers, and I think that the bookselling community should run, not walk, to get this system up and running in all stores asap. This would put digital formats into bookstores where readers are, and also put booksellers into the digital business. I think that these cards should be available for all titles, and I’m also interested in seeing the codes on the books themselves (so that a customer can buy the digital formats at the same time as they buy the book in a bookstore, if they so choose).

By: Mike in MN

Mike in MN — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:08:33 +0000

IMO, publishers can do one basic, fundamental thing better: produce books that don’t suck. I realize that everyone’s tastes differ, but stop coddling authors once they – and you! – have produced a reasonably successful title! Treat every title, regardless of who it’s from or what it’s about, like a first novel; you’re shooting yourselves – you’re shooting *everyone* – in the foot by allowing an endless series of second, third, and subsequent books out the door by authors who can, and have, done better. If it’s not economically practical to more thoroughly edit every book you print, then it’s time to cull the herd – surely it’s better to offer fifty good or great books a quarter, rather than ten good or great books and eighty that are appalling?

Also, particularly for genre and specialty publishers, leverage your authors’ backlists! I’m continually amazed how many publishers promote the hell out of “the nineteenth so-and-so mystery” when books one through twelve in the series are out of print. (Heck, in SF I keep running across the third books in trilogies where the first is already OOP. WTF?) Four words: trade paperback omnibus editions.

On a related thought, if you’re trying to hook the younger generations on reading, look long and hard at reprinting OOP bestsellers from before today’s college kids were born. Hell, even if it has aged badly or kind of sucks, a “thirtieth anniversary edition of the NYT-bestselling classic” probably has more going for it than a lot of what gets published – and instantly forgotten about – these days…

By: Emily Pullen @ Skylight Books

Emily Pullen @ Skylight Books — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 22:01:16 +0000

Fabulous discussion — thanks to contributors on both sides!
From the perspective of a frontline bookseller (at Skylight Books in Los Angeles):

3 (+1) things for publishers:

1. Consider more paperback originals (but with national promos, reviews, etc.) and innovative options like Bolano’s 2666 hc/pb simultaneous release from FSG.

2. Revamp marketing materials. Don’t send multiple galleys to bookstores unless requested, we don’t need posters and bookmarks, and most indie bookstores don’t have space for clunky cardboard displays.

3. Capitalize on visual production of book. NO DICUT COVERS: they arrive damaged, tear in the store, and don’t look better than standard covers. It is difficult to sell a book with a poorly designed cover, no matter how great it is. In our “Economy of Attention,” the biggest challenge is getting someone (bookseller or customer) to pick up your book.

+1. Hold a certain (if small) percentage of hot reprint titles for independent booksellers. There is little that is more frustrating than telling a customer that a book is reprinting and we don’t know when we’ll be able to get it. Having to wait 2-4 weeks does NOT stimulate demand, and giving the whole reprint run to Walmart/Costco/B&N may not be the most beneficial way to get books to readers.

3 things for booksellers:

1. Technology is your friend. As filmmaker Alex Beckstead said at WI4, you can’t just occupy your allotted space online, you have to claim it and make sure your customers know you’re there.

2. Business-to-business connections are crucial, and publisher publicity people can work with independent booksellers to make this happen on author tour stops that aren’t in bookstores.

3. Be sure to identify and support emerging leaders in our stores — people with ideas who will be the future of our industry. Provide tools to channel passion and to address practical needs of pursuing a career in bookselling.

By: Carl Lennertz

Carl Lennertz — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 12:59:50 +0000

3 things publishers need to understand about booksellers:
1 – They are on their feet much of the day; it is a physically demanding job. And they do email at the beginning or end of the day, time and energy allowing, and sometimes, the big picture is something that will have to wait.
2 – Their life savings are tied up in the store. Second mortgages, their kids’ college, retirement. Tout. That’s why it can get emotional, and why their stress is high.
3 – We do seem big, far away and uncaring, and we have to do all we can every day to close that gap.

3 things booksellers need to understand about publishers:
1 – We are eager and anxious to hear about our books, and we LOVE emails from booksellers who like our books. We never forget who sent in a blurb …. ever.
2 – We see Indie Next as the essential measuring tool of your power, from the nat’l and reg’l bestseller lists to displays of Indie Next picks. We don’t understand why you don’t display all 20 picks prominently. We make a direct connection from Indie Next displays to your importance in the eyes of authors, agents, and everyone in publishing.
1 – We do seem far away, and big, but we are people, too, working like you to sell books, and paying bills and raising families, and we see you as partners and friends. That’s why # 1 and #2 above, or the lack thereof, concern us.