Notes from a Book Buyer

At the “Writer’s and Scribblers” retreat this past August, I was able to attend a lecture from local book buyer, Jeanne Costello, buyer for a medium-sized indie bookstore in Durango, CO. She had a lot of great insights! I go into a little more depth in the podcast, but there’s a written set of notes below.

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• There are 40-50k books published every year by traditional publishers (This doesn’t take into account all the self-published books)
• Maria’s Bookstore (mid-size store) carries about 10k books in their shop
  • 2/3 are older books
  • they pick up about 5k new titles per year
    • 25-30% of those are returned to the publisher with ZERO sales
    • many books only sell ONE copy/year
    • decent sales for regular books are 2-3/year
• When thinking about approaching a bookstore to carry your books, consider how people discover books and where your would be found on a bookshelf
• Each bookstore has specific needs
  • Durango:
    • literary fiction, travel/outdoors, natural sciences, unplug/retreat/de-stress
• With Fiction:
  • representation matters a lot
  • to the buyer and the reader
    • is it a professional product?
• Cover art is IMPORTANT
  • needs to speak to the person who will love your book – not just to YOU
  • should be used as a marketing tool
  • Being simply an extension of your art doesn’t always work if it’s not communicating the right message
  • must indicate clearly to readers WHY they want to read your book
  • acts as a “short cut” to telling readers about your book
• It’s important to understand destination and discovery
  • DESTINATION
    • have a particular book in mind before approaching a book buyer
      • specific topics/need
    • work to have “critical conversations” about your book to garner interest
  • DISCOVERY
    • there are SO many books to compete with
    • cover must speak to readers and buyer
      • pay attention to conventions of genre
    • know where your book would be placed on the shelves (specific category)
      • ask yourself where readers who will love your book will go looking for it
    • know comparable books
      • easier for staff to recommend to readers
• Identify what your ambitions are
  • big chain store? small to mid store?
  • 2-3 sales/yr? 100s sales/yr?
    • if booksellers love your book it’s a great way to make inroads and gain exposure
    • having a book on the shelves alone will NOT help you reach critical mass goals
• Self-published
  • what the book buyer needs to know:
    • how to buy your book
    • how to reorder
      • direct from author is very hard on buyer!
      • returnable is very important to stores!
        • allows them to “try out” books
      • local stores sometimes offer “consignment basis”
• Book sales are up…
  • but not in proportion to number of books being published
• Amazon doesn’t sell books to make money
  • they sell them to attract shoppers who will then buy more expensive/profitable items
• Indie stores are more relevant the last five years – important to communities and creating buzz in communities
  • 6-7% up in sales
  • paperback book sales are up
  • ebooks sale have plateaued

For a more detailed discussion, listen to the podcast!