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.
- 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
- Durango:
- 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
- have a particular book in mind before approaching a book buyer
- 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
- DESTINATION
- 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”
- what the book buyer needs to know:
- 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