Last month, I wrote an article regarding why it is not in the best interest of readers or writers to always support bookstores. Now there is more fuel to put on that fire.
It seems a major bookstore chain in Australia is resorting to blackmail to force publishers to pay special fees, in the thousands of dollars, just to have the chain stock their books.
Just read the above article first and try to let it sink in. The books that will be stocked in the bookstores of A&R will not be there because someone thinks the consumers will enjoy them. Not because they hold any interest to readers. Not because a bookstore actually DID ITS JOB and reviewed the book first. No, only books by publishers willing to pay thousands of dollars in placement fees will be stocked.
Now this isn't about paying a special rate for prime placement. many stores charge special fees for special placement. If you want to put a huge display in walmart, you rent the space. If you want your book to appear in the window at Borders, you pay a placement fee. This isn't a voluntary marketing program. This is a yearly required fee just to remain a vendor. Meanwhile, there is no guarantee A&R will even buy enough books to justify paying the fee. You could pay a $20,000 fee and have A&R only buy $2,000 of inventory.
The biggest kicker of this is that A&R isn't claiming these small presses are loosing money. They just aren't meeting some aribitrary profit margin.
Meanwhile, Amazon continues to become more and more independent publisher and writer friendly. They continue to streamline their publisher controls to make it easier for publishers to participate in Inside the Book, add reviews, and a host of other new services. Why would Amazon do this? Because they understand that the more books you carry, the more books people buy. So what if one publisher only sells ten books a year? If you have a thousand independent publishers selling 10 a year, that's 10,000 books. Not to mention that once you've shown customers they can find the obscure, niche, and hard-to-find books, they will keep coming back to you.
Now Amazon has the advantage of not always having to keep an inventory, as many independent publishers and small presses use print-on-demand. So what if you have books from ten publishers that aren't meeting a certain profit margin? What about all the books you sold because a customer came in looking for that "underachieving book" and walked out with $200 in books with it? How many people actually walk into a bookstore and only buy one book?
What about the folks like me, who walk in to the store while waiting on someone to finish shopping in another outlet? I don't come in looking for anything, but end up spending $10 on coffee and danish while reading at the counter, then find two or three quirky titles that catch my eye and buy them as well? I'm not interested in mainstream books. I'm looking for the niche titles. Stop carrying the niche titles, maybe I walk down to another shop to kill time...and waste money.
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Comments: 14
Consumers have an amazing amount of power. What would be great is, if even for one day, customers went into the store, picked up books they were going to buy, then left them on the counter with a note: This is what I would have bought from you if I thought you actually cared about books and not profit margins. If you live in Australia, write A&R a letter telling them how repulsive this is. It may come down to guilting companies into behaving themselves.
Honestly I wouldn't recommend that people write letters. Most companies don't actually care, and are likely to just fob people off with whatever letter they keep on hand for "cranks." As long as they keep making money they're probably not going to listen.
The solution isn't boycotts, protests, letter-writing campaigns or anything else. People just need to quietly stop buying from A&R (yes, I know, doing anything quietly isn't really my style). I don't even think getting the company to rescind this policy is enough - they need to be amputated like a gangrenous limb. Yes, it would put people out of jobs. Which is unfortunate. However, businesses need to be taught that when they try to hose the consumer there's a price to be paid, and this kind of thing won't be tolerated. Admittedly I'm not a very nice person, but when you get right down to it I can't imagine a more effective message than allowing A&R to quietly choke to death on their own decision.
Never doubt the power of the court of public opinion. I have on more than one occassion succeeded in embarassing a company into fixing a problem. Julie's venomous tongue + epinions + BBB = problem solved. See, while people complain all the time, there is an art to complaining well. I have mastered that art. Heck, co-workers come to me asking me to help them with THEIR problems, such is my reputation. One well written, forceful complaint can have an enormous impact on many companies, particularly when there is a lot of competition for business.
I find myself in full agreement with you and my impressions and my reactions are in line with oyurs.
On Satruday I bought 4 books in a book store that I haven't seen advertised anywhere.