The Business of Product Placement, Hand-Selling, and Integrity in the 21st Century

Found via GalleyCat, The Sunday Times talks about a subject we’ve discussed before: the business of publishing co-op, providing actual monetary figures in the range of 50,000 to 200,000. Dude, seriously? What really makes my head spin is that I know that the conversion to U.S. currency would make the number even higher. Whether or not this is comparable to what is charged here, I don’t know, but with the help of my handy calculator, I divided that 50,000 by the 542 stores said books would receive prominent placement in and came up with the amount of $92 (after rounding off the decimal) per store.

I doubt this means that you can walk into any bookstore, offer them $92, a wink and a nudge along with the words “put this some place pretty,” and get the same result.

What I found most interesting about the article is this:

“The Publishers Association, a trade body, said that 70% of promotional budgets were now spent on the so-called “below-the-line” schemes operated by bookshops rather than the more traditional advertising and posters.”

Why? Because these “below the line schemes” offer up results. People may not open up their paper and see your ad—they may not even get the paper or any one of the thousands of others out there—but they might have a greater chance of seeing your book if it has a prominent front of store placement in 542 stores.

Speaking of advertising, Mr. C. Max Magee covers the fact that Amazon has just added a new upgrade to their system called the Amazon Online Reader. Are they trying to sell access online to books without selling the hardcopy or does some of this money translate into ebook sales for the publisher?

I admit that I don’t feel qualified to really discuss the subject since I have no where near all the facts. I also have a love/hate relationship with Amazon—it acts as a default access to all the books mentioned in this blog because I want you to be able to get more information (and I’m lazy about tracking each to the publishing source), but I would much rather you buy the books from a bookstore (any bookstore). Still I think that Amazon taps into that part of us that lacks impulse control when it comes to book buying. You don’t have the sound of anyone’s voice (with it’s possible disapproving tonal inflection) telling you the price as you tap, tap, tap in your credit card number. You don’t feel the stomach drop of opening your wallet and seeing that you’ll be paying with your last twenty that you had to search for within the mass of old receipts you really are going to record in your checkbook.

And in a way, I (and other online book review sites) count on this impulse control problem to get you check out what we’re recommending and try someone you might not have otherwise picked up in a store setting. Odd, I know, since many people claim that the Amazon process kills the act of browsing wherein a customer browses the shelves of the bookstore and makes these new book discoveries on their own via the front table, store recommends (both of which you now know may be paid for by the publisher thus mudding the purity of the process thought of so highly), and the neatly arranged shelves.

One could argue, however, that blogs such as this and others offer virtual browsing, allowing you to see the recommendations of thousands without the worry that it’s all paid for product placement. No one tells me what books to inform you about and sending me an ARC does not guarantee that I’ll say wonderful glowing things about you (or even say anything at all). The only way that I (and others) would receive payment in this process would be to sign up as an Amazon associate, which would not only allow me to make some money, but also track how many of you actually use the links provided here to buy your books. That idea that I might be able to track that latter bit of information intrigues more than the monetary recompense because it could make (or break) the case for virtual handselling with the internet acting as one large bookstore.

Does this cut out the bookstore completely? No, because many of you are book people and need to feel the weight of the book in your hand before you buy, peruse the first few pages, and maybe sneak a look at the end. I don’t think that brick and mortar chains and independents will ever die for this very reason.

Whom do you trust more: the recommends at your local bookstore or those provided by readers on the thousands of different sites on the internet?

Do you read reader and bookseller review sites at all?

If you do, do you follow the links provided (whether to Amazon, Powell’s, B&N, Borders or others) to buy the books online or do you prefer to go to a bookstore and browse the book there?

There is no right or wrong answer, just what works for you. I admit that I’ve been interested in the Amazon associate idea for awhile because of these questions and how it offers up a small measurement of the power of the internet. Handselling is an art, but one that may be even more powerful when practiced virtually due to sheer quantity.

I’m interested in reading your thoughts.