In the Brief

Things that happened that I thought you might find interesting (or just forgot to tell you about up until this point):

Karen found her book—A.E. Van Vogt’s Mixed Men. Thought y’all might want to know in case you found the premise as interesting as she did.

McSweeney’s takes a look at Axl Rose’s relationship with his editor via their correspondence (thanks to POD-dy Mouth for the link). Sweet Child O’ Mine suddenly makes so much more sense…

This just in from Booksquare, Penguin is starting a publisher blog as well. Who wants to tell them that they aren’t the first kids on the block to play with this brand new technology? Simon and Schuster? Harper Collins? Anyone?

This blog has apparently been syndicated/has a live feed/whatever (somebody will have to clue me in on the terminology) over on LiveJournal. I have no idea how this happened (I just stumbled upon the information) or if this blog feeds anywhere else (dude, I want to know if I have a MySpace page), but if LJ works better for you then you know have the option.

Ack! Why did no one tell me that Jeff Lindsay’s Dexter series had been turned into a TV show? Now I’m going to have to seriously consider getting someone with Showtime to record it for me. If you’ve been looking for a good crime novel with a side of serial killer humor, the Dexter novels are excellent. I can only hope that the TV show does them justice.

Via the Millions: New Yorker lovers can now head over to Emdashes and question to New Yorker librarians about the magazine. Everything you ever wanted to know in the minute detail we’ve come to expect from people who work with the dewy decimal system.

S’alright, I’m off to grab some breakfast and stretch my legs. I’ll be back later with some type of real post. Have a great day!

Address Me As You Would The Queen...

or some other form of artificial lubricant royalty.

Thanks to Smart Bitches for recognizing my true greatness (now I'm going to have to buy that book).

Panic At The Bookstore

I used to think that bookstores were realms of peace and tranquility (it’s a place filled with books; how could anyone ever have a problem with that?), but since learned that this is not the case. I know that this is hard to believe, I got into an argument about it with a clerk from the Apple store just the other day.

“But it’s a bookstore! It can’t be that bad. People yell at us all the time when we tell them that we can’t fix their iPods.”

“Yeah, but the difference is that you know that they might yell at you. They might even have a semi-legitimate reason since you are telling them that something they’ve already paid for is broken. We can’t even begin to predict the customers here. It could be because we don’t have a book, or because we do have it. It could be because we refuse to honor another company’s discount. It could be because they’ve had a bad day and they need to yell at someone. We don’t even get to brace for it.”

In my time with the company I’ve had a woman throw a book at my head because I asked to please step into the line; customers scream at me/my coworkers that they are “useless, dumb,” and then never apologize when it turns out that the reason the coworker couldn’t find the book was because the customer didn’t supply the correct information; and the other night I had customers get into a yelling match (one yelling, the second apologizing and a third trying to get the first to calm down) in the middle of my magazine section. I can’t go into the saga of he said/he said because not only did it continue beyond my store, but one of the two participants was ended his evening in handcuffs. Just imagine something on Jerry Springer but dress everyone a little better.

Does it make me a bad person when I say that I’m glad that part didn’t happen in my store?

The incident did reaffirm the absurdity of all life though. During the verbal fight in my store, combatant 1 stopped yelling at combatant 2 long enough to tell the third man (who was just trying to calm everyone down, thus is not deserving of the combatant title) that “you should shut up and not get involved, fatty.”

After security helped herd c1 and c2 from the store, the poor man came up to the counter to collect his bag and ask, “Do I look fat? I mean, I’ve been called a lot of things, but never fat? You don’t think I look fat, do you?”

The answer was no, he wasn’t, but we had to spend a few minutes reaffirming this fact.

“No, you look fine.”
“You’re not fat. Don’t listen to him.”
“I’ve seen fat, and you are not it.”

No one told me that the definition of bookseller had evolved beyond “seller of books” to include “target of books, encyclopedia of facts, peace-keeper, bouncer, babysitter, priest, performing monkey, political sounding board, and positive body image consultant.” No wonder I’m tired when I get home.

Thanks for the sangria recipes.

What’s the weirdest/funniest thing that has every happened to you in a bookstore?

Alcoholic Book Bouncer

Does anyone know a good recipe for Sangria (red preferably)? I've got a hankering, and if I have another another customer to customer screaming match errupt in my store again anytime soon I want to have something cold and alcoholic to come home to.

That or a bouncer. A book bouncer would be cool, too.

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Other

I wanted a cookie when I got up this morning but I settled for a rice cake with peanut butter on it. Let me tell you, not the same. At all. Healthier, but not the same.

We had a man walk on the moon! Is it so hard then to make a rice cake taste like a cookie?

Geez.

Speaking of things that are different (but perhaps just as sweet), let’s continue our conversation about Chick-Lit while bringing in all the other examples of sub-genres that y’all feel are getting too big for their collective britches and shelf space (paranormal romance, urban fantasy, historical romance, erotic romance—poor romance!—etc). Susan Adrian had this to say about yesterday’s aforementioned glut: “I think it will turn out just fine in the end, though--like chick lit, the cream will rise to the top, and readers will still be interested in the good writers even if the genre bandwagon fails.”

An idea that I totally agree with except for the sad, but true, fact that there are some really great books out there that just don’t catch the eye of the public. How do you prove you are not like all the pink confectioned goodies out there but something new and interesting? How do you get someone to pay attention when they’ve been blinded by all those who come before?

You could have written an amazing (fill in the blank sub-genre) novel, but if the critics are just tired of reading them, if the public is just tired of the same derivative covers, if the marketing department just wasn’t on the ball, and if a bookseller didn’t read it on their off time and realize that this is obviously the hand-sell of the century, then your book could still sink away into oblivion. These days books have about six weeks to prove their worth before they’re yanked off the shelves, factor in some delayed reviews (or a lay-down date that got moved up), a slow to start word of mouth chain, and lack of up-front store time and your book could be off the shelves before anyone has realized it was there.

I could be even more depressing, but my rice cake was the cinnamon-sugar variety and I have no desire to bring about someone’s suicidal tendencies. I’m just trying to be a realist. On her blog, HelenKay asked her readers to talk about their likes and dislikes when it comes to online ads and excerpts, as well as author created doo-dads and book marks. The responses were many and varied with most people saying that they never clicked on online ads, preferred to follow reader generated feedback, and that they really liked excerpts.

Does this mean that online ads are worthless? No, setting aside the response from the small sample size, some of their comments were telling in that they said they took notice of the ads. Chances are you aren’t going to get people to click the ads themselves, but they will act as a place holder in a person’s memory. When the book is mentioned again (whether on a reader blog or in print or just seen in another ad) it will reinforce the placement. And then when they see the book in the bookstore maybe they’ll pick it up (I seem to remember three being the magic number in advertising).

What about the reader generated sales? How does one create that? Good question. I’ve seen book giveaways with the caveat that you’ll review the novel you win. I’ve seen reviewers who review rewarded with more books. I’ve seen authors who go out and search for any and all reviews to create their own review database.

But don’t you have to have some sort of buzz to get someone to be interested in the book to begin with? And what about those doo-dads that I spent so long designing? When do I give those away?

Thoughts, anyone? I suddenly realize that I need to leave for work. Look forward to reading what you come up with to finish this.

Chick-Lit Check Out

I got an email yesterday asking about the state of Chick-Lit in my store. I know that many of you don’t care about Chick-Lit, may find the name offensive, or don’t see what the trials and tribulations of the sub-genre have to do with you, but there is a lot to learn about the Chick-Lit story.

*cue True Hollywood Story intro music here*

I first ran into Chick-Lit over in England in the late 90s, when I picked up Jemima J while on a tour. Chick-Lit’s strength comes from the ability for the reader to connect and empathize with the character, something that didn’t happen with me and Miss J quite simply because I’ve never had a weight problem, but it didn’t stop the book from being a fun, fast read. A year or two later the book appeared in my store, as part of early part of the British invasion brought about by the success of A Girl’s Guide to Hunting and Fishing (Bank’s first book used many of the same stylistic choices—first person, relatable female protagonist, significant personal struggles—already popular with writers over in the United Kingdom), and we popped it up on the New Release wall where it began to sell, sell, sell.

From there the Chick-Lit market began to grow and then to explode, and by 2003 to 2004 we had a whole table up at the front of our store dedicated solely to the sub-genre (complete with pink sign). My store, situated in an urban business area, had the perfect location to dispense these books to women (young and old) who worked downtown and wanted to read something a little meatier than US Weekly. Sure, my female customers might have been just as likely to wear Danskos as they were to dream about Manolo, but they could identify with the plight of the girl who’s fighting to get her life together, find Mr. Right and afford the life-style that she feels she deserves. After all, weren’t the twenty-somethings devouring these books the result of always being told they could have anything they wanted as long as they worked hard enough, and that a balanced life-style wasn’t just a dream, but a reachable reality?

And they had plenty of titles to choose from, with publishers introducing new lines and titles every week in an attempt to capture this niche market: twenty-something women with cash to spend…or at least credit cards to max out.

The British imports with already proven sales records sat side-by-side the American upstarts both selling at a rapid pace (despite cries that the books were the death of feminism). We continued to change out the table, with stacks ranging from six to twelve copies of each title, and let the books sell themselves because the customers knew what they wanted and knew where to find them. Help was unwanted. Unnecessary.

Until overload set in, that is. I had one customer who has always stood out in my mind as representative of the change in Chick-Lit readers. She was older than most of the protagonists—in her 40s—but she loved the genre, and in the beginning she would just come in (every two weeks or so) and swipe a copy of each new title off the table. Sometime around early 2005 though, she began asking for help and suggestions. It was getting too hard to sort through the derivative stuff on her own, she told us, and there were certain themes she was just tired of reading about. My coworkers and I began reading up, searching for Chick-Lit reviews, so we could help her out and steer her towards the books that really appealed.

These books that turned out to not be Chick-Lit so much as very approachable Women’s Literature. Lolly Winston appealed (except for that whole death thing) and Kinsella was still readable, but the others?

Well, she was done (especially when the Chick-Lit authors she still read started coming out in hard cover). This change was seen in many of my other Chick-Lit customers. Despite the fact that we’d built the Chick-Lit table as a result of their demand for more titles and even created a section just for Chick-Lit titles within fiction, our sales were falling off. “Read one, read them all,” I often heard or, “The British ones are still good, but the others aren’t worth my time.”

The glut in the market had burned out the readers publishers were trying to reach and publishers were realizing it. Suddenly there were Chick-Lit Mysteries with the female protagonist trying to balance her social live problems as well as solve the who-done-it (Evanovich with more Manolo), and Chick-Lit Paranormal featuring female aliens or psychics. Whether these new variations on the Chick-Lit theme deserved to be smashed into the Chick-Lit genre (when they might have just sold better with a Mystery or Fantasy placement), I can’t say due to the lack of an official numbers. What I can tell you is that I didn’t see them move like those first Chick-Lit titles that we stuck on the table oh-so-long (yes, a little over a year is long in the book world) ago.

So what happened? That’s open to interpretation and I would love to hear your thoughts. My theory is that the act of chasing this trend killed it (or at least slowed it down to what would have been a normal pace for any other sub-genre). I have never seen publishers churn out titles in a single sub-genre as quickly as they did during the height of the Chick-Lit reign. Too many books came out that were sub-standard to the titles that created the trend, and the readers binged only to realize that needed to be selective, picky.

They needed to go on a diet.

Sure, they might revisit the oldies but goodies like the favorite ice cream that you only get to experience once a month, but they became picky about what other calorie filled treats they also experienced. This meant that the old, founding authors (Kinsella, Keyes, Green, and a few others) continue to sell—even get a pass if one of their books doesn’t hit all the right notes—but new authors encounter a much heavier scrutiny. And even older authors weren’t immune: Weisberger’s second book went to fifty percent off in hard cover as did Weiner’s latest (ETA: I was just informed that Weiner and Weisberger's books went to 50% as part of a Simon & Schuster initiative to bump them back on the extended NY Times list. My mistake) and the last outing by the Nanny Diary Girls. With Hollywood making movies involving the first and the last of the authors, they may see a bump in sales, but whether that momentum will carry through I don’t know.

Is the sub-genre dead? No.

Is it dealing with the after-effects of a sugar overload? Quite possibly.

Chick-Lit is no longer the market wunderkind, but it’s also not dead; it’s simply slowing back down to what the normal distribution of a sub-genre should be. Hopefully this will result in higher quality tales all across the board now that the hangers-on have fallen off. It may also mean that certain titles will get marketed to the appropriate genre instead of getting shoe-horned into Chick-Lit thanks to similarity of voice.

What does this have to do with anything else? The Chick-Lit rush and the Da Vinci Code boom that followed showed the short lives of the knock-off titles. Derivatives don’t have the long legs for continued sales down the road and are quickly and easily forgotten. They don’t create the backlist that most publishing companies make their money on, nor will they ever have the power to, and the customers are getting savvy to this (fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me).

Do you see the Chick-Lit build up happening elsewhere in publishing? Has that sub-genre managed to avoid the crash? What up and coming sub-genres do you think they will run with next or do you think the lesson has been learned?
All thoughts and comments welcomed.

100 Degrees In The Shade

It’s been so hot, brain denaturing hot, and I don’t have A/C, so all I can do is lie here on my futon and let my hurricane fan blow down on me. It’s too hot to read anything that invokes heat, which means no romances for me for awhile (I’m finishing up The Long Tail instead). Maybe I’ll pick up Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News, which a friend once told me “just makes you feel cold” as you read about Quoyle’s life in Killick-Claw.

What books affect your temperature—whether invoking the heat or a chill—when you read them? Does this affect when you read them?

Blog Filler

I was tagged by Avid Reader to complete the following meme, and as I had nothing else to talk about it seemed like a good idea. Apologies to all you people suddenly coming over from that Yahoo Writers’ Group looking for a follow up to yesterdays post, and to the rest of you who hang around here for no apparent reason.

1. When did you start blogging and why?

I started blogging back in May of 2005 because I had a group of friends who always wanted to hear the “funny bookstore stories,” but I was really bad at doing mass emailings. I also wanted to try writing something semi-daily without the pressure of producing art (or finishing said “art” anyway because it is the finishing part of anything not short that I seem to have a problem with).

2. What don’t you talk about?

I’m not here to make judgments on anyone’s political views, person (unless you did something really, really stupid, and even then it’s a laugh with you situation, I swear), or religious persuasion. Life’s too short and a blogging war isn’t really worth my time or energy.

3. Are you and your blogging persona the same person?

I’ve been told by friend’s that read this blog that this is my voice in written form, which scares the hell out of me because it means that I always sound like I need more coffee and I’ve lost the will to punctuate correctly. I also fear that one day someone will be in my store and say something like, “Hey, you’re Bookseller Chick, aren’t you?” but this is only fleeting. The chances that there are enough people reading this blog that one of them will walk into my store and recognize me is nil, not to mention egotistical. I do think that my blogging persona may come across as slightly more likely to hit the bottle than I am in real life.

4. How do you use blogging to build friendships?

I never expected blogging to do anything more than further the friendships I already had, the unexpected friendships that I’ve built since then are wonderful, but hindered, I feel, by my anonymity. I’d love to sit down with y’all for coffee though.

5. How would you describe your writing style?

Sloppy. My writing on this blog is full of run-ons, bad punctuation, and absolutely no editing because I usually post without the second, third and even forth read through that I give all my other work.

Tagged?

Whoever wants it, just let me know.

Any other questions y’all would like to ask that I may or may not answer?

Dear Cupcake Killer

I got a letter addressed to me the other day. The real me, not the Bookseller Chick me, or at least that’s what I’m assuming since it was addressed to the events coordinator/(genre specific) head a bookstore store. Hard to tell, really, since it was also addressed to a bookstore that hadn’t been in my space for five years!

And things just went down hill from there.

After I read the letter I was incensed and mortified (didn’t know you could be both at the same time did you?): on one hand I couldn’t believe that someone had written this expecting me to take it seriously, and on the other I just felt really bad for this author.

“Oh, honey,” the angelic side of me said, “that’s not good. That’s not good at all. Did you have someone read over this before you sent it out?”

“Obviously not,” hissed the other half of me, which may have drawn some of its pure evil from my psycho grandmother. “A better question would be, ‘Who thought this person should be published and do they still have their job?’”

“Don’t be like that. It must be hard to send out self-promotional letters like this. S/he doesn’t know any better.”

“Well, they should learn,” devil me sniffed. “We should send the letter back. Send it back covered in red correction marks. Bleeeeeeed on it with pen. This person needs to be taught a lesson.”

It was at this point that I put the letter away and went to look up the symptoms for Multiple Personality Disorder in the DSM-IV-TR we keep in Self-Help. Since close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades I figured I wasn’t suffering from MPD, but just in case, I ate a cupcake. One should never underestimate the healing power of a sugary baked good and its ability to assist in one’s overall wellbeing. Still the letter stuck with me; I wasn’t really going to write the author back, nor was I going to out the poor person in the blogosphere for the amusement of others, but there had to be some way to talk about the author/bookseller letter format.

Is there some sort of template out there that y’all use when you write up you’re “get to know my book” letters or do you have to wing it? If there is, I hope it includes the following points:

• Get the bookstore’s name right. I have a feeling that a lot of publishers, publicity people and authors are working from old lists because we routinely get mail addressed to the bookstore that hasn’t been in our spot for five years (one that was part of a whole different company). If two stores are showing up with the exact same address maybe someone should call and find out who is actually still there. While it is possible to have two bookstores in the same mall, why waste the postage if you can easily find out if this is indeed the case, or if someone simply forgot to remove a store from the list.


• Event’s Whaaa? Let’s get something straight here: large chain stores have events coordinators, while small chain stores have someone who may answer to this name right before they walk into their backroom and starting crying “Why me? I don’t get paid enough for this.” “Dear Bookseller” is a perfectly acceptable way to address a letter if you don’t know the specific bookseller’s name. If you do have access to the person’s name then make sure to spell it right!


• The word “rollicking” should never, ever be used in your letter. EVER. Especially when talking about your plot. In fact, let’s just table the ability to use that word for the next twenty years, at which time we can reexamine its ability to make a reader wince in pain.


• I don’t care where you went to school (Oh sure, I might care if we went to the same college, but then I would wonder how you knew we went to the same college and that paranoia would make me seek out the DSM-IV-TR again, so let’s not go there). I don’t care if you’ve worked in publishing before. Your job and schooling history should never appear in your letter to a bookseller unless you are writing to tell us about your fantastic nonfiction book about a topic related to your job or schooling. If you write fiction for a living the only thing I want to know is if you’ve written anything else that was fiction and if it sold well (or if Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert/or someone else with the power to sway the masses liked it).


• Most chains don’t have a section for local authors. They may occasionally stick said author in the local/regional section, but usually only if they are nonfiction or if the book’s fictional world takes place in real world surroundings (and those surroundings are the local area) and has gotten a lot of press because of that. If I walked into a chain store in Wisconsin I would not expect for them to have a bunch of books in a wall-bay labeled “Local Authors!” (I would, however, expect cheese paraphernalia.) ?” I can tell if you are local by your postage mark and return address. Asking me to label your book as “Local Author” just makes me frown as I wonder, “Do we even have a ‘Local Author’ sticker


• Kill the adjectives. Unless you have a quote from someone famous telling how super-fantastic your book is, don’t describe your book in any terms that would make you personally retch if applied to a movie or another book description. (See “rollicking” rule.)


• Don’t send bookmarks unless asked. Please, dear God, don’t send bookmarks. I’m drowning in the suckers.


• A little card with your cover on it is more effective than a computer printout on regular plain white paper. They are easy to file in rolodexes, they can have all your contact information on the back, and you can use them in any situation (when meeting booksellers face to face, as a friendly reminder for friends and family to pass out, an ice-breaker at the next business meeting). Printer sheet covers are not any of these things and just look tacky.


• Short, sweet, and to the point is the best way to go. If you’ve got an elevator pitch for you book, or a good marketing slogan then use it, if you don’t then don’t think up something groan-worthy just to fill the white space.

This letter I received broke almost all of these rules even though it had the best intentions. It wasn’t a letter from a self-pubbed author (who might not have had access to anyone in marketing or publicity), but someone being released by a major house, and it was not the first of this kind I’ve received. I know how hard it is to write business correspondence, believe me, but please have someone read over anything you are going to be mass mailing (and don’t let that person be your mother who has loved everything you’ve ever produced and still has your macaroni painting from kindergarten on the wall in the kitchen). Work on your letter until it has some sort of flow, otherwise the person on the other end—the bookseller you want to order in your book—will being to doubt your writing ability.

And that’s an unhappy thought not even a cupcake can fix.

The Birds and the (Book) Bees: How Books Come To Be (In My Store)

I’ve been asked more than once on this blog where I order books, where I find the titles that eventually end up on my shelves. As a chain store most of my book inventory is the result of a group a buyers far, far away from my store (who may or may not have any idea of my store’s actual size). This takes care of my basic inventory and the majority of my street dates, but doesn’t account for any specialization for my customer base. From my buyers I’m getting a certain percentage of the same books all my other stores are getting. For the rest of the books (the ones that make up the front table or employee choice wall-bays) I order book found in a number of sources:

• Fast Company: good not only for up and coming business books (my store is in an urban business area), but also interesting fiction and fun tie-ins (Pimp My Cubicle, anyone?).


• Publishers Weekly: I can’t order from a magazine until it is a month or two old, but the reviews (and advertisements) give me a great idea of what books will appeal to my customers.


• Bust Magazine: at the end of every issue Bust highlights a number of different titles and authors, titles that are often picked up by other news outlets (all of which jive with the folksy aspect of my town).


• NY Times Book Review: if it shows up there (whether as a reviewed book or an advertised one) we get it into the store.


• The Daily Show or the Colbert Report: if the authors are even half-way coherent about their book, I’ll have someone in for it the next day guaranteed.


• Partners West Distributors: send out a weekly review pamphlet on different topics and the people manning the phones there know their stuff.


• Various magazines (anyone with book clubs, book reviews or copious amounts of book advertisements): Vogue, Vanity Fair, People, Ebony/Essence, Entertainment Weekly, Romantic Times Book Club, etc. Pick and choose, mix and match.


• Anything I’ve heard about online in an excessively positive manner (Monster Island for example)


• Oprah: she is Oprah, ‘nuff said. Anyone who can get a segment of the nation asking me for When God Winks just by having it on her bedside table has a lot of power and I, for one, plan to make as much money of that as I can.


• Customer suggestions: if I’ve heard it from customer and they’re convinced so-in-so is the next big thing, I’ll him/her a try.

I’ll reorder anything that I’ve noticed is selling faster than the company is restocking me, or the paperback version of something that should have sold well in hardcover but didn’t due to the price.

Recently I signed up for Shelf Awareness after an author asked me about and I’ve found that it makes me more aware of certain titles. While it doesn’t necessarily make me go out and order the titles highlighted there right away, it makes me more sensitive to any repetition of these titles by another publication, a customer, or a mention online (whether any of this ordering subscribes to the magically selling theory of three, I don’t know).

I have coworkers who spend their unpaid time looking online for upcoming titles in the genres they love, and others that check out the catalogs sent to us by the different publishing companies. Our only requirement is that it has to be something that our customers might be interested or something we think we can hand-sell (thus talking them into something that might not know they wanted). Nothing glamorous to it, just a lot of reading.

Questions?

SB Day: Déjà vu All Over Again

Once again it’s Smart Bitches Day (a rather belated one due to my sunburned glory) and it’s time to talk about repetition. Yesterday on the way to fry ourselves, the druggie and I got into a conversation about the books she’s read this summer. The druggie works in a slow pharmacy (hence her nickname; she’s also a pharmacy student), and in between feeling drug subscriptions and fighting with insurance companies she has ample time to sit and read. Thanks to the library (and their website) she’s found several new authors (that “also liked” suggestion box is always helpful) and read the entirety of several authors’ works without spending a dime.

She’s noticed something disturbing as she’s blown through the backlist of a couple of big name Chick-Lit authors. In each book the same or a very similar situation will occur (answering the door in just a towel) and all of the main characters share some of the same habits (love champagne, hate pretty underwear, one friend is always committing adultery). The repetition has really begun to bother her because she feels that it is an example of lazy story telling and shouldn’t someone—the author or the editor—have caught this before it went to print?

“I think I’m going to have to send her a letter with a list of different alcohols,” the druggie said. “There is more in this world than just champagne.”

This isn’t an uncommon problem. Many times when I’ve discovered a new author and have gone back to read the rest of their books, I’ve discovered the very same thing. It could be anything from as small as an obsession with a certain type of clothing to something as noticeable as the same fantastical place to have sex. I’ve heard from customers and friends that this repetition begins to make them wonder if this is a reflection of the authors own loves overlaid on the character; the point where an author cannot separate himself/herself from the person she’s created on the page.

The counter argument, of course, could be that this is the little wink and nod by the author to his/her reader; a repetitive theme that is there to make it a signature story by this author instead of that one. But it rips me out of the story when I see something repeated and ruins the experience. Does this cause the same reaction in anyone else?

Are we making too big of a deal out of this? Maybe, but I don’t think so. When you’ve taken the time to create a fully realized character in book A, despite the fact that I love and adore her, I don’t want to see shades of her in book B unless she is there. Characters can have similar personalities (thus appealing to the same people) in different books without repeating the same traits (alcohol choice) and site gags (answering the door in the towel). It’s the duty of the author to realize what is going on, and if they can’t, it’s the duty of the editor to have enough knowledge of the author’s past work to try and catch these things.

I’m not asking too much, am I?

Trade Paperbacks Are The New Black

I was browsing Booksquare last night when I came across a link for the NY Times article, “A Stirring Family Drama Is A Hit (In Paperback).” The gist of the article is that a whole bunch of books that only do moderately well in hardcover are being runaway bestsellers in their Trade format.

To this I rolled my eyes and thought, “No shit, Sherlock.” (I was in a mood, mostly because I’ve known this for quite some time, but hadn’t bothered to blog about and now the NY Times had beat me.) I once even had a twenty minute conversation with a distributor about the “demise” of the HC (as we were calling it), and how they should just do a simultaneous release of the HC and the trade to make everyone happy.

Why?

“The target audience for a paperback is often different from that for hardcovers. “I think of paperback readers as the smarter, hipper, younger readers,” said Marty Asher, editor in chief of Vintage/Anchor Books, the paperback imprint of the Knopf Group. He noted that books like “Never Let Me Go” by Kazuo Ishiguro, or titles by Haruki Murakami, the Japanese novelist, tend to appeal to readers who frankly prefer the lower price of a paperback.”

Trades are also favored by book clubs, easier to stick in a briefcase or a large purse, and just all around lighter. They are also more ergonomically sound than a mass market (and the evil Venti), which means they appeal to older customers as well as those who have wrist problems, and a higher overall production quality.

Time limits me from going on and on about this subject in detail (all do that later), but I want to hear your thoughts. Given the choice do you want trade or hardcover? Does it depend on the genre? What books do you think will just explode once they are printed in their Trade format?

To Be Seen and Read

Somewhere someone mentioned on a thread (vague much? Sheesh, chick) how hard it is to find places to advertise their Chick-Lit book on the web. Immediately I thought, “Have you thought about advertising on Bluefly.com, Go Fug Yourself, or Manolo’s Shoe blog?” (Google the name to get the links; I plan to add them in tonight.)

Of course, if you asked me where to advertise for a scifi novel I wouldn’t have an answer for you, but I figured y’all might have an idea or two. Name the genre of book and where you would (or have) advertise online to get someone’s attention. I’ll compile it all together (I swear) and add it to the reference links I’m going to put up as soon as I have rainy weekend.

Makes sense? (God, I hope so because without more coffee this is about as coherent as I’m going to get).

Hasta luego.

Comic Geeking the Book Industry

I’m getting ready to rush out and grab some breakfast so I’ll have to keep this short. The other day I was talking with a friend in the comic industry about what literary works could be turned into a comic book/graphic novel (and by literary works, I mean anything fiction/mystery/scifi/fantasy, and in no way limited to the big names). Sounds fun, right? Imagine your favorite character in a visual format, dialogue in little clouds. It could be a chance for an author to hook an audience young, or attract a larger range of people by tapping into this other medium. The problem is that not many can be easily transferred to the comic medium, nor could you guarantee that the author’s existing audience would follow them there.

Of course, this hasn’t kept the comic book industry from getting into bed with publishers. Back in March PW reported that HarperCollins inked a deal with Tokyopop to collaborate on as many as 24 “book to manga” projects based on some of their top selling authors (Meg Cabot’s Avalon High as well as her Princess Diary books being among the first offerings from this joint venture). The books have yet to be released (Meg Cabot has blogged about working on her storyline for the Avalon High follow-up), so we’ll have to wait and see if they’ve targeted the right audience and found the right illustrator.

Meanwhile Harlequin partnered up with Dark Horse Comics to adapt six top selling Harlequins into two color-coded lines (pink for younger readers, violet for the more mature) under the Harlequin Ginger Blossom Romance heading. The decision to use much older titles for this line has hurt them (at least I feel that way), and I haven’t personally sold many to my customers. We’ll have to wait and see how the rest of the titles do after Harlequin decision to change their marketing focus.

According to Newsarama, the Dabel Brothers Production has approached (and signed a contract with) Laurell K. Hamilton for the rights to turn the first Anita Blake novel into graphic form. Whether this deal carries through for the rest of her novels (and their increasingly NC-17 content) is unknown to me at this time. If they decide to do so I ask that they please, please plastic wrap the suckers.

So let’s play pretend and imagine that we were the folks in charge of putting these “book to comic book” deals together. Here’s something to think about:

What books, if any, do you think could make the transfer to the manga format? Why?

(Do you think it is only a matter of time before we see a Fight Club (or any of Palanhiuk’s more visual works) graphic novel from Marvel or DC?)

Should we even bother or does it sully the purity of the original work?

C’mon, dream. Dream big. Don’t be afraid to argue or bring up odd choices, just be prepared to back up the thought. What author’s words would you follow into a picture format?

Book Sleuth Search Three: Help a Girl Out Here

Karen recently emailed me asking for help to find a book she read 12 years ago. The plot was not familiar to me, but I thought y’all might be able to lend a helping hand. Here’s her summary:

The story is set in space. Besides ordinary men and women, there is another special race of humans who are stronger and smarter than the normal humans. The main female character is a normal human female who as far as I can remember is in a position of some power. Either she's an officer in their armed forces or a politician or related to some bigwig. She falls in love and marries (I think) a man from the 'superior race' though there is some problem between both groups.

He may be a military operative of some sort. Eventually she decides to undergo a medical procedure of some sort to 'cure' herself and stop loving him so that she can take unbiased decisions.

Though sex can occur between both types children cannot be born without some special procedure which the women can opt for.

At the end of the book there is some sort of court case. The 'super race' male wants her to come back to him while she refuses because she still hates him (because of the medical procedure). She is ordered to live with him and when she asks him how he can force her to live with him when she hates him he tells her that he knows she doesn't really hate him. When she asks him why he is so sure about that, he reminds her that to have children with him she would have to undergo the operation/procedure. No woman can be forced to undergo that. If she had really hated him she would have used that objection to free herself from their 'marriage'.I can't really remember much more. The name of the book may or may not have had the word 'Venus' in it.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Virtual Reality

I really never intend to take the weekends off from this blog, but I spent yesterday sitting in the sand, drinking wine, and attempting to tan, all things that don’t require a computer’s presence. I am now a slightly darker shade of pale, more cream than polar ice cap (or cheap printer paper), and much more relaxed. I’m also feeling pretty educated because between the wine and jumping in the water to cool off, I started reading Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail (whose official release date is tomorrow).

Fascinating stuff. I actually dug through my backpack to find a highlighter and a pen to take notes, so expect some major discourse on the long tail theory in the future. I’m even tempted to get up the guts to ask Mr. Anderson for an interview because this is heady stuff.

Needless to say if you are anyway interested in marketing, market trends, or the fascinating study of economics and want an easy to follow, compelling (as in a “not at all a dry academic text”) you should pick it up tomorrow from your local bookstore or buy from Amazon. If you are not interested in any of those things, you should still read it because any business you might be involved with in the future will be affected.

The book also got me thinking about the lag time between when a book gets buzzing on the internet and when brick and mortar stores actually start showing a higher rate of sales. Often I’ll hear titles getting bandied about as the next new thing in the blogsophere, only to see no corresponding result in my store. Of course, I can’t survey every customer who walks near the book and ask them why they didn’t pick it up (I’m told customer harassment is frowned upon by the company), but the lack of dollars speaks for itself. One could argue that the online sales make up for this (and say that the book has found its niche there), but that means that this title is only reaching a certain percentage of the population (which is better than nothing, sure, but still). That it went viral on the internet is fantastic, but if it goes virtually ignored by the rest of the world (people who either don’t have the internet or don’t spend hours upon hours on it searching for the next hot, new thing) then there is a failure in the marketing system.

Especially if you are targeting a group of people who may not be internet savvy.

So how do you bridge that disconnect? How to do you run a successful campaign that targets your specified group while reaching farther a field?

Do I think this disconnect grows smaller daily? Sure, more and more people are getting computers and getting internet friendly, but a large chunk of the population (Older boomers and the parents of boomers as well as those who cannot afford a fast internet connection or nice computer due to lack of funds) remains outside this virtual world.

Let’s face facts:

• While readership may be down, people still receive and read the newspaper instead of going online to flip through headlines.


• People still subscribe to or buy magazines (albeit not in the levels they once did).


• People still watch network television (because have you tried to get anything beyond basic cable without Comcast demanding your kidney in payment? ‘Cause I’m rather attached to all my organs).


• And snail mail jokes aside, people still rely on the US Postal service.

So just because the internet is exciting, new, and relatively cost effective (except for that high speed internet fee—damn you, Comcast!), it doesn’t reach everyone. Not yet, anyway.

And those it does reach? Well, they are getting jaded. Everyone and their brother are asking for an email address to sign up you up for the newest, hottest thing, and people are tired of it. They are also tired of Aunt Janny and her endless forwards and the electronic equivalents of the chain letter. (Who cares if I’ll have bad luck for seven years for not sending this on, I’m blocking you, Janny, and all you stand for!)

I want to hear from you guys. I want to know what virtual advertising has turned into real sales for you and whether you did the buying online or in a bookstore (or if you at least tried the bookstore first only to strike out because they didn’t have the title). I want to know if you’ve noticed books appearing faster in a store because of virtual buzz or if they don’t appear at all?

I want to know what will make you turn over your email address and how many different junk mail accounts you have that you never open.

And finally, I want to know how you think you can reach that group that doesn’t surf the net, if you think you can at all.

Let’s discuss how much impact virtual reality has in your real life and buying habits for the education of us all.

This Is Major Tom To Ground Control

Needs, wants, expectations and desires: what defines the blogger/reader relationship? What makes you read one blog over another? What keeps you coming back?

And what’s with all the questions already?

When I started this blog it was for me to bitch about Harry Potter for the amusement of a couple of friends (nothing against Harry Potter, I love the money it brings me, but a few thousand repeated questions a day can make a girl a little cranky). My feeble little brain understood that other people might find my internet diary, hence the anonymity, but I never expected this interesting community people who’ve shown up in the last year. When I started I didn’t know that were other booksellers out there blogging away about the same frustrations and joys I had, or that there were authors—new and old—still trying to get a handle on the seller half of the world. It’s wonderful that we can all come together and share information, opinions, and our hopes for the future of books and I hope that we continue to do so.

What I’m saying is that I think that you guys are pretty damn cool.

But the questions above weren’t meant to cause a group hug moment (if only because someone inevitably cries out “I love you, Man” before making a groping pass at the closest person’s ass at which point everyone realizes that maybe they shouldn’t have tapped that second keg and who the hell is going to drive Mr. Happy-Hands home now?).

No, these questions are meant to be focused not on this blog (y’all have told me what you want and I’m just slow in getting to it), but those written by members of the publishing industry. Take a look at some of the blogs from the publishing drones:

• Anna Genovese, an editor for TOR, who writes about her everyday life, love of Lex/Clark fanfic, and explains the crazy publishing concept of Profit and Loss statements.


• Carl Lennertz (HarperCollins Publishers) runs Publishing Insider, a weblog about “books, music, movies, the big picture, and absurd rants” where he contemplates the little questions (which famous author did coin the term nerd?) and the big (why does one book sell and another fail?) while linking you to others who do the same.


• Anonymous blogger E is for Editrix of the Analytical Knife contemplates the world of children’s books and—most recently—why shouldn’t squander your book two.


• Evil Editor focuses not on what will get you published, but why you won’t, and uses his/her anonymity to rip apart query letters and put them back together in a more coherent format.


• Formerly anonymous Mad Max Perkins used to blog at BookAngst 101 about the ins and outs of publishing before outing himself to support Sara Gran’s book Dope. (I do wish he would return.)

They all focus on books at some point, but are just as apt to wander off on tangents about real life, Johnny Depp, and obscure factoids. They are a mix of the personal and the professional, walking the line between informative and too informative. Does it work? It depends. Do we all come out smarter people having read about P&L statements, having helped come up with kid’s books ideas, getting our queries ripped apart or learning about the intricate inner workings of the publishing world? Sure. Knowledge is power (or at least that’s what GI Joe told me as a kid).

But what about Publisher blogs (written and supported by an imprint)? Do you give them the same openness and receptiveness that you use to take in the information from the editors above? At the moment (after a quick internet search) there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of them out there:

• Harper Perennial has people blog (and guest blog) in the Olive Reader, discussing books, music and the grandiose statements that the news world often makes about our generation. (Harper also has the Cruelest Month, a poetry weblog.)


• Simon and Schuster just started Trade Talk and it is still in its infancy.

(I would appreciate links to any other publisher blogs if you know of them.)

Would/do you treat publisher blogs differently than an editor’s blog?

Would you expect more from a publisher’s blog?

Do you lose some of the personal intimacy you build with a single blogger when you can’t tell who is running the thing?

What can a publisher give you that a single editor/marketer/book drone can’t?

I’m interested in how we perceive a publishing blog vs. a single writer/editor blog, and why that may be. I know that I have certain expectations for one that do not apply to another, but I want to hear what y’all have to say first. Take a look at the blogs and think about what you like or don’t and back that up (if you can).

Let’s make the world out there a more informative place.

Light of Brain

I’m drinking tea from my Shakespearean Insult Mug, and I have to say that “light of brain” seems to describe me rather well at the moment. For every one thing I get done, eight bajillion more are left unfinished. This doesn’t extend to work, thank goodness, but when forced to choose between one of those eight bajillion blog (or house cleaning) things or going to a soccer game and then drowning my sorrows in free beer when we lose, I’ve been weak.

So weak…and slightly tipsy.

I’ve emerged from this holiday weekend newly resolved to catch up, however, and I think this time it just might happen. To help hold me accountable, here’s what is on the docket:

• Post the Website builder information and tips (it’s almost finished; I just need to stop doddling).


• Start on the midlist-palooza that y’all helped compile and get back to those nice authors I contacted many, many months ago. I envision posting something once a week, whether it is an interview or a guest blog doesn’t matter.


• Do some more recommendations from that other list y’all compiled, so Beth will stop yelling at me.


• Put up more new, shiny links in the sidebar (I added some more on Sunday/Monday, but I think I’ll build another subsection for publishers/editor blogs and I need to put up the favorite posts links as well as the cover design/question links). If you have any suggestions for publishers who need some lovin’ or who have blogs or sites, let me know.


• Find some book/cover designers to talk to about the design process (if you know any, send them my way).

Now, for y’all (these links may be a little old, but I find them fascinating):

• Jennifer Crusie posts “What’s Bugging Me Now,” and her comments on trying to find Alison Bechtel’s Fun Home fit with our earlier conversations about shelving, mis-shelving, and trying to find out where the hell something is hiding (thanks to Q for the link). I would personally love to put his book on my front table, but first I have to get my order in (everybody join together and think evil thoughts about Ingram with me).


• C. Max Magee of the Millions posted this link to Patrick Reardon’s compilation of must reads (which he compiled after he awoke from the sticker-shock induced by 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die). I know that you’ve already got quite a list going from all the recommendations flying around here, but you can never have too many books.


• USA Today posts an article about the Paranormal trend in Romance, which means the trend will now die off rapidly and not rise again because media coverage at this point is like a stake. A big, pointy stake. (I’m joking only a little, but feel free to insert your Buffy/Dracula/Barnaby Jones comments here).


• Bookslut has its July issue up! Go. Read. Now!


• Book Dwarf checks out Franzen’s latest, The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History, and is slightly disappointed. At 197 pages long, I think I would be asking for something a bit meatier myself, especially from the man who told Oprah, “No,” when it came to including his book in her book club.

That’s all for the moment. Now that I’ve accomplished absolutely nothing on my first list, I need to get ready for work.

Have a great day.

SB Day: Girls Who Like Boys Who Do Boys…

(Yes, I know that I completely mangled the Blur lyrics for Girls & Boys--which was remixed by the Pet Shop Boys--but consider it artistic license. Thanks Steve.)

On this Smart Bitches Day I find myself considering the phenomenon that is Yaoi, and its popularity among my manga buyers. Yaoi, for those of you who don’t know, is the term given to Japanese style boy’s love comics where a romantic, and often forbidden, relationship takes place between two male protagonists who are exceptionally pretty. Their romantic entanglements and pitfalls play out like any other romance although they tend to be of a more sexual nature than the softer boy’s love mangas known as Shounen-ai. These books, which range in price from $9.99 to $15.99, have an enduring popularity in their home countries (Japan, Korea and China) among professional women in their twenties, and are gaining popularity here, although it has been hindered by an aspect of the mis-shelving process that we’ve been discussing.

When the first Yaoi comics became available in America, they was sold through adult video and comic stores and marketed towards gay men. This was in total disregard of the Yaoi fan bases in the originating countries which were overwhelmingly female. It wasn’t until the books became available (or were requested) in the more mainstream bookstores that people realized that it was women, not men, who desired to read these stories of forbidden love. It is only now, decades later, that Yaoi can be found in a regular manga section, and possibly only due to the rise in popularity of manga itself among teenagers and younger adults.

Why Yaoi appeals more to a female readership has never been fully explained to me, nor do I think that I have the psychological background and interview pool to really understand. It would make for an excellent grad school paper. What I have heard is that boy’s love comics tap into different parts of female psyche, letting women enjoy a sexualized story with no guilt (hey, it’s two boys, not a boy and girl) while allowing them to indulge the fantasy of a threesome in their minds. I heard the same argument used to explain why the television show Queer as Folk had such a large female following. I really don’t know if I buy into this at all. It’s too simplistic and seems to be a feminization of the explanation of why men fantasize about two women together. It also completely disregards any focus on the building of an emotionally stable relationship.

What I do know is that Yaoi appeals to women buyers and almost solely to women buyers. In the time that we’ve carried both Yaoi and Shounen-ai, which account for a huge chunk of my manga sales, I’ve only sold to one man who was in his mid-twenties and rather embarrassed by the entire incident. My female customers know no such embarrassment. They are rabid for the newest volumes, hunting the shelves to see if we’ve gotten anything new in and come prepared with lists of titles that may or may not be available. They often spend big money for printed copies of mangas that they’ve already read or translated from an online source so that they have a finished version for their library. When one Yaoi reader bumps into another while in my section, there is a guaranteed explosion of talking—an immediate friendship formed—as they discuss the series they either enjoyed or didn’t, and what they feel we should carry next. These women, though young, are more self-assured about their reading choices than most romance readers out there, and completely willing to let you know why you too should join the reading frenzy.

As Yaoi’s popularity continues to grow and become more accepted in the United States, it will be interesting to see how this affects other venues of entertainment. Will we see more boys’ love TV shows on the air to fill the void of Queer as Folk and more movies in the vein of Brokeback Mountain or will this interest be mis-shelved once again, mis-marketed and ignored by people who don’t realize they are missing their target audience?

I know that Yaoi would have escaped me if I hadn’t had two coworkers well-versed in the world of manga, and that Yaoi’s popularity continues to be ignored by other stores. What has made my business a destination for Yaoi readers in my town, guaranteeing return customers and big sales, is not even available on the shelves of stores with larger inventories.

With the growing popularity of Yaoi and the greater availability of Erotica in general as the new, hot thing, it makes me wonder how many other niche markets are being ignored by mainstream stores. What are they? Are they just being mis-marketed or mis-shelved or are they just not available at all? What do you think will be the hottest new trend to hit the shelves?

Because, you know, in some publishing company somewhere there is a person asking themselves the very same question.