You might think that the first big change in the early 1990’s was the internet, but something happened in book publishing and distribution before that. That change was corporate consolidation.
In the 1990’s, it was very fashionable at a corporate level to merge and consolidate companies. This happened in two arenas in publishing – well, three, but we’ll leave publishers out of the discussion for the moment – bookstore chains and distributors. Both went from a massive number of individual parties to a handful over the same period. Whereas in the early 1990’s, authors would share mailing lists for distributors and booksellers that had in excess of 5000 names, currently, such lists are much smaller. Pat Rouse’s list of enthusiastic booksellers, for example, has less than 150 names and there are no distributor lists any more.
This is because bookstores consolidated, distributors consolidated, AND big box bookstores became big enough to do business directly with the publishing houses. The big distributors – Andersen, Levy, Ingrams – still exist, but the smaller ones that used to be everywhere no longer exist. Similarly, the big box chain bookstores are everywhere, but the independent bookstores that once were so numerous are now few and far between.
This means that ordering is centralized and this is a bit spooky for authors. Whereas once, thousands of buyers, big and small, would make decisions about stocking individual books, now the decision lies in the hands of very few people. There is a romance buyer at each of the big chains Borders (BGI), there is one at Barnes and Noble, one at Books-a-Million – although several of them buy in other commercial genres as well. At other big box stores and chains – like Walmart and Sam’s Club etc. – books are probably bought by someone who buys a great deal of other merchandise as well. At other bookstores, buyers often buy over an even wider range of genres. It would not be unfair to say that the distribution for any given romance title is in the hands of half a dozen buyers.
That’s a huge change. In Canada, in contrast, it’s in the hands of essentially one buyer, because if Chapters/Indigo doesn’t stock a given title, it’s unlikely that that title will even be available in Canada in a bricks and mortar store.
The other implication of all of this is that these buyers may or may not be particularly interested in the romance genre. They may not be fans and they may not even be readers of the genre. They may not be particularly interested – or have the time to explore – the buzz within a genre about an author or a book. Because they may buy in many different genres – even many different product lines – they also aren’t going to have a huge amount of time for assessing individual titles.
And this brings us to the other change wrought by consolidation and technology – computerized sales tracking. Sales numbers are available to buyers – and other industry people – on a much more immediate basis than was once the case. Within individual chains, they likely have access to point of sale data, at least on a weekly basis, if not more often than that. Bookscan also offers a compilation of sales data from a number of sources on a fairly quick basis. Both of these data sources – any proprietary system and Bookscan – can provide sales history information. So, these buyers have more data than was once the case. The fallout from this is:
• the ability to restock titles that sell beyond expectation on a quicker basis. Essentially, they know sooner what’s moving, and can order more quickly. Publishers also track sales through these systems and can be more proactive in ensuring that stock is available for any reorders.
• less energy in book fairs. It’s not really necessary to have a trade show to court so few buyers so it’s not surprising that book fairs have become smaller events in recent years. Book Expo in Canada was cancelled in 2009 and there is no word of it reappearing in 2010. Book Expo in the U.S. alternates between New York and Los Angeles, giving more attention to film rights when on the west coast. Not only are buying decisions in fewer hands, but those buyers can collect information more effectively – and probably collect more comprehensive information – from computers right in their offices. There does remain the desire to network and some inclination to meet authors in person.
• the knowledge of what sells and what doesn’t, in broad terms, within the organization. There are and have been buyers, for example, who refuse to stock the first title by an author. They want to see how the first book performs in the market at large before they commit to stocking the second. There are buyers who don’t buy paranormal, don’t buy historical, don’t like whatever, don’t believe X performs in their market, don’t believe green covers sell, etc. and thus do not stock it. If you have thousands of buyers, these inclinations aren’t a huge problem – if you have six buyers, the impact can be enormous.
• the fact that sales history will determine future orders. This is why I tell aspiring writers that it is better to remain unpublished than to be published without enthusiasm. You want your book to be taken out by the house with a great cover, ideally with some promotional support, with lots of push from the sales team, because you want to get as many copies into the stores as possible. You also want the book to be the best you can make it, so that (ideally) you gather fabulous reviews and word-of-mouth, enough to ensure that the book sells through at a good rate.
It’s expected that a mass market original will “sell through” at roughly 50% – that means that half of the books sent out into the world will be sold and half returned. Increasingly, 50% is not good enough – publishers like to see something more like 70 or 80% sell through, and this is because the orders for the author’s next book will be based upon the sales figures for this first book. If you sell 3000 copies through a certain chain, that buyer will look up that number and order 3000 copies of your next book. The sell-through rate, though can affect the buyer’s perspective. If the original order was 10,000 copies, the buyer won’t likely order many more than the 3000. They had lots that they didn’t sell, after all. If the order was 3500, and the chain has a large number of stores which quickly sold out of the title, the buyer may perceive that there were sales lost because the book wasn’t available. If this speculation is supported by the fact that the book sold well in other outlets, particularly those the buyer thinks have a similar market to his or her own, that buyer is more likely to increase the order quantity.
It all becomes about the numbers, not so much about the books. And numbers follow an author everywhere. They are available to everyone in the industry, through Bookscan or proprietary sources, and they shape everything from the offer for your work right on through to the distribution.
Tomorrow, we’ll talk about the internet.
Deborah Cooke: Author 