For many authors and publishers, getting the major chain(s)*to order your book is a sort of Holy Grail.
Unfortunately, my experience (shared by many independent publishers) is that it is very difficult indeed to get the attention of the buyers at Barnes and Noble or Borders. For one thing, money talks: big publishers use co-op dollars to buy those great spots on the front display tables. For another thing, there is just a lot of clutter.
The strategy I have adopted is intended to optimize the cost-effective use of my time, and, to be perfectly candid, to maximize my sense of personal dignity. Over the course of my life, I have found that it is rarely productive to spend too much energy chasing the girl who won’t have your or the dream job that is always just outside your reach. It is usually far better to just be yourself, do your job, and trust that things will work out. If a book is good enough, sells enough, and generates enough customer interest, it will get the chains’ attention, and their buyers will order it. That is their job; that is what they do. And, to be perfectly candid, a book has to be a pretty strong seller on our “micropublishing” scale to break through, but it has happened on several occasions.
Bottom line: focus your energy elsewhere, on the aspects of marketing wjere your efforts are most likely to be cost-effective.
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* I write “chain(s)” because it looks like Borders Group (BGP) is not going to be around very much longer.
** PS — this s is simply my point of view, and reflects only my experience and my situation. As Marion Gropen pointed out in a thread on Pod_publishers a couple of months ago, there are indeed well proven paths for getting the major chains to pick up your book.
This anthem to positive thinking from the BGP LJ group site — a good place for “nontraditional” reporting on the travails of Ann Arbor’s own.
Borders group employees
So the question is as the Titanic goes down, who are we?
We aren’t Leo and Kate, that’s for sure, those are probably our customers, Leo dies, and leaves us, as he sinks in the icy void of ‘we don’t have it, and no we can’t order it in the store, and maybe you can get it from borders.com but we really can’t see anything about that it is a seperate business, I wish we could help you with it in the store, but it is down, or so slow as to be practically down from the perspective of the bookseller’.
Since the Chronicle’s comment policy rather perversely prevents them from allowing comments on articles like this which are of obvious local interest, let me say here, thank you Borders Group, for your efforts in destroying 96% of your market capitalization in the last year.
If there is a way to save Borders, surely it is to cut out all the CDs, to cut out all the ancillary products, to cut out international operations, and to focus on being a full-service bookstore in the US. Amazingly, Foresee results still list Borders and Barnes and Noble as global leaders in customer satisfaction, and Borders still has great bookstore locations in most major US cities. Build on what you have.
The Ann Arbor Chronicle » A2: Borders Group
… a press release from Borders Group that announces a new CEO and other management changes at the beleaguered Ann Arbor-based bookstore chain. Ron Marshall, founder of the private equity firm Wildridge Capital Management, has replaced George Jones as president and CEO. Jones had been in that job since July 2006. In a statement, Borders board chairman Larry Pollock says: “Progress has been made by Borders Group over recent quarters within the challenging economy to reduce debt, improve cash flow, cut expenses, enhance inventory productivity and improve margins, but it is imperative that the company more aggressively attack these initiatives to address its long-term future.” Borders also reported a double-digit sales decline for the holiday period ending Jan. 3
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