The Corner Bookseller
Via io9.com, faltering bookseller Borders is stocking fewer SF/Fantasy books from midlist authors.
For new entrants into the field, even a compelling debut may not be enough to get the follow-up reshelved, and proportionally less writers are getting enough exposure in magazines to build word-of-mouth for that successful debut. As [author Tobias] Buckell says, the cutbacks appear to come from on high, not in individual stores.
While Pat Cadigan and others have played with the notion of boycotting the slumping Borders chain, it’s hard to see how that’s going to get the second largest bookseller in the U.S. to order in larger quantities.
This impacts many well known, consistently selling authors, and even more so new authors with no previous track record of sales. On the site Wild River Review, fantasy author Greg Frost suggests:
My solution is no different than all the writers who’ve shouted from the battlements before me: Buy your books from independent bookstores; the ones that have survived the onslaught, the ones that we hope will arise to fill the gap.
If you’re in the U.S. and you don’t know where such stores are, go to www.indiebound.org and look them up. If you want to shop independent booksellers online, go to Powells or Elliot Bay Books. But if you love the tactility of the book, then buy locally from the small shops that are struggling to maintain your right to pick up an assortment of good books and flip through the pages.
The shrinking market bothers me on two fronts. First and foremost, I am a science fiction and fantasy fan. I like choice, I like variety, I enjoy good writing. I love the experience of finding a new, fabulous author and spending several evenings curled up lost that new world. Under the current publishing and bookselling system, that experience is going to become rarer and harder to find.
Second, I am an aspiring writer. I don’t have a lot of time to write, so it’s going to be some time before I even attempt to have something published. Will the system even be accessible to new authors at that point? In today’s age of splintering small presses, electronic media and self-hosting, what will the bookselling world look like in ten years?
October 21st, 2008
Don’t worry about publishing yet. You’re not at that bridge yet. Just write.
Also, I have faith in the Internet to come up with new ways to market good writing…
October 22nd, 2008
I’ve got a friend in Milwaukee that works for a well-known independent bookseller and hear all the time about how they’re struggling due to B&N, Borders, Amazon, and now the economy. He also tells me about how there’s a lot of waste in the publishing world too. For instance he gets a butt load of free books and advanced reader copies of these books. I understand that publishers are using this as a marketing tool, but he said they tend to go a little overboard with this. When he and I were booksellers at the same store years ago, we had to close the store because the mall didn’t want us in there any more. All the hardcovers and trade paperbacks were shipped back to the publishers. All the mass market paperbacks were destroyed and thrown out because the publishers rationalized that it wasn’t worth it to have them shipped back and sit in a warehouse. We ended up throwing out at least two dumpsters worth of books.
But people still buy books and through the Internet, people are finding new ways to get their stuff out there. Just look at all the authors that are building an audience through pod casting and turning that into book deals. There’s a guy in the office here that’s started to revise an old novel because he found out he can upload it to Amazon for sale on the Kindle. I don’t think I’d go that route, but it’s there.
I was listening to a podcast by Michael A. Stackpole last week and while I didn’t care for his advice, he did say an interesting thing that a publishing house might be more likely to buy the book of a first time author because the advance is less than an author that has three or four books out. He said for an advance of $30,000 for that fourth or fifth time author, approximately 60,000 books would need to be sold to break even on the advance, where a first time author would probably get more like $10,000. He also said that it’s authors like Stephen King, James Patterson, Nora Roberts, etc. that sell millions of dollars worth of books that make it feesable for publishing houses to publish less successful or lesser known authors.
And then, where there’s a will there’s a way and if you want it bad enough, I’m sure you can make it happen. After all, with the backing of the UCF isn’t anything possible?
October 22nd, 2008
What it means to be published is evolving. It may well prove that the internet is a better path to becoming a well-read or commercially successful author than having to go through the traditional filters (i.e. the publishing houses).
I mean, nobody knows right now. Cory Doctrow seems to be doing okay, but is it because he’s giving away enough books to stimulate sales (his theory) or because he’s created this internet celebrity “Cory Doctrow” (a probable alternative)? Can writers go the route musicians are starting to take, and use donationware models (the book is free, please leave a tip/pay what you think it’s worth)? Are there other models out there that might be appropriate for writers?
I have mixed feelings about the deaths of brick-and-mortar booksellers to start with. On the one hand, I love going into a bookstore and poring over the racks. On the other hand, I’m part of the problem: probably more than 90% of my book purchases ultimately come from Amazon, B&N online, or the QPB book club–they have larger selections, everything they carry is always in stock, and it just shows up at my door one day. Of the remaining 10% (at best), a fair chunk consists of used books, which doesn’t help the publishing industry or new retail booksellers one iota. Problem is, you go into a brick-and-mortar looking for something particular, and frequently discover they’ll have to special order it and it’ll cost 10-20% more–well if it has to be ordered, and I can get at Amazon for 10-20% less, and it’ll come to my doorstep, why wouldn’t I just go buy it online?
Anyway, I’m not sure it’s a dire situation. While there’s obviously something sexy about being signed to a big publisher, much as there’s something sexy about being signed to a big record label, I’m not sure there’s a clear advantage to the artist in either case, anymore. The future may be full of fractured niches and long tails: every artist’s work is available forever, regardless of popularity or age. I’m inclined to think that’s a good thing, in the end. The romance of the smell of paper aside, I can remember when walking into a bookstore looking for Dick or even Gibson on the SF shelf was an act of wishful thinking–but, hey, great news if you were an L. Ron Hubbard fan. Even now, the SF/F shelf of many bookstores is likely to be full of Star Wars novels, Forgotten Realms novels, and similar pulp–I’m not really wanting to knock the pulp, I’ve been known to slack off with a Star Wars novel every now and again, myself–but a dollar-McDonald’s-menu cheeseburger isn’t Kobe beef seared in a light ginger sauce, know what I mean? It’s always been a problem for booksellers that Sturgeon’s 90 usually ends up taking an appropriate percentage of shelf space at all but the most stubborn (and usually on the verge of failing) bookstores.
October 22nd, 2008
I think I went horribly astray in that last paragraph. I hope what I was trying to get at made sense despite my worst efforts….
October 22nd, 2008
I have read a couple things online that induced me to buy the physical copy later. I haven’t ever taken part in the read & donate. I enjoy going to book stores, but then, as Eric said, I don’t find the things I’m looking for too much. I also enjoy used book stores, but then again, I’m not helping the publishing industry by going that route.
I don’t think that brick and mortar stores will ever truly vanish, but the internet is going to have to be the way to go to get book sales up there.
I wonder how much an author’s sales go up (if at all) once they’ve been featured on Scalzi’s Big Idea series. Perhaps some day I will be featured there and will find out.
October 22nd, 2008
We have an independent bookstore in town, and they will order any book if you have the info, at no additional cost. It doesn’t take any longer to get them in than it would ordering online. My specialized computer books I almost always order online though. The store is a part of a business that sells outdoors equipment and clothing, and more.
The local independent music store I do the radio show for is the same way. They specialize in independent artists, but if it exists, they’ll order it in at no additional charge, and they do a lot of local business that way. But they also do a lot of Internet business and they sell both online and in the store a wide variety of items, and in-store they specialize in renting DVDs that are tough to find at places like Blockbuster.
To survive these days, it’s important to be diverse.
October 22nd, 2008
I don’t think writers will suffer as much as we fear.
I do most of my book shopping online at this point. Although we *finally* have a Barnes and Noble (prior we had a very small Waldenbooks and a later Books-a-Million), I’ve discovered their SFF selection to be spotty at best, whereas I can get anything I want on Amazon. And I’ve also found that Amazon recommendations work pretty well for me–thought I’ve rated a LOT of books.
To be honest, I’ve found more new authors through Amazon than I would have in traditional brick & mortar stores, although I freely admit I may be the exception.
I don’t like to talk to people in book stores, and my feet hurt after awhile of standing looking. (I can walk forever, but after about ten minutes of standing I’ve had it.)
What I’m saying is that for me at least, on-line book stores are far better places for me to find books. But then I’m a misanthrope and don’t like to talk to people.
October 22nd, 2008
MWT, I agree – I surely don’t need to worry about crossing that bridge now.
Matt, Eric – I do think the definition of “being published” is changing. In 20 years, it won’t mean an advance and a royalty agreement and a shiny paperback with the Tor (or Baen or whatever) imprint on it. I do like the advent of small presses, many of those seem to have a positive relationship with both their writers and readers. (Subterranean and Nightshade come to mind.)
I know that when I’ve been casting about for a new author to try I’ll skim through some of Scalzi’s “Big Idea” series to see if any appeal – so they help me expand my horizons.
Michelle, I probably do 60% of my buying at Amazon, 20% at B&N because it’s close, 10% at airport bookstores and 10% at Title Wave (huge used bookstore in Anchorage). We have an independent bookstore here in town but its SF/F section is pretty dismal, it caters to more of a lit fic and children’s lit crowd. I have Amazon Prime, which makes buying at Amazon SO darn easy!
October 23rd, 2008
A coworker just forwarded this on to me today. It’s an interesting shaming of Writer’s Digest for their competition practices that turns into a discussion of self publishing in the comments.
A Writer’s Life