In the Marketplace of the Blind

It's been one of those days when focus is hard to find. I started my day by hearing my older son is coming to the Island to get married in July, so, while that is a glad note, it's also not been good for the thoughts about blogs and writing. This is the reality of the working writer - real life intrudes, and I think it worse than the real life intrusion of say such an event on an office worker, because fortunately, office workers leave the cubicle behind when they come home. Writers never really do, unless real life is being too darn pushy for its own good.

A discussion I was peripheral to a while back focussed on e-book covers. A lot of things came out of this which I think worth summarising. It was fairly plain that there was considerable sexual dimorphism in what people liked see on covers. To my unholy amusement I found covers with bare-chested well-muscled strong-jawed men were a biggy with a vast majority of the female respondents. I wondered what the reaction to the opposite gender equivalent would be, but for a change kept my yap shut. Still, it was plain that faces (and manly upper torsos) - which told little about the story were popular with the female respondents, whereas scenes/objects (and possibly female torsos) were more interesting to the males. Of course this is a generalisation, totally unscientific and very subjective and who gives a damn, but worth thinking about, as, after all, the purpose of the cover is to get a reader to look at the book. We are not selling covers.

A couple of other things that really did come out strongly were the need for text to be legible at thumbnail size, relatively simple if they're to carry visual impact at that size, and that print needs to be in stark-contrast colors and the covers really really do need a look of professionalism about them. Oh and information is important 'short story / short story collection /part of the Lanata series etc' is vital. I've decided that one of my future conditions for e-books is more control over my covers and getting them professionally laid out -- simply because I believe this is important.

But I don't believe it is MOST important. We're moving from a small highly controlled-stocking visual/tactile market with an intrinsically captive audience once they got there (the brick-and-mortar bookstore) to a vast - millions of times the size - totally free-for-all stocking market in which our view is so darn narrow... we may as well be blind, and there is no real tactile element at all, and where the audience can find ONE book without noticing another product. So where COVER and DISPLAY were the two absolute vital keys to brick-and-mortar bookstore success, we move to a situation where cover is a lot less likely to get your book noticed. Display is of course still vital but may be more tricky. I have a feeling that display in future is going to work (sadly) like display past - publishers will pay for prominence. However, the ordering of importance and therefore logically investment (by author and publisher) will change. In the Internet bookstore I rank them like this:
1)Name. Known names/brands/ series will be searched for. Your name and your title are your most valued properties.
2)Outside feed. If you have blogs/ facebook / twitter/ review sites feeding readers towards your book, it will be vital. Professional review sites may become more relevant than they are now.
3)Linkage. Both 'customers who bought X also bought Y' and linkage to type and ranking within type.
4)Searchable/matchable content (this one will move up as becomes better)
5)Publicity (this one could move up depending on expenditure. For example, spend enough and you make someone into a name, and generate outside feed)
6)Cover
7)Viewable/ sampleable content.

A book of course will need probably 6 and certainly 7 to convert 'look at' into BUY.
We're out of the sheltered, heavily controlled puddle and into a big wild ocean. Those who survive will have learn to work with the new waves and use their energy to lift them. Those who cling to rocks... will drown. The rocks may survive and surface at the next low tide, but authors who held on tight, won't be there. On the other hand there is a chance to grow into Leviathan out there, or at least to swim free.

Any other ideas on how to work with sea-change? To get yourself found in the marketplace of the blind?


Oh BTW - I have been following my books on the Amazon Author central - which gives bookscan numbers. DRAGON'S RING paperback - which came out on the un-enviable 28/12, data is a bit worrying. I think we can safely say DRAGON'S RING is simply not in - or in very very small numbers in most major chain stores across the US - it sold 171 copies in the last week (very poor numbers for a book just out), but only from 70% of the reporting areas. So if you happen to go into a store, and see it there, I'd love to know about it.
On the other hand SLOW TRAIN TO ARCTURUS - apparently voted one of the worst covers in sf, continues to sell (if Amazon is to be believed on 5th reprint -presumeably VERY small runs) 35 copies the same week reporting period - not bad for a book that's been out since March. So you can't judge a book by its cover...

We are not all the same.

The problems surrounding Barnes & Noble, and so many other bookstores around the country, started me thinking. Yes, that's dangerous. You never know what will happen when my brain strains and begins trying to work. If you wan, you can blame Chris K because his comment to yesterday's post is what started me down this track. Still, you guys can come out of your bunkers. You're safe -- at least as long as you aren't buyers for the big box bookstores or the corporate suits that run them.

Let me start by saying I love bookstores. I grew up with a wonderful locally owned bookstore that took much more of my money as a teen and twenty-something than any other store in the area. This bookstore, sandwiched into a small store front next to a grocery store, still managed to have just about any book you could want. Why? Because the owners listened to their customers and ordered to meet demands. There were magazines of local interest. Non-fiction books of all sorts. Fiction was well represented and, miracle of miracle, there was a wonderful selection of science fiction and fantasy that highlighted not only the "masters" but the up-and-coming authors of the 70's and 80's as well. There was no coffee bar. If you wanted to sit, you found a place on the floor. But no one minded. This was a place to come and find a book, maybe spend a few minutes to talk with the owners. It was also a place to meet authors because the owners knew how important it was to build relationships between the readers and the authors they liked. In short, the owners knew their client base and knew how to market to them.

Fast forward now 2o some years. National news carried the story of the largest independent bookstore to open in years. That store, located in Dallas, came in with great plans and did wonderful promotions. But, unfortunately, it didn't last. The downswing in the economy didn't help. Neither did a location that didn't bring in the foot traffic a bookstore needs. Fortunately, the owners aren't giving up. They will be reopening under a new name and in a much better location after the first of the year. Why? Because there is a demand for a bookstore that pays attention to what local readers want.

So what makes these stores different from the big box stores? That's easy, really. It's the same thing that makes locally run libraries different from those that have been outsourced (Yes, there are libraries that have been outsourced. It is something we faced the potential of in my hometown. The selling point -- it would be just like Walmart). Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against Walmart. The issue really is that bookstores, like libraries, should reflect the community they are in. That becomes a problem when you have purchases controlled from a central office. That problem only increases when that same office tells you to pull books from the shelves if they aren't selling well enough across the country. It doesn't matter if they are still selling well in your store.

I remember when the first Barnes & Noble opened in my area. Like so many others, I was thrilled. Why? Because of the sheer number of books offered. Yeah, I liked the idea of having a coffee shop there. But then, if I'm addicted to anything, it's coffee and books. So there was finally a place where I could fee both my habits. Back then, there weren't big box stores on every corner. The next closest B&N or Borders was almost 20 miles away. Yes, there were B. Dalton and Waldenbooks stores in the malls. But those never really counted -- at least not as "local" bookstores.

So, what's changed? Well, the market has been saturated, at least down here, between B&N and Borders. Every mall -- and, man, do we have malls -- has one or the other major bookseller in them. Then there are others, located in shopping centers throughout the metroplex. There are 20 B&N stores in a 50 mile radius of my home. There are 25 Borders. As a reader, that should thrill me. But it doesn't. Why? Because I won't find any major difference between any of them. The books will be the same. Oh, one store might have more copies of one book than another, but there won't be any major stock differences. Worse -- and this is especially true of Borders -- the amount of stock (books) has been drastically decreased over the last year or so. There are toys and gifts and all sorts of gee gaws. But books? Not so much. And certainly not if you're looking for something that isn't a best seller.

They'd have us believe people aren't reading as much as before. If that was the case, the circulation numbers of libraries would be going down. I don't know about the rest of the country but here, numbers are increasing with every year that passes. When you ask library patrons why they are using the library, they often say it's because they can't afford to pay the price of books these days. So they borrow that new hard cover from the library to see if they like it. If they do, they might, MIGHT, go out to buy it. More than likely, if they do, they order it from Amazon for a discount, or buy it at a used bookstore, or -- gasp -- buy it from a used bookstore.

What's the solution? I'm not sure, but it has to happen industry-wide. Publishers have to find a happy medium between the outrageous prices for hard covers they want and what the pubic is willing to pay. Bookstores have to go back to their roots. In this case, the readers. They need to go to regional purchasing so they can take the greatest advantage of their customer base. They need to downsize -- both in the size of their stores and in the numbers. When you saturate a market and there is no competition in pricing between you and "that other chain", people will look for other alternatives -- Amazon, the local library, used bookstores. Most of all, as readers, and as purchasers, we need to vote with our wallets. That is the only language the corporate suits seem to understand, and that not always well.

What do you see as the issues facing these stores today? Any thoughts on how they might survive? And how do we, as writers, survive the fall-out in the meantime?

Sunday Links and Observations

The last several weeks have seen us blogging about ebooks and e-publishing, e-socialization, promoting our work, and when to break the rules, among other things. So today I've pulled together some related links.

In case you haven't heard, Sony announced last month that they would support the ePub standard on its e-book readers. This opens up the number of books available to those with the Sony e-readers and means those who have a Sony e-reader are no longer limited to buying ebooks from the Sony store. That's the good news. This move, which is an attempt by Sony to position itself as a firm #2 behind Amazon and the Kindle, makes sense. What doesn't, at least in my opinion, is the fact that the ePub standard Sony will be using will still be "wrapped in copy protection". For more information, check out the Publishers Weekly article as well.

With regard to promotion, Market My Words has a great interview with Molly O'Neill, assistant editor for Katherine Tegen Books (Harper Collins). Just hitting the high points, she says every author:

• needs a web presence,
• needs to understand the tools he is using,
• needs to understand that communication and relationships are the underlying root of every level of this business,
• needs to realize that online networking is becoming more and more important,
• should have a marketing plan for every book separate from the publisher's marketing plan,
• and don't put all your efforts into one area.

She has more to say on the topic and there is a lot of food for thought there.

The agent Rachelle Gardner has a post on Social Networking in 15 Minutes a Day. She writes her blog posts for the week in one or two sittings and then schedules them for automatic postings. Facebook is generally reserved for friends and family. Twitter is not open when she's working and, when posting, she generally limits her time on to 2 minutes. There's more but, in short, she has a schedule that allows her to get her work done and not get lost in the time sink these various networks can quickly become. More than that, she's decided how best to use them so they help her.

Another agent, Jennifer Jackson comments in her weekly roundup about how important it is to follow the rules when submitting queries to agents. While she points out that she won't automatically toss out a query because it runs over the page limit. However, that doesn't mean when she says to send the first 5 pages that you can send the first 30 because, wow, she'll read more of your wonderful prose. I recommend her "Letters from the Query Wars", her weekly roundup of what's crossed her desk during the week, as well as Nathan Bransford's "This Week in Publishing". Ms. Jackson's LftQW help put into focus the query process and what to do and what not to do. Mr. Bransford's TWiP is a great mini-snapshot of what happened in the industry during the week, often giving insight into what publishers are looking for.

Now for the observation and I promise no soapboxes this week. (Sarah, quit looking like you don't believe me. I can do this without the soapbox. I promise.) The first author I met, had sign a book -- actually it was three books -- was Anne McCaffrey. She came to our small, very small neighborhood bookstore around 1978. This was a mom and pop store at the end of a strip mall in one of the small towns between Dallas and Fort Worth. Probably 25 - 30 folks showed up and Ms. McCaffrey was funny and gracious to every one of us. Two of those books still grace my bookshelf -- one, unfortunately, wandered off never to return.

That small bookstore had more signings and author appearances than any of the big box stores in our area now. Those signings were low key and enjoyable, not only for those of us there to meet the authors but for the authors themselves. They weren't "handled" by PR people and the fans were appreciative and supportive. You didn't have to worry so much about security and plenty of time was always scheduled for the signings. Afterwards, the author and bookstore owners, and any fans who wanted to tag along, went to dinner. It was great.

Don't get me wrong. There are still authors like that. But their opportunities to mingle with their fans during and after signings are growing more infrequent. There are fewer and fewer author tours these days. The independent bookstores are a dying breed. I miss them. How about you?