I read this first at rodgerd. It appears that a large Australian chain bookstore has inflicted a nasty self-injury by requiring their supplying publishers to pay them for their books not selling like A&R would like.
I find this quite spectacular. Supermarkets require suppliers to pay for shelf space, so requiring suppliers to pay you to stock your goods has a very common precedent. Apparently it is becoming common in the book trade too. It does seem very odd to me to require your supplier to indemnify you against their stock not selling. Suppliers will often do some kind of buy-back of unsold stock. However, the whole point of the purchasing department of any store is to get in stock that sells. Otherwise you're just a room full of self-space for rent.
However the main flavour of the comments asserts that A&R don't understand the book trade and deserve to go out of business. They repeatedly assert that the A&R head honchos are attempting to run a bookstore like it is a generic shop, and that this is a mistake as bookshops are unique.
I am curious about this uniqueness. I definitely have opinions about whether a bookshop is good or not.
When I like a shop, it tends to be because it has a rich collection of books. Part of the experience is the feeling of rubbing up against a large pile of opulent objects which have been crafted carefully and enthusiastically. Part of it is the exciting thought that I might (in fact probably) will find a really special book. After all, a really good book is a joy which is hard to match. Part of it is just picking up titles at random and having a new idea or topic stretched across my brain. Part of it is simply knowing I'm in a radical institution, one that has forged its own way and survives because purchasers forge their own way as well. In this, I think I am in close alignment with the general mass of commenters on the A&R debacle.
However, I also fear bookshops and music shops because I get thoroughly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of choices fighting to garner my limited funds and often walk out without purchasing anything.
So, are A&R actually correct to trim the cruft of unprofitable titles? Well, that depends on whether the portion of titles which do not turn a profit support the titles which do make a profit in some way. Like the non-performing routes an airline keeps open in order to feed passengers to the 20% of routes that make a profit, do the loss-making titles perform a supporting role that enables the whole to stay profitable? From the long survival of Beattie and Forbes in Napier and Unity Books in Wellington, it would appear so.
Which makes me wonder what roles the loss-making titles perform. Perhaps the customers like the illusion that they will purchase an obscure title which is 'just what they want' instead of just buying the latest bestseller (though they buy the bestseller anyway). Perhaps the customer forms a habit about which bookshop they will go to first based on the likelihood that it will have what they want. This would mean a wide range would still reel in the customer even when they were looking for a commoner title. Perhaps the obscure titles make the shopper feel good about themselves (for shopping in such an interesting independent shop) and their experience of buying common titles is leavened by the obscure ones.
Perhaps I will never know. One thing I have learned is don't heavy up on independent and reputable publishers if you want book lovers to buy books from your store. I'll be even less likely to purchase from Whitcoulls now.
Posted by carla at August 18, 2007 11:25 PM