Monday, December 15, 2003
Author Hal Zina Bennett on Independent Booksellers
I remembered to catch up on Pat Holt columns yesterday. The latest has a letter from author Hal Zina Bennett on the NBA Award Ceremony and a segue to talking about independents:
Dear Holt Uncensored,
Thanks for your article on the NBA. Let's see, a grand for dinner and "show," another grand and a half for bed, food and drink for the weekend, another $500 to $1200 for transportation and, oh, let's see, exhausting as those events are, another day or two off, maybe a little trip to Cape Cod...hmm... Well, $3,500 should do it. When I look at all that and multiply it times all the VIPs the publisher's gotta bring along, I can't help but wonder, "What would happen if they put some of those dollars into the Sales & Promotion budget to reach the independents? Ignoring indie booksellers, as most publishers are doing these days, is hurting all of us. Being an author as well as a developmental editor, I deal with a large sampling of editors, from small independent houses to the New York corporate houses. Over the past few years, I've asked the same question over and over: "How much time and energy do you put into reaching independent booksellers?" The answer ranges from, "About 1% of our budget," to "If they send us an order, we'll fill it." And these answers come as often from independent publishers as they do from the big corporate houses.
The corporatization of American publishing requires that anyone NOT caught in the mainstream current has got to start developing a stronger voice. BookSense is one direction. But much more has got to be done, perhaps along the lines of what independent grocers and co-ops do--using the power of collective purchasing to win bigger discounts they can pass along to their customers. Why is this so important? It's not only to keep small independents in business, it's bigger than that. At the present time, chain stores directly or indirectly dictate what gets published. Smaller independent booksellers have traditionally been responsible for discovering new writers and new trends. It's sort of like Darwin's theory that small groups of individuals, off away from the crowd, found new niches, adapted to them and developed new attributes, ultimately either strengthening the larger collective or starting new species. Diversity is critically important for any culture's survival, and where books are concerned the indies have always played a big part in this.
A modest proposal: Put pressure on publishers to pay more attention to indies, and develop the independent booksellers' equivalent of "The Associated Grocers," or maybe a co-op movement for bookstores. There is power in numbers. Hopefully, there are still enough indies to raise a ruckus.
Hal Zina Bennett
(reprinted with permission from Hal Zina Bennett)
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Dear Holt Uncensored,
Thanks for your article on the NBA. Let's see, a grand for dinner and "show," another grand and a half for bed, food and drink for the weekend, another $500 to $1200 for transportation and, oh, let's see, exhausting as those events are, another day or two off, maybe a little trip to Cape Cod...hmm... Well, $3,500 should do it. When I look at all that and multiply it times all the VIPs the publisher's gotta bring along, I can't help but wonder, "What would happen if they put some of those dollars into the Sales & Promotion budget to reach the independents? Ignoring indie booksellers, as most publishers are doing these days, is hurting all of us. Being an author as well as a developmental editor, I deal with a large sampling of editors, from small independent houses to the New York corporate houses. Over the past few years, I've asked the same question over and over: "How much time and energy do you put into reaching independent booksellers?" The answer ranges from, "About 1% of our budget," to "If they send us an order, we'll fill it." And these answers come as often from independent publishers as they do from the big corporate houses.
The corporatization of American publishing requires that anyone NOT caught in the mainstream current has got to start developing a stronger voice. BookSense is one direction. But much more has got to be done, perhaps along the lines of what independent grocers and co-ops do--using the power of collective purchasing to win bigger discounts they can pass along to their customers. Why is this so important? It's not only to keep small independents in business, it's bigger than that. At the present time, chain stores directly or indirectly dictate what gets published. Smaller independent booksellers have traditionally been responsible for discovering new writers and new trends. It's sort of like Darwin's theory that small groups of individuals, off away from the crowd, found new niches, adapted to them and developed new attributes, ultimately either strengthening the larger collective or starting new species. Diversity is critically important for any culture's survival, and where books are concerned the indies have always played a big part in this.
A modest proposal: Put pressure on publishers to pay more attention to indies, and develop the independent booksellers' equivalent of "The Associated Grocers," or maybe a co-op movement for bookstores. There is power in numbers. Hopefully, there are still enough indies to raise a ruckus.
Hal Zina Bennett
(reprinted with permission from Hal Zina Bennett)
