Well, there are times when the closing of a bookstore is a very sad
occasion, and times when it's a signal of something else percolating
with new energy and new vision.
In fact, I'm kind of astounded that Hut Landon's recent announcement
about the closing of his store, Landon Books in Mill Valley, Calif.,
after 14 years is so -- well, so heartening.
Landon Books is not a victim of bookstore chains and Amazon.com, Hut
says. The store survived the worst of that kind of assault (a 30% drop
in sales) back in 1991, when Barnes & Noble moved in a mile away and
redevelopment of the shopping mall where the store is located caused so
many obstacles for customers that "we nearly went under," he adds.
The store slowly built its way back by 5% each year despite a tough
location in the back of the mall where foot traffic is practically nil.
"The irony is that independent stores up the freeway became our 'worse'
competitors as they got bigger and better," Hut says.
Meanwhile Landon Books grew into the kind of neat coterie store that
served its growing but never-to-be exploding audience well. One reason
Landon did well in 2000 was the ABA's Book Sense campaign, which
"provided any number of books I had never heard of but could recommend
because other independent booksellers vouched for them. I must have sold
15 or 20 of 'A Month in the Country' and MANY other titles I wouldn't
have been able to read or support."
A wall-sized presentation of the Book Sense Bestseller List, complete
with books that sold quickly off the display, also became an in-store
hit. "So did review copies a small store like mine, which doesn't see
sales reps and doesn't get advance promotional materials, considered to
be like gold."
Why, then, the "heartening" news that Landon Books is closing? Because
it marks a new transition for Hut Landon (what fun to call him a
mild-mannered bookseller) who, when he became president of the Northern
California Booksellers Association eight years ago, found himself
speaking at Chambers of Commerce and literary events and community
gatherings.
"Until the chain superstores began moving in, people didn't realize what
it would mean if independent bookstores went the direction of hardware
stores, nurseries, stationery shops, and other markets - in other words,
were wiped out by chains," he says.
And then Hut became president of the NCBA, which that year added the
word "Independent" to its name. It may seem an obvious move for the
same Northern California booksellers who several years before had
launched their own lawsuit against publishers it accused of giving
illegal deals to the chains.
But in fact the move to add "Independent" to the NCBA name was viewed as
"divisive" by some observers, as "whining" by others, and as too
outspoken, too risky by many. "Still, the vote was 150 to 2 in favor of
adopting the word," says Hut. "Nearly unanimous because we all felt it
was time to recognize that we weren't just an educational organization -
we were know a full-fledged advocacy group."
Bringing the word "independent" out of the closet added fuel to the
independents' position in the West more than anyone could have predicted
at the time. "Before that, the term 'bookstores' was generic," Hut
remembers. "A year later nobody talked about bookstores without
distinguishing between independents and chains."
You'd think a person like me would be grateful to Hut for introducing
the idea to the NCIBA board in 1998 to launch an unknown concept - a
maverick email column, distributed by the NCIBA, on books and the book
industry - and of course I can't imagine leaving the Chronicle one day
and launching the column only a few weeks later without their help.
Nor should it be forgotten that Hut and the NCIBA board worked with an
advertising and promotion company to come up with the concept of Book
Sense, which was immediately adopted by the ABA as the now-famous
national "branding" campaign.
But I think the action that just knocked me off my feet recently
occurred when Hut, with booksellers Andy Ross and Bill Petrocelli,
attempted to show the State Board of Equalization how many billions the
state was losing as long as Barnesandnoble.com and Borders.com, as well
as Amazon.com, all with some kind of physical presence or sales agent
established throughout the state, refused to collect sales tax.
To say the door was slammed in their faces by the BofE would be an
understatement. Instead of giving up, they found a lobbyist, created a
strategy backed by the NCIBA board, secured the support of Assembly
member Carole Migden, and, unbelievably, got a "declaratory bill"
introduced AND PASSED in state congress within a year.
True, this is the same bill that was vetoed by Governor Gray Davis, the
idiot, but that's the point: Controversy about the bill raised the
consciousness of about 25 million people and paved the way for other
states to follow suit. Another bill is set to be introduced this year,
says Hut.
So I would say that watching the evolution of Hut Landon from small
bookseller to statewide firebrand has been an education par excellence.
"You know the real thing that separates independent booksellers from
chains or Amazon.com?" he asks.
"It's not the money or the power. It's our passion. We know books; they
sell product. When you wonder why, of all retail stores, it wasn't the
hardware, gardening, office supply, coffee, juice or drug store that
survived but the independent bookstore, that's the reason. Books are
special to us, to everybody."
Talking with Hut, I'm reminded that the "bookstore wars" aren't just a
battle between independents and corporate chains/Amazon.com but a
movement -- a way to preserve the best of our literature and the
importance of free speech and especially the movers and shakers who are
helping us all to define direction and vision in these rocky times.
--------
LETTERS
Dear Holt Uncensored:
I think you hit the nail on the head about the problems with Print On
Demand publishing for new, unknown authors. Certainly under the current
economics of the POD industry, there is no incentive for bookstores to
support POD titles.
For established authors, however, POD may have a happier outlook. There
are many "mid-list" authors whose works publishers are reluctant to keep
in print, even though readers might be looking for those older titles.
Now, those readers have to depend on libraries or used book stores. In
the future, POD services may well allow readers to obtain those
titles... as well as provide royalties to the author.
Scott Bauer
Dear Holt Uncensored:
I thought I might pass on to you two messages I recently wrote to the
MurderMustAdvertise email list. It perhaps adds a little fuel to the
fire [in terms of your discussion about PODs as "test-marketing" the
audience so that authors can fix errors, change titles and later
resubmit to traditional publishers], but it is relevant. The second
message was in response to a follow-up and expands on the first. HTH
Original message:
With all the changes that are taking place in publishing of late we have
had to deal with a difficult issue several times recently and I thought
I might share with this list some thoughts I've had. It relates to
advertising only in the peripheral sense that I know some of you
consider self-publishing an ebook or a POD version to be one of the
things you MIGHT want to do.
I have no problem with ebooks or POD per se and we have done a number of
POD books ourselves, but I have recently been approached by several
authors who send a query letter to Poisoned Pen Press saying something
like "I have recently published my mystery of 75,000 words with
iUniverse it is doing very well and I would like to submit it to you for
consideration." The problem for us is that if a book has already been
self-published, we are not going to be interested in considering it.
There is much too much work involved in getting a new book or author
going for us to try to overcome the obstacles of publishing a book
that, even it has been meticulously edited, has not been edited to our
standards but has already been in print. I am unwilling to try to
overcome unknown difficulties with an earlier version--we get too many
"clean" submissions without taking on that additional problem. It is
inconceivable to me that we will ever publish a book without requesting
some editorial changes--the question: "if the book is that perfect, why
did it come to Poisoned Pen Press?" would always be in my mind.
I suspect there may be other publishers who hang out in MMA and I would
be interested in hearing if they have the same (or opposite) view. I am
willing to be convinced that my opinion is wrong, but it will take some
work. I hope these thoughts are helpful to some who may be heading down
a road that I suspect will lead them to a dead end.
A questioner asked:
Would you consider a second book from someone like this? Not the book
done by iUniverse but perhaps a second in the same series? Just
curious.
I answered:
Certainly. I should have made that clear. What I wouldn't consider is
the same work. And, in fact, if the second were something that we really
wanted to publish, we would probably then want to take a look at the
first. Please understand this is not a punitive measure. We get 5-10
submissions per week--several hundred per year. Most are unpublishable.
Many don't meet our criteria for what we are looking for: "Our focus is
on the well written novel of crime or detection more than the thriller.
In evaluating a manuscript the most important considerations to us are:
does the work represent excellence in writing and is it original; does
it contain a strong sense of setting; does it contain highly developed
characterizations; does it contain well written dialogue; and does it
have a well developed plot? We are also interested in publishing one
meritorious reference work annually."
(http://www.poisonedpenpress.com/html/guidelines.html).
A very few (2-3 out of 100?) will get past the three stages of reading
that we do before we TRY to come to an agreement with the author (or
agent). It is expensive both in money and, equally important to us,
resources, to vet all these submissions. We try not to waste those
resources.
Also, lest someone thinks they could submit and "forget" to mention that
it had been previously published, please remember that most publishing
contracts (ours included) include a warranty by the author against this.
One last thing about PODs from our point of view here: The author, by
publishing the book first, has taken away 100% of the sales that
we might have been able to make to the collector market. We no longer
would be
publishing the true first.
Robert Rosenwald
Poisoned Pen Press
Dear Holt Uncensored:
I suspect that the e-books from publishers who offer professional
editing, such as Hard Shell Word Factory, Avid, New Concepts and Word
Museum, ought to have a leg up on POD sales then, huh?
Jane Bierce
Author of 5.5 books available in many electronic formats
Dear Holt Uncensored:
Let me throw my 2 cents in on the issues of the POD publications. The
way I see the POD titles evolving is something like this:
Many of the vanity titles will quickly peter out, mainly because
customers just don't buy them, the prices are high for what you get, the
discounts are awful for bookstores, and the writing and editing is just
terrible. The only way most bookstores can handle these titles is on
consignment until their worth is proven.
There are some new publishers coming onstream that only publish
POD books. Renaissance Alliance Publishing is a good example
( http://www.rapbooks.com ) . These books are well written, well edited
and
well publicized through the Internet networking systems. They are
printed
by POD firms (e.g., Lightning Resource) that state they will
have a 48-hour-turn-around to the distributors. We have found that
these
publishing firms have the option on establishing their own discounts
rates
and return policies. The printing firm, and not the publisher, is set
up to
work directly with the distributors. We are selling a lot of these
books
off our web site and many have reached out best selling lists.
If these new publishing companies that specialize in POD books have
best
sellers, they can always have these books printed in mass [editions]
from printing
houses with standard presses or sell the copyrights.
Print-On-Demand books are here to stay. POD offers authors and
publishers a fairly inexpensive way of introducing new authors to a mass
market, especially through the Internet. As with any book, bookstores
do
rely on the merits and reliability of known publishers to only produce
works
that are well written and edited. If the publisher or POD printing firm
gets a name for producing vanity pieces that are poorly written and
edited (e.g., iUniverse), they will not stay in business very long and
their
produce will not be ordered by bookstores.
Larry Bailey
The Open Book, http://www.openbookltd.com
Sacramento, Calif.
Holt responds: It certainly appears that iUniverse doesn't care whether
bookstores buy these books or not - the company's poor sales terms and
lack of services in helping authors create a quality "product" make that
clear.
Dear Holt Uncensored:
Regarding the announcement by Barnesandnoble.com about publishing
ebooks: On the one hand, I agree with your condemnation of BN.com's
becoming an ebook
publisher. But I agree with it only as a tactic in war. I'm happy that
you
continue to do damage to the public images of BN and BN.com with your
critiques of their plans and their past.
However, I also hope you recognize the danger in your critique. Many
people
in the business will readily agree with your logic, and many will
therefore
scoff at BN.com's claims. They had better take the matter very
seriously.
Vertical integration--booksellers becoming publishers, publishers
becoming
booksellers (Bertelsmann), wholesalers becoming printers (Ingram),
wholesalers becoming retailers (the German e-tail market)--these trends
are
even more dangerous than boundless horizontal mergers (Random House) and
chain stores (BN and Borders). They are a sign of big, monopolistic
businesses turning the corner and hitting their stride.
The argument that BN.com won't be successful because good books need
editors
is insufficient. First of all, it doesn't cost very much to hire good
editors (I know, I used to be one). Editing is a very small part of the
cost
of creating a book. For fiction, it's almost insignificant. With ebooks,
the
unit costs disappear and most of what's left is royalties and marketing.
I wouldn't be too cavalier about iUniverse either. Long-term, iUniverse
isn't interested in being a vanity press. They want to be a
software-driven
design/layout factory tied to automated print-on-demand and ebook
conversion
and distribution. They are to production what Lightning is to printing.
As
such they will be very valuable to BN.com.
But this is the critical point: BN.com has access to better marketing
data
than any publisher and any brick-and-mortar retailer. Why? Because they
have
specific information about which customers have bought which books.
People
have highly idiosyncratic but highly consistent taste in books. If you
know
what they've bought in the past, you can market far more effectively.
Traditional publishers spend roughly 17 percent of revenue on sales and
marketing and have profit margins that average 7-10 percent. A publisher
that actually knew the name and address (read: email) of buyers could
market
electronically, cut costs dramatically, and sell far more copies. If you
factor in marketing savings and increased sales, a publisher could be
two to
three times more profitable with this data on hand. If you consider that
the
publisher might start selling a lot of books direct to past customers,
the
profit differential grows further. (Most publishers seem to prefer not
to
stab the retailer in the back.) If you consider the economics of ebook
publishing, I suspect that a publisher with customer data about a major
percentage of sales could be at least five times more profitable than
one
without.
Amazon has more of this kind of information than anybody. Mercifully,
Amazon
has been focused on expansion to other retail markets and has been
relatively benign with respect to vertical integration. Jeff Bezos
doesn't
and hasn't spent nearly as much time thinking about books as have the
Riggios and their friends over at Bertelsmann. But I suspect that
Amazon.com
will come to the same conclusions sooner or later. As far as I'm
concerned,
the later the better.
Please continue to lob bombs at BN.com. But please don't lead your
readers
away from the seriousness of this issue.
Pete Alcorn
Holt responds: I wrote that piece hoping authors won't fall for the
Barnesandnoble.com pitch because while it's true B&N.com has this huge
info you mention at its fingertips, the company doesn't really use it
effectively when it comes to selling ebooks. I do think we should all
take B&N.com seriously, but my idea was to warn writers to avoid this
kind of braggadocio like the black hole it is.
Also when it comes to serious books in which the quality of the writing
is central, don't you think a publisher really must invest in a team of
professional editors whose decisions carry real power? It's not just
their salaries but the long-range house commitment to the authors they
choose - some of whom take a long time to be recognized - and the often
costly decisions they make that's at stake.
Dear Holt Uncensored:
Wow, those answers [about the publishing house worker selling new books
from the house to this used book dealer] really ran the gamut of
opinions. That was great.
Here's what happened [after we told the publisher about it]: The
publisher doesn't care to press charges because of legal fees. The
company can easily afford to lose that many books. People there told us
cut the guy off. He hasn't been back. I suppose they fired him.
Nobody told us this directly except for the "cut him off" bit. My
coworkers and I speculated the rest. We aren't students, but I don't see
what difference that would make. If Mr. Colbert is suggesting that we're
ambivalent at best about the ethics of the matter, he's correct. I am
supposed to be firmly on the side of my employer. We are not supposed to
fence stolen books. However when it comes right down to it, does an
employee necessarily make enough money to care? Maybe I steal whatever
"perks" I can rationalize from the bookstore myself, or turn a blind eye
when others do so. Maybe I think the guy who works at the publisher
deserves to do the same. The bookstore, even a struggling independent,
and certainly the publisher, have a lot more money than we do, and often
don't inspire much loyalty.
When my co-worker read that guy's response she was really mad, but it
didn't bother me. One letter-writer obviously sells books himself and
feels defensive about it. Another probably works at a publisher and
thinks it's unethical in the extreme. Whereas the "Former worker bee"
person has about the attitude I have. It's a gray area. When exactly do
perks become stealing? Everyone has to feel their own way in the dark.
A Used Book Dealer
Dear Holt Uncensored:
I just read the letter from the "Used Book Buyer" in your latest column.
The
selling of new books by publisher employees has been going on for a long
time. Back in the early 80s I was in the editorial department of
Doubleday.
For several months I was perplexed by seeing a number of editorial
assistants
walk out of the office at the end of the day with large shopping bags
filled
with books. Getting free books was certainly a perk of working at a
publisher, but I couldn't understand how these people could read twenty
or
thirty books a week. Finally, one veteran editor told me that this
practice
was called "the editorial assistant bonus plan." The shopping bags of
books
would be taken down to the Strand bookstore in NYC where they would
receive
approximately 20% of the list price in return.
This practice was taken to new heights in the late 80s by a publicist at
one
of the big NY trade houses. She placed standing orders with the
warehouse
for new titles to be shipped to the Strand in quantity; once they
arrived,
they would be credited to her account at the store. This rather sordid
episode was uncovered and the publicist was fired. PW reported on it
and the
Strand was forced--for a few months at least--to stop buying books from
publisher employees.
Times have changed, of course, and the piles of books that used to lie
around
publisher's offices have now been moved into locked publicity rooms.
Also,
employees can no longer order books from the warehouse without signed
permission from their managers.
I can only wonder at the crass idiocy of the person mentioned by "Used
Book
Buyer" in his stating that he's an employee at a book publisher. Quite
frankly, this practice is nothing more than stealing; the "Used Book
Buyer"
is putting him or herself in danger of being charged as a receiver of
stolen
property (or, in the law-and-order vernacular, being a "fence").
There's another issue that's been raised over the years by publishers,
and
that is the sale of review copies by reviewers. There are many
reviewers in
NYC who sell the hundreds of review copies they receive each month from
publishers to places like the Strand. Some publishers have taken issue
with
this practice. To my mind, this is a completely different animal. Most
reviewers I know make a good-faith effort to cull through these books
and
read and review those they feel are worthy. Most of the time, these
reviewers receive these books unsolicited from the publishers. Legally,
this
makes them their property and they can dispose of them as they wish.
Peter Schneider
Ossining, NY 10562
Dear Holt Uncensored:
I was away from my computer or I would have responded sooner to the
First Amendment issues you brought up in response to the Freedom Forum's
survey.
Of course, how you ask a question makes a difference: Suppose the Forum
had asked: Do you believe that a writer or publisher should be jailed
for expressing an unpopular opinion?
Or, do you believe that an American citizen should be able to display
[photograph of women's genitals] from Hustler on a billboard in a
downtown area?
Or, do you believe that "good taste" has a role in determining what can
be expressed in a public place?
Or, do you believe that your personal opinions must always be in line
with the "law," or with the U.S. Constitution? Do you believe that your
answers to these questions must be in line with the First Amendment?
Perhaps the answers to this type of question would have pleased or
disturbed you more. It's a matter of phrasing. The mayor might be
entitled to his own opinions, but perhaps he is not entitled to
determine what I am/am not allowed to view, read, etc. Or to interfere
with what I have to say about something that pleases or displeases me.
These are serious issues, and peoples' answers to survey questions
reflect their own opinions on the matter. In the end, as any member of
PEN International or Amnesty International can attest, hundreds of
writers and publishers and journalists languish (or are being tortured)
in jails around the world for having expressed either unpopular or
anti-government opinions in print. Fortunately, this occurs infrequently
in the United States.
Still, to write in favor of freedom of expression and at the same time
to disdain, in a public forum, the opinions of the masses in response to
tricky questions, as you have done, makes no sense to me. I find no
conflict between believing -- for instance -- in separation of church
and state, and at the same time feeling that students should be allowed
to pray together if they wish, as long as not everybody is forced to
pray or to listen to the prayers. While you may not agree, I have a
right to my opinion, too, as well as a right to think it and express it
in accordance with the First Amendment. And you have every right, as the
editor and publisher of your own on-line column, to publish it or not,
in accordance with your own editorial criteria.
(This is a personal opinion and not necessarily the opinion of the group
of which I am president.)
Sareda Milosz,
President PEN San Miguel
San Miguel de Allende, Mexico
Holt responds: Usually what I disdain are murky or biased public opinion
polls! This one was not.
Dear Holt Uncensored,
I share your concern about the appalling ignorance of the First
Amendment to the US Constitution that seems to exist in this country.
However, I suspect the confusion is deeper than you might think. In the
USA, people learn to take short cuts in all things, including serious
matters like individual rights. We speak of "freedom of speech" and
"freedom of religion" without any qualification. That leads people to
believe there such freedoms are unlimited. It is important to get the
First Amendment (and the rest of the Constitution) clearly fixed in mind
before trying to draw any conclusions about its meaning.
The First Amendment states: "Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the
people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a
redress of grievances." Of course, the Supreme Court had now
interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment to impose the first ten amendments
on the several States as well, so we can say that all legislative bodies
are also prohibited from making such laws as listed in the First
Amendment.
Please forgive the digression but I can't make my point without it. When
a polling group asks questions like you quote in Holt Uncensored #201,
they are not really asking about support or knowledge of the First
Amendment. We do not have freedom to publicly say anything we like
anywhere we like without subjecting ourselves to consequences.
Legislative bodies shall not make laws that prohibit speech, as such,
but they may pass laws regulating the time, place and manner of certain
speech in the interest of public safety. Government schools may not
endorse a particular religion by practicing or allowing others to
practice that religion at any official activity of the school. The
alternative of allowing all religions and those who actively reject all
religions to practice equally at official school functions is simply
impossible and so would rule out anything related to the practice of
religion at school especially including the Christian and Jewish form of
prayer usually practice in the USA. Of course nothing prevents people
from forming their own school to teach whatever religion they wish, so
long as they are not teaching people to kill, maim, etc. in the name of
religion, which then results in those people doing those things or
trying to do them.
My point here is that if you wish to test people on their understanding
of the First Amendment, you should really understand it yourself and
your questions should reflect that understanding. The practical
problems that arise from the simple statement of the First Amendment
have occupied courts throughout the country for 200 years and still new
issues arise. Congress may not make a law forbidding me to use very
insulting racial or religious language, but if I use such language to
start a fight, I might be in trouble anyway. Congress can make a law
forbidding me use that language and any other language to start a riot
or induce a mob to seriously breach the peace, start a fire, beat
someone, or the like.
I do accept your premise that far too many people neither understand nor
support the First Amendment. However, a poll with questions like you
quote does nothing to help or measure those problems. We should
certainly teach the First Amendment, and indeed all the US Constitution,
in the public schools, I have my doubts that it can be done well enough
to produce the understanding we need. Who would teach it? With all the
problems of understanding evidenced by the court cased arising each
year, how could you get agreement through state boards of education of
just what views to adopt? The way to teach such complex issues is to
engage the students in discussions about the issues raised for them by
the language and role playing of decided court cases which takes a lot
of time to do right and very well trained and interested teachers.
So here is another one of those fundamental matters that will not be
included because too many people do not understand it now and cannot
agree with others what to include. What do we do with those things we
don't understand? Why, we ignore them and go on to something else. Do
keep this series going. I find much of interest in what you and your
readers write.
Gerald T. Richards
Antioch, Calif.
Holt responds: What is so difficult to understand? The protections
guaranteed in the Bill of Rights are written in a way that we can all
absorb and apply in daily life. Differences of opinion and
interpretation may occur, but the principles are fundamental.
--------
Holt Uncensored provides this forum for the free and uncensored exchange of
thoughts and ideas from writers of all callings. The opinions expressed
here are not necessarily those of Pat Holt or the Northern California
Independent Booksellers Association.
"Holt Uncensored" is an online column by Pat Holt
You can send comments or suggestions to
