How NOT to Shop in an Independent Bookstore

This week I'm reprinting a blog post from my favorite bookseller, Joe Neri. Joe (Bookseller/Bluesman) and his wife Kris (Bookseller/Mystery Paranormal Author) operate The Well Red Coyote Bookstore in Sedona, Arizona. 

How NOT to Shop 
in an Independent Bookstore

by Joe Neri 

You would think that browsing a bookstore is pretty easy. Walk in the door, find the books that interest you, and browse. You might be surprised, however, at what Kris and I encounter when we open the doors for business each day.

Based on our real experiences, here are some suggestions for how NOT to shop at an independent bookstore:

1. Don’t tell us how much you’re going to miss Borders.

2. Don’t tell us that you just got a Kindle for your birthday.

3. Don’t only look for books by James Patterson and Danielle Steele. Believe it or not there are literally thousands of good authors, encompassing all genres, who actually write the books with their names on the covers.

4. Don’t ask for paper and pen to write down the titles and authors of wonderful books you discovered by browsing in our bookstore, with the intention of buying them online. Especially don’t use our high quality (i.e., expensive) business cards and/or bookmarks to do so.

5. If you must do #4 above, please don’t steal our pens.

6. Don’t use your cell phone’s internet connection to check online availability and pricing for books you find here.

7. In fact, don’t use your cell phone at all while browsing in our bookstore. Your need to be “connected” at all times doesn’t quite fit in with the ambiance we’re going for (why do people think they have to shout into cell phones?)

8. Don’t ask us to research a book, of which you don’t know the full title or the proper spelling of the author’s name, taking up half of our counter space with your notes on scraps of paper, and preventing other customers from getting service, if you don’t intend to buy the book from us.

9. Ditto for phone requests. If you can’t find it yourself on Amazon, don’t ask us to help you.

10. Don’t pretend to browse when all you really want is to use our restroom. Just ask – we won’t refuse your request to answer nature’s call. Just don’t take any of our books in there with you (the “George Castanza” syndrome).

11. Don’t take books from our shelves and randomly scatter them around the bookstore. Unlike the large chain stores, our talent is our knowledge of books, not our need to pick up after you.

12. Don’t hide your empty Starbucks containers or banana peels on our shelves or under our chairs or tables. If you have trash to dispose of, just ask us where to put it.
 
Of course, the above represents an extremely small fraction of our daily experiences. Most are with the wonderful book readers and book lovers that make owning an independent bookstore worthwhile and satisfying.

But, someday I’m going to write a book. Retail – gotta love it! 

Thanks, Joe.

Now if you authors want more advice from a bookseller 

read Kris Neri's posts

Authors Behaving Badly Part 1 &  Authors Behaving Badly Part 2

She's not shy (either) telling authors how to work with booksellers.

Joe Neri combines years of business experience with his lifetime love of books (along with the added touch of his blues band/songwriting creativity) as co-proprietor of The Well Red Coyote. Originally from New Jersey, Joe is an escapee from the asylum known as Southern California. He has been in love with the Southwest for most of his life and is now living his dream in Sedona. Joe's a proud founder of the Sedona Book festival. His band is Blues Dawg.
Find more of Joe's blogs. 

 

Kris Neri is the Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Award-nominated author of the Tracy Eaton mystery series, REVENGE OF THE GYPSY QUEEN, DEM BONES' REVENGE, and REVENGE FOR OLD TIMES' SAKE. Also recently published is her new urban fantasy, HIGH CRIMES ON THE MAGICAL PLANE. Her other books include a standalone suspense novel, NEVER SAY DIE, the short story collection, THE ROSE IN THE SNOW. If there's anything Kris loves as much as writing, it's reading, and sharing her love of books with others. Now that she's realized her dream of living in Arizona, she enjoys meeting her new neighbors and sharing her love of books and writing with the customers of The Well Red Coyote.

   

Shop their virtual store   

for Sedona books 

and the latest Kris Neri hits.

Authors Behaving Badly - A Bookseller Tells All Part 2

Kris Neri, award-winning author, writing instructor, and bookseller offers more advice to authors from her multi-pronged perspective.

Welcome Back Kris! How about sharing some more tips that will help an author work with a bookseller.



First, don't tell people where they can buy your books cheaper online.
Don't treat a bookstore like it's a free swap meet.

A surprising number of authors have discovered that they can make more money selling their own copies of their books direct to the store's customers. We learned that the hard way, when an author seized a moment alone with a customer to sell her own copy of her book for cash, rather than the ones we had stocked.

We're still surprised by how many need a reality check.
A bookstore has fixed overhead expenses and also invests a considerable sum into every store event. Naturally we all hope for good sales during the event, but when it doesn't happen, that doesn't justify the author trying to pick a few bucks from the bookseller's pocket. All that guarantees is that you'll never get another signing at that store, and that your books will be shipped back immediately, robbing you of the sales of those signed copies might have garnered after the event. Well…you get the idea. Authors should display the same level of courtesy to booksellers that they show in every other area of their lives. And if they aren't polite and considerate — they should learn how to do be.

Please understand that most of the authors who visit our store are great! They're considerate, fun and they see booksellers as their partners in the book-selling process. But the numbers of rude, thoughtless authors are higher than I would have imagined.
Wouldn't you think that, if they aren't naturally courteous, they'd be more practical? It's hard to get published, hard to stay published. Why sabotage the efforts of the people who stand between you and your readers? Some days I think it would just be easier to sell "Authors Behaving Badly" videos on late night TV.


How do bookstores order books?

Large bookstores with staff assigned to ordering will often order directly from publishers, but usually that’s means placing large orders from the major presses, to maximize their discounts. In small stores like ours, in which the owners have to do all the ordering, most books are obtained from wholesalers.

We get the majority of our books from Ingram and Baker & Taylor, as well as a couple of regional distributors of regional books. We avoid ordering books directly from small presses and other sources for a variety of reasons. The discounts they offer might not meet our breakeven point or they might have punitive minimums. They also might not take returns, or might require the bookstore to keep the books for a very long time (sometimes as long as a year) before accepting returns. But it’s also a matter of time and energy.
For instance, we have twelve author appearances in a given month, it’s more efficient if we can get the books we’ll need for that event from one or two sources, rather than twelve. Getting them from our usual wholesalers means we write our usual two checks per month to those wholesalers, instead of twelve individual checks. When we have to order from so many different sources, there’s a chance that some will fall through the cracks. We’ve also learned from experience that some small presses either don’t answer calls or emails, or, despite assurances, they don’t send the books until weeks after an event. Sometimes they’ve promised to send them with the authors, but when the authors arrive, they don’t have them because their own publisher never sent any stock to them.

And since all bookstores order more books for event than they think they’ll need, so they don’t sell out, ordering from the same wholesalers means only returning one-to-two boxes of books, rather than having to pack up and ship twelve different boxes, which involves greater expense. I can tell you in our store, we’re more likely to give those excess books more time on the shelves if we get them from our usual wholesalers than if we order them directly from publishers because we know we can return them to our wholesalers at any time. With small presses especially, we need to return them at the time the bill is due, usually in 30 days. We’ve learned from experience that we simply won’t get the promises refunds if we pay first, and then return books.
If a book is not available through the major national wholesalers, or from a reliable press we’re used to dealing with, there’s a good chance that we’ll ask that author to provide the books herself, at the standard discount, or we simply will refuse to host that event.

Signings require an outlet of time and money, and there’s a lot that has to be done on the part of the store to make the an event successful. If publishers make it too hard for stores to get books for events, stores have no choice but to refuse those authors. Wise small press authors take things into their own hands and make their own stock available, and not rely so heavily on their publishers.

Thanks Kris for more great information authors need to know so they don't end up in your "Authors Behaving Badly" video.

Kris Neri is the Agatha, Anthony and Macavity Award-nominated author of the Tracy Eaton mystery series, REVENGE OF THE GYPSY QUEEN and DEM BONES' REVENGE, and the forthcoming REVENGE FOR OLD TIMES’ SAKE; a standalone thriller, NEVER SAY DIE, and a short story collection, THE ROSE IN THE SNOW: TALES OF MISCHIEF AND MAYHEM.

In fall ’09, Kris Neri's first book in a new supernatural series will be published, HIGH CRIMES ON THE MAGICAL PLANE. Kris has published sixty short stories, including two Derringer Award winners. She teaches writing online for the Writers' Program of the UCLA Extension School. Kris Neri is co-owner of The Well Red Coyote. bookstore in Sedona, Arizona.

And for those near Sedona
Don't miss the
Sedona Book Festival
October 2-3
in the parking lot of The Well Red Coyote Bookstore