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Hen81
Newbie Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 8
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 10:02 am: | 
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I spoke with a black bookstore owner today in Texas and the owner said he was closing in February 08. This is two years in a row that long time stores are closing in this state that catered to a particular group that won't get a megastore near the neighborhood.
He said he didn't get any support from the community anymore. His next statement was telling. The megastores, discount chains, grocery stores etc. all carry the new bestsellers at steep discounts. Readers buy the hot national titles from those outlets. he said that is what killed his business. These same places don't have a deep black book selection, but by taking the cream off the top with the bestsellers that drive traffic, it kills the independent. The 20% that is lost is also lost traffic that would buy something else that won't be in stock at Kroger or Wal-Mart.
In this city this outlet that caters to a vertical market is gone. An entire store is distilled down to a couple of shelves at Borders, authors that don't make the cut are squeezed out.
I visited with black bookstores in Beaumont, TX and New Orleans over the past week while traveling and both are coming back from hurricane shutdowns. There are deep racial divisions in the book selling and buying publics in these and many cities. National black authors still find they have to come to these struggling stores to reach the black audience in volume. Often these bestselling authors get surprised at lukewarm responses when they show up at the superstore across town from the black community. When one of these community bookstores closes its doors, a group of readers is cut off from a variety of black books and black authors have to struggle to find ways to reach their core black reading audience.
When you think about local and regional subject books, ethnic books, genre books in general, it is a narrowing access to readers. How to you reach potential reader? Five years from now, it will be like the issue I had trying to find something other than the same fast food to eat along the interstate. If readers aren't presented with wider choices, they will continue to lose interest in reading.
I think for this reason, book fairs and festivals will increase as traditional avenues to reach readers dry up.
www.DTPollard.com |
Emanuel
Veteran Poster
Username: Emanuel
Post Number: 400
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 11:32 am: |
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Don't you just love capitalism?
You know, I feel for the black bookstore owners who work hard to add our books to their shelves and try to get more black people to buy books and merchandise. At the same time, I think they need to have a plan to address competition and what happens when household income fluctuates. As a book buyer, I'm not driving 30 miles out of the way to buy a book at retail price when I can buy it at a 35% discount at Borders OR online through Paypal or an online store without having to travel at all. Black bookstores must compete on price and find ways to make a profit through other means, just like Barnes and Noble selling CDs and Borders selling cafe lattes.
As a self-pubbed author, I have been disappointed by a few black-owned bookstores that not only accepted my review copies but never found the time to read them and surely didn't order copies for their shelves. I know there's only so much room on the shelf, and I know the stigma self-pubbed books have. However, my book was reviewed favorably and even received a small award. Stil many of those stores showed me no love.
Yes, book festivals, conferences, and fairs will continue to do well as long as authors vie for the attention they can't get in most retail stores. It would be wise for someone with the means and motivation to create a conference in his area because subsidy publishers and self publishers are churning out new authors by the thousands each year.
Just like authors trying to make it, bookstore owners must realize this is a business and must adjust their business plans accordingly. |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 5723
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 12:11 pm: |
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It helps if the black bookstore carries books that white folks don't want to sell--Elijah Muhammad and Farrakhan's books, for instance.
Black Bookstores that have survived in the St. Louis area have done more than offer books--they offer food, clothing, entertainment, knick nacks and incense and all sorts of things.
Even the big chains do not sell just books--they sell magazines, records, food, etc offer readings etc.
They are doing the same as the comic book stores, that don't just sell comic books, but sell games, toys, dvds, etc.
The black business owner who wants to survive must think outside the box. He must think of himself as a storeowner, not just a bookstore owner. |
Troy
Veteran Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 919
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 01:26 pm: |
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Hen81 "...same fast food to eat along the interstate." that is the result in a nutshell.
I been in malls from Alaska to Florida and you can't tell where the heck you are. You can drive for miles and can’t tell if you are in Detroit or Long Island, NY. The radio does not help, cause it is all the same music…
But this is not a bad thing….
I remember driving long distances and it was hit or miss whether you were going to run into a place to eat. Today I can set out on the highway, that I’ve never driven, and I can be confident that within a few miles I run into a Mickey D’s or any other host of well know eateries. You also know there will be a Walmarts by if you need one. The trade off of this sameness is lower cost, convenience and efficency.
Of course the can be a non-chain restaurant on the highway, but if they are going to attract customers they are going to have to do things differently.
Chris provides the answer: "..The black business owner who wants to survive must think outside the box." Of course this applies to any independent business competing against huge multinationals organizations with the benefits of name recognition and economies of scale.
It is just plain backward thinking to expect an independent book store to survive, in this environment, selling Black titles at full retail and nothing else. No matter how much lamenting and yearning for days of old we do this will not change.
Similarly the changes that is bringing about the demise of the old style independents brought many more benefits to the average reader. The superstores, walmarts and the internet have resulted in some obvious benefits.
Keep in mind there are some communities that never had Black independent book stores, now these readers have easier and cheaper access to Black books – thanks to the internet, Costco, and Barnesandnoble. No matter how much we want to complain about the B&N superstore there have been some distinct benefits.
When AALBC.com first started I planed to make money on the commissions from book sales I sold via Amazon. It only took a few years despite an increasing number of book sales that this was not a viable business model. There are scores of reason why, but I describe one.
I had a reading at my home a couple of years ago for Brenda Thomas (http://aalbc.com/authors/brenda_thomas.htm). I brought a case of Brenda Thomas’ The Velvet Rope. I got 45% off $13 paperback or $8.45 per book – ignoring shipping for returns.
I went to Amazon to get some more information about the title and noticed there was a HARDCOVER version of The Velvet Rope for 85 cents! With the shipping it was something like $3.75 – so I ordered one. The book was in perfect condition! At a faction of the price available to me from the publisher at wholesale!
I later learned the title was printed by Black Expressions Book Club. I was just astounded because The Velvet Rope had just published.
Now can one I realistically expect to be profitable selling a paperback book for $13 (plus tax) when the book was available on Amazon in hardcover for $3.75?
You can see even selling books as an Amazon affiliate in general is less profitable. People can buy new books for less than a dollar. My commission on a dollar is literally pennies. It is obvious the reader benefits, but in a way I, as the seller, benefit too. Not because of my paltry commissions, but because I can, get more people to visit the site by making books available via Amazon.
All I have to do is get people to come to AALBC.com and I’m not going to do that by simply putting up a list of books.
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Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 10657
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 02:50 pm: |
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I continue to be fascinated with the viscissitudes of the book world. What is happening in this profession reveals all the things that authors and book store owners have to go through just to eke out a living. And "eke" is the operative word here because although many are sent, few are chosen to wear the mantle of fame and fortune. What drives people in this field of endeavor to trudge on? Book store owners are a special breed. They couldn't be in it for the money; they apparently have an altruistic mission to be a conduit for the encouragement of reading. And authors? They are like golfers who become addicted to the game because the golf course represents the world, and demonstrating the skill to master the course puts one in an elite realm of champions who have singlehandedly triumphed where others have failed - the ultimate goal of every ego-driven person. A book is an extension of the person who has written it, and having your words and ideas accepted and enjoyed and admired is heady stuff because it is as validation of our worth. No wonder self-publishing is the new drug.  |
Hen81
Newbie Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 9
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 - 05:17 pm: |
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This is the issue. I was a black bookstore and the owner told me about getting an invoice by mistake that was from a superstore. He was shocked to see an 85% discount off of retail when he bought at 40% off. If the superstore sold at 50% off retail, they made a 35% profit by selling the same book for 10% lower than he paid for it.
This was a small store, but still it carries many times more black books in stock than a typical superstore that will stock top black sellers but not other lesser known authors.
The squeeze is on for black authors as many of them will not get much visiblity of their titles to the buying public.
I consider my books that sell through black book stores to be advertising because it is a wash given discounts and such. The reason they and all bookstore have issues with most POD books is returnability, not how good it is or isn't. I live in that world, but there are ways around it. Bookstores live in a world of free product and can return traditionally published books if they are not sold. That is why it's no problem for people to lounge around a Barnes and Noble all day reading.
I have often wondered why independents don't form a buying association to combine their purchase power to compete better with the big guys. That would take cooperation.
www.DTPollard.com
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Troy
Veteran Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 922
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 12:49 am: |
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Hen81,
Returns are bad for publishers as well. It encourages people to order more books than they need.
However if books were not returnable the discounts would be larger.
For the example you mentioned. If the superstore was getting 85% I wonder what the publisher/author/distributor split? Who paid for shipping? Was the book a remainder? There had to be something else going to to explain an 85 percent discount...
Too bad you did not actualy see the invoice.
Forming a buyers assoication as you described is much more difficult than it sounds. All independents are not alike, some are thriving and other can barely pay their bills.
Besides I'm not sure there are enough independents in a given region to make a significant impact.
They be better up opening a cafe in the book store (smile).
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Zane
Regular Poster
Username: Zane
Post Number: 61
Registered: 11-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, November 15, 2007 - 08:29 am: |
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It saddens me to hear of black book stores shutting their doors. I am wondering if the store you are speaking of is one where I signed earlier this year in Dallas. They were very appreciative that I came because it had been an uphill battle to get well known authors to sign there. Whenever I am on tour, I insist on signing in at least one black store in every city that I visit. I think that more should insist as well. You may not sell a lot of books there--at full price--but they are the stores that originally support up-and-coming authors moreso than the chains.
I do not know what the solution is for black stores. I agree that it would be hard to organize a collective to purchase books. Many have mentioned it but nothing has come to fruition. In regards to an 85% discount, I can speak to that as a publisher. Troy was correct in that the only way that that could happen is if the books were remaindered and about to be destroyed anyway. Authors get a minimum of 7.5% per book and as much as 15% per book--at least they should--and there is no way that can happen with an 85% discount.
Blessings,
Zane |
Hen81
Regular Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 11
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, November 16, 2007 - 01:12 am: |
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No, Zane it is not the store where I met you in Dallas. I am the author of Rooftop Diva. This store is south of Dallas.
I met with black bookstore owners in Beaumont, TX and New Orleans over the past week and they are hanging on also.
www.DTPollard.com |
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