Zestful Blog Post #104
When I started working at the second store Tom and Louis
Borders opened, in suburban Detroit, we had a lot of autonomy. One of the side things
we did was ‘consignments’. We wanted to be as inclusive as possible. Therefore,
anybody who believed in their book enough to go the trouble and expense of
having it produced—after, in most cases, having tried and failed to find a
publisher—could get their book on our shelves. The process was labor intensive:
each copy of each book had to be specially marked so it could be rung up properly
(in the unlikely event that somebody bought it), then shelved, then kept track
of. Each author had to be paid by check, and each author was entitled to call
up and ask at any time how things were going. We could only carry two or three
copies at a time.
This amounted to an unprofitable situation for the store,
but we kept it up essentially as a public service. Naturally, when the company
got big and everybody had to do what headquarters said, consignments went away.
Customers rarely bought consignment titles, in no small part
because production values were dismal. Joe Blow, who had written a 327-page
manifesto on why the Upper Peninsula should be granted sovereign nation status,
had to balance the cost of hardcover vs. paper cover; spiral binding vs. stapled
vs. perfect vs. sewn; glossy cover stock vs. matte; a professional designer vs.
his admittedly talented eleven-year-old niece; a print run of 200 at a cost of
$15 per copy at a total cost of $3,000 payable now, vs. a run of 1,000 at $8
per copy for a total of $8,000. No wonder most self-pubbed titles looked
pathetic, whether they contained precious gems of knowledge or drivel.
Fast-forward to today. For zero cash upfront, or for very
little, Joe Blow’s descendants can insta-pub their books with production values
that would make Grandpa’s head explode. And they can, of course, sell their
books—physical and digital—on line. Still, authors crave the experience of
seeing their books on a store’s shelves.
The other day my friend and blog follower Cordia sent me a
link to an article by Judith Rosen in Booklife
about a new kind of bookstore. http://booklife.com/publish/retail-libraries/04/20/2015/first-bookstore-dedicated-to-self-published-authors-opens-in-florida.html
The place is essentially all-consignment, where authors pay
for shelf placement, and are responsible for their own marketing and
restocking. It’s a truly new business model for bookstores, and I’ll be
interested to see if it catches on. I think it will. Be on the lookout for many
more titles by the Blow publishing dynasty.
My own most recent title, Left Field, was just reviewed by the talented and perceptive team
of Cheri Fuller and Nikki Little in Curve
magazine online. Excerpt: “The mystery is well done and complex but not overly
so, and the author did an admirable job making us second-guess our assumptions
throughout the book. This one is filled with deception, shady dealings,
conspiracies, and questionable characters. What more could a reader ask for?” http://www.curvemag.com/Reviews/Under-the-Radar-454/ I'll tell you that an author couldn't ask for a nicer review.
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