Vroman’s Bookstore, Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore and Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year in 2008, is a literary institution. Vroman’s webmaster Patrick Brown answered the seven questions in our indie bookstore Q&A, touching on—among other things—how altering the returns system would effect Vroman’s buys and how they plan to get in the ebook game. (Image via.)

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What’s the hottest genre in your store right now? Any surprise best sellers?

Our best-selling sections are typically kids and young adult, as well as literary fiction and non-fiction. I think the biggest surprise best seller this year has been Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. When I first heard the idea, I thought it sounded fun, but I had no idea how big it would be. For a few weeks, it was almost impossible to keep it on the shelves.

What’s the most successful or creative store event you remember hosting? What do you look for in an author or book when setting up an event?

The most creative event that I’ve been a part of is our summer music and author series, where we pair an author with a local band. The author reads and then the band plays on our outdoor stage. It’s a great, low-key event. Perfect for a Saturday afternoon. I think the best one we did was a pairing of Paula Yoo and the Listing Ship. Paula plays violin, so not only did she read, but she also sat in for a few songs with the band. I’m also very excited for this Young Adult event we have coming up called LAYAPalooza. It’s a huge event, with about twenty YA authors. There’s going to be food and a sort of trivia game show for YA fans.  It should be a lot of fun.

When I think about successful author events, they usually are something more than just a reading. That’s not to say that a straight-up reading can’t be a great time, but rather that the events that stand out in my memory are often more than that. In the end, if the author has a captivating personality, the event will work. If the author doesn’t enjoy giving readings or talks, or isn’t happy about something about the event, it’s likely the event will fail. Audiences will usually take their cue from the speakers.  I also love events with multiple authors.  As a bookseller, it’s a great way to sell more books. People show up to hear one author and frequently end up enjoying both or all of the authors. It introduces readers to new writers, which is why we’re in business.

Do you ever bring self-published books into your store? If so, how often and under what circumstances?

We do bring some self-published books into the store. Obviously these books are in the minority, but it does happen on a pretty regular basis. In terms of what we would carry, well, that depends on a lot of subjects.  Books with local subject matter or books that are about Pasadena or Southern California will always get a long look from our buyers, as we’re committed to supporting our local literary community and our customers have tremendous pride in the region. We will seriously consider any book if it is well-written, well-designed, and we think it would interest our customers. (more…)

This is the first in a series of interviews the Big Bad Book Blog will conduct with independent booksellers across the country. For our inaugural post, we started with local hero BookPeople, the largest independent bookstore in the state. Marketing Director Alison Kothe Nihlean answered our questions.

What’s the hottest genre in your store right now? Any surprise best-sellers?

Kid’s books and general fiction are the two best sections in the store right now.  The “surprise” bestsellers aren’t really surprises to us, because our bestsellers are things that our staff champions and gets behind.  For instance, The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine was a book we sold better than pretty much any store in the country because we loved it so much, and we have a hard time keeping Craig Johnson books in stock because our staff loves this mystery writer.  We’re very lucky, being an independent bookstore, that we can pretty much sell and promote what we love.

What’s the most successful or creative store event you remember hosting? What do you look for in an author or book when setting up an event?

Our Harry Potter 7 party!  This party was a team event from just about every person at the store, and we were planning it for a good six months.  With the staff in costumes; working with other local businesses like REI, Amy’s Ice Creams, the Austin Symphony; creating games such as real wizard dueling; constructing a Diagon Alley set; showcasing wizard rock bands—it was just spectacular.  Over 5,000 people were in our parking lot with us as we counted down till midnight.  As a true Harry Potter nerd myself, it was just magical.

When I book authors to come to the store, I look at their previous books (if they have them) to see how they were received and how well they sold here at the store.  I also look at the subject matter and see if it’s a good fit for Austin and is topical. There are so many variables into bringing authors to BookPeople—definitely not an exact science!

Do you ever bring self-published books into your store? If so, how often and under what circumstances?

We do carry quite a few self-published books here. We have a consignment agreement with those authors that stipulates how long the books will be here, what the selling arrangement is, etc. We always look through the book first to make sure it is of good quality as well.

What are the benefits of physical distribution when so much is available cheaply on Amazon and other online retailers? Do you see the recent popularity of eBooks or the economic downturn significantly affecting your store?

One thing you can’t get on Amazon.com is a recommendation by someone who really loves talking about books.  You also can’t see author events, have fun at a puppet show, learn about a new book in a subject you’d never read about before, or perhaps see a long lost friend sitting at the café.  Sure, online stores (and big box stores) may sometimes have cheaper deals, but I always look at where my money is going as well.  If I buy online, none of my money is staying in Austin, and, frankly, that’s pretty crappy.  I’d rather pay regular price for something and support a place I love than get $3 off and send my money to a different state altogether.

As far as eBooks go, I don’t see them as “the death of books” or anything like that.  It’s a change in medium, something new and exciting happening in the publishing world, but nothing that will forever change the love people have for holding a solid book in their hands.  BookPeople will soon be able to sell eBooks as well, and we’re excited to offer something for our tech savvy customers out there.  The times man, they are a’changin’.

If you feature staff picks, how are these selected? Does the staff have complete freedom to give face-out placement to any book they like?

Staff picks are all over our store.  We encourage out staff members to write selections for any and every book they are passionate about.  Then, about once a week, our inventory managers rotate out the staff selection cards on the floor (we have so many we can’t display them all at once).  I’d say at any given time we have over 500 staff selection cards out on the floor.

Since BookPeople is such a large store, we love having such a variety of staff selection cards because they help us in suggesting and finding books for customers.  I know little to nothing about the real estate section, for instance, but I’m able to use the staff selection cards there as a guideline when helping someone else in that section.

If all books were sold on a non-returnable basis, how would this affect your buying? What if all books were printed without a retail price so you could set the price as you saw fit?

That would cripple us, as it would most bookstores.  We would not be able to host events, because if they didn’t go well due to unforeseen reasons what would we do with 50 copies of a single book?  We would be hesitant to order unproven titles, so say goodbye to debut authors, books in any of smaller sections, and there would definitely not be any special ordering (something we do dozens of times every day).

What’s the most embarrassing book in your personal collection?

I own (and love) most of the Baby-sitters Club series.  I will never get rid of them.  Ever.

Check out BookPeople’s website, blog, and awesome “This Is My Favorite Book 2008″ catalog [PDF alert], which collects picks from eleven BookPeople booksellers.

One of the most common questions we hear from authors is “Why does Ingram return my books only to order more the next day?” And it’s true: Ingram, the biggest player in the book wholesaling game, will frequently send books back to a publisher’s doorstep only to turn around an place an order a few days later. Why on earth didn’t they just keep them?

All books that bookstores ship back to Ingram are sent to their Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, warehouse for processing and then are directly returned to publisher or distributor of the title. Unfortunately, Ingram does not restock returned inventory. (You can imagine that tracking, inspecting, and restocking undamged returns would be a time-consuming endeavor for an operation of that size.) At the same time, Ingram has to bring in new stock to cover ongoing demand.

Another scenario that creates returns followed by more orders is a shift in regional demand. Ingram has four warehouses serving the country by region (in Pennsylvania, Oregon, Indiana, and Tennessee). If your cookbook is overstocked in Seattle bookstores, but you just did a great local radio tour in the Chicago area, Ingram’s going send the Seattle books back to you while simultaneously asking you for more to cover the new demand in Chicago—no matter how inefficient that seems.

The best way to minimize returns is to balance supply with demand by trying to maintain supply at a level that will sell in less than three months. So, as we’ve told you before, avoid overstocking and subsequent returns by always communicating your marketing and publicity activities to your publisher or distributor.

In the book industry, “pristine” is the word wholesalers and retailers use to describe books that are in saleable condition. If a book isn’t pristine (which means “absolutely flawless” in this context), it’s sent straight back to the publisher. Its fate—pulping, free giveaway, remaindering, years of gathering dust in a warehouse—is determined from there.

We recently spoke with Debbie Purrington of Ingram Book Company, the industry’s largest wholesaler, who spends her time doing fix-up jobs on the slightly imperfect books Ingram receives from printers. Debbie’s workstation in Ingram’s Tennessee warehouse checks books for twenty types of damage, including dented spines, torn pages, creased dust jackets, oozing glue, unsmoothed Mylar, and printing errors such as missing sections or upside-down pages (which, she says, happens more frequently than you may think). If the damage is too extensive to repair, the pallets of books are returned directly to the publisher. But if there’s something Debbie or her colleagues can fix, she sets to work. The book repair station, which is operated by only one person at a time, mends between 50 and 100 books per shift. The books Debbie fixes have not seen the rough-and-tumble of shipping through the supply chain (in other words, she won’t fix your books that got damaged because the UPS guy dropped them), but her tactics, outlined below, can help any author or small publisher for whom creased, dented, unsellable books can be a huge revenue drain. continue reading

Tip #2: Get the price right.

Oh, the headache of self-publishing. You want to realize your dream and publish your book, but you have The Industry to contend with, you have the cost of production, and you have to worry about wholesalers and distributors, and Amazon . . . and the list goes on.  After all that time, energy, and money, it seems only natural that you’d want to earn back your costs through the price of your book.  $22.95 sounds like a fair price for your paperback fiction after all you’ve put into this book, right?

Sorry, but wrong.  continue reading

With the bulk of publishing industry news of late centering around layoffs, declining retail sales, and holds on acquisitions, it’s easy to get pulled into the downward spiral of doom and gloom. While none of us want to see our colleagues out of work or industry decline, the bad news hardly comes as a surprise: inefficient and outdated practices have been pushing us in this direction for years. The current economic bust was (or will be) the last nail in the coffin for many publishing operations struggling to say afloat.

But, to quote Albert Einstein, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” The constant but quiet call for change that has been building for years is now more like an air raid siren. The shakedown coming in 2009 may bring an about-face in our general acceptance of wasteful practices while also bolstering the lines of smart, lean independent publishers and distributors: continue reading

A new year always brings a fresh start. But for bookstores, it may also bring the need for fresh stock. Unfortunately, many authors and publishers see high quantities of returns after January 1 as holiday overstock is sent back, and we at Greenleaf, too, usually see increased returns as the year closes out and a new one begins. And in an economic climate such as the one we’ve entered 2009 with—well, buyers and inventory managers have an even keener eye on excess and inventory that’s not moving. continue reading

We’ve told you about sites devoted to tracking Amazon.com sales ranks before, but here’s a new one: Ranktracer.com. Tracking only books that have been added by users, the service offers several appealing features, including slick flash graphics, estimates of Amazon’s highly guarded sales numbers, and tracking of ranks on international Amazon sites.

Ranktracer also offers promotions on its own site and Amazon’s, which you may or may not find useful. Size it up with the other Amazon tracking sites and let us know which one you find most functional. (Ranktracer does charge a small fee, which is, hint, waiveable if you have a blog.) continue reading