Just to emphasise that the Internet must be seen as by far the biggest challenge facing the publishing world today, I see that Amazon sales are continuing to spiral - according to The Bookseller they are going up by 45 to 50 percent year on year. E-publishing is undoubtedly a challenge that the industry it has to be said are gearing up for admirably now, but remember that it is the Internet that has made this possible - without the Internet people would not be able to download these books in the first place.
The fact that Waterstones do not appear to be re-ordering my book continues to cause concern, so much so that I have emailed Justin Hutchinson, their independent author advisor to ask whether the information I have been provided with regarding their ordering system is correct. I have been led to believe by the managers of virtually all of the 122 or so of their stores that I am now stocked in that once stocks of any given title are exhausted at individual store level, they are automatically re-ordered. As a print on demand author who is unable to access sales data, the only thing I have to go on is what book sellers tell me when I go into their stores to check sales and how many books are still in stock, and the number of copies in stock with Gardners (you can type in your ISBN to check this on their home page).
It is possible to keep at least some sort of tab on this by making a note of which book stores tell you they are going to order and cross checking this against the number in stock, although of course there may be other stores ordering that I am not aware of, or individuals ordering through Amazon, since they also obtain their titles from Gardners. From the number that I know have sold through the tills, and the number that Gardners have in stock (they have at last been delivered) there seems to a large discrepancy that leads me to conclude that more than the two stores that I definitely know about, have not re-ordered. I await Justin's reply on Monday, which I hope will shed some light on this situation.
The fact that Waterstones do not appear to be re-ordering my book continues to cause concern, so much so that I have emailed Justin Hutchinson, their independent author advisor to ask whether the information I have been provided with regarding their ordering system is correct. I have been led to believe by the managers of virtually all of the 122 or so of their stores that I am now stocked in that once stocks of any given title are exhausted at individual store level, they are automatically re-ordered. As a print on demand author who is unable to access sales data, the only thing I have to go on is what book sellers tell me when I go into their stores to check sales and how many books are still in stock, and the number of copies in stock with Gardners (you can type in your ISBN to check this on their home page).
It is possible to keep at least some sort of tab on this by making a note of which book stores tell you they are going to order and cross checking this against the number in stock, although of course there may be other stores ordering that I am not aware of, or individuals ordering through Amazon, since they also obtain their titles from Gardners. From the number that I know have sold through the tills, and the number that Gardners have in stock (they have at last been delivered) there seems to a large discrepancy that leads me to conclude that more than the two stores that I definitely know about, have not re-ordered. I await Justin's reply on Monday, which I hope will shed some light on this situation.
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