the hidden cost of a Christmas best seller part two

Following on from my post a few days ago, entitled the hidden cost of a Christmas best seller, I started a thread along the same theme on my favourite writers discussion forum, My Writers Circle. I guess it is okay to post the article from the Times Online on here, as long as I provide a link, so here goes. It does somewhat set the scene.

"Every day thousands of shoppers decide to buy a new book because Waterstones prominently displays or recommends it. The reader may imagine that merit alone has inspired the country’s largest book chain to champion the volume now resting in their hands. The truth is a little less romantic. In a confidential letter to publishers seen by The Times, Waterstones has set out what it expects them to pay if they want their books to be well promoted in its network of more than 300 stores this Christmas. The most expensive package, available for only six books and designed to “maximise the potential of the biggest titles for Christmas”, costs £45,000 per title.

The next category down offers prominent display spots at the front of each branch to about 45 new books for £25,000. Inclusion on the Paperbacks of the Year list costs up to £7,000 for each book, while an entry in Waterstones Gift Guide, with a book review, is a relative snip at £500. To the despair of publishers, similar charges have become standard across the industry. The leading chains excuse them as a “contribution” towards marketing costs and recognition of a booksellers’ power to create bestsellers by heavily promoting select books. At Borders, bookshop staff vote to decide the book of the month, while schools are polled to find the children’s book of the month. But the publishers still have to pay an undisclosed fee for the chosen book to be awarded the accolade. A spokeswoman for W H Smith said: “Our premium promotion spaces are oversubscribed, which suggests that publishers feel they are getting value for money.”

Anthony Cheetham, the chairman of Quercus books, a small independent publisher, said: “It’s not a system you can opt out of. If Smith’s offer you one of these slots and you say no, their order doesn’t go down from 1,000 copies to 500 copies. It goes down to 20 copies.” One of Quercus’s biggest successes is The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney. It won the Costa Book of the Year award for 2006 but will not make the booksellers’ Christmas selections unless Quercus pays the going rate, Mr Cheetham said. “The big chains will choose, say, 100 books of the year for Christmas but they will only put into their final selection the ones that are paid for.

“We are currently trying to decide whether we feel strong enough to say no and see what happens with that book if we don’t pay. It’s difficult, the only publisher who is in a strong position [to negotiate with booksellers on this] is Bloomsbury, the proud owners of H. Potter Esq.” The imbalance is becoming more marked, with one supermarket proposing to start charging publishers just to pitch books at them. “There is a genuine level of exasperation and anxiety in the publishing industry that the booksellers have gone too far down this road,” Mr Cheetham said. “It’s the reader who loses because it’s throttling the distribution of a wider range of high-quality books and [perpetuating] the system whereby you plaster the entire country with copies of the same few books.”

Neil Jewsbury, the commercial director of Waterstones, defended the charges and said that the quality of books chosen for books-of-the-year lists and other promotions was not compromised by money changing hands. “Our expert booksellers, with years of experience, decide on what the best books of the last year are,” he said. “It’s only after that that we enter into a confidential commercial agreement with the publishers to decide how best to feature and promote these titles.” But most customers are not aware of the practice. One leading figure in the publishing world said: “What the book stores are doing is what other trades do, whether it’s frocks or sun-cream. The problem and the difference here is that the customers don’t realise it. They think what they are seeing is a recommendation and have no idea that the retailer has taken good money from the publisher for it.”

At Waterstones flagship Piccadilly branch in Central London yesterday shoppers said they were appalled by the practice. Helen Brooks, 36, a television sales director and budding author, said: “It’s disgraceful, I certainly would not trust them or their lists. It doesn’t do a lot for home-grown talent, small publishers or writing independently.”

Peter Wheeler, 68, a pensioner, said: “It’s a con.”

What it costs:

£45,000 For one book to appear in window and front-of-store displays, and in Waterstones national press and TV advertisement campaign

£25,000 To feature in a bay at front of store as a ‘gift book’ in its genre and be displayed at the till

£17,000 To be one of two titles promoted as the ‘offer of the week’ for one week in the run-up to Christmas

£7,000 To be displayed at front of store as a ‘paperback of the year’ and be mentioned in newspaper adverts.

£500 Price of an entry in Waterstones Christmas gift guide, complete with a bookseller review"

I won't post all the comments on here, since there are issues of security to consider, and to be honest, it would take too long anyway, so as this is my blog, I will concentrate more on my response to the comments.

The system is flawed, and every writer knows this, but it is the only system for the moment that we have, and we have to do our best to work with it by selling to different markets and not just the book stores. It is good that a paper of the calibre of The Times was discussing this and opening peoples eyes to these practises, as that is ultimately the only way that things will change. When the supermarkets somewhat similar practises were revealed to the public they faced a huge backlash with people turning to local stores and farmers markets etc instead, and from the comments posted on The Times website, at least some people are doing the same with the chain stores because of this, and buying either direct or online instead. Understand that it makes no difference to me as an author; I make the same regardless of whether my book is bought from Amazon or Waterstones - they both after all use the same wholesaler and get them for the same 40 percent discount. That is the thing that gets up my nose even more to be honest - the fact that these stores make £6 a copy from selling my book while as I as the author get £1.39 for 5 years work. I don't know many people who would work for 27.8 pence a year!

One member though did state that she has gone through the rounds of writers conferences, talking to agents, publishers as we all do, and the attitude from many still seems to be the going down the self publishing, or heaven forbid print on demand route is seen as the 'kiss of death'. She queried why this is, and my response, which can be read on the site is as follows:

I think that to a large extent both publishers and book sellers do feel threatened by print on demand, because like so many other things, they do not want to admit that it is their mis treatment of authors and the failings of the publishing industry in general that has led to so many of us choosing to embrace this route in the first place. People self publish for a variety of reasons - sometimes because they have a niche market that enables them to sell direct to the public cutting out the middle men, sometimes because they have been unable to secure a commercial publishing contract and remain convinced, despite the rejections, that there is a market for their work, but increasingly people are also choosing this route because they are tired of being treated by the industry as a disposable commodity and they wish to take back control of their work, and their own power. I chose to self publish for all of the above reasons and then some, as regular or even occasional readers of this blog will know.

The industry is led by greedy retailers, and that is the bottom line. It is the book sellers that demand the high discounts and not the publishers and wholesalers, and it is also the book seller that takes the biggest share of the books profits. In my case from a cover price of £14.99, print costs swallow up £4.06, the wholesaler earns £2.64 and the book seller £6, leaving £2.29 split between myself and the publisher, 60/40 in my favour. It is not a lot, but more than I would have got from a commercial publisher, since the book price would have been lower. How though can this be fair, when I spent 5 years and £5000 writing and paying for this book to be published, not to mention the cost of phone calls to get the shops to stock it, emails, stamps, printer ink, paper, etc, etc, etc? It just doesn't seem right, but very, very one sided. I sometimes think that I must have been mad to have even contemplated doing this, but I keep soldiering on regardless because it my vocation, my life times work, and also because it who I am; as a writer I can no more stop doing this than I can stop breathing, it would be like cutting off my right arm without anaesthetic.

It is though ultimately the book buying public who have the power to change things. This will only happen if we the authors educate our readers as to what is going on. The publishing industry is notoriously resistant to change and everything happens so slowly, and that is also part of the problem, for in the digital world including print on demand, everything moves very fast. Although there are moves towards firm sale instead of sale or return which should in theory help authors, book sellers are demanding even higher discounts to compensate for this loss.

I mentioned an article on The Bookseller just recently that quoted one of the buyers from Foyles (another chain I have been trying to get into with some success). The buyer actually stated that independent authors need them more then they need us, and sadly a lot of the time he/she (the buyer was not identified by name, but I don't think it was the one I have been dealing with) is correct.

Across the water The Writers Guild strike is proving that it is screen writers who have the real power and not studios and television networks, but they are in a different league to the more humble book writer. Nevertheless though it is time the retailers realised that without us to write the books there would be no Waterstones, Borders or WH Smiths. The way forward then is to educate the book buying public as to what really goes on in whatever way that we can. Write about it on our blog sites, let people know on your mailing list why you ask them to buy direct from you and list the figures involved as to who gets what, write to the newspapers, take part in discussions like the one they had on The Times Online, add your comments to the blogs that The Bookseller links to (I do this a lot as well), do whatever you need to do in order to get the point across without antagonising.

It is a dangerous path in some ways to tread, since there is always the fear at the back of ones mind that if the wrong person reads it the retailers will boycott your work. I have to then be very careful with what I say, as at the moment although I hate to admit it, until I can get some decent media coverage from the national press, I do need the book shops more than they need me. It is an uncomfortable fact. I have tried online selling, social networking, book fairs, you name it I have done it - the bottom line is though that 90 percent of books are still sold through shops. So for all my good words above, for the moment I shall continue to do my best to tread softly and work with the flawed system that we have in the best and only way that I can.

Occasionally I do get to speak to a more enlightened manager or book seller who understands the problems that we as authors have to face, and that does make it more worthwhile. There are a few who work for Waterstones and some who work for Borders as well! Same Day Books are the most enlightened ones that I have come across - even they are struggling, as 2 of their 5 branches have closed this year, and and there are redundancies in the offing - they are concentrating more on online selling now, since there are less overheads, but that is a whole other discussion ....

Continuing on though with the same theme, the industry has for some time now it seems been debating the issues surrounding digital publishing. This covers of course not just the rise in print on demand, but also the threat as they see it from e-publishing. It has come much more to the forefront in recent weeks with the launch in America of the Amazon Kindle reading device. The technology is not as yet available here, but it is only a matter of time.

Adam Powell talks about this on his blog, which is linked to The Bookseller, where he also talks about the Espresso machine, which is of course a giant print on demand machine recently installed in various public libraries and book stores across the pond. Dane Keller, CEO of OnDemand Books, the creators of the Espresso machine, are keen to try and also get it into stores over here. The only problem is that there is only one company through which material can be accessed, and even then some of the out of copyright material they have access to is still in copyright here, since the laws are different. What this basically means then is that there is very little that can actually be printed.

Adam makes the point that by utilising digital technology in the form of both print on demand and e-books, it will help to cut out the middle men, thus you would think, maximising profits for both book sellers and publishers. However, although the big presses may complain about the high costs of distribution and heavy discounting (they should try being a small press or self published author, then they would have something to really get upset about), he also points out that nearly all of them - including Penguin, HarperCollins and MacMillan either own or have a large share in their own distribution companies - why then would they be willing to put part of their own profits at risk? It would be cutting off their noses to spite their own face.

Personally I can't see e-readers catching on, not even in the United States. Nothing, and I mean nothing, will ever replace paper books, people love the feel of them and being able to leaf through at their own leisure on the train or in the local coffee house before or after work. Both Amazon and myself as an author would love to be proven wrong, since the idea of cutting out all these middle men has much appeal - my own book is in fact already available as an e-book as part of the Authors OnLine publishing package. I have only ever though sold one, to some unknown person overseas who I suppose preferred to read it in this way. When I do sell in this form I earn considerably more - about three times more in fact, since the only overheads are the credit card processing fee, and then 60 percent of what is left (about £5) is mine. This cannot compete or compare with the £1.39 I get from paper copy sales. I have said enough about that though already to fill 10 textbooks, and I am not talking mobile phones here either.

As a worst case scenario, in 10 0r maybe 20 years time, 10 percent of books may be sold as e-books. Traditional publishers and book sellers will somehow have to find a way of making up for those lost sales. The most obvious way is for them to sell the e-readers in their shops or direct from their own websites. Why though should a consumer go to a publishers website instead of Amazon where they can everything they need at low cost in the same place, not just from one publisher, but from all of them. Amazon in this scenario can be seen as a giant online book supermarket against which the high street stores cannot realistically compete other than on service, and the ability to browse, but even this is being diminished with the search inside option and Google Books.

The British Retail Consortium predict that 15 percent of all Christmas related purchases will be made online this year, compared to 13 percent in 2006. This then must be seen as the real threat, which may be much greater than anyone could imagine.

Writers Guild revolts !

Those who have read my book will know that it is heavily influenced by an American science fiction television series entitled Babylon 5. This was written and produced by one Michael J Straczynski, who these days is one heavyweight writer. He is apparently working on a new film entitled Changeling, to be directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Angelina Jolie. You don't get much more heavyweight than these two. His own website though details a bit of a hoo ha which is going on at the moment Stateside with regard to the Writers Guild - the US equivalent of our Society of Authors.

It seems that their members are going on strike in protest at proposals put forward to stop payment of what are referred to as residuals. These are the small fees which authors are paid each time a film of something that they have written (or other such similar things) is sold or borrowed. It is not a large sum - something like 4 cents - but if you happen to have written a popular film, then this can add up to quite a considerable sum. Unlike public lending rights, there is no maximum payment.

It seems that in America as in Britain there is a popular misconception that writers are rich. In only wish that this were true! In actual fact we are one of the most poorly paid group of people you can imagine. Most of us have to supplement our income with other part time occupations - teaching for example, or in my case as of tomorrow, working in retail. And those who work in publishing think they are badly off for having to do unpaid work experience in order to get their lucky break !

Sure there are some writers who do extremely well - Jeffrey Archer, and JK Rowling - but these are few and far between. At any given point in any one year, around half of all film and TV writers are unemployed. Sometimes this may be because they are not very good, but most often it is because they are between commissions. You have to find a buyer for the movie (or book for that matter) that you have spent six months (or five years) writing - I hasten to add at your own expense. This is the way that publishing works though, whether you write books, films or whatever. You produce or write the product, sell it and only then do you get paid.

A residual then is like an author's royalty. Screen and script writers are paid them each time their work is shown on television. They are how such writers survive between jobs, and only fair when one considers how the network or studio itself makes money from the authors work. If nobody airs your show or re-runs the film or show that you have written, then there is no residual, it is as simple as that. After all, if the network isn't getting paid, then they can't pay you either!

This then is why last week, 90 percent of Guild members voted to down tools and go on strike - and quite rightly so. This though is the tip of the iceberg, for it is about far more than just residuals, but also about the writers right to be acknowledged as the creator of the work. Under the new proposals residuals will not be paid for what are termed as 'new media' which in practise means shows that are broadcast on Internet radio or television, it also means that NO credits will appear in advertising - so the writer loses the right to even be acknowledged. Stuff that for a game of soldiers ! The proposal entirely eliminates the requirement that writing credits appear in advertising and publicity, even if the names of others - such as producers and directors - are included. The Guild response is as follows: For years the MBA has provided that the writer receive parity in advertising and publicity. The Guild will never accept this proposal, which is an insult to writers and demeans their contributions. Hear, hear !

I don't know where this will end then, but like the debacle with Eagle Publishing that I mentioned the other day, it is one to watch, and yet another sign that the tide is turning. Studios and TV networks would be wise to remember, like a certain person at Foyles, that without writers to create these works in the first place, they too would be out of a job. Without us, the people who actually write this stuff, they would have no reason for being ....

On another note, I see from The Bookseller that Waterstones are to close their first ever store in Old Brompton Road, London. It seems that the store was taken on a 25 year lease which is about to expire, taking the 12 staff with it. Every effort though will be made to deploy them elsewhere within the company. I will a note not to ring that branch - last time I tried they would not answer their phone anyway, and so I gave up and moved on to other branches who would.

Fortunately this week they have quite a few of these. In the past week I have worked doubly hard, knowing that my return to work was imminent and I would have the same time to concentrate on this essential activity. This week then I have secured orders from Bromley Glades, Birmingham New Street, Cambridge, Enfield, Chester, Guildford High Street, Gateshead Metro Centre (I am delighted at this one), Gower Street, Greenwich, Ealing, Hastings and Hemel Hempstead Riverside. I have lost count of the total number of shops then which are now stocking me, but with the run up to Christmas, it must be well over 80 by now. This is not bad at all, since it means that before this is over with a bit of luck, I will be stocked in almost a third of their total branches.

The article in this months Writers News should help - I have not seen it yet myself, but hope to get a copy this afternoon. Dinner is calling though, so I better go and see what needs doing in the kitchen - the delightful smell of chopped onions is wafting towards me as I write !

Foyled at last!

If you are wondering why I haven't posted for a few days, it is because Coran and I have just got back from a lovely long weekend in Glastonbury. We tend to get two reactions when we tell people we are going there - either the eyes glaze over, or people ask us if we are going to the music festival - in November - I don't think so!

During the 10 or so years that I have been visiting the town though, I have observed it gradually becoming more and more commercialised. Apart from the book shops, and the Goddess shop - The Goddess and the Green Man, everything seems to be the same. Crystals, new age velvety type clothes, incense, candles, trinket boxes, cards, the same old stuff with nothing really all that new or innovative. Sometimes the new age doesn't then seem so new after all. Even the cafes all tend to do the same old stuff - garlic bread with salad, burger with chips, nut roast with all the trimmings (I suppose it makes a change from a plate of vegetables though, minus the meat).

I had been sort of toying with the idea of going to the annual Questing Conference which was held this year the town's Assembly Rooms - a venue which was far too small for an event of this size and calibre. Normally when it is held in London, the conference attracts up to 50o people, but the Assembly Rooms struggle to accommodate 200. I doubt very much then that I would have been able to get a ticket on the door anyway. One of the ladies who was also staying at the Chalice Well Lodge was called Lynne, and she went along having bought her ticket in advance, and said that as interesting as the talks were, by the end of the first day (it went on from 10am to 8pm) she was flagging. I am not surprised. I feel sorry for the last few speakers of the day, who would not have had much of an audience, especially with all the fireworks going off outside.

Coran and I wandered in on Sunday afternoon, after our nut roast in the Cafe Galatea to have a look at the stalls. I had a stall myself at last years conference near Regents Park for which I paid the princely sum of £90 (they must have seen me coming). I made quite a large loss then on the day. The stalls for this year were cheaper at £50 for the 2 days (10am to 8pm on Saturday and 10am - 4pm on Sunday). Even so, I am still not convinced that I would have covered that cost,
not to mention the cost of accommodation and petrol to get down there.

There was the usual array of stalls though selling books by the various speakers and jewellery etc, but there was also a stall from an extraordinary talented lady Gothic artist named Anne Sudworth. Anne is famed for her Gothic fantasy artwork with moonlit night time scenes of trees and strange creatures. She looks quite fearsome with her black hair entwined with white beads and thick make up - so many layers of mascara and at least four shades of lipstick. What a lovely lady though she is and so different to the outer persona - very softly spoken and almost gentle, yet a strong business woman at the same time. Coran bought a copy of her latest book which she gladly signed and we exchanged business cards as well. If I had had the money and somewhere to hang it, I would have loved to have bought one of her prints - the originals she told us sell for up to £1800. Fantastic work that you have to see for yourself and a very talented and beautiful lady with the most extraordinary energy.

One of the other reasons though for going was of course to visit the book shops in town - Growing Needs are already stocking me I discovered, as I emailed them some time ago. It looks as if the Chalice Well book shop will be ordering as well today, since they do deal with Gardners, and Labyrinth Books will too, as soon as they can open an account. They would have bought direct from me had I been able to offer them the 35 percent discount that they needed - the most I can go to though is 30 percent before it becomes unviable - I would be making less than £2 a copy and could still end up having to pay for return postage if they books didn't sell. Gothic Image were also given information and will be receiving a follow up phone call some time later this week.

A few things seem to have happened then in the book trade these last few days. The big news I suppose is that it looks like this will be Richard and Judy's last season with their morning show. They are though talking about a move to Channel Four instead, so all is not lost. Hopefully the same will be said for Simon Key and Tim West, two ex colleagues from Waterstones in Wood Green, who following the stores closure in August are about to open their own independent book store just up the road, also in Wood Green. They are asking for publishers to get in touch with suggestions for back list titles that they can stock, since they know that this is the largest share of the market - I will have to have a look than at the genres that they are seeking, and if one of them is mine, I will get in touch, and suggest that Richard does the same. It may be a possible venue for the book club that he mentioned at the recent anniversary dinner.

Looking at Grumpy Old Bookman though today, I noticed some comments that he had posted last week (Thursday) which I must have somehow missed, about Foyles, the oldest independent book seller in London. This takes the form of some comments made to the wife of one of his regular readers, who contacted them with some suggestions as to how to improve their website. The reply that she received is breathtaking in its arrogance, and I can't wait to contact their book buyer later on today to follow up that email I sent some time ago .... In particular this lady asked them why they do not encourage bloggers and authors to set up links to Foyles website rather than amazon. They said:

"Many of the links to Amazon do come from small self-published and independent works, and as a small business we often do not have the capacity to process orders for such titles. Many small publishers or self-published authors require payment for multiple copies of books or payment by cheque before they release orders. Amazon can afford to keep reserves of these small titles in their large warehouse if ordering multiples, whereas we do not have this capacity. These are authors who need us, rather than vice versa, and thus offer these links free."

These authors need us more than we need them! Hang on a minute - if it wasn't for us writing our books then they would have nothing to sell in the first place. They act as if they are the only book seller in the country, when they are a comparatively small fish. While it would be nice to be stocked by them, I certainly won't lose sleep if I don't manage it, but they might lose valuable long term back list sales .... I think they are very wrong indeed then to say this.

As for notion that we are awkward as we demand payment for our books up front, well it just shows how little they know about the industry the are working in. For one thing, amazon do not have a warehouse of their own, all their titles are obtained from wholesalers in the same way that book stores get theirs - you do not supply amazon then direct and as usual this person is talking out of the thing that he (only a man would be so stupid as to say this!) sits on! Why the hell though shouldn't we expect to be paid before we release titles to them that we have written. I can just imagine going into one of their stores and saying I will pay you for this book in three months time after I have decided whether I like it, no it wouldn't wash. Yo would be arrested for shop lifting. This just then goes to show just breathtakingly arrogant these people are and exactly what people like me and my friend Tracy Saunders are up against every day.

The comments though speak for themselves, enough said ....

Back to business

After the weekend, today was a relatively quiet day. It started off reasonably well with my trawling through the notes I made from Paul's little black book and seeing which people I could ring. I decided to start with Methvens, who as it turns out, are now Same Day Books. I have a vague recollection of reading about them on The Bookseller recently and how some of their branches have closed.

Most of their business these days seems to be be conducted online, so I checked first to see if my book was on their website. It was but with the original cover, so I emailed them to let them know that it needs to be changed, and then set about ringing their stores. Their website lists five stores throughout the south east, including one in nearby Chertsey, so I started with that one, thinking that as a local author, it would be the best place to start.

The Manager turned out to a very helpful man, sympathetic to the needs of self published authors, and not adverse to dealing with them direct. It is of course though easier for everyone to deal with wholesalers and distributors rather than the authors supplying direct, so he was delighted to know that my book is one of the few POD books stocked by Gardners, and suitably impressed. He explained though that was about to go on holiday (lucky him) for a couple of weeks, and would not be back until mid November. He then asked me to call into the shop on his return with a copy of the book and other publicity materials. This then, when it happens will be my very first official face to face sales call.

I then rang their other two stores - Worthing and Gosport. Worthing were willing to talk, and asked me to send them information in post, but Gosport were not so helpful. The Manager explained that there is currently an embargo from their Head Office on ordering new titles, and I need to call back after Christmas. This seemed strange given the helpfulness of their other two branches, but I thanked her for her honesty and said that I would make a note to call in the New Year. It gives me time to hopefully get some decent sales in the Chertsey branch at least I suppose, which might persuade her to change her mind!

Following that I made some calls to Waterstones branches that I have posted stuff to in the last few weeks - Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth and Southend. Three of them said they not received it which is perhaps not surprising when you consider the recent Post Office strikes. They asked me then to email instead - the words bang and head once again sprang to mind ! Nottingham though were very helpful indeed; the Manager even promised to call me should he decide to order come copies - and he certainly seemed interested from our conversation. It is then once again a matter of wait and see.

After that it was time for lunch. I then decided to have a crack at Foyles, where I successfully obtained the email and direct telephone number for the Principal Buyer. An email then was fired off accordingly with the obligatory information sheet.

I then went round to the Post Office with the letter for Same Day Books in Worthing, and a review copy for Glastonbury Radio. Five minutes later Coran arrived home and we drove up to the view point for a well deserved cup of tea.

In between all this activity I have been posting on some writers sites to try and get some people interested in the new blog site - Conversations with POD. Tomorrow I will contact some of the writing magazines and maybe local paper, and get them to give it a mention, as that is one sure fire way to get people posting. The possibility of appearing in the new book may entice them even more. I may contact Grumpy Old Bookman again as well, and Jerry Simmons at the Nothing Binding project and get them both to mention it. I will be very surprised if Jerry's site doesn't produce some results.

How green does your garden grow ?

I didn't get around to writing this yesterday, not because the day was particularly busy, in fact, far from it. It was pouring with rain and miserable for most of, and I hardly really did a thing, well, book wise anyway. Well, actually, when I stop about this that isn't really true. First thing in the morning I sent that same press release that I posted on here the other day to all those branches of Watertones, I also an email from the Twickenham branch to say they would be ordering copies, since they are not a large store. You win some, you lose some.

After that then I had a dental appointment and since the surgery is next to my gym, I killed two birds with one stone (do you ever wonder about the origin of such phrases?) and went to the gym afterwards. I did not really have the energy to do too much though, so pottered home after less than an hour to prepare a nice big salad.

Coran was expecting a telephone call from one of his clients in Switzerland, whose website he is designing, and he was also waiting for a new desk to be delivered, so that meant that I had to stay in and wait for the door bell to ring, since with him being on the phone, he was unable to answer it ! I took advantage of my enforced captivity to explore some of the free press release sites, and posted the one I wrote the other day. I chose two sites to begin with, one UK based and one US and I will see if it has any effect. If nothing else then it will push me further up google. As I was working, an email came through from Richard, enclosing a copy of his correspondence with Robin at Gardners - it is all now set up, and Robin has ordered an initial 30 books to keep as stock. This is quite a reasonable number I feel considering - I must in fact have already gathered orders at least equal to this, although some of these may be from libraries, who will of course order through Bertrams instead. Talking of libaries, I need to go through that list and resend to those who have not yet responded. I also need to take a free copy of those first editions that I still have to Epsom library as well.

I was looking at the Gardners website yesterday as a matter of fact, just surfing like you do, and discovered just how unusual it is for them to take print on demand books on this basis. I really am extremely lucky then and also extremely grateful. Basically though, the guidelines on their website are as follows:

All publishers must be registered with Nielsen Bookdata, have a valid ISBN and visible barcode. For stock titles, the publisher must have UK Representation and the stock must be available from a UK location. In addition to this, to qualify as a stock line, books must be available as printed, rather than on Print on Demand. If your title/s meet all of the above criteria then you are asked to send a sample copy to their address in Eastbourne, clearly leblling it as such. The publisher will then be contacted to confirm whether or not they will list their titles (and this decision can be reviewed on performance), or whether they will stock them. Where it is agreed to stock books, Gardners will then discuss commercial terms with the publisher. Almost without exception, books from new publisher relationships will be taken into stock on a consignment basis (i.e. we hold stock and pay monthly on sales achieved). Other commercial terms (e.g. discount levels) will also be agreed.

As a general rule of thumb: all books that are held as stock lines are sold to the retail customer on a sale or return basis, whereas listed/non-stock lines (what they call special orders) and books provided as Print on Demand are sold on a firm sale basis.

So, there you have it. Hopefully the above information may help a few other brave print on demand souls who may read this blog and be inspired to enquire about getting their own on those terms.