A Dangerous Weakness - and a lesson for newspapers to check their facts!

An interesting and somewhat misleading story has been circulating around the mainstream press this week, concerning 93 year old first time author, Lorna Page. From what I can tell, it started with The Guardian and rapidly spread to the other newspapers and radio stations.

After writing for most of her life, Ms Page has finally become a published author. This is no doubt a wonderful achievement, and one that she is justifiably proud of. The article went on to state that her book had been so successful and her advance so large, that she had been able to move from a modest one bedroom flat in Surrey, to a large house in Devon, worth over £300,000, taking several friends who had been in care homes, with her.

As Page says "Care homes can be such miserable places. You sit there all day staring out the window with no one to talk to. "I thought it would be lovely to give a home and family life to one or two people who would otherwise be sitting around there. It's nice for me too because at my age it's handy to have someone to live with. Now every book that sells will help towards making a home for someone."

She wrote her book, A Dangerous Weakness, three years ago, but like many authors, put it in a suitcase and made no attempt to find a publisher, until her daughter in law read it and encouraged her efforts.

I applaud her for doing this, and think it is very clever publicity, but there was one small problem. If you read the article carefully, it went on to say that her book was published by Authorhouse. As anyone in publishing will know, Authorhouse are the largest print on demand (self publishing) company both in North America and the UK, authors therefore pay them, not the other way round! There is then no advance. As for royalties, the book was only published a month ago, and because of the length of time it takes the publisher to get paid by the various stores and wholesalers who buy their books, plus of course the ridiculous returns system (not that this applies to most print on demand books), no author can expect to receive royalties until at least 3 months after publication. It goes without saying, that the author gets to keep the profits from any copies that they hand sell, through talks, book fairs etc or to friends.

I am quite understand why Ms Page decided to self publish, as let's face it, what 93 year old has the time to go through the agent/publisher cycle, waiting for up to three years to get published. She might be dead by the time this happens!

When the read the article again though, and look at the facts, something is clearly not right. While I acknowledge that certain sectors of the press do have a tendency to embellish (I have been at the sticky end of this myself), I was very surprised to see a newspaper of the calibre of The Guardian doing this. It is to my mind very sloppy journalism (it would not happen with the newsletter that I edit!), since the facts had clearly not been checked.

Having seen the original press releases, here and here, which make no mention of either a house or an advance, and understanding how the press work, it is easy to see how this could have happened. Newspapers tend to get their information from the various news agencies, whose websites press releases are posted on. Once one picks up the article, the others inevitably follow, until it becomes a game of Chinese whispers.

The article has since been corrected, but the damage has already been done. As The Guardian state: "The following clarification was printed in the Guardian's corrections and clarifications column, Friday August 15 2008 (today). In common with most other papers we reported that 93 year-old Lorna Page, "suddenly prosperous on the advance and sales" of her novel A Dangerous Weakness, had been able to buy a big detached house for herself and three of her friends. Aspiring writers (and house buyers) should note that her publisher, Authorhouse, is a self publishing company whose website states: "For a modest financial investment you can choose what you want for your book."

Their idea of a modest investment is clearly not the same as mine, as they charge almost twice what Richard does when you add it all up!

It is rather embarrassing to say the least, even more so for both Ms Page and Authorhouse. It is a tad misleading to say the least, and I get the feeling that her author advisor and whoever wrote that article will be busy cleaning up the mess (not to mention eating humble pie), for some considerable time.

The plot thickens when you realise that Ms Page's publicist Cate Allen, is none other than the daugher in law who persuaded her to publish in the first place. She is also published by Authorhouse and so recommended them to her mother in law (keep it in the family). Author and publicist have both gone on record stating that they have no idea where the story about the advance and royalties came from and pointing out that some of the newspapers "just made up facts". I can well believe this, but it still does not excuse what happened or why it took so long for the story to be corrected. I also to an extent feel that there is no smoke without fire, and suspect that one of these journalists must have spoken to Cate, as they must have got these ideas from somewhere. The article was too detailed for it to have been completely made up.

The BBC blog site has some interesting comments from listeners (dated August 12th) following an interview with presenter Chris Vallance, as well as author and publicist, indicating that their comments were taken out of context, so why did it take The Guardian another three days to correct the article which is on their website? Cate states that she is now making it clear to journalists what the true situation is, and how it has been misreported and is encouraging her client to do the same. I should think so too!

Getting stocked in book stores - updated edition

Following some comments made on the various writing sites that I post on, and one year on from my book being accepted by Gardners as a stocked title, I have decided to write an updated version of my original two posts from November last year on how to get stocked in book stores, thus bringing things up to date. Here then goes:

While smaller independent book stores may be happy to order direct from the author, increasingly they obtain their stock via wholesalers. In order to get stocked in book stores in the UK, you first then need to have an account with one of the wholesalers or distributors that stores obtain their titles from. It is also preferable that the books are actually stocked by one of these wholesalers, Gardners and Bertrams being the biggest players in the UK.

There are two ways that book stores obtain books from such wholesalers – the first as a special order, where copies are obtained direct from the publisher as and when they are needed. The publisher sends them to the wholesaler, who in turn sends them to the shop concerned. The second way is where the books are stocked by the wholesaler in their own warehouse and they fulfil all the orders direct. Wholesalers are quite choosy as which titles they take on board and expect all titles stocked by them to be available on terms of at least 55 percent discount (15 percent for them, 40 percent for the book stores) sale or return. This may not be a problem for traditionally self published authors, but print on demand titles are rarely available on such terms. Book stores then are often reluctant to stock such titles, unless they are local interest.

The guidelines from Gardner’s website state that Waterstones buy all their stock through them, but this is not entirely true. In order to sell to Waterstones it is necessary to have a trading account. To set this up, contact Independent Author Advisor Peter North by email mailto:peter.north@waterstones.com?subject=Waterstones%20Trading%20Application%20Form%20Request%20via%20www.gardners.com and ask for a Waterstones Trading Application Form.

The print on demand author will not need to fill in these forms, since their provider will have already done this. All you need do is contact Peter, who will verify that your book(s) is/are acceptable, and he will then email you a spreadsheet of contact details for all stores. Then it is up to you to get ringing.

When a book sells through Waterstones, it will come up on a report the following day. It is then the buyer’s decision whether to reorder it. If the book has been on the shelves for less than 3 months, in 90% of cases it will be reordered. If it has been there for between 3 and 6 months, then the buyer will decide whether it is worth ordering more. Generally speaking, a book needs to sell at least 3-4 times a year to remain in stock.

If your book sells in sufficient numbers then it may be taken on as model stock, where it is automatically re-ordered by certain stores. Waterstones also operate a core stock system, with 12 grades ranging from A-M, and 6 grades in Irish and Scottish stores. Books accepted as core stock have to by default be stocked in a certain number of branches; A for example means that all branches must stock your book, B ninety percent and so on. Any book that sells more than around 50 copies for 3 consecutive months is likely to get noticed anyway, but it is always worth persuading a particular branch that your book does well in to champion your work, and recommend it to the core stock team, recommending that it be stocked by more branches.

With Waterstones you contact the stores first and once you have sufficient sales, the book tends to get taken on as core stock, with Borders however it is very much the other way around. Official policy states that authors are free to contact stores direct, but in practise most staff do not seem to realise this, and refer you back to Head Office. It is a catch 22 situation, whereby stores only stock titles supplied via Head Office, yet Head Office only take on titles that have a proven sales history. They rarely if ever take on board print on demand books. While you may be able to persuade your local store to let you do a talk or book signing, you would in my experience be very lucky to get stocked in other branches.

To have your book considered as core stock, send a copy together with the usual information (information sheet, reviews, sales figures if appropriate, press coverage, press releases etc) and a detailed marketing plan - this part is very important as they do not take on titles that are unlikely to sell and it is your job to show them that you are going to work hard at finding and/or creating that market. Send the information to their New Press Department, Stillerman House, 120 Charing Cross Road, London WC2 HOJR. Please note that all business with authors and publishers is conducted by mail, and telephone messages and emails are not responded to. Unlike Waterstones, Borders do not supply you with a list of contact details, so you have to get all the details from their website, a time consuming process. They only have about 80 stores anyway compared to over 300 Waterstones, so this is a doddle in comparison.

The other way to get listed with them is to get booked to do a talk or book signing at one of their stores as I did. Be careful though that they do not list the book as local interest as it is likely to end up on the wrong shelf, and other stores further afield may be reluctant to order because of this.

It is easier than you think then to get accepted by these stores. The really hard work begins after acceptance, as you have to get out there and tell the stores about your book, persuading them to order. Nevertheless, this is something that the serious self published author has to grit their teeth and get on with. The key is to know your market, understand how the supply chain works and be professional and courteous at all times.

No one likes cold calling, but this is something that the serious self published author has to grit their teeth and get on with. The key is to know your market, understand how the supply chain works and be professional and courteous at all times. After my book was accepted by Gardners as a stocked title last August (2007) I rang each Waterstones store in turn. I aimed to ring at least 10 stores a day, and managed to get stocked in almost one third of their stores and many independents.

Despite the rise in the Internet, the fact is that over 90 percent of books are still bought from stores, this is probably then the most important piece of marketing you can do. After all, if each store orders just 2 copies, this adds up to several hundred sales over a couple of months.

How should one approach the book stores when do you get round to ringing them and is it really worth the time and effort that this entails? I mean, no one likes to receive unsolicited sales calls at the best of times, do they? In this situation the calls are not exactly unsolicited, as when one works in or manages a book store, talking to authors who want you to stock their books goes with the territory, that is why Waterstones have people like independent author advisor Peter North in the first place - to help and advise independent and self published authors and put them on the right track.

Actually I have found it to be the most worthwhile piece of marketing I have ever undertaken. It does take a certain amount of courage to do this, and you have to know your market and your product, but you have already done that, right? Or you wouldn't have self published in the first place would you? I sincerely hope you did your research anyway, as if not, I fear you will be in for one hell of a shock.

The way that I did it then was to decide firstly on how many calls to make each day. You don't want to rush this and call everyone at once, as for one thing you rapidly tire of doing this, and for another, if you say it enough times it does start to sound rehearsed. You want your pitch to sound as natural as possible if you are to be in with a chance. I aimed to make between 10 and 12 calls a day and no more than that. You will need of course though some means of recording what has been said and who needs to be called next.

The spreadsheet of Waterstones details that Peter sends you is read only so you will need to copy this into a format that can be edited. I don't have Excel on my machine so I use Works instead, which is a somewhat simpler to use. I added several columns entitled contact name, date and what was said, and then follow up columns with dates as well. Sometimes you may need to contact a store several times before you get a result.

In my case I started with the local stores within say an hour of home, and then started to work down the list country wide from A to Z. I was at a somewhat advantage here, since living where I do on the crossroads to three counties meant that there were/are a relatively high number of stores that could be considered to be local.

The whole process of ringing countrywide took around 4-5 months to complete, and has in all honesty been ongoing, since I continually have to make follow up calls and send emails to build up a relationship with my stockists.

Who you need to speak to will depend on the size of the store you are calling, and unfortunately it is difficult for you to know this until they pick up the phone and tell you! The best approach is simply to explain who are and ask who the right person to speak to is. I said something like this “Good morning/afternoon, my name is June Austin and I am the author of a mind, body and spirit book entitled Genesis of Man, I was wondering who the right person would be to speak to about getting it stocked in your branch.” Note that it is important to use the word branch, as otherwise they will assume you mean the company as a whole and give you a spiel about how you need to go through Head Office first.

The book seller will then do one of several things - put you through to the right person, tell you they are not in or ask you send them some information. Sometimes they will also try and tell you that you have to go through Head Office. If they do this, then politely explain to them that you have already spoken to their independent author advisor (mention the name as well as this always impresses upon them that you know what you doing), who said that you are free to contact any store that you choose direct.

When you do get to speak to someone, make sure first of all that you get their name and their position within the store (manager, book seller whatever). Also make sure that you know exactly what you need to say (have it written down as a rough script if necessary) and that you have the ISBN close at hand, as they are bound to want to know this so that they can look it up.

If you are very lucky and say the right things, then they may agree to order copies then and there, but they are more likely to request further information. Whether you choose to send this by fax, email or letter is up to you, but email is of course by far the quickest and cheapest method. If you do send emails, then make sure they are not overloaded with attachments as they will not get through the system. I sent them a standard email with a copy of my information sheet and a link to the book trade page on my own website which contained(s) reviews, sample chapter etc should they wish for further information.

Make a note of whom you spoke to and sent the information to, and call them in a week’s time to make sure if was received and see what their interest is. I used my Works spreadsheet in conjunction with Works calendar to record this information. It is a useful tool since if it happens for example to be the persons day off when you call, then you simply make a note to call them on the next available day, which you will see when you open the calendar on that day.

One tip I will also pass on is that if you speak to a manager or book seller and they say that they will mention the book to the section manager of your genre (children's or whatever), see if you can get that persons name as well. Then when you call to follow up, do not ask for the store manager but the section manager direct. Store Managers are busy people and nine times out of ten when they tell you they are going to do something they don't, because they forget or get distracted. Talk then to the section manager direct, who makes the final decision to buy and save yourself a lot of time.

When I do get orders I also always send out a confirmation email thanking the store for their custom and providing a link to my website should they wish to use reviews etc for promotional purposes. Like I said earlier, these stores do get busy, and sometimes they may tell you they are going to order copies and then forget, so sending these emails serves to remind them.

It takes time and persistence to do this right, but it is worth the time and effort involved, as the only way to get noticed is to have sales through the tills - sales made direct to the public via your own website, talks, book fairs etc do not count towards your sales records, as despite your best record keeping, according to the industry, these cannot be proved.

Fat cats spray on Borders territory!

Reading The Bookseller online, and the various other bulletins that I receive from around the publishing world, plus of course reading between the lines, Borders Books seem to be experiencing a lot of problems of late.

It started back at the end of June with the closure of their Croydon store. This was rapidly followed by the closure of Lakeside. Since these were both stores which had agreed to stock my book, I would ordinarily have been quite upset, but in both cases, the books have long since been returned. Borders, unlike some of their competitors, seem to return books which have failed to sell after exactly three months, which does not in my opinion, give them a fair chance, but then that is the company all over, and given my experiences, which I have detailed on here on many an occasion, I cannot say that I am altogether surprised at their difficulties.

These closures appear to be the least of their problems, since there are also changes afoot within the Buying Team, in fact the whole way in which they buy their stock is being re-structured. Three positions are being cut within the eight strong Buying Team, with all existing Buyers being asked to re-apply for their jobs. These changes, from what I can tell, have been brought about by the imminent closure of the company's supply base in Truro, and the decision to instead obtain stock direct from wholesalers, thus reducing book miles. At the moment almost all stock is obtained centrally, via Head Office, with the Buyers acting as the gatekeeppers.

On the surface this re-structuring would appear to be good news, since my book is of course stocked by Gardners, and as I discovered when telephoning most of the Borders and Books Etc stores, hell would have to freeze over before the company would ever consider supplying a print on demand book centrally. While Managers do have the ability to buy direct from local authors through wholesalers and the like, their idea of local is not the same as everyone else's, which seems to be living in the same, or the next town to where the store is based. Even though there a number of their stores within a hour or so's drive of where I live, most of them refused to order copies, and I was disappointed to find that those who did agree to, in most cases either failed to do so, or if they did, just put the books on the shelf and promptly sent them back again!

Trying to get through to the Buying Department on the telephone to see exactly what their policies were proved to be a total waste of time, as most of the time all I got was an answerphone that never called you back. When I finally did manage to talk to a human being, I was given information that contradicted what the stores had already told me, making it clear that the left hand did not know what the right was doing, and that those in store were for the most part clueless as to their own company's policies, and had basically lied through their back teeth, telling me what I wanted to hear just to get rid of me. It is safe then to say that my opinion of this company is not very high.

When I posted some watered down comments to this effect on The Bookseller website, some of the Buying Team read them and took offence, saying that I should show more compassion for them at this difficult time, and that calls from authors were really the last thing that they needed.

While I have every sympathy for those who may be about to lose their jobs (how can I not have when I am in the same position myself), I also feel that they are being rather short sighted. I work in retail myself (and let's not forget that book selling is just that - selling), dealing with difficult customers and awkward situations every day, that frankly I could also do without. But the point is, it is only because of these customers and their problems, that I have a job at all, it is why I am there.

As an author who wishes to have her book stocked in their stores, I am also a customer, and the reason that they are there. Their jobs only exist because of people like me who write books. They should therefore make the time to talk to people like me, and take a leaf from Waterstones book (no pun), who in total contrast, are always willing to talk, if not by phone, then by email, and whose buying policies are easy to understand, and more to the point, easy to obtain. If Borders clearly laid out on their website what their policies and submission procedures were then they would not have to deal with endless calls from the likes of me in the first place!

From what I can tell, a lot of their problems stem from the fact that the majority of their stores are on these out of town sites. People do not go to these sites to buy books, but to get the larger items such as electrical equipment, DIY and furniture. You have to make a special trip to get there and know what you want. Book selling though is about browsing and does not work in the same way. Because they are away from the High Street, they do not attract the passing trade and the lunch time shoppers, who like to browse, since the only people who work on these large sites are themselves shop workers, many of whom are on minimum wage, and simply cannot afford to buy books. Many of them are also part time, and do not get breaks in which to browse in the first place.

All the warning signs appear to be there, and given its problems and the curent economic climate, I would not be a bit surprised to hear of further closures over the next few years, and the eventual demise of this chain, within the UK at least anyway. I hope for the staff's sake that I am wrong. If I am right, as Graeme Neil predicted back in March, Borders loss will be Waterstones gain. Pity then they turned down my own application to work for them. Their loss in turn though will be someone else's gain.

In the meantime, Borders UK CEO Philip Downer has stated in a lettter to The Bookseller, that it is very much business as usual, and that despite the current economic climate and the company's re-structuring, sales remain healthy and strong. The number of events has increased and Borders have achieved their “best ever score on customer service quality”. “Our market share is robust and our ability to drive share of high-profile promoted titles, series and themes continues to be strong,” he said. In other words, they continue to demand high discounts from publishers, refusing to sell anything that does not earn for them at least twice what the author and publisher earn when put together. This may sound cynical, but I have been around this industry long enough to see through the hype and understand the language used. I also know that when you stick your head in the sand, all you see is an arse!

As one publisher commented, the letter did nothing to reassure with regard to the company's future, leaving them with no idea as to what is going on. I suspect if my own company are anything to go by, that the staff at Borders know even less. One publisher commented that “Nobody will be able to finalise Christmas or get next year underway until this is resolved.” This underlies the point that in today's climate no one can think that far ahead, as we do not know from one week to the next where we will be. This is the beauty of print on demand, that it allows you to respond so much quicker; the average commercially published book takes a year or more to go through the different production phases, but a POD book can be out in less than two months. I feel that the industry will have to start responding an awful lot quicker in response to this change, and that in time, print on demand will become the norm. That will certainly change the dyanamics between author, publisher and supplier.

In the meantime, I was astonished to read the other day exactly what Waterstones MD Gerry Johnson earns. It is a lot more than I get, that's for sure! It is nice to know then where the profit from my book sales is going - talk about fat cats!

According to The Bookseller, which seems to be my main source of information of late, Gerry was the third highest paid Director at parent HMV Group last year. Following his promotion to the main board, he earned a basic salary of £234,000, with an annual bonus of £360,000, taking his combined earnings to £595,000 in the year ended 26th April.

HMV Group Chief Executive Simon Fox, received £992,000 in the same year, inclduing a bonus of £498,000; and group Finance Director Neil Bright, earned £717,000, including a £360,000 annual bonus.

Johnsons salary although large by anyone's standards, dwarfs that of some within publishing, no doubt to the irk of book selllers anad authors combined. Reed Elsevier Chief Executive Crispin Davis was paid more than £2 million in 2007; Pearson Chief Executive Marjorie Scardino, took home a total of £2.3 million; John Makinson, head of Penguin, received £1.4 million; as did Kate Swann, head of WH Smith, and Bloomsbury Chief Executive Nigel Newton earned a total of £740,000.

The HMV accounts reveal that Waterstone's sold 75 million books in the year ending 26th April, with books accounting for 29 percent of HMV's total group sales, about £450 million. Over the period Waterstone's improved its sales by 5 percent to £564 million, with profit flat after incurring £1.2 million of start-up costs of the book hub distribution centre.

HMV reported that part of Johnson's bonus, £99,375, related to the integration of the Ottakar's business, of which a payment of £33,125 has been deferred for 12 months. It added that one-third of the directors' annual bonuses earned in the year was deferred for three years and would be payable in shares. Good job he doesn't work for Borders then, as in years to come they wouldn't be worth much!

A questionable practise

Going on from what I said yesterday re the Espresso Machine and how Blackwells are embracing this technology, I sent the information on this to Richard, who is of course the boss at Authors OnLine, and he sent an interesting response to the effect that in time this could cut out not only the middle men, such as wholesalers and the like, but also the POD providers themselves. After all, these machines hold the entire inventory for all books available through Lightning Source, the largest print on demand printer in the UK and North America (Booksurge take note), so it should be theoretically possible to bypass the POD providers and just print out books in store.

This may sound noble and full of appeal, but authors will always want and need to have paper copies to sell themselves, and also need the expertise and help that only an experienced publishing company can provide. Richard has many useful contacts who have helped me in various ways, whom I would not have had access to otherwise. It is true that I may have found other ways to form such contacts, but it would have taken considerable time and effort on my part, time which since I returned to work, is in short supply.

Print on demand is in the news this week in more ways that one, since Random House are embroiled in a dispute with some of their authors regarding new contracts for such books. This echoes the dispute in America last year with Simon and Schuster.

The controversy hinges on the definition of the term out of print in the new digital environment, since technically, as long as the publisher pays their annual fee to the POD printer to maintain their files, print on demand titles never are out of print. These new contracts state that rights will only revert back to the author if the publisher cannot supply a physical (paper) or electronic copy of the book within one month, or if there has been no royalty payment for one year.

In other words, the publisher may no longer be actively promoting the work, and may not have sold a copy in over a year, but as long as they can produce a book within a one month cycle, then the author is unable to terminate the contract. Print on demand may have its advantages, but a contract such as this will favour no one except the publisher, and certainly not the author.

A spokesperson for Random House said "When we acquire a new title, we commit to the author to do the very best job we can to publish and sell their book. Understandably, we believe we should have the right to continue to sell that book for as long as there is a viable market for it and responsibly take advantage of all new digital technologies. "We continue to work closely with the author and agent community to implement terms that are fair, but also reflect the fast-changing nature of the modern publishing industry."

What though is a viable market? I think that most would agree that a book has to sell more than one copy per year to be considered so. It does not take a genius to work this out. These proposed contracts then benefit no one except the publisher, who will do basically sod all, locking the author in to a contract which offers no benefit to them at all. They would from where I am sitting, be better off going to a POD provider like I did, and paying to have their work published, as they stand to earn a lot more money. Furthermore, most offer non exclusive contracts which state that if the author wishes to terminate the contract for whatever reason, they can do so with three months notice.

Random House have obviously learnt nothing from Simon and Schuster's example, and I think they will find that they too are forced to backtrack, as no sensible author or agent for that matter, would endorse these contracts.

News from the publishing world this week

There are several interesting stories circulating around the publishing world at the moment, not least of all that concerning the Amazon versus Hachette Livre dispute. The Times reports that the dispute is showing no signs of diminishing, and looks likely to drag on til at least Christmas, if not longer.

None of this is really news at all, since we all saw this happening a long time ago. It started with the abolition of the net book price agreement in 1995, and has got steadily worse since. Those within the industry warned at the time that this would bring nothing but disaster, so I am told (this was long before I began to write), but as per usual, no one listened.

The Times reports that back in the 1980's, a man with a background in the grocery business told a group of publishers: “In the trade I come from, if the retailer says, ‘Jump’, the supplier asks, ‘How high?’,” and the audience looked at him as if he were talking rubbish. Twenty years later, they know exactly what he meant.

Publishers admit that they should never have allowed discounts to get so high, but hindsight is a wonderful thing. The fact is that when an order from a retailer makes the difference between hitting and not hitting targets, and the consequences of rejecting that order is to see the business go elsewhere, then it is very hard to so no, even on such unfavourable terms.

This situation is not confined to publishing, as we see it throughout the retail trade - especially with the supermarkets and the shameful way in which they treat their suppliers - some of whom are forced to sell at a loss. Still, it is heartening to see such support from authors, across the board, it is in our interests really though, as the lower discounts become, the more money there is to pay us with.

It is as usual all about market forces - and what consumers are prepared to pay. It is the same old story, that the public want good quality goods and good service, but are not prepared to pay for it. I see this in my own job on an almost daily basis; it is why my company were forced to equalise shop and Internet prices earlier this month. The result of this has been that there is now so little profit on certain items, that it is hardly worth selling them at all without at least 2 add ons.

It is we are told business, and nothing personal. Tell that though to the members of staff at branches such as mine, who are being forced to close because they are no longer viable. Tell that to the children and dependents of those who work there. The Times states that any negotiator wants to screw out of the market as much as the market can take, but the fact that this happens does not mean that it is morally or ethically right, as everyone has the right to earn a living and maintain a certain lifestyle, where at least their basic needs are met (and beer and cigarettes are not basic needs). Book selling, in fact, publishing in general, makes very little money - Waterstones made a profit, so The Times says, last year, of 2.9 percent, while Hachette’s profit margin was 11.2 per cent. Are they then in a position to negotiate and dictate terms? Maybe not. I do know though that if we do not stop this slide, in retail in general, and not just publishing, then we will be hearing more about Amazon in the months to come, and it will not be long until they drive us all out of business.

Against this backdrop, it is somewhat depressing to read that Amazon has almost doubled its net profits over the last three months (ending June 2008) to $158 million. Sales of books, CDs and DVDs rose 31 percent, while electronics and general merchandise sales were up by 58 percent. City analysts report that the company are benefitting from high fuel prices, since consumers have less money for shopping trips and prefer instead to shop from home. Those consumers should try living here in good old blighty, where our petrol costs almost twice what theirs does!

On a happier note, it seems that the Espresso printing machines, which I mentioned on here some time ago, are finally set to arrive in the British Isles, being rolled out to larger Blackwells stores in the autumn. The machines - nicknamed the ATM for books, are capable of printing and binding books, while customers wait, in a matter of minutes, with a choice of over 1 million titles, many of which are rare or otherwise out of print.

The Espresso Book Machine’s backers claim that it combines the virtually unlimited choice of the Internet with the packaging of a conventional book, which has the potential to make the most obscure of titles easy to buy.

Many readers, especially students, and remember that Blackwells is the leading academic chain, complain that book stores are top heavy with piles of heavily hyped best sellers and celebrity dross from the big publishers, while the independent and small presses,including self publishers do not get a look in. This then will help to equalise things as never before, and can only be a good thing, for both authors and book buyers alike.

The machines, which are 9 feet long and 5 feet high (as I am also- high that is!), allow customers to type in any title that they want, and after seven minutes out pops the book, neatly trimmed and bound, for the same price as the equivalent book off the shelves.

The finished product is like any conventional paperback, although critics say that the illustrations are poor quality, and the books have a rubbery feel. As time goes on, I am sure these problems will be ironed out, and I am also sure that customers will be more than happy with the speed and convenience that these machines afford.

Other chains are less circumspect, stating that they will wait to see how the technology develops and improves, and how popular it proves to be with Blackwells customers.

Good news indeed, and one to watch. I for one will eagerly anticipate the arrival of the first machines, and if I find one near me, will willingly pay for a copy of my own work just to see how it does work, and what these books are like. I will report back on what I find.

Well Read?

Nick Daws, who runs my favourite writers forum, My Writers Circle recently posted on the forum asking members to come forward to be tagged on a meme (a kind of chain blog from what I understand) regarding what bloggers have and have not read. The list came originally from the US Big Reads Survey, the results of which are as expected, somewhat different to the UK equivalent. This is to be expected since they are different markets and Americans do have different tastes. It also helps to explain why so many US titles are listed, which were not necessarily as successful here. The list though seems to be sweeping rapidly through cyber space. I am not sure who to tag myself to pass it on, since most of my writing friends do not have blogs, so I hope the meme does not stop with me.

Here is what you are supposed to do:

1) Bold the titles you have read
2) Italicise those you intend to read
3) [Bracket] the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list on your own blog

Here then is my version:

1) Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2) The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3) Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4) Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5) To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6) The Bible
7) Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9) His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10) Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11) Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12) Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13) Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
14) Complete Works of Shakespeare
15) Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16) The Hobbit - JR Tolkien
17) Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18) Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19) The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20) Middlemarch - George Eliot
21) Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22) The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23) Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24) War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25) The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26) Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27) Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28) Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29) Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30) The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31) Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32) David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33) (Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis)
34) Emma - Jane Austen
35) Persuasion - Jane Austen
36) (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis)
37) (The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini)
38) Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39) Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40) Winnie-the-Pooh - AA Milne
41) Animal Farm - George Orwell
42) The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43) One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
45) The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46) Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47) Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48) The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49) Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50) Atonement - Ian McEwan
51) MISSING
52) Dune - Frank Herbert
53) Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54) Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55) A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56) (The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
57) A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58) Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60) Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61) Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62) Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63) The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64) The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65) Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66) On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67) Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68) Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69) Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70) Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
71) Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72) Dracula - Bram Stoker
73) The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74) Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75) Ulysses - James Joyce
76) The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77) Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78) Germinal - Emile Zola
79) Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80) Possession - A. S. Byatt
81) A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82) Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83) (The Color Purple - Alice Walker)
84) The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85) Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86) A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87) Charlotte's Web - EB White
88) The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90) The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91) Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92) The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93) The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94) Watership Down - Richard Adams
95) A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96) A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97) The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98) Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99) Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100) Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I make this a rather sad 16, which is a bit pathetic really. I am almost ashamed to say that I have seen more of these books as films, than read the books themselves. I am though a non fiction writer, so most of my reading in the last few years at least, has been non fiction, mostly alternative history and the like. I included The Bible in my list, since although I have not read the whole lot, I have read large chunks of it. I had to for my own book, although it is interesting in its right. Not enough to be included in the 'love it' category though.

Ditch the fat cats !

Job cuts seem to be being spoken of everywhere though, across all sectors of retailing. We often forget that publishing is retail as well, as it is ultimately not about printing, but selling books. It seems that all over the world, in both Britain and the United States, companies are struggling to come to terms with an extremely awkward and challenging environment, one that with a bit of foresight could have been foreseen and quite possibly prevented.

The regular Bookhitch newsletter that I receive says that there is an interesting story floating around that 50 or so years ago a mechanic somewhere in the western United States designed a carburetor that could get 60 miles to the half gallon while powering an 8 cylinder car. Rumour has it that a large oil company found out about this, bought the rights and paid to not only silence the mechanic but also made him sign a piece of paper stating that he would never design anything like this again, for the rest of his life. It wouldn't surprise me, as I have heard similar rumours about drug companies when cures for diseases are found.

This though just goes to underline the point that the solutions have been there all along, the problem is as Bookhitch put it, fat cats with chubby hands in the cookie jar.

The motor industry may on the surface look different to publishing, or for that matter the market that I work in, yet retail when it comes down to it, is retail, and no matter what you are selling, the problems and therefore the solutions, are the same. The problems though start at the top and trickle down. It is inevitably the case that those at the bottom who did not make the mistakes that led to the dire situation that so many retailers now find themselves in, are the first to lose their jobs. We are the ones who pay for our company's mistakes, and not those who actually made those mistakes, meaning that they do not learn from these mistakes.

Every year tens of thousands of books are wasted and pulped. Even though the technology is there to prevent this from happening (print on demand) it both abused and underused. Companies continue to use wasteful and outdated methods, paying lip service to the environment, until they are forced to make changes. This to me is pure nonsense and just does not make sense. Print costs are rising to such an extent that is now almost cheaper to use print on demand, and when it comes to quality the differences are negligible. Yet the publishing industry continues to rubbish this method, concentrating on the negatives instead of the positives.

It seems that in many cases, companies are unwilling to act until they are forced to do so. This would be after all be far too difficult, as it would entail the fat cat CEO's actually doing some work, to earn their obscene salaries. This would never do, as they would miss their round of golf and champagne breakfasts. I acknowledge though that not all companies are like this, and pressure from the public is making changes. I cannot speak for the company I work for, since I do not read the city news (far too depressing) and know what the CEO or MD earns, I do know though that my Store Manager has not had a pay rise that is actually worth anything in 3 years, and that the rise I have been awarded (3 percent, and bear in mind that we earn only 1 penny more than the minimum wage, although this is also set to change, no doubt after I have left) is less than the rate of inflation.

What is the solution? I cannot speak for my sector, which I fear is doomed, unless you work in a superstore, but publishers have to stop printing such high runs and remember that it is only the minority of books that become best sellers. Some books written by well known authors may well need high print runs and even second and third runs, but the majority do not. When you see the amount of books on sale in the bargain bins and in remainder shops such as the Speaking Tree, how much did these cost the publisher and author in terms of lost revenue? How much money, ink and paper has been wasted in the last year that could have been put to better use in actually promoting the books and helping them to sell, and also in paying staff and authors decent royalties, not to mention supporting new authors and giving their work a voice. Could those savings have saved or even created jobs? Maybe it is time to re-think what Bookhitch refer to as the three letter word - print on demand. Maybe it is also time to re-think the absurdly outdated notion that books must be returnable.

People in positions of power think that they are invincible (think Amazon) and resist resolutely anything that they perceive as challenging their position, keeping everyone else down. It is though in times of hardship that those who are at the bottom have the chance to excel and show their mettle, as when the going gets tough, the tough get going. I have proven this ten times over with my own attitude these last 12 months. We should then look to the bottom rather than the top as to how to improve things, going back to the floor, as this is where the action takes place. We are the ones who do the jobs and the real work, so we are the ones whose ideas should be implemented and put into place, or at the very least, looked at. We cannot do a worse job than those who are already in charge.

Perhaps we should also take a leaf from Michael Garibaldi's book, a character from Babylon Five. When he inherited a large research company and sacked the Board of Directors for plotting to kill both him and his wife, and embezzling the company, he replaced them with a team of individuals who had done nothing but complain about how awful the company was, figuring that they were the ones who should be listened to. Mr Garibaldi sounds like my kind of boss, and if some of mine had been more like this, then by now I would be one very happy and fat cat!