The first time I met Nicky, she was the West Australian sales rep for Hachette/Affirm Press. I had only been working at Dymocks for a matter of months when my boss called me into the back office where Nicky handed me my book. MY book.
It was a mock-up containing only five profiles instead of 30 and it had a softcover rather than a shiny hardcover, but it was my book with my name on the cover.
I almost died then and there. Here’s the photo to prove it.
As I mentioned in the last post, not every book is available in the physical form when the publishing house reps meet with booksellers, so I was fortunate that Affirm Press gave my book the additional boost of providing booksellers with a physical copy they could see and touch and hold. I’d also had the opportunity to speak with the entire sales team via a Zoom call, an opportunity not all authors get. I was able to explain the personal story behind the book, something they could then share with bookshops when it came time to sell. So Brilliant Minds got two added boosts that many books never get.
Affirm Press is now represented in WA by Angela Stannard of Stannard Agencies, who also reps for Allen and Unwin and Thames and Hudson, while Nicky is still the Account Manager for Hachette.
I asked both Nicky and Angela if they could share a bit of what it’s like to be a publishing rep…
Both reps visit around thirty bookstores, educational and library suppliers every month. Each visit ranges between one and four hours, and will depend on a number of factors including the individual store’s buying process and how they like to process their orders.
Rather ignorantly, I had assumed that publishing reps would read all the books they were trying to sell to bookshops, until Nicky informed me that each month she will rep up to 500 titles.
So how can she possibly learn about that many books I wanted to know?
“We have a Head Office Microsoft Teams meeting at the beginning of each month highlighting titles to focus on. We receive sale points, blurbs, author details, previous sales history, comparison titles, advanced reading copies and manuscripts. I take 3 to 4 days to learn my list” – Nicky
Now, I’m a writer not a mathematician, but it’s clear even to me that doesn’t allow a whole lot of time per book. Even if the rep didn’t take a breath (which they do) and the bookstore owner didn’t interrupt to ask questions (which they do) and they didn’t stop for a coffee (which they definitely do) you’re looking at an average of 30 seconds per book. And that’s for the long sales meeting.
So it’s clear that the sales rep need to curate their sales list for each store, spending more time on some books and less on others. Angela explains:
“I go through all the books, give them all the relevant information and we decide if the books are going to be right for their market. It depends on their location and what kind of a bookshop they are. For example, a book that sells well in Midland may not necessarily sell well in Claremont.
We look at the subject, if it’s a local author or Australian, what kind of publicity it will have, if it’s relevant or zeitgeisty. We then might look at the format and the cost. A great jacket can make a big difference as to how a book is received too.
Bookshops do have a kind of personality. A chain store is often very different from an independent. Within chain stores, it can also depend on the management or owner as to its own personality” – Angela
But rep visits aren’t all just talking about new titles either. Part of the visit will include talking about the previous month, looking at sales figures and what worked or didn’t work. It’s a constant, ongoing process of fine-tuning the list so that the books the reps recommend to each store are going to be successful.
There are two points here I want to make.
The first is to point out that while it might seem like the reps have a big job learning a list of up to 500 books each month, can you even begin to imagine how many books pass over the desk of the individual bookshop each year? There are dozens of Australian publishing houses of varying sizes, not to mention internationals… and I can’t begin to imagine the stress of choosing a relatively small number of books each month.
Secondly, this explains why the phrase ‘available in all good bookshops’ is a furphy. It’s physically impossible for every book to be available in every bookshop, and for writers, this is something they need to come to terms with.
Because I work in a national chain bookshop, it meant that when my book came out, I could see which of the other stores stocked my book. I won’t pretend I wasn’t surprised to see that only a handful of the stores held copies of my book, and those that did only had one or two copies. A more accurate description of my initial reaction might be mortally offended. But this was before I got to listen in on the rep meetings and learn just how many books they had to share month in and month out. It’s a really tough gig.
While it would be awesome for authors if all publishing house reps could sell every book to every bookshop, it’s simply not going to be possible. Logistics are against us. There’s not enough time nor space on the shelves.
So the next best option is the fact that good publishing reps know their individual shops well enough to know what will sell in their shop, and what won’t.
As Nicky says: “Building good relationships and spending time finding out what works and what does not for each store is most important. Our main objective is to make sure we keep returns low and pick the books that will do well on a store-by-store case.” [I will discuss returns in another post].
So many factors go into the personality of a bookshop, including the location, the customer base and demographics of the area, and the ‘specialty’ of the store. Even the individual staff of each bookshop can play a role, because most booksellers have a few preferred genres they like to read, and favourite titles they are more likely to hand sell when customers come in looking for recommendations.
So, not only are publishing reps thinking about books they can sell to the booksellers, the bookshops are looking for titles they think their staff can sell to their customer base. At every step, books are being curated.
So what does that mean for writers if we can’t be sure that our books will actually be “available in good bookshops everywhere”?
First of all, it’s worth remembering that even if booksellers don’t stock your book, customers can always order it in.
And next, it’s important to accept that apart from writing a universally loved, best-selling book that wins both critical and popular acclaim [I will discuss how to do this in another blog… just kidding], there is little we can do to influence the decisions of individual book reps.
But there are other ways, says Angela.
“My advice these days is to make sure you have an active social media and engage with the reading public. This includes bookstores, other authors and publishers. Keep in touch with your publisher/publicist and make sure to take all the advice that is given on board. The more you engage the easier it is to work together as a team to get your book on the shelves and selling. Be prepared to do whatever is needed to get your profile out there.”
There’s also the case for contacting as many bookshops as you can in your city and offering to sign books. If they have your books stocked, then it’s great PR for the bookshop and the author to take some happy snaps and share them on everyone’s social media. If they don’t have copies of your book, it may make them reconsider and at least puts you on their radar.
shannonmeyerkort.com 