New Poems Page

With my renewed focus on time spent writing I have recently completed a new mythological poem entitled Then came Thor, beard aflame. It can be found on the Poems by J.A. Clemens page, a new addition to the blog!

Reading vs. Writing

Recently I made a conscious decision to redistribute the amount of time I spend reading versus the amount of time spent writing. I have felt somewhat stymied in my writing lately and find it necessary to commit more time to that pursuit. Unfortunately devoting more time to writing entails reducing reading time. That decision is evident in the lapse between posted reviews. Bottom line: less reading, fewer reviews, more writing. Time to test the formula.

Book Buyer, pt. 2

Becoming a Book Buyer has had steady hits over the past 15 months, making it one of the top five most viewed posts on my blog.   Enter the phrase as a Google search and my post is one of the top results.  Given the level of interest shown and the economic downturn, I decided to post an update.

According to an Association of American Publishers report book sales dropped 17% in March and are down 6.8% year to date.  Many stores are surviving by cutting costs, and a few are even thriving.  No, I’m not talking about Barnes & Noble, which had a net loss of $2.1 million in the first quarter.  Books-A-Million fared better, with a net increase of $2.1 million, although their sales were a tenth of Barnes & Noble’s and they were not obligated to pay a CEO her salary during that span.  But regardless of first quarter performance, there aren’t many options for becoming a book buyer at a corporate bookstore.  I am talking about the independent bookstores that have developed unique identities and are located within communities that have rallied around them.  These stores won’t compete with the chains when it comes to total sales volume, but they do offer the best opportunities to become a book buyer.

A successful independent bookstore will already have a qualified book buyer who is instrumental in the store’s success.  Ideally one would become an assistant buyer in such a store, learning the trade from an experienced hand as a modern apprentice.  There aren’t many openings for assistant book buyers in this market, not when stores are forced to scale back on inventory and personnel in order to offset declining sales.  The trade book department in our store had to cut two full-time positions, including the buyer position.  As such I am being reassigned as a textbook buyer.  I am fortunate to work in a store with that option, as opposed to the limited alternatives other stores are currently facing.  When I started working in the store there wasn’t a trade book buyer position.  Now that it has become untenable I’ve been given another book buying opportunity.  I’ve only had these opportunities because I was hired to run the candy counter.  You have to get your foot in the door, even if that means working as a barista in the cafe.  You may need to gain some experience working in a chain store before moving on to an independent store.  You have to work your way up.  In my case that is both figurative and literal, as the textbook department is on the second floor of our store.  I’ve gone from one end of the conveyor belt to the other!

The Dark Fantastic

Congratulations to Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory (see review posted 9/8/08) and The Resurrectionist by Jack O’Connell (see review posted 3/26/08) for making the short list of the Shirley Jackson Awards, given for “outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.”  My kind of books!  See the full list of nominees on the Shirley Jackson Awards blog.

Remembering Henry Hubert

Consummate gentleman, book sales representative, and friend Henry Hubert passed away last Saturday.  I only had one opportunity to meet with Henry before he retired from a career in books that spanned half a century, but even that one meeting was memorable.  Henry introduced me to The Irony of American History by Reinhold Niebuhr, as he introduced numerous buyers to countless gems over the years.  In a previous post I wrote that Henry was retiring from his impressive career due to exorbitant expenses.  That was a saddening loss; this is awful.

Hand-selling Books

Like Steve Carell’s character in “Dan in Real Life”, bookstore employees pride themselves on hand-selling books.  Unlike Dan they do it for a living, but that doesn’t necessarily preclude romantic entanglements similar to the one that made the movie so enjoyable.  The nature of hand-selling is getting to know the customer’s preferences and introducing them to a book they can fall in love with, after all!  Sales reps from publishers provide the same service to bookstore employees, making recommendations based upon each store’s unique clientele.  This requires developing a personal relationship that goes far beyond ad copy in a catalog.  Some of our reps have forged those candid relationships with us, only to have them sundered by the current retail climate.  Henry Hubert, the independent rep who shared with me The Irony of American History by Reinhold Niebuhr, was forced into another line of work when his expenses exceeded his income.  It’s not just the independent reps who are cutting back, however.  Scholastic cut Dawn Kehret’s position when they couldn’t get enough volunteers for early retirement.  Larry Yoder was forced to retire a year early by MacMillan.  We will get new reps who may be every bit as enthusiastic and capable as Henry, Dawn, and Yoder, but they won’t have the same rapport with us.  They won’t have as much time to develop that relationship, either, now that they will have larger territories to cover.  We still have John T. Lake as our Pearson rep, but he is now responsible for every account west of Chicago as a result of restructuring.  This does not bode well for the publishing industry.  Books need publishers, so the houses must be fiscally responsible, but bookselling needs the personal touch, too.  Hand-selling books is absolutely critical in lean times, at every level.  We’ll miss you, Henry, Dawn, and Yoder!

Upholding Tradition

Commencement is just a couple of days away, so traditions are a big focus at the moment. One tradition we are currently upholding is promoting Oh, the Places You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss (this is the book that Michael Scott attempts but fails to buy for his new boss Ryan on The Office). We have an appropriately Seussian ostentatious display set up for the promotion, and the book is selling for us. In counter-intuitive fact, traditional children’s books sell rather well for us, even though we are a college bookstore. Some popular titles do well for us as well (we had a tremendously successful Harry Potter release party last summer), but we can’t move the Gossip Girl books despite our coed customer base. That may be because they are embarrassed to buy You Know You Love Me along with their textbooks, or it may simply be that they aren’t the customers buying children’s books in our store. Children’s is a top five category for us however, so we know someone is buying them! Considering the success we have with traditional children’s titles, it seems reasonable to conclude that it is our university staff and faculty who are purchasing books for their kids and grandkids. In some nostalgic cases, they buy their own replacement copies of the books they loved in their youth.

With that in mind, I have been scouting catalogs for traditional titles to stock, and I’ve had some success along those lines. I brought in three copies of a new lavishly illustrated volume of The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame (Palazzo Editions, $19.95), and two copies have already sold.

Lesser known among my own generation are the Flicka, Ricka, Dicka and Snipp, Snapp, Snurr series by Maj Lindman (Albert Whitman & Co., $6.95), but we have received some requests for them. Initially I ordered one copy of three titles in each series, and two of the Flicka, Ricka, Dicka books were gone two days later! I have since ordered in the full lines of both series. I’m still on the lookout for more traditional children’s titles, if anyone has recommendations for me!

Introducing Robyn Scott

“The posters were all hung in the Union with care,

In hopes that Robyn Scott soon would be there!”

Robyn Scott, author of Twenty Chickens for a Saddle, will be speaking in the Saltair Room in the Union Building today at noon! Don’t miss out on this opportunity to meet a fascinating woman before she literally boards a plane back to London! Click on The Bookmark at the U link under my blogroll to read the guest blog she wrote for our store. At the bottom of the blog is a link to the podcast we produced to announce her appearance. Today’s the day!

Print-on-Demand won’t bow to Amazon’s demands

In response to Amazon’s demands that print-on-demand titles sold on their site also be published by their in-house publisher, PublishAmerica has cut prices in half on their own site. That means now is a terrific time to order a copy of Orlando and Geoffrey!  Never heard of it?  Never fear!  Click on the page Books by J.A. Clemens for more details.  Then click over to PublishAmerica and place an order before the sale ends on Monday!

Lost in Books

This tends to be a busy season for a book buyer – it is for me, at least. We’re in the process of culling our inventory for the books that haven’t been selling as well as combing catalogs for books we think will fare better. Between the stacks of incoming catalogs and cart loads of clearance crammed into my work space, it’s pretty easy to get lost in the books! At home I’m usually reading a book, so my family acts like I’m not there. It’s as if my body is entombed at work and only my ghost makes it home!

There is a character in The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (available soon in paperback) known as the boundary maven who ensures that the ultra-orthodox Jews of Sitka, Alaska do not cross any figurative or literal lines on the Sabbath. By creating, mapping, and maintaining a collective of eruvs the boundary maven is able to accurately guide the Verbovers through the world they inhabit. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is a book with so many layers I found myself wishing I had a book maven to help me keep it all straight!

I’d really like a book maven to assist me with all of my many catalogs, too. Typically I have an account rep going through the catalog with me, which is great, but what I need is one maven who knows all of the catalogs to keep me from getting lost in world of books I inhabit. Then a realization settled gradually and inexorably on my shoulders: I am my customers’ book maven. This is a significant responsibility, and one I do not take lightly. You’re in my world now!