Last week Parable Group, which is a consortium of independently-owned Christian bookstores throughout the United States, released their report, “2024 State of Christian Retail.” As I studied the results of their survey of booksellers, I saw lots of bookstore …
Bookstores
Bookshop.org: An Online Alternative to Amazon
Bookshop.org’s founder and CEO, Andy Hunter, could be viewed as prescient. The bookstore site launched in January 2020, just before COVID forced physical stores to lock their doors. Before Amazon downgraded the priority of shipping books and upped the priority …
How Book Buyers Decide What to Stock
I find it helpful to read articles written for book buyers. Gaining insight into how they think about what to stock in their stores helps me to understand the supply chain. The more I understand what stores are choosing to …
How Readers Discover Books
One of the biggest challenges for an author, a publisher AND readers consists of the increasing difficulty of matching a wannabe reader with the type of book he or she is looking to buy. A new survey recently was conducted …
The Lost Art of Hand Selling
At a recent staff meeting, Janet Grant filled us in on a Bookspan/Publisher’s Marketplace webinar she attended a week or so ago. She took great notes on many topics but one point stood out to me. The presenter observed that …
Coronavirus and Publishing Update
In conversations with our agency’s clients these past couple of weeks, each one has asked me how the coronavirus affects publishing. We, of course, don’t know the long-term affect. But I thought I’d update you all on what’s happened so …
The Demise of Book Collecting?
By Wendy Lawton
Books as disposables. Nothing could be sadder.
Did you catch the the suggestion regarding books reportedly made by Marie Kondo, the organizing guru who hosts the Netflix show, Tidying Up? I read that she suggested that, ideally, …
What Does a Book Sales Rep Really Do?
Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Most publishers maintain a sales team (or hire a team other publishers are using as well), with each member responsible for calling on his or her accounts. “Calling on” can mean making phone calls or physically …
Publishing’s Greatest Challenge Might Surprise You
Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
In the October 2 issue of Publishers Weekly, the publication revealed the results of its annual salary and jobs survey. One of the questions the 442 respondents answered was, What is the #1 issue facing the …
Should a Bookstore Censor Books?
Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Recently I read an article in Publishers Weekly about a panel held at BookExpo that discussed how a bookstore, especially an independent store, should respond to books that might offend their political or moral principles.
This …