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Sitting on the Shelf in a Borders

By Steve Lazarowitz

Hi there.

I'm a book. I've been sitting on this shelf in Borders. There are a whole lot of other books around me, you know. Millions even. And people are walking all around.

In the front of the store, there are a few sale tables. Fiction books, genre books, art books. I'm not there though. It's lonely here on the shelves. We don't get as many people back here, as they do up front. There are two copies of me here so I'm not quite alone, but the fact is, most people that come here buy what's most exposed. Most of the books on my shelf aren't selling, or even often looked at. I mean we're just two out of a million.

Now, maybe you might know one person that wants to buy me, but all 300 plus stores are stocking two of the titles. The buying isn't by store, it's by company, so if you sell four books out of the 600 they ordered, 596 are going to be returned and they'll not only never order another copy of me again, but likely they won't order any more titles by the same author.  Sort of sucks, doesn't it.

There are just so many books, and it's just a long climb up this hill.

Okay, it was silly writing this from the point of view of a book, but I was feeling silly, so I did it. In the meantime, what this says is true.  Most books that go to brick and mortar stores end up being returned for credit, not sold. But there is another side to the story most don't consider.

I picked this story up from the SFWA Handbook, at least the version I had.  It's the story of a pro print author who wrote a trilogy. The first book of the trilogy had a great cover and sold quite well. The second book of the trilogy, the managing editor was out of town during the production meeting and, as a result, the second cover sucked. Book sales plummeted. The big chains saw the drop in sales and barely ordered any of the third book at all and never reordered it, even though it was back to having a nice cover. The guy ended up getting dropped from his publisher for one cover. Now I'm not a "pro" published author. I didn't get a nice advance which almost all authors end up putting toward promotion. So if my book ended up in a Barnes and Nobles or Borders and actually got stocked in each store, I'd end up having no chance of selling enough to catch their notice and as a result, I'd find my future titles wouldn't be stocked either. And I'd be making less money on each of those sales I did make.

As for trade paperback, I tend to use the word large format paperback when talking with most people, cause it's more descriptive than trade paperback and generally gets the idea across.

I might lose a few sales by not being able to have my books ordered by a brick and mortar store, but those sales are minimal. As a person involved with epublishing since 1997, I've yet to actually get my first print book.  But I have sold. I have received royalty checks for over a hundred dollars on a couple of occasions. All I'm saying is, the thrill of having your book on a shelf for me anyway, is an ego thing and ego things are dangerous to authors. Very dangerous. Because we're all in it for recognition to some degree and when it bites us on the butt later on, it's never pleasant.

Frankly, one or two or five sales don't blow my mind. It won't make me or break me. And the population is getting more and more conditioned to buy stuff on line every year. It's just a matter of time and I, for one, am patient.

Mind you, if you were looking to get rich fast, you're probably in the wrong business anyway.

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Steve Lazarowitz (aka Master Nage) is author of
Dream Sequence and other Tales from Beyond
--Your Online Interactive Writing and Writing Resource Site Since 2001--

Sitting on the Shelf in a Borders

By Steve Lazarowitz

Hi there.

I'm a book. I've been sitting on this shelf in Borders. There are a whole lot of other books around me, you know. Millions even. And people are walking all around.

In the front of the store, there are a few sale tables. Fiction books, genre books, art books. I'm not there though. It's lonely here on the shelves. We don't get as many people back here, as they do up front. There are two copies of me here so I'm not quite alone, but the fact is, most people that come here buy what's most exposed. Most of the books on my shelf aren't selling, or even often looked at. I mean we're just two out of a million.

Now, maybe you might know one person that wants to buy me, but all 300 plus stores are stocking two of the titles. The buying isn't by store, it's by company, so if you sell four books out of the 600 they ordered, 596 are going to be returned and they'll not only never order another copy of me again, but likely they won't order any more titles by the same author.  Sort of sucks, doesn't it.

There are just so many books, and it's just a long climb up this hill.

Okay, it was silly writing this from the point of view of a book, but I was feeling silly, so I did it. In the meantime, what this says is true.  Most books that go to brick and mortar stores end up being returned for credit, not sold. But there is another side to the story most don't consider.

I picked this story up from the SFWA Handbook, at least the version I had.  It's the story of a pro print author who wrote a trilogy. The first book of the trilogy had a great cover and sold quite well. The second book of the trilogy, the managing editor was out of town during the production meeting and, as a result, the second cover sucked. Book sales plummeted. The big chains saw the drop in sales and barely ordered any of the third book at all and never reordered it, even though it was back to having a nice cover. The guy ended up getting dropped from his publisher for one cover. Now I'm not a "pro" published author. I didn't get a nice advance which almost all authors end up putting toward promotion. So if my book ended up in a Barnes and Nobles or Borders and actually got stocked in each store, I'd end up having no chance of selling enough to catch their notice and as a result, I'd find my future titles wouldn't be stocked either. And I'd be making less money on each of those sales I did make.

As for trade paperback, I tend to use the word large format paperback when talking with most people, cause it's more descriptive than trade paperback and generally gets the idea across.

I might lose a few sales by not being able to have my books ordered by a brick and mortar store, but those sales are minimal. As a person involved with epublishing since 1997, I've yet to actually get my first print book.  But I have sold. I have received royalty checks for over a hundred dollars on a couple of occasions. All I'm saying is, the thrill of having your book on a shelf for me anyway, is an ego thing and ego things are dangerous to authors. Very dangerous. Because we're all in it for recognition to some degree and when it bites us on the butt later on, it's never pleasant.

Frankly, one or two or five sales don't blow my mind. It won't make me or break me. And the population is getting more and more conditioned to buy stuff on line every year. It's just a matter of time and I, for one, am patient.

Mind you, if you were looking to get rich fast, you're probably in the wrong business anyway.

______________________________________________________

Steve Lazarowitz (aka Master Nage) is author of
Dream Sequence and other Tales from Beyond
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