I suspect this is not the first time I’ve complained about this, but I have to do it again this year. As I ready my store for the onslaught of the holidays, the back room is full to the brim with overstock, toys, and a myriad of things awaiting the flurry of restocking needs. In short, my mind is solidly on the holidays and being ready to have as many books and stocking stuffers as folks need. My mind is not on event grids or summer 2015 galleys. Yet, I find that every day I’m inundated with another box, or two, 
or even three, of summer F&Gs and galleys. One box even said: Open Immediately! and it was for a book that was coming out next July. The photo on the right was just what came in Friday: all of it is for Summer 2015.
Maybe I manage time differently than other booksellers, or perhaps it’s the nature of a small store without a dedicated buyer, but I’m finding a little oppressive to get things in from UPS these days because so much of it is for things that are six months away. Every day these boxes arrive and every day these boxes get shunted to a corner until I have time to deal with them. You know when I have time to deal with? January. Why can the publishing world not realize this and send these things after the holidays?
I am making a plea right now for all publishing companies: send these things just one month later. That’s all I want, one month where I don’t have to get things that are irrelevant to my daily existence as a bookseller. Want me to order more books for the summer 2015 season? Then send me things later. I would challenge anyone in publishing to work in a bookstore for a week during the final push of the fourth quarter, and then they could see how getting these things in late November or December is actually counterproductive to their cause.
And the event grids that are due at the end of this week are insane. There’s a grid that’s due tomorrow and another one on Friday. Filling out a grid actually takes time, thought, and a level of planning that I just don’t have at the moment. I know everyone has their own scheduling needs to meet, but surely, the publicity departments can wait until January 3rd to get a grid. By forcing a tight deadline on something when most stores are too busy during the workday to deal with it thoughtfully seems insane and ultimately hurtful to all involved.
So, publishers, please reconsider the timing on these things for next year and send us grid requests and boxes of galleys when they’ll be received with open arms and joy and not with a shaking head.
You are not alone, Josie. Yes, yes, and YES! In fact, it would also be helpful if publishers held off on shipping our St. Patty’s and Easter orders until the new year as well.
Amen. For a glorious three days the space under my desk was free of cartons. Then, in three days it filled up completely, and the sales rep had to sit sideways yesterday. There are no other square feet in the store to stash ARC’s, and we work continuously to manage the flow. Of course we need to see them, and we really do put them to work. I wish we had a better solution, such as spending less time on some of the non-productive activities that take us away from advance reading and selling.
I completely agree! And we do have a dedicated buyer — but she needs to be making sure our store is well stocked, well merchandised, and that all those last minute special orders are handled in time for the holidays. That publishers want us to deal with boxes of summer title galleys, grids to fill out, and schedule buy meetings between Thanksgiving and Christmas shows a total lack of understanding (I’d like to think it’s not lack of concern) to the realities of retail during this crunch time. Surely they’d rather have us making sure we get every sale we can at this time — not thinking about books being published in 2015.
I don’t send out promotional material until the book is published. Oh, wait, you don’t order any of my books, do you? That’s because most independent bookstores appear to ignore many worthy and independently published books in favor of whatever the big 5 send them. When you start ordering my books is when I will be interested. If you can’t be bothered to notify anyone what dates you accept these things, on your own head be it.
I don’t know what bookstores you shop at, but any decent bookstore stocks books from far more than “the big 5” — besides those giant publishing houses, there are also Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Scholastic, Abrams, Chronicle, Workman, Sterling, Candlewick, Sourcebooks, Harlequin, Disney, AndrewsMcMeel, Bloomsbury, Egmont, Norton, Algonquin, Running Press, Flux, Sleeping Bear Press, Enchanted Lion, Capstone, Dover, Godine, Cider Mill Press… I could go on and on — and we only sell children’s books. If you think bookstores are only paying attention to “the big 5,” then you’re not paying attention to what’s on the shelves at any good bookstore.
And leaving snotty comments on a blog post is REALLY the way to get booksellers to pay attention to you. Pretty sure anyone who reads this blog has now filed away your name on the eternal “don’t ever sell this person’s books” list. This is just one of the many things self-published authors do to alienate booksellers. Browbeating your intended audience never got anyone anywhere.
great post, responses (except for the first rather snarky one) and suggestions – is there anything else we can do to convince the publishers? I had the same clear floor space behind the counter that Carol had, but it’s full again, and we can barely get to the bathroom through the back room! I also agree with Summer about holiday books arriving months before it’s really appropriate to put them out, and would even vote to not have any new books arrive until later in January so we can complete inventory before we start adding to it.
Wow, this is 100% correct. Sometimes I think that because we are all of the same tribe, NY thinks we work by the same calendar. They have to remember that we are retailers. I have a similar hard time at NEIBA when I see a table (in October) loaded with ARCs that won’t publish until April. I understand why they are there, but we have to focus on the all-important 4th quarter.
I think the big problem is Barnes and Noble and Books a Million and the like (and Borders before them). They require the pubs to send the stuff so far in advance so they can design their table displays etc; I’m guessing that because of that, the indies are always going to have to be on the same schedule. I agree that it’s super annoying, especially in December. I think there would have to be some sort of lobbying from the ABA to get this changed across the board for indies, because it would be such a departure.