One of the biggest challenges about arranging author events is deciding how many books to order. Especially when the event will be a large off-site event requiring you to move books to an out-of-store location and then move what doesn’t sell back again. You don’t want to under-order, because running out of books makes you look incompetent and means you will miss out on sales. But you also don’t want to over-order by any large margin, because then you’re paying chunks of money in return shipping when you send those unsold books back to the publisher.
Having played the event-ordering game for almost ten years now, I think I’ve got it mostly figured out. I generally err a bit on the high side, but usually not so high as to leave us in shipping payment jeopardy. Every now and again, though, I have to place an order for an event when I’ve got NO IDEA what kind of numbers to work with. And I recently faced what might have been my biggest event-ordering challenge yet.
Imagine for a moment that Mary Pope Osborne is doing an off-site event with your store, at a local middle school, and you’ve got to decide what quantity to order of each title in her Magic Tree House series, of which there are 40 fiction titles, and 19 non-fiction (the "Research Guides"). You know that, for each person in the signing line, Mary will (time willing) sign an unlimited number of hardcover MTH books but only two paperback MTH books. This suggests that, because so many families do own at least two of her books in paperback and are likely to bring them from home, you should order primarily hardcovers. But how many of each title? (Take into account the fact that the most recent MTH book was published four months ago, so there’s no hot-off-the-presses frontlist title driving hardcover sales at your event.) What about those people who don’t own MTH paperbacks but will want to buy them at your event? You can’t leave them high and dry, so you’d better order some copies of each title in paperback. But how many of each title? And what about M.P.O.’s non-MTH titles? How many of those should you order?
This all depends on how many people you’re expecting, right? Well, let’s say you have no clear idea of how many people might attend this event, because you’ve never hosted M.P.O. for an event before. You’re guessing the number could be anywhere between 400 and 800 people but guessing that the number will be close to the 500 or 600 mark.
So, let’s say there are 500 Magic Tree House fans at this event and 450 of them come with their own paperbacks from home. The remaining 50 people are each (possibly) going to purchase two paperbacks apiece. Are they more likely to want the first titles in the series or the most recently published titles in the series? Or do they have favorites in the series that they’ll want to buy? The same question applies to buying hardcovers.
Let’s say you order 100 boxes of books for this event. Question number one is, WHERE are you going to be able to store them in your bookstore between now and the event? Question number two is, how are you going to be able to GET all of those boxes to the event and how long will it take you to set up the book sales table? Question number three is, how many full-length tables will it take to display all of M.P.O’s titles in both paperback and hardcover? Question number four is, since you don’t have actual off-site cash registers that record ISBNs, how are you going to keep track of exactly which titles we’ve sold and in what quantity? Question number five is, HOW ANNOYING IS IT that the most recent paperbacks in the series are priced a dollar higher than all the previous books in the series so (grr!) you can’t just tell your booksellers that "all paperback MTH books except the Research Guides cost X"?
This hypothetical situation for you is (as you might have guessed) a real situation for me. And it’s a great one! Don’t get me wrong. We are THRILLED. Absolutely THRILLED to be hosting an event with Mary Pope Osborne this Valentine’s Day. In NO way should you interpret my deliberations as frustration with the fact that we’re doing this event. ALSO in no way should you doubt our ability to pull off this feat, as we’ve done events this large before and they’ve gone FLAWLESSLY. And had an adequate supply of books.
Nevertheless, let it never be said that ordering books is a walk in the park. Or a house in the trees. If my random stabs at numbers for this event come out looking squeaky clean, this will indeed feel a lot like magic!
I can so sympathise! I do organise children’s author and illustrator events, though most of them in schools (which brings it’s own deliberations). It’s hard to get the maths right and keep the author and publicist/publisher as well as the children and parents happy. In schools I often have to strike a balance between giving the pupils the opportunity to buy a book and get it signed, while trying to keep the school happy that this is not a money-making excercise! On the one side the price has to be low (parents don’t usually send lots of money to school), on the other I have to make sure the school passes on the information about the possibility of book sales to the parents (without appearing to be pushy). I have to take enough stock to keep supply up, without having too much left over, which might make the author feel as if her/his session was not worthwhile. Like you said, it normally works out, but it certainly isn’t as easy as it looks.
I feel your pain. When I ask how many books to order for an author app, our Events Coordinator always says “let me look into my crystal ball.” We hosted Mary Pope Osborne at a school offsite a few years back. Thankfully, Random House sent us all of her books on one handy spreadsheet and suggested quantities based on past sales. Of course we all know how those get exaggerated, but it was a starting point. The thing I hated most was data entry on all of those books – getting everything uniform in our inventory. You’d be surprised how many ways there are to abbreviate “Mary Pope Osborne” and “Magic Treehouse.”
Given the Valentine’s Day timing, It’s probably too late to do this now, but at the grade school my children attend, the kids bring home an order form ahead of time that we as parents have the opportunity to review and fill out. I would think this would give the book seller an “idea” of what titles are being requested most often. Good Luck! Wish we were in your area, as we would come to the event for sure! Big MTH fans here!
I’ve done a few tricky events as a buyer and what I’d do in this case is to use the publisher’s info to determine possible demand. The Random House website has a listing of the MTH titles in bestselling order. Not surprisingly, the most recent are at the top of the list, but then it goes to #1 (Dinosaurs), then Dragons, Polar Bears, Pirates, Knights, and Mummies. Also, it IS possible to give people too many choices! Limit the selection to just the series or take pre-orders for the research guides. As for storage, why not make the piles of boxes themselves an ad for the event? Plaster ’em with flyers and maps, and when the event is over, put up a small table with pictures of all the happy litte children and a few signed stock copies for the folks who missed out. Tracking sales is relatively simple. List how many of each title you took with you…. and count how many you bring back, or have a spreadsheet at the register to keep a written tally.
I appreciate all the helpful tips you wise commenters are providing but have unfortunately tried or currently do pretty much ALL of them. To DRP, we do send home order forms when we’re sending an author to a school for a school-specific event, but this is a public event on a Saturday (we’re hosting it in a school because that’s the only place with an auditorium large enough for a crowd as big as the one we’re expecting) so I’m afraid sending home order forms in advance of this event just isn’t an option! And, sadly, when we do send home school orders they frequently generate surprisingly few sales (to my endless frustration). To Charmaine, I play the bestseller game and do use that information to inform my buying numbers. It’s very helpful, and I appreciate your pointing that out to anyone reading here. As for excluding certain titles by a visiting author, though, we’ve often found that that leaves either the author or the author’s fans feeling unhappy, and it sometimes also means we miss out on sales, so we generally get the gamut. (At least for “big name” authors like M.P.O.)
And speaking of things that are frustrating, I’d just like all of you to know that the commenting “tool” just lost half of my previous comment, after much careful crafting! GRR! (Yes, my remarks above were twice as long as what you now see above.) So for those of you who’ve had trouble posting comments to this blog, know this — it’s NOT just you. Even the author of this blog can’t get past its finicky inhuman gatekeepers!! I’d recreate my words but am now running out the door to do what? Run another author event! (This one with Bruce Hale.)
Geez! I am SOOOO glad I don’t have to take something like that on! I’d be hysterical by the time the event happened! I’d be second-guessing myself every single minute until it was over! Good luck!
Comment from an author’s point of view… I’m not on ANY list yet and certainly not a big name. But I have done lots of events in the past 4 years. It’s been my experience that any event where either people have paid to be there such as an author luncheon, or the authors have an opportunity to speak, will result in more book sales. Events that don’t specifically cater to readers aren’t great. I did an off-site event at a winery in Myrtle Beach, SC during tourist season with 3 authors (one of us an NYT bestseller). People were there for their free wine and cheese. It was a total bust for both the authors and the bookseller. Bottom line? Another factor to consider when placing your order is whether or not the attendees are book people with money to spend! Oh, yeah. And authors HATE returns, too 🙂
I am starting to do big events, so I can begin to imagine what the author is talking about. It’s interested though, because my books are for children’s learning to speak (Speak With Me Books). However, people come for the free stuff…but then get interested in the product. So, I see it as a positive.
If I remember correctly most of the paperback MTH books come in boxed sets. I would offer a limited amount of sets and an extremely limited amount of individual paperbacks. I would order slightly more of paperback book #1 (for kids who are just becoming aware of her series) and the last paperback in the series. The concentration of orders would have to be on the most recent release (hardcover book). But timing is everything. Most of the MTH fans will already have her latest release by now and will want to bring in their personal copy to be signed.
O, I know this pain all too well. The only advice I can offer is that on occasion in the past, reps offered us help with return shipping payment (usually in the form of shipping some freebies to help cover the cost) to make it a little less painful to overorder. Don’t know if it’s too late now for this event, but maybe in the future?
This sounds like a complex, adult, real-life version of those word problems from high school math, but without the advantage of an answer key in the teacher’s edition! 🙂 Good luck, I’m sure the event will be a huge hit and the kids will have a great time. Let us know how it goes.
Allison, I just wanted to comment and let you know you did a FINE job yesterday with this event. There were more than enough books there to choose from and while we owned every MTH book out to date, because you chose to have her other works there we spent well over $100 on additional titles (not even expecting to have them signed due to the limits). We were the ones there with the Lego treehouse, and all in all the event was wonderful. Great job and thanks for such a wonderful opportunity!