{"id":17930,"date":"2016-02-12T08:05:44","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T13:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17930"},"modified":"2016-02-12T08:05:44","modified_gmt":"2016-02-12T13:05:44","slug":"when-to-canvass-booksellers-or-listen-to-your-sales-reps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=17930","title":{"rendered":"When to Canvass Booksellers, Or, Listen to Your Sales Reps!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let’s face it: publishing folks don’t have time or resources to consult booksellers on every book jacket or marketing idea, or to conduct post-mortems about why some books expected to do well instead flopped \u2013 but if they could, they might save a lot of money and sell more books. At the very least, they would gather fascinating intel on consumer book\u00a0preferences all over the country.
\nI was meeting with a sales rep yesterday, and we were talking about a new YA title from a debut author. It has a great cover and a promising premise, but doesn’t stand out quite enough that teens or their parents will be likely to shell out $17.99. It’s one of those books about which buyers\u00a0say to reps, “I could really sell this\u00a0in paperback.” But\u00a0because sales will lag in hardcover, the book risks not even making\u00a0it to paper. And if it does, the house might change the cover art, mistakenly thinking that was the reason\u00a0the book didn’t sell.
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\n(Note to those outside the industry:\u00a0Part of the reason books come out in hardcover first is that many review sources won’t review\u00a0paperback originals. This standard seems to have\u00a0relaxed somewhat in recent years, but it is still true that if a book from a major publisher comes out in paperback instead of hardcover, it can be seen \u2013 perhaps\u00a0wrongly \u2013 as a signal that a publisher is less committed to the book, or doesn’t believe its potential is as lofty.)
\nThis is where sales reps are invaluable to their publishers; not only do they do yeoman’s work presenting their lists to booksellers, but they gather responses from buyers in every region. Some publishers and sales reps are better about harvesting this data than others, but this is\u00a0information gold!
\nI also often think that if publishers, editors, art directors, and marketing folks fanned out across the country and spent a week in a variety of bookstores, watching indie booksellers do their handselling magic, recommending books themselves, and\u00a0\u2013 most importantly \u2013 paying attention to\u00a0how customers choose and respond to books, the industry would change.
\nThis also holds true for the schoolyard: if publishing people from CEOs and COOs to\u00a0acquisitions, editorial, and design staff spent a day or two in schools and on playgrounds around the country,\u00a0their view on what is published for children would\u00a0undergo a radical blossoming. There is nothing as instantly eye-opening as visiting\u00a0a classroom to booktalk a bunch of books to dozens of hopeful faces to make you realize where the gaps in your list\u00a0lie.
\nI think these kinds of field trips\u00a0would return a galvanized publishing group, with fresh and useful ideas\u00a0about which approaches to jettison and\u00a0with all kinds of energy for\u00a0new directions.
\nSo, to recap:<\/p>\n