One of the great things about last week’s Winter Institute was getting to know some of my fellow Vermont booksellers a little better. I spent a fair amount of time talking to Becky Dayton, owner of The Vermont Bookshop, about business and books. Yesterday, Becky emailed me about sales reps and her idea about getting reps back into Vermont.
\nThe email from Becky was very intriguing: “I had a wacky idea of trying to organize a day of rep appointments for multiple vendors and stores in a central location. Kind of a la “speed dating,” but writing orders…” This is not a wacky idea, this is really smart business. Vermont, especially Northern Vermont, has felt the loss of in-person reps for many years now. Please know, I am not maligning the phone reps I’ve worked with, they’ve been great. But there is something about meeting face to face, preferably over a meal or coffee, that can really build a relationship that’s mutually beneficial.
\nImagine, if you will, a room full of eager buyers from up to five stores in Northern Vermont, listening intently to sales reps from some of the big publishing houses: Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, and Hachette talking about their books. Then each rep would meet with one store at time while the others mingled, had some pizza and maybe even a beer. This could turn a buying session into something fun and memorable for all involved. I have a gut feeling the orders would be larger because the buyers would be more relaxed. Plus, there is something really great about getting together with other booksellers. So often we feel like we toil in solitude, that when we can gather and share, it’s invigorating.
\nI have heard of some reps who have done this sort of thing, occasionally, but wouldn’t it be fun if it could be done three times a year? Pick a different store each time, different take-out, pizza, Chinese food, or sandwiches and a bunch of buyers who normally work in isolation, some in basements, actually getting together and talking to peers about books. Not only could they talk about books, but maybe event planners could come to these meetings and together they could work with publishers to bring authors to their state who might not otherwise visit. I’ve always imagined a Vermont tour that could be designed for ease of visiting as many stores as possible with a minimum of fuss. The beauty of Vermont is there are very few independents close enough to compete with each other (this is especially true of Northern Vermont), so authors could conceivably spend a week driving in our lovely state, visit upwards of 10 stores and never overlap with any customer base. That’s a pretty good deal, and it’s hard to explain that to folks who haven’t already driven around our fair state.
\nI know that publishers are facing deep cuts and they are trying to save money by not sending reps on the road, but the lack of in-person reps affects my business. For instance, Simon & Schuster took my rep away and then I bounced around last year with two different phone reps. Now, finally, I seem to have one who’s going to be my rep for a while. I like Stuart very much, but I think it would be so much more meaningful for me if I could have a coffee with him and get to know him as a person, not just the nice guy on the phone who knows books.
\nSo, I’m hoping that the publishers will take up Becky’s idea, set a food budget, work together and let us buy our books in person again. If this happens, I’ll even buy the beer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the great things about last week’s Winter Institute was getting to know some of my fellow Vermont booksellers a little better. I spent a fair amount of time talking to Becky Dayton, owner of The Vermont Bookshop, about business and books. Yesterday, Becky emailed me about sales reps and her idea about getting reps back into Vermont.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}