Displays, provided by publishers, can be a cash cow for any store. We call these displays "dumps" (if anyone knows why, I’d love to know) and generally they’re a good way to sell books you love without having to handsell them to everyone who walks in. The mere act of having a display in a small store sends a message to your customers that you want them to notice this book, to pay attention to it and ultimately, to buy it.<\/p>\n
Dumps haven’t changed much in the 13 years I’ve had the Flying Pig. They are cardboard and designed to hold from nine to 48 books in a free-standing display. The only thing I’ve really noticed is they’re not as big or difficult to put together as they once were. I remember Swine Lake<\/em> by James Marshall came with a display that was so hard to put together I actually had two of my savvy teen customers put it together — it took them three hours, but when they were done, there was a stunning theatre that nestled the book within it. Pretty cool, but it was so big it took up a whole aisle. There’s nothing more frustrating than getting a display of a hot new book and it takes an hour to set it up. Luckily, most displays are not that hard to assemble these days.<\/p>\n While the displays aren’t as big, there seems to be this new trend of taking a display with a small footprint and surrounding it with with cardboard on the sides or the bottom. The purpose of this eludes me. The Lost Symbol<\/em> by Dan Brown came in a display that held 12 books in an unobtrusive way, but it has this wraparound piece on the bottom, which, by the way, is not where people look for information about the book, that keeps falling out, tripping people trying to get by and generally looks bad because it just doesn’t fit that well. It’s a good thing the book is so eye-catching or no one would notice it.<\/p>\n The Magician’s Elephant<\/em> display is great in that it holds a large number of books in a seemingly small display, but it’s encased with these side flaps that make it enormous and cumbersome. And it’s actually sort of funny that the book itself is slim and lovely and the display is HUGE. <\/p>\n The one for Julie Andrews’ Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies<\/em> works really well for several reasons. First, the display has a small footprint throughout. This book begs to be looked at and this display has a shelf that allows the you really look at the book with a place for the extra copies in the display. And, bless Little, Brown for giving you a display copy with the dump. Doing this is so smart, and publishers should take note of this. If you want your books to sell and they are either pop-up or gorgeous art books, give me an extra copy so customers can brutalize only one book before they buy one of the pristine copies.<\/p>\n Displays with side pieces that fit inside the boxes where the books sit is a bad idea. The reason these don’t work is the inside cardboard makes it tight to get the books out, often causing damage getting the books in or out of the display. I actually took the side flap off the Catching Fire<\/em> display because it was killing the books.<\/p>\n The display itself needs to be strong enough to hold the books without tearing or sagging. The Runaway Doll<\/em> display was great-looking, but the books were too heavy for it and after a short time the middle box just sort of ripped from the main display and couldn’t hold much of anything.<\/p>\n Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days<\/em> does everything right. First of all it’s bright, bright yellow and therefore hard to miss. Most dumps tend to be either red or black and for some reason they tend not be noticed as easily. Headers that are eye-catching and informative and tall rather than wide generate traffic to a display and they need to fit well in the display. The Wimpy Kid display info is on the top, where the eye looks for info, not on the bottom or the side. Lastly, the display holds a ton. This dump hold 48 books easily. And really, how else is any store going to display 48 books in a neat and appealing way? I think of every dump as an extension of my store. They are like adding a whole shelf to a section, and if used correctly, a good display of a hot book can make you money for months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Displays, provided by publishers, can be a cash cow for any store. We call these displays “dumps” (if anyone knows why, I’d love to know) and generally they’re a good way to sell books you love without having to handsell them to everyone who walks in. The mere act of having a display in a […]<\/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-496","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\/496","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=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
There are many great things about displays. They allow you to showcase a book you love without rearranging the store. They hold all the copies of the book you think you’re going to sell without needing storage. You are highlighting a book you love and letting your customers know that you think it’s wonderful. But as a bookseller you need to help the display. Refill the display as soon as it needs it. Nothing looks worse than a display designed for 12 books with only one book on the bottom. Take care of the displays. If they start looking ratty, get rid of them. Coordinate with the folks who do the buying and resist the urge to get every display the publishers offer. Too many displays can make a store look really cluttered and uninviting.<\/p>\n