Didn't That Rep Night Happen a Month Ago? Part One

Yes, yes it did.

I had promised to write up some of the picks afterwards, breaking one of my major rules--never promise anything or you will mess up.

It went fairly smoothly. The food from Beans and Barley was delicious and we had just about the right amount. Scratch that--I over-ordered salad. One next time is plenty. There was a little poppy seed torte leftover, but nobody seemed upset about that. It went the next day.

Oh, another problem was that I lost one of the handouts. In retrospect, it was good I lost John's, as he already wrote a blog piece on his rep presentation. John sells books from Harvard, Yale, and MIT. Among his picks:

The Atlas of Rare Birds, by Dominic Couzens. A lovely photography book that documents who they are and where to find them. And John points out the amazing price point on such a nice package--$29.95. It's all about the international printing, I guess. Sometimes you can also find a nonprofit to underwrite some of these things. That's how they got Mary Nohl and Wisconsin's Own so reasonable. At $45, its actually quite reasonable, especially as it wasn't printed in China.

Pride and Prejudice, an Annotated Edition, edited by Patricia Meyer Spacks. Do I also have to say written by Jane Austen? Needless to say, there was much oohing and ahhing over this. John was a little concerned over trim and price point, but it's actually quite close in both to the Norton series. If you don't know already, the president of the American chapter of the Jane Austen Society lives in Milwaukee. Her term is coming to an end, and she's hoping to use her extra time by reading more classics (eventually I hope to post on her controversial definition of classics).

Best Technology Writing 2010, edited by Julian Dibbell. If you come to our store a lot, you know we keep all the best-of-the-year anthologies together on an endcap. It is shopped often and sells a lot of books. Most of these books don't tend to sell too well in their sections, except for maybe Best American Short Stories. This year the BASS dump was very nice, but cardboard, so we went back to our rack and changed the header. John's entry is not "American" and it was only when I looked carefully when I realized how many of them are. Really? No Peter Carey or Emma Donoghue or any number of other authors allowed? That's another good idea for a post, checking the nationalities of every contributor to Best American Travel Writing.

Want to read more about John's picks? Visit his blog, Paper Over Board.

It's been so long that I can't remember the order. Here's a bit from Joe's list. Joe is our Penguin Hardcover rep, and he was notable last year for convincing us to put The Power of Kindness on our impulse table. We have sold over 100 copies of this book, and I'm surprised that every store in the country hasn't followed suit. Though I'd like to claim otherwise, our customers are likely no kinder than those at other bookstores. I know this is an odd thing to say in a blog post from an independent bookstore, but if a national chain store mover and shaker is reading this, I would suggest you try it without a table fee; you will likely make more money than putting a dud on your front table and collecting the money, but selling few books.

Joe was very hot on James Thompson's Snow Angels, a new mystery series set in Finland. Everyone's got an entry from the frozen north of Europe of late, and Joe claims to have read most of them. Well, Steig Larsson anyway. A Somali immigrant is found dead in a field. Sex crime? Hate crime? Other? Inspector Kari Vaara starts digging.

The Girls of Murder City, by Douglas Perry. We do pretty well with historical crime books, unless they are packaged to look too mass markety. Karen Abbott's Sin in the Second City was a hit for us, and did I mention Abbott is coming for her next book, American Rose, a bio of Gypsy Rose Lee? It's on January 10th. Mark your calendar. In Perry's book, he documents Maurine Watkins, a Chicago Tribune reporter who glorified "stylish Belva" Gaertner and "Beautiful Beulah" Annan, both of whom shot their lovers and started a craze of Murdress's Row being one of the most fashionable addresses in Chicago. I don't know if I got that right, but it sounds good.

Work Song, by Ivan Doig. This is his sequel to The Whistling Season, his most popular novel that I remembered. Morrie Morgan goes to work for the mining company in Montana, on the lam from Chicago gangsters (see above) and mistaken for a labor agitator. Roughneck action follows. It's said to be pretty good, if not quite at the level of The Whistling Season. And besides, you should read The Whistling Season first anyway. And Bev loved it. I wonder if I can sell one copy of The Whistling Season by mentioning it four times.

This is a two-part post if I ever saw one. Alas, our website is under construction again, so no linking today!

Craig's Experiment with Big Piles of a Good Book

So Craig comes to me from Algonquin and says, "I have this really great book, and if you tried it and I really think it would sell if you made a statement with it." The book is The Cow in the Parking Lot: A Zen Approach to Overcoming Anger. Having had irrational fits of anger myself, I am intrigued by any sort of way to get around it. Most of the time, it doesn't seem particularly productive or satisfying.

I took a look at the book. Why revenge backfires. Rational versus irrational demands. Don't react, respond. Lots of interesting stuff here. The only thing I don't like are the workbook pages. Sorry folks, I don't write in my books (well, I actually use Post-it brand adhesive notes, in a size that seems to have really gone out of style, 3x5, but that's another story). Anyway, I don't like the exercise part. But still, we've done so well with The Power of Kindness (past 100 and keeps on chugging), so why not try this experiment.

So far, we've sold about half of what we brought in. I'll keep you posted.

Just to know that my spiritual guidance does not stop with Buddhism, there's another book we have on our trade paperback table that has some legs, and like several of our displayed titles, the original suggestion came from a customer. It's Rebecca Brown Taylor's An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith. It's sort of a Christian take on mindfulness, and certainly plays off of kindness as well. There's some quoting of scripture, a little walking of labyrinths. Recommendatioons from Marcus Borg, Lauren Winner, very HarperOne (formerly Harper San Francisco). And it's a very attractive package, with French flaps, rough-cut pages, and a very nice cover image.

Now I just need Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, and athiest takes on being kind, and we should have most of the world covered.

Books That Sell Themselves--A Special Post Half-Directed at Booksellers, but With Luck, of Interest to Plain Old Readers Too

There are books that people are naturally drawn to, and sometimes you don't exactly know what they are going to be. Put a pile of Murder on the Eiffel Tower on your paperback table and it will sell. It worked for us in hardcover at Schwartz and in paperback at Boswell.

We've sold 71 in the last year (for folks in the know, that makes us #1 on Above the Treeline, almost double what the #2 bookstore sold) despite the fact that if they ask, Anne will tell inquirers that the murder does not take place on the Eiffel Tower. The book did win a prestigious French mystery prize (the Michel Lebrun prize) and the hero is a bookseller, which is reason enough to make sure we have enough stock.

Similarly, since we got the idea to sell The Power of Kindness from Garrison Keillor's Common Good Books, via our sales rep Joe, we've kept it on our front table, and just passed the 100 copy sales mark. In this case, there are other bookstores that know the secret--we're barely in the top ten on Treeline. That said, every independent bookstore should put this book on your impulse table, or your new paperback table, because if you are a general independent bookstore, it is perfect for your clientele. Great title, great package, and the book delivers--what more do you want? A concerted effort could get this book on national bestseller lists. Tarcher, the ball is in your court.

Carl Lennertz was the man who convinced us to carry a stock of Joseph Caldwell's The Pig Did it, and now it's been on and off our bestseller list for the last year. It's another book that sells in lots of indies, as so many of us listen to Carl. Here's a scooop--the rest of you should also listen to him about this book; it sells from the package, and the word of mouth is good too. Now we have an event with Mr. Caldwell this Saturday, July 3rd, at 2 PM, and I hope we've primed the pump, as he deserves a nice audience for the paperback of book #2, The Pig Comes to Dinner. I know it seems like a weird day for an event, but did I mention he's in the state for a family reunion, and you take what you can get. Actually, we were quite busy last year on the 3rd--lots of visitors with nothing to do but hang out and browse.

Folks might wonder if I would include The Tortoise and the Hare in this assortment, and I would say, not quite. We're selling the book well, but it doesn't sell itself--it needs the bookseller rec. Bev just finished it, by the way, and despite a lot of anger directed at the husband, she liked it quite a bit. A round of thanks to Jennifer at Paper Moon in McGregor, Iowa, who handsold the book to John who handsold the book to me. Here's her delightful viral video promoting visits to McGregor. Yes, it's true. They do have the loosest slots. Take that, Ames!



We're not quite sure, but I think we've inadvertently uncovered another sleeper, and in this case, we seem to be the only Treeline bookseller stocking it (though a few had special orders). It's Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Dr. Who by the Women Who Love It. Our purchase started with a special order from our pal Kathy, who suggested an event. Our local contact, Carole Barrowman, rounded up three editors and contributors from metro Chicago, and another from the Twin Cities area. Our event was way bigger than we expected, and we ordered in more stock to cover the bookplates we gave out when we ran out of books.

So here's the thing--we've continued to sell the book off our front table to folks who don't know any of the contributors, and didn't come to our event. We're closing in on 50 copies, and we're ready to do a decent-sized reorder to keep it on our front tables. I'll let any bookseller know how it winds up doing, but be warned--even if you don't sell much science fiction and fantasy, the audience for this book among your customers may be bigger than you realize.

Yes, Virginia, There was a 4th Rep Night at Next Chapter

The Boswell and Next Chapter folk gathered together at Mequon for rep night number 4.

Food was from Hong Anh Palace, where I have been eating for many years. It was very good. I just learned from their web site that they are closed on many major holidays, and honestly, I was a bit surprised!

Lanora presented the kids' titles from Penguin Group, because it turned out that Alex was travelling with Patricia Polacco (and she made a stop at Boswell, and we had a wonderful event that brought several attendees to tears). For me, the highlight was Loren Long's Otis, a wonderful story with illustrations that are an homage to classic illustrators like Virginia Lee Burton and Munro Leaf. I'm pretty sure ex-Boswellian Sarah would have loved it. Must check her blog to find out.

Cathy Schornstein presented titles from HarperCollins and Hyperion. She had so many wonderful books that I can't list them all here. In particular, she was enthusiastic about Ree Drummond's The Pioneer Woman Cooks, which turned out to be a much more attractive and more urban-friendly book that anyone would have thought. Here's the blog that led to the book contract.

And Joe Cain had a few gems from Penguin. He gave us another chance to read Juliet Naked, and highlighted several sleepers from Tarcher. The one that caught my eye was The Power of Kindness, which Common Good Books in St. Paul has done very well with over the last year.

Thank you to all the reps who participated in this year's program. It was really great to continue a tradition that went on for so long at Harry W. Schwartz Bookshops, starting at David's Schwartz's home, and then, as we grew, expanding into the stores. There's no question that rep nights have made successes of books in our stores or at least cemented our commitment, most recently The Uncommon Reader and The Elegance of the Hedgehog. What success will come from this year, I'm not sure of yet. I can only hope for something big.