Why are Many Indie Bookstores Doing Well This Season?

My friend sent me an article from Seattle, noting that indie booksellers in the area were doing well this season. And why are the booksellers doing well this season?

"Booksellers credit it to signs of a rebounding economy, a desire by customers to support independent stores and the appeal of a traditional book — especially as a gift."

Four booksellers were quoted*, as well as two trade organizations. I was sort of surprised that their reasoning was different from mine in one major respect--nobody noted the closing of all the Borders stores as being a factor. At one point, there were 16 Borders in Washington, according to the news piece, and I suspect that a dozen were in metro Seattle.  Even with the stores struggling in 2010, and with the expectations that most of that business would go to the web or chain stores, some of it had to trickle back to indies, right?

It would be interesting to compare major market stores that had a Borders effect with small market stores that had no competition that went bust. I suspect the gains would not be rebust, even in markets where there is a desire to support independent stores and an acknowledgement that books are a good gift. I don't have time to do this, so I leave it to a full-time reporter. And I've even got a title for you: "A Tale of Two Bookstore Markets" or something like that.

I think this is human nature, based on my digesting of non-academic behavioral psychology books over the years. When things go badly, we fault outside forces. When things go well, we credit ourselves.

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In the "books we ran out of" category, we were definitely suprised about an end-of-year sales pop for Plenty: Vibrant Recipe's from London's Ottolenghi. For one thing, the book came out in March and had steady but not outstanding sales for us. For another, we had books on loan to the Katie Gingrass Gallery for the Fill the Shelves event** Though we mark said books in a return file, it doesn't take the books out of "on hand" and if someone's looking quickly, this can cause problems. And finally, we had a few requests that didn't get communicated well enough for us to bring our stock level much above the special orders. My bad!

Yotam Ottolenghi has a worldwide reputation regarding vegetarian cooking. The cookbook was praised as "a vibrant and versatile collection of mouth-watering dishes that elevate vegetables from paltry side-dish status to superstar prominence." And apparently his "New Vegetarian" column in The Guardian is quite popular. I wish we'd had more. I can only say "Oops." I suspect we'll continue to sell the book well after Christmas.

*And I can say that I bought books in three of the four stores quoted on my recent trip to Seattle.

**The Fill the Shelves event is still going on at the Katie Gingrass Gallery in the Third Ward. Buy a book to give to the Milwaukee Public Library. You'll get a donation acknowledgement and a special bookplate to place inside the book. And yes, they are also out of The Art of Fielding.

The Most Rambling Blog Post Ever

Every time I start a blog piece today, it degenerates into randomness. I'm not going to write for long, and I'm hoping I can come up with some coherent thoughts for tomorrow.

We sent out an email newsletter. Here's the link. 

Jason was on Lake Effect yesterday. Here's another link.

Alas, there was a small chance that we would be able to get some copies of The Art of Fielding before Christmas, as the next reprint is just hitting the warehouse. I wish I wasn't needed on the floor so I could drive to Indiana and pick them up. There's still a chance we'll get some more Gimbels Has It!

Jason told me today is the day when we're likely to get some cranky customers, as it's the first day when we can't order things. Good luck to booksellers everywhere!

Children's Picture Book Bestsellers, Including Credits for the Illustrators, Which I am Sometimes Too Lazy to Research.

Perhaps my sadness about the lack of hardcover picture books was premature. I think the real story is that we don't have Barack Obama's picture book, which was selling as something well beyond a hardcover picture book. . Now we're chasing stock on Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site and seeing some nice pop on books from current and former Milwaukeeans.

Once you decide to include illustrators with the authors, there are complications. What about when a middle grade book has illustrations? That doesn't seem quite as much of a collaboration as a children's picture book. Fortunately most of the entries on the list were writer/illustrators, but The Flint Heart was complicated to sort out.

Hardcover Books for Kids

1. Astrojammies, by Stacey Williams-Ng
2. Wildwood, by Colin Meloy/Carson Ellis
3. Cabin Fever, by Jeff Kinney
4. I am a Bunny, by Ole Rissom/Richard Scarry
5. Wonderstruck, by Brian Selznick
6. Every Thing on It, by Shel Silverstein
7. Mouse and Lion, by Rand Burkert/Nancy Burkert

8. The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick
9. Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site, by Sherri Duskey Rinker/Tom Lichtenheld
10. You Will be my Friend, by Peter Brown
11. I Want my Hat Back, by Jon Klassen
12. Bear Stays Up for Christmas board book, by Karma Wilson/Jane Chapman
13. The Lego Ideas Book, by Daniel Litkowitz
14. The Flint Heart, by Katherine Patterson/John Rocco, abridged from Edith Philpott
15. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

It's nice to see Peter Brown's newest book has some staying power, but I think Jon Klassen's I Want My Hat Back is this year's Children Make Terrible Pets. Like Brown, Klassen writes a funny book that uses old-fashioned art techniques, but manipulates them in high-tech ways to make, to quote Shelf Awareness, "a droll statement about morality." Come to think of it, that's what Stacey Williams-Ng is doing in Astrojammies. Despite the book being inspired by a book app, all her spreads are old-fashioned paintings.

Paperback Books for Kids:
1. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
2. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory pop up, by Roald Dahl/Quentin Blake
3. War Hourse, by Michael Marpurgo
4. Ivy and Bean, by Annie Barrows
5. Nerds V01, by Michael Buckley

I consolidate the juvenile bestseller lists a lot because unlike the adult lists, the binding code differentiation is meaningless and the true differentiation, for age range, would be too complicated for me to put together on a weekly basis. We'd wind up with six lists, each with just a few on each, except at Christmas. 

And there's a lot more arguing about book type. For some reason, the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory pop up was coded as paperback, because to publishers, that's what paper over board is. But to us, it's a hardcover. So now I've moved the book to hardcover, but I'm leaving it on this list for now. But can I mention that I hand-sold Nerds onto the list? I think that's a first for me.

Does anyone's book inventory system have a second author field? I've always wondered about that. It would useful for both collaborators and illustrators.

Paperback Bestsellers include Media Mentions, Author Recs, Regional Titles, and an Impending Movie Opening.

The New York Times Book Review top 10 of 2011 helped The Tiger's Wife and Swamplandia with a sales pop. I'm hoping that my mention of The White Woman on the Green Bicycle on the NPR blog might get a little more traction for that book. Apprarently we also had at least one person come into the store after I talked about the book at the Shorewood Public Library. Whatever it takes, right?

Paperback Fiction:
1. The Tiger's Wife, by Téa Obreht
2. A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan
3. Swamplandia, by Karen Russell
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
5. The All of It, by Jeannette Haien
6. Room, by Emma Donoghue
7. Skippy Dies, by Paul Murray
8. The Girl who Played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson
9. The White Woman on the Green Bicycle, by Monique Roffey
10. The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, by Walter Mosley

I could have mentioned that events have lasting sales by noting that three of our top 6 hardcover fiction titles are from recent Boswell guests. But I think that the paperback list is a better indicator. We're closing in on 100 copies of The All of It, jump-started by Ann Patchett's recommendation. We're #3 in the country on this book, and it's my suspicion that the other two stores above us ran with Patchett's rec, and the ones below us ignored it.

And Walter Mosley's The Last Day so Ptolemy Grey (we're also #3 on Treeline with this book) is partly a function of an appearance for another bookstore, which, we helped promote, and also admittedly, the paperback wasn't quite out yet. But the talk was great, and the word of mouth has turned out to be his best that I've seen in a number of years. Let's see if we can keep it going.

Sales pop return for Stieg Larsson's books with the impending opening of the English language version of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo on December 21. We're still trying to figure out how to position our metal sign!

Paperback Nonfiction:
1. Gimbels Has It!, by Michael J. Lisicky
2. Andy Warhol's New York, by Thomas Kiedrowski
3. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
4. The Hare with Amber Eyes, by Edmund de Waal
5. Your True Home, by Thich Nhat Hanh
6. Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff
7. At Home, by Bill Bryson
8. Unlikely Friendships, by Jennifer Holland
9. The Death and Life of the Great American School System, by Diane Ravitch
10. Bay View, by Ron Winkler

One trend you would never imagined is that we are often not contacted by publishers about books of local interest. I think I've already mentioned that we had to find out about and chase copies of We Are Wisconsin: The Wisconsin Uprising in the Words of the Activists, Writers, and Everyday Wisconsinites Who Made It Happen (#17 on our nonfiction paperback list this week) from a customer. And we also inadvertently discovered that we didn't find out in advance about Arcadia's Bay View book. Maybe the publisher and rep didn't realize that Bay View is a neighborhood in Milwaukee, that a lot of Bay Viewers shop on the East Side where my store is located, being less than ten minutes by car door to door when you take the Hoan Bridge. Or that I live there. Very strange.

What's Selling this Week? Well, First of All, There's So Much That I'm Dividing it Into Three Days of Posts. First the Adult Hardcovers...

Continuing the trend from last week, The Art of Fielding is our #1 hardcover book. Jason just informed me that the next reprint is not going to make it until after Christmas. We have 36 left, but I suspect that at the rate we're selling it, we'll likely run out before Christmas.

In other news, I guess the Knopfs have it. This imprint has 6 out of our top 15 fiction books this week, and a full half of our top 10. And I'm not even counting Doubleday and Pantheon.

Hardcover Fiction
1. The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach
2. Death Comes to Pemberley, by P.D. James
3. 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami
4. The Marriage Plot, by Jeffrey Eugenides
5. The Sense of an Ending, by Julian Barnes
6. State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett
7. 11-22-63, by Stephen King
8. The Leopard, by Jo Nesbo
9. American Boy, by Larry Watson
10. The Cat's Table, by Michael Ondaatje
11. The Buddha in the Attic, by Julie Otsuka
12. The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco
13. On Canaan's Side, by Sebastian Barry
14. V is for Vengeance, by Sue Grafton
15. A Dance with Dragons, by George R.R. Martin

I'm glad to say that perhaps the best residue of my hour on At Issue with Ben Merens from earlier this week was a continuing interest in discovering Sebastian Barry. We had folks coming in, not just for On Canaan's Side, but for his earlier titles. FYI, I tend to send folks to The Secret Scripture first.

I'm also curious to know how our more mainstream books are tracking, as this might be an indication of how we are growing our business. I haven't had too many customers asking why we weren't discounting more commercial titles, but in fact, we do put a decent number of them on Boswell's Best on arrival, such as Michael Connelly and Janet Evanovich. The short answer is that sales are neither dropping nor growing. All sales are fairly comparable with prior books, though. We're slightly lagging on sales of The Drop and Explosive Eighteen over comparable titles from 2010, but we're up a few copies for V is for Vengeance from U is for Undertow, with a more copies sold likely to come.

Hardcover Nonfiction:
1. Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson
2. Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
3. A History of the World in 100 Objects, by Neil MacGregor
4. In the Garden of Beasts, by Erik Larson
5. The Swerve, by Stephen Greenblatt
6. George F. Kennan, by John Lewis Gaddis
7. Catherine the Great, by Robert K. Massie
8. The New New Rules, by Bill Maher
9. All in One Basket, by Deborah Mitford
10. The Complete Record Collection, by R. Crumb

Did I say that history and historical biography are driving our bestsellers this holiday season? It's tricky when two of the most high profile cookbooks celebrate Moroccan cuisine (The Foods of Morocco and Mouad). Both are great, but a bit intimidating. Come in and ask Conrad how easy cooking from Wolfert can be. Further down is the new Cook's Illustrated Cookbook, which I am convinced that we would have done better with if the publisher courted us a bit more, either with commission rep, phone contact, or even an email to Jason. Hint! Hint!

We're also getting some momentum on Momofuku Milk Bar. I just like to say Momofuku Milk Bar on occasion.

While I'm not surprised that we're a little soft in celeb-driven titles, I'm a little more fascinated by the softness in the thesis type book of the Thinking Fast and Slow type. Then I went back and looked at our bestsellers for last year, and guess what? Not much there either. And we had three strong non-event cookbooks, from Ina Garten, Gourmet, and The New York Times. Needless to say, these brands that resonate with our customers weren't there this fall.

Skipped a Day, but That's Not Necessarily a Bad Thing, Here's a Little Catching Up.

I was on my way to work this morning on snow-covered roads when I thought, "It's a good thing that our first slippery streets of the season are on a Saturday morning." That's just one bit of luck that retail has had this fall, at least in Milwaukee.

Our friend Dennis, who is in twice a week to browse/shop, take my emotional pulse, and give me the weather forecast, has predicted decent weather through Christmas, making it just about as good a holiday it can be from the standpoint of Mother Nature. For needless to say, every snowstorm sends sales to websites and away from the bookstore.

I wound up not posting yesterday, due to, well, being busier than we were last year and down a bookseller. I'm training three new folks this Sunday--my timing is a bit off, but we'll still need staff.  It also turns out that a bookseller or two will be out of the store for various things during the next two months--Winter Institute, a gift show, and so forth.

And yes, like many indie bookstores, we've built up some sales from Borders closing and that some ebook migration sales loss. And the best part for me? Every time something goes well, I worry about duplicating its success next year. And though my booksellers talk about the great job we're doing, publicity, compliments, and the like, I am more jaded about the whole thing--we have one less bookselling venue in the area and we were lucky enough to get a piece of the business. I don't think it hurts that B&N has been cutting book inventory as well.

And I noticed that the Target on Chase squeezed books a bit (among many other categories) to make room for their expanded grocery selections. They've also gone to taller, Walgreens-like shelving. But I still can't figure out what they are going to do with 75 copies of Operation, and that doesn't include the Star Wars and Spongebob versions. If I consider that the store in my neighborhood is at most a B- performer, that means that there are probably 100,000 copies of this game, waiting for a price promotion.

And to think that I am still reeling from a childhood birthday when I had a fight with my friend Alan, and he wound up not coming to my party and keeping Operation for himself. When we made up, he gave me a copy of Easy Money (Milton Bradley's Monopoly knockoff), which I already had and wound up regifting. So that copy of Operation had way more emotional heft for me (oh, to remove a wrenched ankle!), but I still didn't buy it.

I used some valuable time on Friday morning (I worked the closing shift) to book some 2012 events, and we're really excited about the schedule we are putting together. In addition to some big names coming to Boswell, I'm continuing to sprinkle events in alternative venues, from Sugar Maple to County Clare to Discovery World and of course area libraries. Our only problem? The bustle of the season has prevented us from getting all our January marketing plans in place.

On the gift front, I'm putting a few items on sale. We've been doing pretty well with a lot of items, and several of our spinners are looking a bit bare already. But there are a few seasonal items that could use a little incentive. I'm hoping to get an email out. Hoping.

And now it's time to do the books and restock. Enjoy your weekend and I'll be back with bestsellers tomorrow.

On Running into Touring Authors Who Make Artisan Pizza, While Having Coffee

Yesterday I mentioned how much I enjoy both running into folks I've not seen for a long time and being witness to two other folks running into each other in a similar manner. I particularly enjoy introducing two unrelated customers who sometimes turn out to have connections of some sort.

But it's not only the bookstore where this happens. Fortunately it's not at the stage where I have to wear dark glasses and a wig, but I do run into Boswell fans outside the store quite a bit. Sometimes I wish I remembered his or her name and context a bit better, but I think it's important to focus on the upside, like when I do have the recollection.

Recently I was at an Alterra preparing for a book club discussion. I had already greeted a Boswell regular and we had a nice chat. Then in walked Mary who does a lot of the author escorting in town. Luminaries also does PR, and she had brought in two of her author clients, who were doing press for Artisan Pizza and Flatbread in Five Minutes a Day.

Mary introduced me to the authors and we chatted for a bit, and I'm going to admit up front that while I remembered the book and concept, I didn't quite hear the authors' names on introduction. We discussed the coffee, brew process, other local roasters. I asked them if they were at Bayshore to do a cooking class at the kitchen store. I suggested, since they don't live that far away, various event opportunities for their next book.  They left and I went back to The Tiger's Wife.

And then one of the authors came back.

"We went to high school together!"

And you know there are some folks who get filed in the wrong drawer (one day I'll tell you my sad story about the high school reunion where I couldn't place this very nice guy with whom I was said to know pretty well) and then there are some folks where you are just not paying attention.

Jeff Hertzberg! Married to my old friend Laura. We took a shop class together in intermediate school. Shop class! Or maybe not: memory is a tricky road.

And yet, I didn't connect that he had written these books. How many Jeff Hertzbergs can there be? Well, since there are quite a number of Daniel Goldins, I choose not to speculate.

So needless to say, I went back to the store and took a closer look at Artisan Pizzas and Flatbreads in Five Minutes a Day. There was a great Publishers Weekly review for it, and yesterday, Hertzberg was featured in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Chef Chat series.  Just a short excerpt, where tossing the dough is explained: "You've got to put the pizza dough partially flattened, . . . draped over the backs of your knuckles. You've got to rotate your hands, while moving both hands up sharply. You gotta aim right overhead. At the last second, you take your dominant hand and turn it so that the tips of your fingers will control the dough at the last second."


You know, it would not be a bad thing for me to spend a few minutes making flatbreads and pizza doughs.

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I had a great time on At Issue with Ben Merens show yesterday. We had so many calls that I hardly got through my list of Boswell's favorite books of 2011. You can find most of them in our holiday newsletter.  If one wasn't delivered to you, you can stop by and pick one up or read the pdf here.

Two Nice Stories About Running Into People at Boswell

One of the things I like about Boswell is that people no where to find me. In the old days, if a friend came to town, they had to feel close enough to me to call my home, or brave enough to stop by my office. With a bookstore, there's far less of a commitment; you're coming in to shop and the guy you worked with 15 years ago happens to be there, so much the better.

Here are a couple of stories about bookstore-driven meetings that made me smile. I use only first names because they don't have a book I can plug.

1. A lot of out of towners make their way to the store in conjunction with visiting the Milwaukee Art Museum, being that we're only five minutes up the lake.  The new exhibit, Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper, is likely to lure more of my old friends. Organized by the Albertina in Vienna, it's a collection of more than 100 drawings, watercolors, and pastels by Manet, Degas, Renoir and others. The show runs through January 8.

So last Saturday, I was running around Boswell, negotiating our holiday market and I see this vaguely-familiar-looking guy, smile knowingly. Uh oh, I have to figure out who this is. My memory file cabinets are a mess, as I have acknolwedged previously. But somehow I pull out that it's Chris, my former Chicago bookseller friend turned teacher.

It was great to catch up. Chris (or it might be Christopher--he is now given permission to call me "Dan" in his blog) graciously complimented the store and asked, by chance, if we might have some New York Review of Books Classics. In fact, we keep them up at the front of the store, which for some reason, delights many customers. Because I don't remember which one he chose, I'll just show a copy of Charles Simic's Dime Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell, because I for some reason, keep referring to his art boxes in conversation. And before you chide me for the book's location in the store, note that we 1) carry it and 2) shelving is an art.

2. Dan (and he is officially a Dan, not a Daniel), the lawyer who helped us create the llc for Boswell, has moved closer to the store, and it's been a great pleasure to see him and his wife Karen more frequently. Dan had been recommended to me by Anne, one of our startup angels, who as I've said before, gave me invaluable advice in creating a business plan. So I'm chatting with Dan and he tells me that he's brainstorming writing a blog on legal matters (I'll link to it when it's up and running) and I mention that I used to read and enjoy Anne's jury blog before she left law to become something else equally great, or perhaps even greater, since we now get to do events with the Wisconsin Humane Society.

And then I sort of realize that Anne's wife Tom is browsing social criticism right next to us. So I note each other's presence, assuming they have met each other, but even though they know each other by name, they actually haven't met. Just to get you in the mood, I think Tom, who loves his Yale books, would be pleased for me to mention Steven Ozment's The Serpent and the Lamb: Luther, Cranach, and the Making of the Reformation, a revision of modern thought on the German renaissance and reformation through the eyes of two key players.

And now I paraphrase:

Daniel: "These unexpected meetings are the best part of shopping in a bookstore."

Tom: "No, books are the best part of a bookstore."

I was thinking of meeting in a broader sense, in the way you spot a book that might capture your attention online, as well as the serendipitous collision of personalities. Of course Tom is correct, but can the community aspect be a close second?