On Selling (What Else?) Books

Nicki Leone, manager of Bristol Books in Wilmington, North Carolina, was recently invited by author M.J. Rose (The Halo Effect, Mira) to be a "guest blogger" on Rose's Weblog. Leone's assignment: To "write about anything related to getting books read." Thanks to Nicki Leone and M.J. Rose for allowing BTW to share with our readers this lighthearted look at the extent to which a bookseller will go to sell a book.

When M.J. [Rose] asked me to be a guest on this blog, she said, "You can write about anything related to getting books read." Okay, I thought, I can do that. After all, I've been a bookseller for 18 years now -- in independent stores, chain stores, in big cities, and small towns (most recently at a small store in a small city). Surely I know something about why books get bought, and why people read them. I can't have lasted this long in the biz without at least learning that, right?

Wrong.

When I sat down to really think about it, I realized that I know how to sell books, but I have rarely thought about why anyone actually takes my advice and plunks down $24.95 plus tax for something to read. Which is a little like saying "I know how to have sex, but I could care less why you picked me out of a crowded room to sleep with." Okay, that makes me sound like a tramp, but there's good cause: In the past I have resorted to all sorts of strategies (no wonder they call 'em "tricks") to make the unsuspecting customer part with their money, and take away some of our stock.

-- I have, for example, shamelessly noted what people bought, and sent them cards about new books (supposedly) like the ones they already have: (Dear Mrs. X, if you liked the copy of Beach Home you bought last month to help you redesign your seaside cottage, then you might be interested in Pat Conroy's novel Beach Music, which also has the word "beach" in the title and is a must for decorating the shelves of your new retreat).

-- Sometimes, I'll even call them: (Hello Mr. X! I know you are a huge James Patterson fan and it has been almost two whole months since his last book came out, but guess what -- we got the new one today! I knew you wouldn't be able to wait ... I'll bring it to you on my way home from work.... No, no, just leave the money under the lawn gnome where you keep your spare key.)

-- I have taken to opening shipments out on the sales floor and emitting girly squeals of delight (real or faked) as I take out the new books, as if it were Christmas and the box was my present. Nothing makes a person more interested in a thing than the fact that someone else wants it.

-- I have staged conversations about books within calculated hearing distances of customers browsing the shelves, which invariably results in them turning around to say, "What book are you talking about?"

-- I have out and out lied on occasion. I do this especially often with cheapskate parents:

ME: "Oh, you may as well buy little Johnny that book -- it is one of those titles that shows up on the school 'required reading lists' every summer, so he'll have to read it at some point anyway."

DOUBTFUL PARENT: "Really? Captain Underpants and the Attack of the Talking Toilets is required reading?"

ME: (smiling sincerely) "I know it sounds crazy, but the titles have been very effective in getting even reluctant readers to open a book, and the stories are so well written that before the child knows it, he's finished the whole thing, and is ready for the next in the series."

Since God did not strike me down during this exchange, I'm assuming He approved.

-- I have paraded my failings in front of my customers shamelessly: I admitted publicly that I couldn't knit my way out of paper bag, but The Yarn Girls' Guide to Simple Knits had saved me. We sold it. I confessed that I couldn't keep a tea rose alive, but that Jackson & Perkins' Beautiful Roses Made Easy had saved my garden. We sold that. I owned up that I'd never made biscuits that couldn't pass as paperweights, but Mama Dip's Kitchen had worked miracles for me (hallelujah, sister -- testify!). And yes, I still easily convince people who can't cook any better than I that Mama Dip is the answer to their prayers.

-- I have, like some sad Tupperware saleslady, taken my show on the road, invaded the houses and churches and book clubs of my customers in order to tell them what to read, and make them buy it from me.

-- I take books with me everywhere I go -- movies, restaurants, bars, and even once, to the horror of my friends, to a wedding. (The mother of the bride still isn't talking to me.) Worse, I make sure that I read in such a way that anyone within 20 feet of me can see the title. Sure, my neck gets stiff, but what's a little discomfort when you could possibly get someone to buy the book?

I have batted my eyelashes at my male customers, admired the jewelry of my female customers -- anything to ease them through the moment when they hand me their cash, and I hand them their book. All of which makes me sound like something between a fanatic and the kind of girl you wouldn't want to take home to mother, I know. It's a small price for me to pay, to get you to pay me for books.

But while it may be clear that I know how to sell a book, there isn't anything there that really tells us why people buy books. And the "why" is really what's important. As M.J. has pointed out in earlier posts, more books are published each year than ever before. And as the much-lamented recent NEA [National Endowment for the Arts] study makes distressingly clear, fewer people are reading. So it behooves us to find out why people do read books, and why they buy them. We need some serious market research, because it is obvious that we, as an industry, are out of touch with consumers.

In her very interesting (if slightly dry) book Why People Buy Things They Don't Need (Dearborn Trade), marketing guru Pamela N. Danziger counts books among that category of "personal indulgences." They are small luxuries that consumers can buy without guilt. In fact, they find it easy to convince themselves to make the purchase: They believe they are improving their "quality of life." They are becoming better informed. In truth, the leap from spending money on essentials like bread, to nonessentials like books is 9/10ths about pure emotional gratification. Danziger points out that books have a "unique emotional equation at work," because consumers are more personally and emotionally involved with their books than they are ever likely to be with anything else they buy (except perhaps, their shoes). So once you hook them, they are well and truly hooked. Yet our industry seems loath to explore, much less exploit, this impulse.

Booksellers sometimes turn up their noses at the very idea. They think that their beloved books are somehow "above" pure mercantilism, that they are guardians of culture and protectors of free speech first, and "salespeople" a distant -- a very distant -- second.

Bull cookies. Oh, we booksellers are certainly defenders of free speech, but honey, that don't pay the light bill. There is nothing wrong -- in fact -- there is everything right with studying your market and finding more effective ways to promote your product. The great thing is, books are well and truly worth the effort -- they really will improve your quality of life. They will make you better informed. They will make you a better person both inside and out -- which is more than you can say about your average pair of designer jeans. We buy those designer clothes because we think they make us look sexy. Would a "Smart is Sexy" Reading Campaign really be so terrible? Would I wear a mini skirt if I thought it would convince people to read more books? You bet 'cha.

To read more of M.J. Rose's Weblog, go to www.publishersmarketplace.com/members/BkDoctorSin/. To learn more about The Halo Effect, visit www.mjrose.com.