Books on Shelves and B&N

This will be a rant, and before I get to that negativity and I will start gratitude.

The first bookstore I ever went to was Borders back when I was a child. My mother brought me to the Borders store in the mall when I was an exceptionally good boy, and in Borders was a child section that included classical books. The classics were of course simplified for children, and on the open pages one side would be text and the other a black and white image visually narrating the story.

I still have those books from childhood. They have a place in my heart, with a piece of memory of my youth and an overall soothing feeling. Borders no longer exists, but I have a piece of it with me.

Barnes and Noble is the second bookstore I walked into that felt comfortable, and it still does with every branch I visit. I’ve recently gone to other bookstores that only exist in one place here or there, and each one has its own uniqueness about it. Several have little nooks for readings to a group of three or five, and one bookstore had their entire back set up for poetry and jam nights. Obviously the smaller bookstores are more set up for their local neighborhoods and community, and there were a few spots I felt out of place being there since I drove a while to reach that store. That said, I was always welcomed, and I truly appreciate that warmness granted to me.

Now, to my rant.

This is all based on my ignorance, I am simply voicing my frustration.

Buck and I are not social media guys (as per a previous blog post, more on this fact in a future post). Add that fact to the above noted gratitude of local bookstores with their physical presence and it shouldn’t be a surprise that I choose the books to read based on what is around me. I like to feel the pages, see the cover, and hold the book in my hand before purchasing it. Just like I used to when I was a boy in Borders.

To me, and to Buck, having our book on a shelf is the ultimate form of success. In my ignorance I believed that if we used B&N for printing of our book that we could work our way into having our book on their shelves, somehow. We didn’t know how, but on B&N’s Press website it showed the option for promoting author’s books via Emails, Featured Collections, Sales & Promotions (special offers), as well as Barnes & Noble Stores (the smaller print did say that our friends and families could order our books at the stores - nothing about being on shelves).

Later, via email query (which I should have done earlier), I learned that since we used B&N to print our book, that B&N wouldn’t allow the book to be on their shelves. Afterall, self-published books from B&N are “on-demand” books and are not refundable, therefore B&N wouldn’t accept the book on their shelves. I could ask each B&N branch individually if they would be open to consignment (me buying author copies from B&N at cost and then bringing the book in) and that could work since then the book would be returnable to me.

The thing is though, there are a lot of books published every year (about one million in the US alone - another blog post on that one). There is no way for ANY bookstore to keep up with even a fraction of that with their bookshelves. There’s simply not enough space. So, it wasn’t much of a surprise at this point that the local branches told me no.

Fun fact, I checked the B&N Press website recently and a pop up window came up warning that: “Barnes & Noble will never reach out to authors and offer in-store placement for your books in exchange for money.”

This is definitely something I wished popped up back when Buck and I were looking at B&N. Part of me in the past thought that to have our books on the shelves we either had to pay (because it is a promotion really), or that B&N would take a higher percentage cut from the profits of every bought book.

So, the bookshelves were off the table. What about the Emails, Featured Collections, Sales & Promotions (special offers)? Well, in the email correspondence with B&N the Emails wasn’t connected to any email network of theirs, I had to collect the email addresses myself. The Featured Collections apparently just weren’t a thing, at least not for me. Lastly the Sales & Promotions were the reduction in retail price I could do in the background for the book. Simply put, all the promotion was entirely on Buck and I, period.

Really, truly, why would I actually believe any different? If things were as simple as going to B&N Press and connecting with an all-encompassing company that would gladly do the work for me, then why aren’t there hundreds of thousands of successful authors in the US alone?

The simple answer is, it’s not that easy. Promotion (sales) is ultimately “simple” in that what to do isn’t too complicated per se, it’s just hard to fight your way above all the noise that exists when there’s so many new published works every month of every year (more on that in another blog post - dang I have a lot more to post).

Now, what about all those other bookstores that cater to and are taken care of by their local community? That is a good question. Buck and I have gone to these stores. Several of them are open to giving local authors a shot, and they do so once a year on their time tables. I know I’ll be working with them in the future. Moving in the physical world is slow, meanwhile in the electronic world everything is so fast that yesterday is old news.

For the author reading this, I wish you the best of luck, keep at it!