Long Enough to Become the Villain
August 21, 2022 1:09 PM   Subscribe

BookRiot delves a little deeper into the most recent Barnes & Noble changes. According to YA award-winning author Kelly Yang, Barnes & Noble has a new, unwritten policy of no longer stocking new hardcovers unless they are top 1-2 for their publishers. BookRiot notes that the unofficial stocking policy has been confirmed by other authors and publishers.

The policy especially impacts debut authors, who cannot prove that their books will sell, and marginalized authors, who already have a difficult time finding shelf space in stores. Publishing podcast Print Run presents an episode breaking the news down and how it will affect hardcover sales. (Previously.)
posted by toastyk (25 comments total) 20 users marked this as a favorite
 
This feels like a case of "unexpected consequences from well-intentioned changes". As mentioned in the BookRiot article, B&N's new-ish CEO James Daunt made some changes to the corporate strategy when he took over. Two points quoted in BookRiot seem to be:

  • Down-sizing the central office formerly responsible for ordering for all stores, limiting them to a minimal order, and allowing store managers greater discretion in what to bring in based on local sales
  • Eliminating co-op displays (or “pay to display”, to put it in more practical language), in which publishers could purchase premium placement for specific titles


On first glance, I would expect both of these points to be good things! Giving local store managers discretion on what to order seems like a generally good thing for for making sure the local store is stocking books that work with their community. And eliminating "pay to display" seems like a reasonable way to keep large publishers from influencing store shelves even more directly.

However... it seems like if the local store manager is focusing on keeping their store profitable above all else, they're probably only going to order what they know will sell. They probably have less margin to play with than the central office, so they'll maybe take fewer risks. And therefore rather than ordering things that seem locally interesting to their communities, everything gets even more homogeneous.
posted by learning from frequent failure at 2:12 PM on August 21, 2022 [8 favorites]


Surely the solution is for all future English writers to ghostwrite under James Patterson. Or perhaps Shakespeare. Or Jesus.
posted by Leelas at 2:29 PM on August 21, 2022 [14 favorites]


The thing is, hardbacks are the most expensive books, and I think that their prices are increasing faster than paperback or trade paperbacks. The only hardcover fiction I buy is stuff where I'm not willing to wait for it to come out in paperback. (I've got an order in for Nona the Nineth through a local bookstore, because my daughter knows someone there.) I think that if I don't know who you are, your chances for me to buy your book are better if it's in paperback.
posted by Spike Glee at 2:29 PM on August 21, 2022 [8 favorites]


It's important to keep in mind that Daunt is bringing B&N in line with what already works for Waterstones in the UK. Here, lots of books (YA and children's titles especially) go straight to paperback, for many reasons including that it's cheaper and customers tend to prefer paperbacks for some titles. Most of the time people will wait for books to come out in paperback before purchasing these days and Daunt knows that. Going straight to paperback rather than lingering in hardback for a year or more makes much more sense in a constantly moving marketplace.

Waterstones also allows individual stores to have quite a lot of autonomy, comparatively, in what they stock based on what sells in their area. It's worked very well for Waterstones in terms of profits and market share.

As already pointed out, it's well intentioned (to keep bookstores afloat) but will have bitter side effects for authors who are already grappling with a publishing industry that wants to make money above all things and does things like offer some authors ridiculous advances while ignoring other authors (usually marginalised authors) due to industry bias.
posted by fight or flight at 2:41 PM on August 21, 2022 [7 favorites]


I've got an order in for Nona the Nineth through a local bookstore

Favorited for Nona the Ninth!
posted by Ber at 3:03 PM on August 21, 2022 [4 favorites]


This change sounds good to me because I hate hardcover books. I currently own around 400 physical books and only 20 of them are hardcover, pretty much all of which I got used. It's very hard to travel with or store hardcover books and I've never really bought books as prestige items.

I'm sort of confused about why this would hurt new authors, because it seemed to me like new authors have mostly been starting with eBooks and paperbacks as there's a lower barrier to entry. Theoretically if there are fewer bulky hardcover books at B&N that gives them more room for a different variety of paperbacks, which should help new authors. From the article I understand the worry is about discovery against established authors, but that depends on how the individual store displays are set up. Japan doesn't really have hardcover books at all, and their bookstores are set up well.

I can see why this would upset readers who prefer hardcover and will cause disruption in the short term because of how publishers give authors higher royalties for hardcover, but it could be better for the industry and authors overall.
posted by JZig at 3:33 PM on August 21, 2022 [2 favorites]


My understanding is that the decision to do hardcover vs paperback, and when to transition to paperback, is set by the publisher, not the author (except for self-published authors, but I don't think B&N stocks those anyway). Straight to paperback is not common in the US; when I've seen it, it's always been self-pubbed or tiiiiny indie press.

As noted in the links above, a debut author is never going to be able to "prove" that their brand new book will be in the top 1 or 2 by their publisher. So yeah, I think this will hurt debut authors more than established authors, whose fanbase will go ahead and pre-order the hardcover like Spike Glee did with Nona the Ninth.

I wonder if B&N will apply this policy to their own "Collectible Classics" line? You know, where they slap a fancy pleather cover on a work in the public domain and print it on tissue paper? I don't live near a B&N any longer, but from what I remember from a few years ago, 90% of store display was those titles + puzzles and games + sbux cafe. My guess is that this move is not going to make more room for paperbacks; it's going to make more room for jigsaws and totes and $8 pumpkin spice lattes.
posted by basalganglia at 4:00 PM on August 21, 2022 [4 favorites]


My local B&N is undergoing a radical interior redesign, and I am wondering what is behind it. Maybe it’s this.
posted by I_Love_Bananas at 4:04 PM on August 21, 2022


If half the floorspace that is currently books is given over to toys/games, cards, gifts, and tchotkes; and they install a café, it will have become a Chapters/Indigo.

Note that this seems to work for Chapters/Indigo. I am not sure how?
posted by seanmpuckett at 4:09 PM on August 21, 2022


A big problem with Daunt applying UK logic to the US market is that it decimates the juvenile and YA space. Because of school and library sales demand hard covers, paperback originals are rare in j and YA*. I have 15+ books in print and maybe 2/3 of them made it to paperback.

Some publishers do them as a matter of course, a year or two after hardcover publication. Some publishers only do them at a certain sales threshold. Some publishers don't do them at all, and paperback rights are treated as a separate subright (or it is included with the original sale, just like digital rights, and if the publisher just doesn't want to let go, they don't have to.)

This becomes a bigger problem because 1) teens prefer hardcovers but 2) school and library sales do NOT count toward bestseller lists [they are outside the Nielsen Bookscan system.] There are lots of adult book clubs, and lots of paperback originals in adult fiction, but that's just not the case for the j and YA space for the most part.

So this is going to especially hurt marginalized writers of j and YA fiction. We have fewer channels of discovery, the largest part of our market *needs* hardcovers, but B&N doesn't want to cover them. So there might be great library/school titles, but without any path toward bestsellerdom, or even discoverability at B&N.

I don't see how this is going to work out well for authors OR B&N, but I reckon we're going to find out.

* They exist, but not like they used to. They tend to be digital originals now, or they tend to be "disposable" books-- lighter fare and some genre fiction-- they're meant to fit a narrow, inexpensive price point and they don't get marketing for the most part.
posted by headspace at 5:21 PM on August 21, 2022 [12 favorites]


If half the floorspace that is currently books is given over to toys/games, cards, gifts, and tchotkes; and they install a café, it will have become a Chapters/Indigo.

Barnes and Noble already has all of this.
posted by soelo at 6:24 PM on August 21, 2022 [6 favorites]


Why do teens prefer hardcovers?
posted by pelvicsorcery at 8:15 PM on August 21, 2022 [5 favorites]


I think teens are sold hardcovers, to extract more value from them as consumers. I’m not an expert but I’ve seen a lot of bad designed hardbacks, which add no value and are just expensive for the sake of being expensive
posted by The River Ivel at 2:04 AM on August 22, 2022 [2 favorites]


Because of school and library sales demand hard covers, paperback originals are rare in j and YA.

Yeah, I'd be surprised if teens actually prefer hardbacks, considering the fact that they're more expensive and more difficult to carry around. But libraries definitely prefer hardbacks and they're also a big market for publishers.

Personally I think the US publishing industry moving towards paperbacks and away from hardbacks is a good thing, economically and environmentally speaking. It's easier to produce, move, store and recycle paperbacks. But as long as publishers want to push "shelf appeal" and convince people to fork out more money for limited editions and collector's editions, they'll keep stubbornly sticking to hardbacks and putting pressure on authors to succeed in hardback sales.
posted by fight or flight at 4:35 AM on August 22, 2022 [1 favorite]


Would this open up opportunities for independent bookstores to sell a wider range of hardcovers?
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 6:46 AM on August 22, 2022


I actually don't know why the hardbacks come out first...and judging from my daughter's tastes, she doesn't care if something comes out in paperback or hardcover. However, new releases come out in hardcover first, and if you've already been waiting a year for a new book from an author you like, you're not going to wait another year for the paperback.

There is some pushback from the authors and they are encouraging everyone to order their newest books from their favorite writers from indie bookshops instead. I think Bookshop is a very popular alternative for people who are trying to avoid both Amazon and Barnes and Noble - the money will go to your local bookshops.
posted by toastyk at 8:34 AM on August 22, 2022


B&N is apparently trying to mimic Borders' successful strategy of steadily reducing inventory in order to drive sales.
posted by neuron at 8:36 AM on August 22, 2022 [2 favorites]


New releases come out in hardcover first because the profit margins are higher. First you extract as much money as you can from all the people who are willing to pay for a hardcover (even if they don't care about hardcover vs. paperback and just want to get the book in their hands as soon as possible) - then you put out a paperback release so that you can get money from the people who are more price-conscious and less concerned about having the book Right Now.

That sounds bad, but publishing is a low-margin business, and because profit margins are higher on hardcovers, author royalties are higher on hardcovers. (I don't know what the numbers are these days, and obviously it depends on the particular contract for the particular book, but I think it's around 13% of purchase price for a hardcover, and around 8% of purchase price for a paperback?) I think it would be better for a lot of individual consumers, and perhaps for the YA/MG industry as a whole, if you had more books come out as paperback originals (with hardcovers available for libraries), but it might amount to a pretty significant pay cut for authors who already aren't making very much money.

(Oh, yes - and I, too, have preordered Nona the Ninth. I got the first two books as ebooks, but now that there's a semilocal indie bookshop that I adore, I am prepared to pay $28.99 to go there on release day in my Nona the Ninth hamburger T-shirt and my Sword Lesbian enamel pin, because I am that much of a dork and I have had Covid TWICE since Harrow the Ninth came out, please let me have just one nice thing.)
posted by Jeanne at 8:57 AM on August 22, 2022 [5 favorites]


I don't know what the numbers are these days, and obviously it depends on the particular contract for the particular book, but I think it's around 13% of purchase price for a hardcover, and around 8% of purchase price for a paperback?

The Author's Guild suggests the following:
For example, rates for hardcover children's books often start at 10% of list price with the rate escalating to 12.5% when sales reach over a certain threshold, such as 25,000 copies. Trade paperback rates often start at 6% with an escalation of up to 7.5% for sales over 50,000 copies.

And note again, that's usually list price - so the author sees a higher % of a higher price for hardbacks. (E.g. for A Court of Thorns and Roses, the initial royalties would potentially be 10% of $28 = $2.80 for hardback vs. 6% of $18 =$1.08, which is a pretty significant difference.)
posted by scorbet at 9:07 AM on August 22, 2022 [3 favorites]


I'm trying and failing to find the industry poll, I apologize. But actual teen readers (not adults reading YA) preferred hardcovers to any other format, and preferred trade paperback to digital (with digital coming in very last.)

However, the covers matter a lot to teen readers. The art on the paperback is often different from the art on the hardcover. (This is because marketing is usually trying to capture a different audience, so they can get a bigger slice of the overall reader pie.)

Teens want the hardcover art, especially because it's more likely to have the special effects like spot varnish, embossing, foiling, etc.. Some trade paperbacks get effects, but they all lose the inside flaps, any special trim size, deckled or painted page edges, and decorative end papers [these especially are coveted, because they often feature additional art, or maps.]

One of the most popular promotions for YA are variant hardcover sleeves. Some of them are printed double-sided, so you can face out your preferred art, or you can buy different versions to collect all the covers, or there are contests or pre-order promotions that allow you to get additional hardcover sleeves.

Now, whether teens started to like hardcovers because marketing offered them these additional values, or if marketing figured out teens liked these additional values, I can't say. But there is the impression that paperback originals are cheap books, that they aren't as good, and that if a book is actually good, it will have a hardcover debut with FX on the cover, and special case attributes.

This has only been underscored by books that started out as paperback originals, which were upgraded-- industry terminology, not my judgment-- to hardcover because the initial internal buyer response was unexpectedly positive.

A good example of this is the EVERMORE series, which was originally meant to be a standalone paperback original... until the B&N buyer fell in love with it, and asked for the upgrade to hardcover. It went on to become a NYT bestseller, which probably wouldn't have happened in paperback because it wouldn't have had that same level of support.

Consequently, the commercial sales of YA novels are particularly tied to hardcover sales, which dovetails nicely with the fact that school and library sales tend to be the majority of YA sales-- and those institutions strongly prefer hardbound for durability. And that's why this particular move by Daunt doesn't reflect the American market very well especially for the j and YA categories.
posted by headspace at 9:29 AM on August 22, 2022 [5 favorites]


Surely the solution is for all future English writers to ghostwrite under James Patterson. Or perhaps Shakespeare. Or Jesus.

Jesus Shakespeare shall be my pen name.
posted by Ayn Marx at 9:37 AM on August 22, 2022 [3 favorites]


CEO James Daunt has responded: Reached by PW, Daunt didn’t comment on the particulars of the middle grade switch, but didn’t deny that changes have been made and said those changes are in keeping with his philosophy of giving power back to local stores. He told PW that returns of middle grade hardcovers had been running has high as 80%, something he attributed to B&N’s abandoning its role to thoughtfully curate its stores. “B&N for many years abrogated this responsibility, filling its stores with anything and everything and sending back what did not sell,” Daunt said. “That this was something well over 20% of sales was somehow excused, and ignored that returns of backlist was low and on frontlist exceptionally high.”

“What we are doing—with middle grade and adult, fiction and nonfiction, alike—is to exercise taste and judgment,” Daunt continued. “This is to buy less but, if it is done with skill, it is to sell more. Far from being just for proven authors, this will be to allow the new that is good to have the space and attention to find an audience.”


Not sure how the "buy less, sell more" works when they are not buying the new books coming out to sell.
posted by toastyk at 12:25 PM on August 22, 2022 [1 favorite]


Jesus Shakespeare shall be my pen name.
posted by Ayn Marx at 12:37 PM on August 22


This implies that 'Ayn Marx' isn't already a pen name, which is fun.
posted by axiom at 12:31 PM on August 22, 2022 [1 favorite]


OK so it is middle grade specifically. With so much of the information out there being second- or third-hand and unofficial I wasn't sure if that was public or if maybe I had misunderstood.

I'm sympathetic to the push for more paperback originals in middle grade for several reasons:
--I like paperbacks myself
--Paperbacks are priced so kids have a chance to choose them for themselves
--Even bookish people probably don't buy more than a handful of middle grade hardcovers each year from retail stores

At the same time there are many difficulties and consequences that publishers have little or no control over, including but not limited to:
--Paperback originals are highly unlikely to get reviewed in trades
--Paperback originals are technically eligible but much less likely to be considered for awards, important in middle grade
--Margins are already paper-thin, so to speak, and a year or two in hardcover at the higher price point is often what brings projections into the black at the acquisition stage
--Paperback originals have not been common in middle grade for at least 20 years, making it very difficult to find relevant comp titles on which to base said projections
--Middle grade books that do OK or better in hardcover tend to backlist well in paperback, meaning that their hardcover-only life is very short in the scheme of things, especially from the perspective of the ever-changing 8-12-year-old readership. Paperback originals in the US tend to be more ephemeral

I also hold both of these truths at once:
Publishing should be more nimble and open to new things and less keen to jump at the whim of a single retailer, even/especially one that is barely hanging on themself.

I wonder if B&N will apply this policy to their own "Collectible Classics" line?

B&N owns an entire publishing company, Union Square & Co., which publishes their own classic editions and everything else a mid-size general publisher does, including new middle grade. I highly doubt they will make public exactly how they apply their own policy (though that may become clear by what they publish a year so from now), but safe to say that what B&N the retailer wants holds even more weight at US&C than at other publishers.
posted by lampoil at 2:59 PM on August 22, 2022 [2 favorites]


@headspace thank you for the insightful comment , I'm completely horrified. (I was also kind of meekly uptight as a kid; the thought of a very fancy YA cover with special effects would have given me hives.)
posted by kkar at 11:44 AM on August 23, 2022 [1 favorite]


« Older How Many Books Make a Place Feel Like Home?   |   Unvarnished Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments