BookTour.com is closing

While on the subject of eBooks, and changes in technology, I just got an email announcing that BookTour.com is closing. I was one of the first to welcome them when they came on the scene a couple of years ago, and for a while they seemed to be striking just the right chord.

To quote from their email:

“We regret to inform you that BookTour will be shutting down….fewer author tours and changes in book marketing budgets have made our company financially unviable.”

While stores like Borders are closing and ceding territory to Amazon and other eBook vendors, the emerging market for eBooks has put a premium on online promotion and virtual book tours, not to mention social media in general.

For book publicists this is a new wrinkle in the terrain, and raises further the question of what role publishers, publicists, book chains, and Indies will be playing in the new market.

Some Observations From a Book Tour

Since I only work in promotions part time (I am a psychologist by trade, and an author, book promoter, and online poker player all tied for second) I get only snapshots of the ever changing book market. There are many new trends since I last managed a book tour in 2002. First and foremost is the internet, but I will save that for another post. I will also save my thoughts on the Kindle, and on the chaos in the publishing industry.

But I wanted to ask if anyone else has noticed a couple of trends in the chains, especially Waldenbooks, but to a lesser extent other chains like Borders and Books-A-Million. The big things I notice are:
1. The centralization of power away from the bookstores.
2. A Just-in-time inventory management approach.

The first issue, centralization has been happening for a while. There was a time when a book seller with some clout, such as Kathy Baker (who has won bookseller of the year and other such awards), could get her store to stock what she wanted to push. It seems now that most if not all of the say has moved up to at least the district manager level, and of course these people already have plenty of clout because they do the hiring and firing. If much of the ordering and inventory control lies now at the district level, (what does not fall squarely to the computers and bean counters) one of the main reasons for touring is now subsiding. Namely, if you develop a good relationship with the local store owner they will push your books, and of course that helps with everything from sell through to making a list. But if they can’t get your book in, it doesnt really matter so much how much they love it.

Of course centralization will not be an issue with the typical small to medium size independent book store. If I manage another tour soon, however, I for one may be inclined to do fewer of the Waldenstores and such and quite a few more independent stores. That would be a philosophical preference of mine anyhow that was always trumped by the practical consequences; but realistic considerations now seem to be pointing away from the chains.

The other issue is the inventory management. It seems that more and more they are ordering only a small number of each book when they first come out, keeping the inventory low. This makes financial sense to them, but can have severe impact on how you promote. I have tended to have much of the promotion I do front loaded, which in the  good old days was great for bumping you up the list and assuring that your initial sell through looked good. But if you spend a lot of money or creative genius targetted at the first few weeks, and instead of ordering 48 they order 12 and then reorder as they sell, you will only sell about 12 initially, then need to wait for reorder and shipping. It speaks for the need to spread your efforts flat like the inventory over the first 8 or so weeks.

Any body else notice this?

PR Notes

The Brooklyn Book Festival which is this weekend, features famous names ranging from Jimmy Breslin to 2008 Bobi Literary Award winner author Walter Mosely.

Todd Defren blogging at PR Squared discussed whether or not Bloggers are media. His conclusion- that we are something more, is worth pondering. Most effective bloggers not only know how to work the 24/7 news cycle and the information behemoth once known as the internet, but also we know how to swim in the living breathing Web 2.0. In addition to being knowledgable, we are also on the cutting edge of the culture. That’s a far cry from “reporting.” We are the leaders and they are the followers — reporting, more often than not.

The Book Tour Blog, a California based blog that was started by authors anounced a partnership with IndieBound, a socially conscious movement that suports Independent Bookstores. This should mean author events at their stores will be automatically added to their calendar.