Selling Books by Hand
Subtitles and comfort do not coexist
Being the 30th edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.
Selling Books
This past Saturday I was out hand selling books again, this time at the Greater Moncton, Riverview and Dieppe Book Fair, the second year in a row this event has taken place. (I didn’t know about it last year.)
Traffic was apparently a little less this year than last, probably because it was a super nice weekend and everybody was out enjoying the great outdoors. I don’t know how everyone else did, but I always seem to sell about six books at these things, unless I’m with my sister, Susan Rodgers, in which case she sells 700 books, and I sell half a book.
The morning started off great; I sold two copies of my father’s book, The Deer Yard and Other Stories right off the bat. I was so excited that I went out and got additional copies from my van, thinking I was going to make a killing… and then didn’t make another sale of any book until about noon.
All told, I sold five books, and traded one. I don’t normally like to trade books; I’m not likely to read any book I trade for, but this one fellow seemed especially keen to read Adventures in the Radio Trade, and his book did look interesting and I probably will read it, so I said yes. He also kicked in $5 cuz my book is more expensive than his. So in the end I sold $130 worth of books. The table had cost me $40, so $90 ahead at the end of the day.
Received one useful piece of (rather discouraging) feedback. First some context: I’d changed the back copy of A Time and a Place, relying on a tagline and an excerpt from the book, along with a blurb:
The blurb on the front of the book is from Publishers Weekly:
“Entertaining, chaotic adventure.”
The tagline at the top of the back reads:
“An unlikely hero travels to other worlds and times to save a boy who does not want to be saved in this unique and imaginative adventure, by turns comic and tragic.”
And here’s the excerpt from the book:
I beat my wings and the horizon stabilized before me. I glided for a while, trying to get my bearings. My wings? I angled my head to see. Air rushed past me with a whoosh that only now registered on my consciousness. Wings… I had wings! Complete with feathers. Were they mine? I lifted the right one up to see. It was my wing all right, upholstered in white feathers with a smattering of grey. The manoeuvre together with the shock of discovering that I was a bird threw me into a stall, and I plummeted earthward. This was not good.
My thinking was that pretty much summed everything up. Is the book any good? Publishers Weekly says so, and they’re a major industry publication. What’s the book about? I tell you: it’s about an unlikely hero who travels to other worlds and times to save a boy who doesn’t want to be saved. What’s the tone? Sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’s tragic. And then I provide an example from the book itself. The hero has turned into a bird. So it’s an imaginative book. Some weird, hopefully fun things happen.
The feedback? A woman picked up the book and looked at the cover. I think it’s a great cover; my daughter Keira created it for me, updating the original cover. The woman read the back copy. Then she set the book down and started to walk away. “Doesn’t tell me much,” she said.
Ouch…
Needless to say, I didn’t get the sale.
I did sell one copy later on (to Roger Cormier, pictured above! Thanks Roger), so I’m not sure what the take away is. I’m inclined to think there is no magical formula, despite what the various book-selling gurus will tell you. There are just too many factors. If someone’s looking at your science fiction book but they’re really into murder mysteries, they’re not going to buy your SF book no matter what you put on the cover. Nor do you want them to; it isn’t the book for them.
If they are into SF, maybe what I put on the cover will appeal to them, maybe it won’t. What I really need is some means of changing the cover and copy depending on who’s checking the book out. A magical device that will analyze everything about the potential reader and change the cover and copy to whatever will appeal most to them, ensuring the sale.
I’m going to get to work on that magical device right away.
The bookfair, which was the handiwork of local author Allan Hudson (thanks Allan! well done) was of especial value in meeting other local writers and publishers. Christopher Sweet was there; I reviewed his novella Something Sweet favourably in this newsletter a few issues back. And several members of the new local publishing collective Merlin Star Press were present. Chatted amicably with them afterward at Dooley’s down the street, and they generously shared some “new publisher” tips with me.
And author Jacqueline Dumas was there representing the Writers Union of Canada, which I’d always resisted joining (so many organizations! So many fees!) but she finally talked me into it. Though it remains to be seen if they will accept the likes of me (my application for membership is still under review as of today).
Please Allow me to Introduce you to…
Krista Wallace!
Krista is a fellow creative soul, a writer, singer and actor. She writes fantasy novels, mostly, but also short fiction. Mark Rayner and I actually featured her on our podcast a while back, episode 16, to be precise, which we called Tunnel Vision.
Krista also pens an excellent newsletter full of all sorts of engaging material. It’s one of those newsletters you open as soon as you get it and read it from top to bottom and then spend five minutes watching the video excerpt of Gene Siskel she included, the one in which he enthuses about Back to the Future (which I now want to watch again).
So this is me recommending you subscribe to Krista’s newletter. If newsletters are a zero sum game with you, you could always unsubscribe to this one when you subscribe to hers… but I hope you don’t do that!
Here’s the link to Krista’s newsletter:
https://kristawallace.com/subscribe/
And here’s her bio in her own words:
I am a writer, singer and actor. I write primarily fantasy novels, but muck about in short fiction in a variety of genres. I sing jazz in a big band called FAT Jazz, and a duo called the Itty Bitty Big Band. I also do audiobook narration, and put out a weekly podcast [on hiatus]. Dark chocolate, fine single malt scotch and pie are some of my favourite things. I can often be heard humming a tune or tap dancing.
Amazon’s Unexpected (and Rather Bizarre) Gift
As I related recently on Facebook, I ordered 30 author’s copies of Adventures in the Radio Trade which Amazon promptly sent to a fellow author in Nova Scotia, two and a half hours away from where I live in New Brunswick.
She kindly tracked me down and let me know about this box of books, addressed to her, but containing my books.
I informed Amazon. Two days later a box of 30 of my books arrived at the correct address.
I drove to Nova Scotia to pick up the first box of 30 books. So, 30 copies of Adventures in the Radio Trade essentially for free. Well, less the cost of gas and a meal and six hours on the road. Still, a gift to this fledging publishing company which, to be honest, needs all the financial help it can get at this point.
But I feel we ought to pass some of this good fortune onto the reader. So, to the next 29 people who order a physical copy of Adventures in the Radio Trade and mention this incident I’ll shave ten bucks off the purchase price. That’s $15 a copy until another 29 copies are sold (I’ve already sold one at that price).
Book Review: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Walking my Golden Retriever Maxwell one day around my old neighbourhood in Whitby I ran into a neighbour who lived around the corner from my place. He had learned that I had a book out and expressed interest so I sold him a copy of A Time and a Place.
Then ensured a few awkward weeks of running into him as he gradually read it and updated me on his progress. “Had me running to the dictionary a few times!” he said once.
Don’t think that was entirely a compliment, but I’m definitely at fault; I deliberately included at least one weird word that Stephen R. Donaldson had used in his Thomas Covenant books.
Anyway, he finished it and professed to like it and suggested it reminded him of another book that he really liked (I think this may have been a compliment): The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. He loaned me a copy, which I accepted with some trepidation. I don’t like borrowing books because I usually have a big pile of books to read yet I feel obligated to read any book I borrow right away and get it back to the owner. I needn’t have worried about this book; it was pretty good. I read it pretty quickly and got it back to my neighbour. And here’s what I wrote about it shortly afterward:
A wonderfully written (and translated), intricately-plotted, and reasonably engrossing tale of men and women in post-war Spain making one terrible decision after another, and rendering themselves miserable as a result. If even a couple of them made a few sensible decisions, using their brains instead of their hearts (or other parts of their anatomy), there would be no tale to tell. A somewhat downbeat story is provided a well needed lift via the tortured yet luminous character of Fermin, so well drawn that I could see his face and hear his voice.
Book Distributors
Regular readers know that I’ve been exploring book distributors to understand how that side of the business works.
We still have Nimbus Distribution and Morning Dove Press to tackle, but today we’ll be looking at these guys:
Prologue Inc.
Based in Boisbriand, not far from Montreal, Prologue Inc. is apparently the “largest independent broadcaster-distributor of large publishing groups in Quebec.” They distribute to “Quebec and Canada, as well as France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy.”
They deal with about 200 publishers and have roughly “170 employees who distribute and distribute books to the general public” though elsewhere they say they have “180” employees, and then elsewhere they claim to have “2000” employees. They’re big! But clearly editing (or counting?) is not their specialty.
They have two massive warehouses. I expect that’s correct as it’s not difficult to count up to two, but elsewhere on their website they talk about building a new facility, so… does that mean they used to have one, but now have two? Or they used to have two, but now have three? Hard to say. Their warehouses have 6 million books of over 42,000 titles, and they do $280 million in sales, though I’d take that all with a grain of salt; it all could be a lot less or a lot more as we’ve already established they do have some difficulty counting.
They’ve been owned by Groupe Renaud Bray since 2017, the biggest “player” in books in Quebec, which has 54 bookstores and boutiques… more or less.
Interestingly, they boast four commercial teams that cover the bookstore, major distribution and specialized boutique markets. So it appears they help you sell their books. Even if they only actually have three teams. Or who knows? Maybe they have five! Probably they should hire someone to help them count, and then we could all trust their numbers a lot more.
Seems like everything they do is done in house, by themselves, with no subcontractors. Their expertise includes:
Commercialization and marketing
Media communication and relations
Advertising, promotion and marketing
Notable participation at all French language book fairs in Quebec, New Brunswick and Ontario
They do seem to be exclusively French though. It just so happens Adventures in the Radio Trade is currently being translated into French by my friend Marie-Andree Michaud… so you never know.
Podcast
Re-Creative: a podcast about creativity and the works that inspire it.
This week our podcast features Catherine Fitzsimmons, the founder of Brain Lag, an acclaimed Canadian science fiction and fantasy press that has now published fifty books. Catherine is one of the people I turned to for advice and counsel before deciding to pursue my own publishing venture with Donovan Street Press Inc.
Catherine is also a writer, with six novels under her belt, and an artist in other ways. She explains how Brain Lag came to be and the role it plays in Canadian publishing.
She’s the first guest to discuss early-to-mid-nineties Nintendo-style games. We discuss the differences between video games, fiction and other narratives such as television. We also talk about how Catherine got into music and other forms of art, and how this informs everything she does.
We're certain you'll enjoy this conversation as much as Mark and I did!
Future episodes of Re-Creative will feature Michael Antman, Ira Nayman, Blair Young, Bruce Sterling, Tom Bradley, Hugh Spencer, Jenn Thorson, with plenty more guests on the way.
All previous episodes are available online, comprising the first 2 seasons, over 40 conversations with creative people from all walks of life about the art stoking their imaginative fires.
Featured Book
The Deer Yard and Other Stories
“This book reminds me of all the books I loved as a kid, and of listening to stories told by grandparents and friends of the family, where people shared tales of a bygone age, or growing up in a locale or culture that was enough removed from my own to be fascinating. The author has a way of capturing the feel of a situation with just a few words, and making you feel like you're in the story with them.”
~ T. Haney, Amazon.ca
"Partly memoir, partly fiction, The Deer Yard is more than merely a good read."
~The Ottawa Review of Books
Tom Mahoney grew up on a small family farm in Johnville, New Brunswick. Tom's was a world of natural beauty; of soft and lonely quiet. Life was never dull. His active imagination was nourished by ghosts and demons, intrepid priests, drunken neighbours, redneck bullies, frightened deer, angry bears, wannabe circus dogs, and plenty of shenanigans. From these seeds great stories grew. Drawing on his own experiences and those of his family — his father was also a gifted storyteller — Tom's humorous and touching tales, spanning decades, brim with colour and authenticity.
Coming Soon from Donovan Street Press Inc.
The Gates of Polished Horn by Mark A. Rayner.
Huey and the Wasteland by Matt Watts
A Peculiar Symmetry by Tanah Haney
Appearances
Coming up:
I’ll be signing books with Partridge Island Publishing in the Area 506 Container Market in Saint John, NB this coming Monday Aug 5th
And I’ll be doing another signing with Partridge Island Publishing in the Area 506 Container Market in Saint John, NB Friday Sept 27th
Donovan Street Press Inc. will be at a Pitch the Publisher Event Area 506 Container Market Saint John, NB. Saturday Sept 21st 2024
I will also be at three Athena’s Touch Craft Fairs this fall, dates yet to be determined, at the Riverview Lion’s Club in Riverview
Follow Joe Mahoney and Donovan Street Press Inc. on: Goodreads, Bluesky, Threads, Mastadon, Facebook, and Instagram
This has been the thirtieth edition of Assorted Nonsense, the official newsletter of Donovan Street Press Inc.