Waterstones have issued a new edict regarding author signings. As I have been told ( I may be wrong) it says something along the following lines:
All signings must be of only up to 90 mins duration.
No more all day signings at which the author chats to customers, hand-selling, will be tolerated.
Only authors that the shop would stock anyway may be invited.
The author must be chaperoned by a bookseller at all times.
Only booksellers may hand-sell to the public on the author’s behalf.
Only authors capable of drawing a crowd may be invited.
When the queue ends the author must leave.
‘Local’ authors, it seems, may only be invited when launching a new book.
Tweeting to my reviewers I have been receiving a 'this is
outrageous' reaction. One immediately tweeted to Neil Gaiman (no
reaction yet) and vowed never to buy from Waterstones again if this is
strictly enforced.
Smaller shops are also
apparently disgruntled because good 'local' authors help achieve or
exceed daily targets and these stores cannot 'pull' famous authors, so
they will be left out of pocket while impotent to improve their ratings.
Rather
than this blanket ban maybe they should have allowed local expert event
organisers discretion to permit good sellers but omit ones too
aggressive or incompetent.
It seems the local
author / store autonomy drive of a year or so ago has backfired with the
sudden increase in people printing, POD, indifferent badly designed
books and the pressure on stores to permit signings may have resulted in
wasted days or complaints.
Now the pendulum has swung wildly
in the opposite direction effectively banning all non crowd- pulling
authors except on a book launch.
One can only hope that reason
eventually puts a dampener on this lurching from one extreme to the
other to allow rational choice based on commercial viability to permeate
the rank and file bookstores while permitting new authors the chance to
prove their viability through their launch as I once did in Guildford,
selling more books in my first signing than most authors invited to the
concurrent Guildford book festival that year.
I
hope that the intention is to remove the 'presumption of a right to
hold signings' regardless of the merits of the books or competency of
the author.
But as it stands very few shops
are going to tie up a member of staff as warden to authors even where
they can drum up enough support to gather a queue (and how much extra
work is that for a store, prior to any event, let alone having a
bookseller 'hand-sell' on the author's behalf?
Having turned over 8,500 Curd the Lion at £15 and 3,000 Flight of Birds at £10 in toto, mostly through signings where staff order
the stock (where they don't insist that the author brings it with
him/her) and then provide a table, I have put something approaching
£150,000 through their tills in this way. I have, it now transpires,
foolishly, based my business model around the bricks and mortar chain as
opposed to e/books because of my love for the printed quality of my
illustrated book and its unsuitability as an ebook, because it seems I
am about to be rewarded for all the hard work I have put in by a
dismissal of service without accounting the small contribution I have
personally made to their own continued viability?
Last
year, out of area, I toured southern England, selling over 1,100 books
from Exeter to Ipswich over five weeks. In the lead up to Christmas I
sold 806 (@ £15 @£10). Not inconsiderable for an author unknown to every
customer on introduction.
This
edict presages end to that era in Waterstones of the 'discovery' of a
new author that so many of my own clients have told me they found
enchanting as I talked them into my nonsense adventures with my
storyboards.
Is
it not sad that, at the same time as James Daunt is very laudably
promoting across the chain a beautiful book by an author unknown to its
readers, this draconian edict effectively bans all authors of possible
merit but equally unknown to the chain's customers from the opportunity
to gently build a following while seemingly welcoming any celebrity,
regardless of merit, who can amass a crowd?
Mark this day with a black stone, as Charles Dodgson would say.
In
an era when rank commercialism herds those curators of quality, the
major publishers, into frantically rushing out clones of the latest 'hot
product' to placate their shareholders where the bidding frenzy failed
to secure them that new market leading 'product' - is it not largely
left to the small publishers of old fashioned integrity to support
writers of potential merit through their formative years before success
sees them snatched away?
How many will be able to continue to do
so now, knowing their proteges will only get one shot at bricks and
mortar success in the biggest chain in Britain, unless they can secure
an outstanding review in the disappearing book pages of the national
newspapers to endear them to the older generation of book buyers who
still read newspapers.
All will surely be compelled to
engage in the frantic banter of online social media self-promotion to
grow their readerships, which itself drives online sales through Amazon,
which itself diminishes the need to pop down to the old store to make
serendipitous discovery or meet and chat to a real live author (and for
many such an intimate exchange with any author carries a certain magic).
No, the future for the customer is to endlessly queue for a cursory glance and a quick squiggle with your Idol.
I can’t resist adding my Carrollian spoof on this subject here:
