How Many Ways to Love Books? by Molly MacRae

I love everything about books. Reading them, of course. That goes without saying doesn’t it? Reading them to myself, to the grandchildren in a box, with a fox, on a train, in the rain. I also love selling books. Back in the 90s I managed an independent bookstore. I loved that job. Customers in bookshops are, for the most part, happy to be there because they love books, too. Then there’s lending books. I just retired after eighteen years in the children’s department of the public library. Eighteen years of connecting children with books and hearing them squeal, belly-laugh, and shout with joy when they found the books they were looking for—and one little girl who said, with hushed reverence, “Charlotte’s Web is my absolute favorite book in the whole world.”

What else do I love about books? Making them! Okay, so far I’ve only made a few simple, folded books (and a really cool box that looks like a book). I follow several handmade book artists online, though, and boy do I have visions of beautiful handmade books dancing in my head and plans to make them (after I finish writing the book due in mid-April). 

cover of a very simple zhen xian bao
(Chinese thread book)

first two folded boxes in zhen xian bao revealed

all three boxes in zhen xian bao open
(more elaborate zhen xian bao will
have a dozen or more folded boxes inside)

 

really cool box that looks like a book

And yes, I love writing books, too. Or, as some writers more accurately put it, I love having written books. The actual writing can be like pulling my brains out of my head with crochet hooks.

Now let me add one more thing I love about books—eating them. Or again, to be more accurate, making books meant to be eaten for the annual International Edible Book Festival.

Have you ever been to an Edible Book Festival? They’re held all over the world on or around April 1st to celebrate the birthday of Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin (born April 1, 1755). Brillat-Savarin was a French gastronome famous for his witty meditation on food, Physiologie du gout. The festivals are loads of fun. People come up with the most amazing creations. Some edible books are culinary wonders. Others are done strictly for the laughs (or groans). The books are judged in a variety of categories. Last year’s categories at the University of Illinois festival were:

• Best Depiction of a Classic
• Best Visual Presentation
• Most Appetizing
• Funniest/Punniest
• Best Entry Based on a Book for Children or Teens
• Best Collaborative Creation
• People’s Choice

After the winners are announced, attendees are invited to eat the books.

I entered the University of Illinois contest way back in 2008 and 2009. My “The Chard in the Scone” won 2nd place for Literary Merit in 2008, but “Rum Plus Stilton” got nothing in 2009. Bummer.

The Chard in the Scone
(It was a really lovely chili cheese scone.
If you'd like the scone recipe, let me know.)

I haven’t entered since, figuring I’ve probably peaked. But I’ve been toying with a couple of ideas lately, so maybe I’ll reconsider. What do you think of “Little Hummus in the Big Woods” or “Mastering the Artichoke of French Cooking”?

You can find pictures of entries from past festivals by Googling, and you can read more about the whys and wherefores of the International Edible Book Festival on Wikipedia. Most festivals this year will be virtual. But that’s cool, because now you can enter a festival that’s nowhere near where you live (and, if you make a book that’s truly appetizing, you can eat it yourself). There’s a short list of festivals at Book Riot.

If you were to create an edible book, would you try for the artistic/literary experience or are you more apt to go for the humorous/loony?

Molly MacRae writes the award-winning, national bestselling Haunted Yarn Shop Mysteries and the Highland Bookshop Mysteries. Visit Molly on Facebook and Pinterest and connect with her on Twitter  or Instagram.

 

 

Bookstores Worth the Trip – First in a Series

by Shari Randall

When friends visit my corner of Connecticut, I take them to see my favorite sights – the lighthouses, historic buildings, and unique shops and restaurants that make this a fun place to live. We’re also lucky in this small corner of the world to have some great independent bookstores.

One of my favorites is, well, a bit quirky.

The Book Barn in Niantic, CT has been delighting booklovers since April 1988, with a hiatus in 1990 when a fire nearly destroyed the building. The store recovered and has been going strong, so strong it has outgrown its original home and now has two outposts, Downtown (Audio to UFOs, Manga, Parenting, Children’s, Comics) and Store Four (Everything from Astronomy to Writing, with Mystery, Thriller, and True Crime), and over 500,000 books.

And yes, "Store Four" wasn't a typo. The store grew to four separate buildings, but my favorite outpost, a small third storefront that was devoted to mostly mysteries, was folded into Store Four, so mystery lovers should head there first. I never left that collection without a find – a paperback The Elusive Mrs.Pollifax and the short story collection The Cat Who Had Fourteen Tales by Lillian Jackson Braun. Each only $1!

Along with knowledgeable booksellers, several bookstore cats, and free coffee, the main Book Barn also has goats you can pet and feed. I kid you not! Sorry! There’s something about the sense of humor at the Book Barn that is infectious. The signage alone is worth the trip.

The main barn is so busy it even has a parking lot attendant to direct traffic. When you leave your car, you pass a table where staffers will evaluate and perhaps buy your books. “Ellis Island” is the first stop where stalls of shelves hold new arrivals. Everywhere are fun touches – a Hobbit door, a playground, benches, an oversized chess set.

You can visit The Underworld, aka Hades, (see photo above), pass through two graveyards full of Halloween decorations to a building called The Haunted for mystery and horror books, through to The Annex for poetry and essays, to the last outbuilding, the Last Page, for nonfiction.

Then the Main building awaits – three levels of well-organized book nirvana.

Kids’ books? Yes.

Teen books? Yes

Military history? Art? Arthurian Legends? Psychology? Women’s Studies? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And more!

Is the Book Barn worth the trip? You bet.

The Book Barn, 41 West Main Street, Niantic, CT 06357

Downtown, 269 Main Street, Niantic, CT 06357

Store Four, 55 West Main Street, Niantic, CT 06357

What’s your favorite bookstore?

The Sound of One Hand Clapping

I’ve attended a few bookstore events since Cabin Fever’s publication last month. I’d love to say I was overwhelmed with the positive response, but that’s not the case. I can attribute the lack of success to a variety of causes, although my being unknown is likely the major factor.

Timing can be everything. For example, at one bookstore my event was a Saturday afternoon (normally a decent time). However it conflicted with a wonderful farmers market/artists booth sale/classic car show held at the central town square on a beautiful spring day. Worse, the bookstore had a launch party for a local author’s “food book” that evening, which involved not only the bookstore but many other merchants in the town. How many people are going to go to two book events in a day?

Having exactly no one show up at that signing was disappointing. I recently spoke with CJ Lyons, who said she rarely does bookstore signings anymore because they are not worth her time. She then added an important caveat, “unless you are just trying to build relationships with booksellers.”

Exactly. Most people who read my books really enjoy them. Goodreads and Amazon reviews of my books have been favorable (On Goodreads Bad Policy ratings average 4.55 and Cabin Fever currently averages 4.88. For Amazon the ratings are 4.75 and 4.78.)

The key to my success is to have people read the books – at least people who like page-turning mystery/thrillers. For that I need proponents and, until I have legions of fans, for that I need independent booksellers.

At each signing I introduce myself and my books to someone who can sell them. Unfortunately, I am not alone in this endeavor and independent booksellers are inundated with people vying for their time. All I can do is continue to try and appreciate every bookstore that allows me to appear in their venue.

So, thank you all independent bookstores—those who already know me and those who will learn of me later. I’m rooting for your success and hoping we share a prosperous future.

~ Jim

What Makes Independent Bookstores Magical?

The photo is by Superbmust.  

When I step inside an independent bookstore, like Upstart Crow in San Diego, the Tattered Cover in 

Denver or Mysteryscape in Overland Park, Kansas, I experience a feeling unlike what I feel when I 

enter a chain store with a few rows of books.

What makes me feel those few aisles could just as easily be filled with auto parts, men’s clothing, CDs 

or, for that matter, chains? Is it the glaring lighting?  The cookie cutter regimented architecture?  The 

half-gallon jug of mustard?

Maybe it’s the fact that in such chain stores I know significantly more about the “product” than the 

clerks.  I once advised a reader seeking a book for her teenage granddaughter who saw the world in 

theatrically tragic terms. I suggested Maisie Dobbs as a book that would leave her happily sobbing. 

Maybe it’s because the staff of independent bookstores actually read books, make recommendations, 

and interpret requests.  I know a bookstore salesperson whose customer was looking for “the word 

book Roger Saw Us.” She correctly steered the customer toward Roget’s Thesaurus.  Maybe it’s the 

excitement of finding a new work by a favorite author or the anticipation of finding an unknown writer. 

Maybe it’s because writers sign books. write and exchange critiques in independent bookstores. I have 

attended a few critique groups in mega product stores but they just never feel quite as homey as in an 

independent.

Only one standard issue multi-product store ever agreed for me to do a signing there.  On the other 

hand, independent bookstore staff “hand sell” my books. They do it one book at a time.  (Why don’t 

customers buy a dozen at a time?) 

What is your favorite bookstore?  What makes it your favorite?

A Superior Trip

Jan and I took a wonderful trip around Lake Superior. We got to explore more deeply some areas of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and to see a lot of country we had not seen before. One of the neatest things we did was to visit all the independent bookstores near our route (as well as stores in a regional chain, Book World).

My purpose was three fold: (1) introduce myself in the hopes they would remember me when CABIN FEVER comes out next year, (2) give them a copy of my novel BAD POLICY in the belief that if they read it they will like it, and (3) support the local stores by buying a book from them—not just any book, a book they recommended that was preferably by a local author who was unknown to us or a book set in the local area.

We visited eleven bookstores and here’s what we found:

Falling Rock Café & Bookstore in Munising, MI was our first stop. Eli, the manager, made it easy for me. Since it was my first stop, I hadn’t yet figured out an approach, but it turned out he had a camp not far away from us and knew some of the locales used in CABIN FEVER. He thought about my request of a book to buy for a bit and decided on Bonnie Jo Campbell’s Once Upon a River. She’s an author from the Lower Peninsula of Michigan. I’ve found the time to read that book and enjoyed it quite a lot.

Our next three bookstores were in Sault Ste. Marie, MI. Because CABIN FEVER's setting is in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I included stores from the regional Book World chain in my visits. Local managers run each store. Although the corporate level makes some buying decisions, each manager does have some discretion, so I figured, “what the heck?” In the Sault, I met Norma who would pass BAD POLICY on to the manager. She recommended Ellen Airgood’s South of Superior, which I have not yet had an opportunity to read.

Next in the Sault came Island Books & Crafts. We had a good time talking with Pat. He wasn’t the “reader” of the family, but he’d pass my book along. When asked for a local author, he walked to a display and said something to the effect that locals like it because it’s set right here, but it’s not very well written. Needless to say, we didn’t buy that one. But the experience again proved that there are a lot of different things that make a book sell.

The third bookstore in the Sault was UP North Books owned and operated by Mike. The store contains mostly used books, but he has a section for “local” authors in which he stocks new books. He not only bought a copy of BAD POLICY, he recommended that we make a detour and catch a couple of stores not on our list. Mike is a great talker and we could have stayed for hours, except now we had two more bookstores and a couple hours of extra driving to do. Based on Mike’s suggestion and my interest in history, I picked up Drummond Island’s Part in the War of 1812 by Jill Lowe Brumwell.

Our next stop was in Pickford, MI at Wilderness Treasures run by Karley and Tom Ball. It’s a combination, bait shop, shoe store, bookstore, and general merchandise shop. Tom is an author as well, and we had a good time talking about publishing and the U.S. Civil War. Tom bought a couple of copies of BAD POLICY and I traded another copy of my book for his, Guardians of Hallowed Ground Gettysburg. I did have a chance to read this alternative history novel of the battle of Gettysburg with the unique premise that five modern soldiers and their weapons appear in Gettysburg just in time for the 1863 battle, and it’s a good thing they are there because without them the battle would not have turned out as history records it.

From Pickford we continued south to Cedarville, MI where we stopped at Safe Harbor Books. We met the owner Katie, who indicated the shop is seasonal. She took a couple of books on consignment and when we said we had not read PJ Parrish’s Heart of Ice, which is set in the UP, she suggested we pick that one up, which I did, and it now sits in my TBR pile.

After crossing into Canada at the Sault, we traveled around the top of Lake Superior and reentered the U.S. in Minnesota. Our first two bookstores were in Grand Marais, MN. Drury Lane Books is owned by author Joan M Drury and so my selected book was one of hers, an award winner, Silent Words. We talked to Linda who was minding the store at the time. She pointed out that Joan had had to rearrange the store because she kept enlarging the mystery section. I thought that was a good thing. J She also mentioned that Joan had made a trip a number of years ago to all the independent bookstores in the Northwoods—but there were a lot more then than now.

Also in town is Birchbark Gifts and Books. I met Judy, who is the bookstore manager. They have a whole area devoted to Lake Superior in one manner or another. Unfortunately, I’d have to stretch the truth a bit too much to justify putting CABIN FEVER into that niche. However, it turns out they have a very large mystery section and their definition of “local author” extends into the U.P. She had a number of recommendations for us and we chose Wolves by Cary J Griffith, which I have just started reading.

I entered Duluth with the names of two bookstores, but one no longer exists. That left The Bookstore at Fitger’s. They have a fine selection of Minnesota authors and a large mystery section. The clerk highly recommended Nancy Webb’s The Fate of Mercy Alban, which I haven’t gotten to start yet.

Both Ashland, WI and Ironwood, MI have Book Worlds. In Ashland I bought Mashiki Rapids by local retired schoolteacher Anne Rud Miller. In Ironwood I bought the nonfiction book Death’s Door by Steve Lehto, which tells the tale of a deadly fire in a Calumet, MI nightclub and suggests it was murder. Both books are on my TBR pile.

By the end of the trip this shy author had his patter down to introduce myself to whoever was running the store. We loved talking to people who love books and now have the opportunity to learn of several new-to-us authors.

Perhaps next year when CABIN FEVER comes out the visits will smooth the way for book signings and book placement. Even if that turns out not to be the case, we had a great time, met wonderful people and plan to do more bookstore visiting on future trips.

~ Jim

Services for Writers - Caveat Emptor

I recently came across two entities that want to sell their services to writers with payment models I found interesting.

the new online bookstore

The first is Bookstore Without Borders (http://www.bookstorewithoutborders.com/). They correctly note that to make a sale one needs product, platform and exposure. An author’s e-book is the product; they propose to provide the platform (an online bookstore) and exposure.

The question I always like to address when it comes to services for writers is whether the value proposition is a good deal for the author. (I assume it’s good for the provider; otherwise, why are they doing it?)

Bookstore Without Borders (BWB from now on) offers an array of services; the only one I’ll address now is their platform for selling e-books. An author can list up to five e-books for the startup price of $395. There’s an introductory offer of $295 if you sign up before October 2013. Listing an extra book costs another $55. Annual renewals run $29.95.

BWB states that it only takes 80 books at $4.99 each to earn back your $395 cost. Their math is fine—as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far enough. The open question is how many extra sales their platform will drive. If all of the 80 sales are ones you would not have gotten except for the exposure they provide, then the math is fine—for a $4.99 book. If, for example, your book is priced at $2.99, it takes 133 new books before you’re in the plus column.

If they would guarantee brand new traffic for your book at least this large, it’s a clear winner. Of course they provide no guarantees. Even the testimonials on their website refer to the wonderful design and are silent about sales and profits.

They do have another selling point, however: they pay 100% royalties.

If you can sell someone your book through BWB instead of Amazon, B&N or wherever, you’ll make more money on that book because the royalty rate is higher. However, if you plan to pay for your start-up fee through this difference in royalties, you’ll need a lot more sales to break even. You were already going to earn something on those sales, so the net to you from joining BWB is the difference between the 100% royalty BWB pays and whatever royalty your current bookseller pays. E-book royalties keep changing, but let’s assume you can make 60% of list price on e-books you currently sell. Since 100% is better than 60%, you’d be interested in this deal if you sold enough books.

With your $4.99 e-book, you’ll need to sell 198 books before you break even. What happened to the 80-book target? That assumed joining BWB would bring new buyers who would never buy your book no matter where it was sold, because without BWB they’d never have made the purchase. We’re not talking about those people anymore. Now we’re talking about folks who would have bought your book somewhere, but because they prefer to pay money to authors rather than to Amazon and the like, these kind and generous souls now buy your book at BWB. The math works like this: For those 198 books at 60% royalty you would have earned $592.81. After paying BWB’s $395, when you sell 198 books through them, you’ll end up with $593.02, a gain of $0.21. After that, it’s all extra profit: you earn two bucks more a book.

Will your book sell 198+ books if you sign up with BWB? I have no clue. However, even if you tell people that’s the best place to buy your e-book, many potential readers will prefer to buy through Amazon or Barnes & Noble or their indie bookstore. I say this because I experienced a parallel situation. I suggested to someone who wanted to buy an e-book of Bad Policy that they could buy it through the publisher and save 35%. I figured that was a good deal for everyone except for Amazon, who would lose the sale since it was for a Kindle. That wasn’t how the reader saw it. The extra time it would take her to set up an account with the publisher, mess around with downloading the book to her computer and then transferring it to her Kindle was not worth the time and money. Despite the extra cost, she preferred to buy the book on Amazon with one-click, and have it automatically appear on her Kindle the next time she turned it on.

So, as a buyer of BWB’s services you also have to consider that even if people find your book because of BWB not all of them will actually buy the book there. If that assumption is correct, you’ll need even more sales to reach breakeven.

Of course, you may price your book at something other than $4.99. Using $2.99, the 198 threshold rises to 331. At a price of $1.99, you’ll need 497. With a more expensive book, the rewards come sooner.

If you are earning a royalty rate greater than 60%, you’ll need more books to break even; lower than 60% and you’ll need fewer books. As the saying goes, your mileage may vary.

In addition, there is an annual renewal fee – not a major cost ($29.95), but it will require another 15 books each year under the first scenario ($4.99/ book and standard 60% royalty) before you are ahead of the game.

BWB wins as soon as your payment clears. You only win if you can drive lots of sales through this particular bookstore.

Please note, I'm not saying or implying that this is a bad deal -- it's a different deal. For some authors it could be terrific; for others, it’s a waste of money. To fully understand how the proposition works for you, you’ll need to make these types of comparisons. I computed everything using a simple Excel spreadsheet. If you’d like a copy for yourself, send me an email and I’ll get it to you.

EDITOR FOR HIRE

All writers need editors of one sort or another. There are many varieties and it is important to make sure you know what you are getting before making a commitment. Most publishers provide editing as part of their services; others do not. If you are self-published, you need to make sure to get competent assistance.

Some editors specialize in storyline issues, what are frequently referred to as developmental edits; others are copyeditors looking for grammar and spelling errors. Some do it all as was the case for a new provider that I recently ran across. They offered to do a complete edit (developmental, line/copy edit and proofread) for a flat fee of $200 plus $5 per page over 300.

The pricing structure struck me as very odd. The first 300 pages cost $0.67 per page and any pages over that cost $5.00? How does that make sense? For line/copy edit and proofing a page is a page is a page. Reading extra pages in a developmental edit actually is less expensive on a per page basis because that type of edit considers overall story issues, which do not increase linearly. A charge of $0.50 an extra page doesn’t seem out-of-line with the first 300-page pricing. Is this a typo or math error or what? Maybe the editor doesn’t want to work on anything but shortish books and this is a way of discouraging authors of longer works from applying.

Something else bothered me. Unless the story is close to perfect, it does not make sense to do a developmental edit at the same time one proofs. If major sections of the novel must be rewritten or even pitched and replaced, why would one carefully ensure that the deleted material met the Chicago Manual of Style?

I am using this particular Editor website as an example of why thinking carefully about the numbers is necessary before you sign on the bottom line. If this math stuff is all Greek to you, get someone who likes this kind of analysis to help you out.

With any provider, it’s also important to check references. I don’t know much Latin, but caveat emptor never goes out of style.

~ Jim

Online Book Pricing

In previous posts, I wondered about how Amazon priced my bridge book and followed how Barnes & Noble and Amazon chose to price Catherine Coulter’s Backfire. Since then, we had the e-book pricing suit settlement, after which publishers lost the right to require specific e-book prices. I wondered at the time how that would affect e-book pricing. I thought it would bring prices down (a boon for consumers) and there would be more pricing competition (also a boon for consumers.)

I chose to follow Michael Connelly’s Black Box for five and a half months, which includes six-weeks before the hardcover release.

E-book Pricing

Let’s start with e-book pricing. When I monitored Coulter’s Backfire, both Amazon and B&N carried the e-book at $12.99. The price did not vary from that list price on a single day. The chart below shows some changes in pricing philosophy subsequent to the suit. As I am writing this blog, Backfire is still selling for $12.99. Black Box has varied from a pre-publication high of $14.99 to a few day low of $7.50 and as of this writing rests at $7.99

Figure 1 Black Box E-Book Prices

The two “competitors” acted almost in lock-step as they moved the price of the e-books on a daily basis. The only difference was one day in February when B&N held a $12.74 price a day longer than Amazon. [In fact it could have been more or less than 24 hours, since I only checked prices on a daily basis, usually first thing in the morning.]

Hardback Pricing

Pricing on the hardback edition has been a bit more volatile. Amazon has priced the book as low or lower than B&N, with the interesting exception of a few days in February when Amazon appears to be chasing B&N down and not quite catching them.

Notice that the pre-publication price was considerably higher than the price once the book was available. Apparently the retailers have determined that an author’s fans will pay more to be first in line. Since the words don’t change and I have more books to read than time to read, I’ll not be caught paying pre-listing prices.

Figure 2 Black Box Hard Cover Pricing

For the better part of a month, B&N has priced the hard cover edition at $15.21 and Amazon at $15.22 – so rush on over to B&N and get that $.01 savings.

Paperback Pricing

The paperback edition came out about a month after the hardback release.

Figure 3 Black Box Paperback Prices

Other than the dope-smoking episode B&N engaged in the second week of February, which was a relapse of their initial pricing decision, the two have danced a dance of “can you top this?” It appears B&N has taken the lead and Amazon has been the follower.

In my blog Whither Barnes & Noble I predicted the demise of B&N unless they changed their focus. Based on this sample of one, they have not. In the blog I suggested B&N should become THE place for readers to learn about books and authors. Had B&N followed the logic of my blog, they would have been the one buying Goodreads. Instead Amazon has snapped them up. I see nothing from Barnes & Noble to change my prediction of their demise.

And based on this limited sample of one e-book, pricing in e-books is still not being done in the same competitive way hardcover and paperbacks are. Simply look at the pricing volatility for paperbacks and hardcovers compared to the stability of e-books.

I’ve seen this same thing with the pricing of my novel Bad Policy. It’s been available less than a month, but the paperback price fluctuates frequently and the e-book pricing is constant. As Smoky Robinson sang, “My mother told me, you better shop around.”

~ Jim