What An Agent Wants

Brenda Hill wrote:

Yes, but Shelagh, even when a major publisher doesn't pay the extra fee to promote at the front of the store, their authors are at least IN the store.

For awhile.

Alice wrote:

I don't often frequent bookstores.

I think bookstores are becoming obsolete.

Well, you've often said you're not a writer. Most writers are voracious readers. While most readers love the bookstore experience, it really doesn't matter how a publisher promotes - as long as they do.

I hope we always have bookstores. Quite often when I go to a B&N late at night, people will be sipping coffee and reading. The aromas of coffee, pastries, and sandwiches fill the air as I browse. It's a wonderful experience.

I read to my son when he was small and did the same with my grandchildren. To this day, the best time they can have, other than amusement parks and video games, is to walk the aisles of bookstores, especially when I've sent a gift certificate.

Sorry, but for most of us, our books could be featured in the front window with a flashing light focused on them and most folks would bypasss them in favor of something else.

The written word is too common and banal.

Too many writers and too few readers.

Thank goodness not everyone believes that.

It all started more than ten years ago:

"In 1997, HarperCollins lost $270 million on books they couldn’t sell to bookstores. Simon & Schuster, Random House, and Penguin Putnam have suffered similar losses. In addition, HarperCollins recently closed Basic Books, its esteemed academic label, and Addison Wesley has announced a decision to decrease the amount of literary fiction it publishes in favor of more lucrative genres."

Read Between the Lines

Book superstores threaten the American literary future.

by David Kornhaber:

http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/~perspy/old/issues/1999/feb/read.shtml

cc

Obviously enough people enjoy the genres to make it worth a publisher's time and expense. Not everyone in this busy world wants to read symbolism in a grain of wheat or wade through a literary book.

In my bookstore years ago, I met fans of every genre, and some of those belonging to the highest professions loved the fastest-reading books published. Harlequin and Silhouette did a study a while back, and I was amazed at the doctors and lawyers who loved them, couldn't get enough of them. They wanted a fast read to help them escape their hectic lives, and they want happy endings.

Today, people want excitement and thrills, and the faster moving, usually the better. But most still want a good story, one that touches them emotionally.

I read to my children. We are a family of readers.

My daughter teaches writing. Whether bookstores go or stay is not within my power.

If I were voting, I'D VOTE TO KEEP THEM SINCE YOU LIKE
THEM.

Lane told me I am a writer.

I am very frustrated. I spent my life exercising, eating right, eschewing drugs alcohol and tobacco for what?

To have the worst health imaginable. I have learned that what one wants, one does not always get.

I thought we were talking about today's bookstore placements, Brenda.

Shelagh,

Wrong again--face it you and I are so wrong we can't ever be right. Too funny!

We are. I can walk into any major bookstore and the shelves are loaded with books of every genre.

I'm sorry life hasn't turned out the way you wanted, Alice. My mother had a similar experience.

I quite like being wrong. No one tries to disprove me.

Brenda Hill wrote:

We are. I can walk into any major bookstore and the shelves are loaded with books of every genre.

You can read, can't you, Brenda?

"Literature Today: an Overview

The nature of this crisis is actually fairly simple. Writers can
only publish what book publishers are willing to buy from them. And
book publishers, in turn, can only publish what bookstores are
willing to buy. In the past, there were literally thousands of
independent bookstores across the country, each deciding for itself
which books to buy from publishers. A large number of these stores,
in fact, were dedicated to selling the works of emerging writers, to
taking a chance on an unknown name. Thus, there was a market for a
great variety of literature.

Today, however, the landscape has changed. Three bookstore chains
control three-fourths of all book sales. Each of these chains has
only one or two people in charge of buying books from publishers.
Instead of thousands of independent buyers looking for books, there
are now only five book purchasers who determine which books are sold
in the vast majority of the nation’s bookstores. Publishers who
cannot sell to these five buyers are now more than ever finding
themselves in financial dire straits. And thus, writers who are
trying to express a vision that doesn’t appeal to these buyers
are finding themselves without publishers. The rise of book
superstores, in short, has threatened the literary life of our
country. In a world where publishers are being forced to determine
the worth of a book by the number of copies it can sell instead of
its inherent merit, the outlets for authors of serious literature are
dwindling. As the type of books being bought by bookstores (and thus
the type of books that get published) become more and more based on
mass-market appeal, literary innovation will inevitably decline."

http://www.digitas.harvard.edu/~perspy/old/issues/1999/feb/read.shtml

Brenda Hill wrote:

Thank goodness not everyone believes that.

It doesn't matter what one believes--facts are facts. People used to believe that too much blood was bad.

That belief cost a few folks their lives.

I could sincerely believe that the Atlantc Ocean is only five feet deep and I would drown trying to swim across it.

And Brenda agrees with me. She always does.

Yes, Shelagh, I can read. And I can read until doomsday about horrible things, but that will not cause me to relinquish my dream.

We can only reach the top of the mountain if we set our goals to climb it. We may plow through storms and every other disaster thrown, and some may fail.

But some will reach the summit

Dick Stodghill wrote:

And Brenda agrees with me. She always does.

Sure I do, Dick, when you've admitted I was right.

We all agree with you, Dick.

Brenda, I speak for every human creature, including you, on this forum.

At last, I know why you did not understand your PA contract and why you only saw what you wanted to see on PA's website: "Books available in bookstores from sea to shining sea."

You didn't see "available" and your mind didn't work out exactly what that meant. I hope you make it, Brenda. There is far more hope for everyone else if you do!

Brenda Hill wrote:

Yes, Shelagh, I can read. And I can read until doomsday about horrible things, but that will not cause me to relinquish my dream.

We can only reach the top of the mountain if we set our goals to climb it. We may plow through storms and every other disaster thrown, and some may fail.

But some will reach the summit

We, I, do not want you to give up on your dreams--it would be nice if someone could have something the way they wanted it to be.

Might as well be you.

Shelagh wrote:

At last, I know why you did not understand your PA contract and why you only saw what you wanted to see on PA's website: "Books available in bookstores from sea to shining sea."

You didn't see "available" and your mind didn't work out exactly what that meant. I hope you make it, Brenda. There is far more hope for everyone else if you do!

I understood my contract very well, Shelagh. I also talked to them several times about that contract. I don't know when you signed with them, but I talked with them in 2004. Many things have changed since then.

Shelagh wrote:

I quite like being wrong. No one tries to disprove me.

A very healthy attitude.

I would love to try being wrong--just to see what it is like. Some other time!

I think Brenda has worked for every step of the ladder. She is not shy about it, says it right out loud. You have to want it, work for it, never, ever give up trying or lose the focus.

I am not like Brenda in that way. It is not as important to me. I have a lot less years to go than our Brenda.

Brenda, I hope you make it where you want to go.

Shelagh, O, I wish I could make you famous with just a wave of my wand. Alas! I wish I had such a wand.

Love,
Betty

Thanks, Betty.

I'd love to have that wand even for just an hour. Oh, what magical things I could accomplish with my family and friends. For some it's too late, but not for everyone.

I will make that wand, Betty! I had almost given up on completing the sequel to Mr. Planemaker's Flying Machine but you and Dick have provided the spur I needed. Oh, and Brenda and Domenic are short of a third for a threesome! The Three Disagrees! Even got a Sheila!