The Elements of Mystery Fiction: Writing the Modern Whodunit (23 page)

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This is obviously a monumental task for an author to undertake by himself. It’s difficult to flog your own work and overcome credibility issues; sales reps do it better. Also, if the author is busy running the business, when will he create new work? This is another argument for publishing with a press rather than self-publishing.

Chapter 17

The Bookselling Business

An Interview with Otto Penzler

Q:
How do booksellers decide which “first” books to stock on their shelves?

A: My store, the Mysterious Bookstore in New York City, is a specialty store, and so the things we do are very different from what other, non-specialty stores do. We carry
every
first mystery. Why we carry large quantities of some books and not others is a more pertinent question.

First, early reviews make some difference.
Publisher’s Weekly
, especially, as we do not subscribe to
Kirkus
or
Library Journal
or
Booklist
(larger stores might).

Second, the recommendation of sales reps means something IF we know and trust the rep. Steer us wrong because you overpaid for a book and we won’t trust you the next time.

Third, if we got galleys (and I’ve been here long enough that we get virtually every galley)
and
someone at the store actually had time to read it
and
liked it a lot…then we’d heavy up. Probably most important, however, is if the author is available to sign books. In the era of Amazon.com, and with a Barnes & Noble and Borders on every corner, we can no longer sell unsigned books. Well, of course we can, but you know what I mean. If a first-time writer doesn’t sign, we might sell a half-dozen of a book we like. If he/she does sign, we might sell 20 to 30 copies, or more.

Q:
What do booksellers do to sell books besides stocking them on their shelves and waiting for customers to come in?

A: Signing, signing, signing. We want writers to sign their books for us. We don’t have formal signings (when writers are present in the store to meet customers and write personal messages for them in the books they buy) anymore, as New Yorkers are just too blasé to show up, or if they do, they bring shopping bags full of remainders for an author to sign, which doesn’t do us a lot of good. Other bookstores, of course, believe in formal signings and hold them all the time.

Like many booksellers, we have a monthly newsletter. Ours runs about 40 pages and goes out to a mailing list of many thousands of customers. Names are automatically added when people buy books and automatically dropped if we don’t hear from them again for six months. We also have a website which sells some (but not too many) books. We have had several book clubs for many years, in which members automatically receive an autographed first edition every month. The Main Club has the biggest names in the business: Parker, Grafton, Francis, Lehane, Connelly, Patterson, Leonard, Evanovich, Crais, etc. The Hard-Boiled Club speaks for itself, as does the Soft-Boiled Club and the First Mystery Club. We also have a British Club, in which members receive an autographed first edition of a British book by a British writer (P.D. James, Minette Walters, Reginald Hill, etc.). And an Unclassifiable Club for literary mysteries (Joyce Carol Oates, Umberto Eco, Alan Furst) and books that don’t fall into any real category (Donald Westlake, maybe).

Writers can help their own cause by showing up to sign when they say they’re going to. Since the publishers’ publicity departments set up the signings and are generally not as competent as one might wish, mainly because they’re overworked, any enterprising and/or ambitious writer should get out the yellow pages, call every bookstore in town, and ask if he can come by to sign. Some advance notice means the store has the chance to order more books before the author arrives with pen in hand.

Q:
What should authors know about the differences between specialty stores such as yours, and general-interest bookstores, chains, and online sellers?

A. There are lots of differences. This could be a book by itself. Or a big chapter, at least.

Specialty stores actually care about the authors and their customers. So do most general bookstores, if they are independents. The chains will not know who you are unless you’re named Grisham or Clancy. The price clubs (which mainly sell books by the top 20 sellers—and sell them by the truckload, by the way) don’t know what a book is. Any author who worries about price clubs is either dreaming, because his book won’t be there, or is greedy because he’s miffed that the clubs sold only 150,000 copies his last novel and he’d hoped for 200,000. As for online booksellers who don’t also have a bricks-and-mortar outlet, Amazon leads the world, of course, and it sells lots of books based on convenience and some discount, though most of those heavy discounts disappeared just about when most independent stores went out of business, same as at the chains.

The collector market is a fairly good-sized one in the mystery field, and I know of no intelligent collector who buys online, and not too many who will ever have a good collection who buy from the chains. The independents, especially specialty stores, know something about first editions and how to sell them. They care about condition if they’re shipping, and they work hard to get books signed for their collectors. I would say, for example, that in my store fully 50 percent of the hardcover books I sell go to collectors.

Q:
How can first-time/unestablished authors work with booksellers?

A: Booksellers appreciate drop-ins but mainly if an author calls first (or a representative from his publisher does). The author needs to take a lot of responsibility, however. It is common for us to arrange signings with authors, buy 30 or 50 books, then wait around for an author who never shows up. We hate that author until, two years later, we meet him and he swears no one at his publishing house told him about the signing. I believe the author 90 percent of the time.

Sending publicity stuff to bookstores, whether it’s email, letters, postcards, mugs, T-shirts, bookmarks, posters, etc., is pretty much a waste of time and money. Booksellers aren’t idiotic enough to think they’re getting something exclusive.

A personal phone call saying, “I’ll be in New York next month. Would you like me to drop in to sign whatever books you have?” is, for me, the single best thing an author can do. And, when you get there, be a pro like Mary Higgins Clark or Sue Grafton or Mike Connelly and pretend you’re enjoying the experience. Take the time to get to know the booksellers’ names. I know authors who make notes after leaving so they can greet the bookseller by name on the next visit. This is smart. Booksellers don’t get into this field to get rich. They like books and authors, and they are excited to meet authors and flattered when they are remembered. It’s hard, but it’s worth it

I’ve always been a huge believer in the ripple effect. You may sell only ten books at a signing, but if everyone loves you, they’ll tell their friends, and sellers will tell other customers. This has worked to the great advantage of Larry Block and James Ellroy, among others, who tirelessly promoted their books at bookstores, took the time to chat with the clerks and the owners, and went back book after book until they became so well known and liked that when a customer asked, “What should I read?” the first name that came to the bookseller’s mind was that particular author’s.

Q:
So why did you decide to open a mystery bookstore?

A: Every bookseller I know loves books. That’s why we went into the bookselling business. Ironically, we all read more before we opened our stores. We had more time then. None of us imagined how many hours of a day it took to make the business work. Sure, we knew it wasn’t all sitting around reading books and then discussing them with customers (which is what most customers believe—“You know, when I retire I think I’ll open a bookstore” is my favorite), but you’re still never ready for it. Store hours are the easy part. It’s restocking shelves, dealing with paperwork, and mainly trying to figure out how to pay the bills, get off credit hold, pay the staff and the insurance and the medical insurance and the phone bills and utilities and taxes and supplies and rent and trash pickup and the Internet provider and, oh yes, is there anything left for me? Well, maybe next week.

Another thing booksellers appreciate is when authors actually support their local bookstore. Every mystery writer who shows up here talks about all the books he’s read, and I note that none of them is ever bought from me. Linda Fairstein and Mike Connelly are two exceptions. There might be others over the past 24 years, but I can’t think of any. I don’t expect it from out-of-towners, but I remain stunned that it never occurs to all the New York writers that the guy who supports them so strongly never seems worthy of reciprocal support.

Bookselling is the greatest business I know. I suppose I do a lot of whining, but I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Most customers are great, and most authors are, too, especially in the mystery field. There are the always a few jerks, but most writers are fun to be around. And there are always plenty of books. Sometimes it’s hard to remember the days when I had to choose between having lunch or buying a book, and it’s easy now to take for granted that books are everywhere around me, but I sometimes lean back and take it all in and realize how blessed I am. No kidding.

Chapter 18

Catch-23: Publicizing Your Mystery Novel

Jeremiah Healy

Congratulations! You’ve figured out how to beat the first-time-novelist’s Catch-22 (“I can’t get published without a literary agent but I can’t get a literary agent without being published”) and your mystery novel has been accepted by a publisher.

Sorry. There’s a Catch-23, too: “I thought my job as author was done,” but, “My job as marketeer has just begun.”

Why?

The publishing industry has changed tremendously since I broke into it twenty years ago. I’ve been lucky enough to have had thirteen books published in the John Francis Cuddy private-eye series, two standalone suspense novels, three (and counting) books in the Mairead O’Clare legal-thriller series, and three collections of my short stories. However, if I were starting out today, my prognosis might not be so bright.

Again, why?

When I served on the Edgar Award committee for best first novel in 1987, we received 21 submissions. When I chaired the same committee in 1998, we received 117 submissions. That’s over FIVE TIMES more than just eleven years earlier.

What’s happening?

It’s simple economics: In the two decades since 1984, the number of New York independent publishing houses has shrunk from 34 to 6. That’s right. Six. Bertelsman, the Germany-based media conglomerate, alone owns all the imprints of Random House, Doubleday, Delacorte, Dell, and Bantam. To finance the acquisition of all these subsidiary imprints, tremendous pressure has been put on their editors to find the next Patricia Cornwell or John Grisham. The good news is that more first novels are getting published at most imprints. The bad news is that generally right-out-of-college, overworked and underpaid staff publicists at those imprints are being asked to push too many new authors, or are being told to focus on only a few new authors.

Unless you are one of the chosen few, you lose on both counts.

Until you’re famous, you’ve got to be your own publicist.

I’m going to suggest a number of ways. Some are unconventional. None guarantees success. So feel free to accept some, and to reject others, depending on what makes the most sense to you.

Use a pseudonym

If your publisher hasn’t yet listed you in its catalog or commissioned the book jacket, consider using a pseudonym.

Why?

If your actual first or last name is difficult to pronounce, people might feel uncomfortable asking for your novel in a bookstore. If your last name falls near the end of the alphabet, market studies show that many customers never reach your shelf. Most browsers begin at the earliest part of the mystery section they can see easily at their eye-level. Browsers have only so much money and only so much hand span to hold only so many books (I’ve never understood why more bookstores don’t have carts or those hang-from-the-forearm baskets like gourmet grocery and office supply stores). There are, of course, exceptions to this alphabetical barrier: Well-known mystery authors such as William G. Tapply, Donald Westlake, and R. D. Zimmerman have done just fine selling their books from the wrong end of the alphabet. But playing the percentages helps.