Big Bad Bookstore Q&A: Vroman's (Pasadena, CA)
May 6, 2009
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by GreenleafBookGroup
Vroman's Bookstore, Southern California's oldest and largest independent bookstore and Publishers Weekly Bookseller of the Year in 2008, is a literary institution. Vroman's webmaster Patrick Brown answered the seven questions in our indie bookstore Q&A, touching on—among other things—how altering the returns system would effect Vroman's buys and how they plan to get in the ebook game. (Image via.)
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What’s the hottest genre in your store right now? Any surprise best sellers?
Our best-selling sections are typically kids and young adult, as well as literary fiction and non-fiction. I think the biggest surprise best seller this year has been Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. When I first heard the idea, I thought it sounded fun, but I had no idea how big it would be. For a few weeks, it was almost impossible to keep it on the shelves.
What’s the most successful or creative store event you remember hosting? What do you look for in an author or book when setting up an event?
The most creative event that I’ve been a part of is our summer music and author series, where we pair an author with a local band. The author reads and then the band plays on our outdoor stage. It’s a great, low-key event. Perfect for a Saturday afternoon. I think the best one we did was a pairing of Paula Yoo and the Listing Ship. Paula plays violin, so not only did she read, but she also sat in for a few songs with the band. I’m also very excited for this Young Adult event we have coming up called LAYAPalooza. It’s a huge event, with about twenty YA authors. There’s going to be food and a sort of trivia game show for YA fans. It should be a lot of fun.
When I think about successful author events, they usually are something more than just a reading. That’s not to say that a straight-up reading can’t be a great time, but rather that the events that stand out in my memory are often more than that. In the end, if the author has a captivating personality, the event will work. If the author doesn’t enjoy giving readings or talks, or isn’t happy about something about the event, it’s likely the event will fail. Audiences will usually take their cue from the speakers. I also love events with multiple authors. As a bookseller, it’s a great way to sell more books. People show up to hear one author and frequently end up enjoying both or all of the authors. It introduces readers to new writers, which is why we’re in business.
Do you ever bring self-published books into your store? If so, how often and under what circumstances?
We do bring some self-published books into the store. Obviously these books are in the minority, but it does happen on a pretty regular basis. In terms of what we would carry, well, that depends on a lot of subjects. Books with local subject matter or books that are about Pasadena or Southern California will always get a long look from our buyers, as we’re committed to supporting our local literary community and our customers have tremendous pride in the region. We will seriously consider any book if it is well-written, well-designed, and we think it would interest our customers.
What are the benefits of physical distribution when so much is available cheaply on Amazon and other online retailers? Do you see the recent popularity of ebooks or the economic downturn significantly affecting your store?
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I think I’ll tackle this question in two parts. The benefits of physical distribution are several, I think. For one thing, instant gratification is very important. We carry a huge inventory of books, and if you come to our store, you can get any of them immediately, rather than waiting a week or four days or whatever for a book to come from Amazon. Another important factor is providing an environment to browse. People greatly underestimate how important browsing is for physical purchases, largely, I think, because it’s lacking in the online world. People come to an ecommerce site already knowing what they want to buy (for the most part). This isn’t so in our store, where people frequently come in for one book and end up leaving with a book that caught their eye on the way to the section or waiting in line at the register. The other thing we provide that I think is invaluable is a physical place for literary culture to happen. We have a coffeeshop in our store that’s always full of people writing or talking about books. We host hundreds of events every year, including readings, performances, panel discussions, workshops, etc. I would argue that we’re the single most important part of Pasadena’s literary culture.
The economic downturn has hurt every business in our area, large or small, corporate or independent. We’re no different. We’re seeing fewer sales and when people are shopping with us, they’re spending a little bit less per transaction than they were just a year ago. Obviously, these are difficult times, certainly the most difficult retail year since I’ve been in the business, but Vroman’s has been around since 1894, so I’m confident we’ll make it through. Books are definitely more recession-proof than other forms of entertainment. A paperback book costs $12.95 and provides hours, even days or weeks of entertainment. That’s a pretty great deal, when you think about it.
As for ebooks, well, how long do you have? I happen to be intensely interested in ebooks. I’ve read quite a few on my iPhone, and I really enjoy the experience. I’m sort of notoriously bullish on the future of ebooks, and I think the moment for them is happening right now. In two year’s time, I think we’ll see major technological advances, consolidation around a single format (hopefully epub), and huge, huge sales growth of ebooks. They simply make too much sense for too many people NOT to take off. I wouldn’t be surprised to see ebooks take 10% of the book market in two years, and even more in the years after that. I also think we’ll see real advances in enhanced ebooks, ebooks with embedded audio and video, with hyperlinks and interactivity, and even community-authored ebooks. There’s real potential to change how stories are told and consumed . . . but that’s down the road.
The coming ebook boom effects us in several ways. Firstly, we remain committed to providing our customers with the books they want in the formats they want. We carry hardcover, paperback, audio books, and we will have ebooks, too (this summer will see a major rollout on our ecommerce system). It seems logical to me that the entire market for ebooks will exist online, rather than in a brick-and-mortar store. As such, we’re constantly re-evaluating our ecommerce setup, looking for ways to improve experience and profitability online. We hope to be a place to buy ebooks for those among our customers who want them. We also hope to be THE community resource for all technological or curatorial questions regarding ebooks. That means educating ourselves on all the latest technology, helping people find the books they want online, and helping them select the ereader that’s right for them. I really see this as extension of what we already do for our customers with print books.
If you feature staff picks, how are these selected? Does the staff have complete freedom to give face-out placement to any book they like?
We do feature staff picks. Lots of them. In fact, we have a whole wall of them, many pages of our website dedicated to them (sorted both by category and by bookseller), and we’re starting a revolving “Get to know your bookseller” display, featuring picks by a different bookseller each week. With staff picks, booksellers are completely free to choose whatever they like to recommend (provided it’s a book we can easily get). I can’t imagine a store that would do it any other way, to be honest. When we decide to feature a book (meaning put it on the cover of our newsletter, have multiple displays all over the store, etc.), then we will try to give it to as many different kinds of readers as we have on staff. If the overwhelming majority like the book, we will champion it. We’ve done this with David Benioff’s City of Thieves and Any Bitter Thing, by Monica Wood.
If all books were sold on a non-returnable basis, how would this affect your buying? What if all books were printed without a retail price so you could set the price as you saw fit?
Clearly, the current system of returns isn’t working. That being said, I’m not sure I know how to fix it. We would certainly buy fewer books if we couldn’t return any (and I have no idea how we would host events, where often books are left unsold), but I’m not sure how exactly that would play out. My suspicion is that we’d simply buy less unproven books by debut authors. This would be a bad thing. So while I’m in favor of fixing the currently broken cycle of big buys and big returns, I’m not really sure how this would play out.
As for pricing, I don’t see this as being that big of a deal. In fact, if there were no price printed on the book, that might actually hurt us. As it is right now, we’re selling the books for the price the publisher set for them. If there were no perceived price, we’d simply be the guys charging more for the book. Where I think there is room for improvement, however, is with ebook pricing. It doesn’t make any sense that an ebook of something like City of Thieves, which is already out in paperback, still costs $24.95. I would love it if the publishers would lower the price of the ebook so we could compete more fully on that front.
What’s the most embarrassing book in your personal collection?
I try not to read anything I would be embarrassed to own, so this is kind of a tough question for me. For a while, I was reviewing sports books for Publishers Weekly, so I got every nutty book about baseball, basketball, offshore betting, the Duke lacrosse rape scandal, etc. You name it, I reviewed it. A few of those books are pretty embarrassing to own. I’m not going to single anyone out, because I would hate to someday write a book, even a book about, say, offshore gambling, and then have someone say they were embarrassed to own it. Even if it were about offshore gambling.
Vroman's is all over the web: Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and their own excellent blog.
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Big Bad Bookstore Q&A: BookPeople (Austin, TX)
April 13, 2009
by GreenleafBookGroup
This is the first in a series of interviews the Big Bad Book Blog will conduct with independent booksellers across the country. For our inaugural post, we started with local hero BookPeople, the largest independent bookstore in the state. Marketing Director Alison Kothe Nihlean answered our questions.
What's the hottest genre in your store right now? Any surprise best-sellers?
Kid’s books and general fiction are the two best sections in the store right now. The “surprise” bestsellers aren’t really surprises to us, because our bestsellers are things that our staff champions and gets behind. For instance, The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine was a book we sold better than pretty much any store in the country because we loved it so much, and we have a hard time keeping Craig Johnson books in stock because our staff loves this mystery writer. We’re very lucky, being an independent bookstore, that we can pretty much sell and promote what we love.
What’s the most successful or creative store event you remember hosting? What do you look for in an author or book when setting up an event?
Our Harry Potter 7 party! This party was a team event from just about every person at the store, and we were planning it for a good six months. With the staff in costumes; working with other local businesses like REI, Amy’s Ice Creams, the Austin Symphony; creating games such as real wizard dueling; constructing a Diagon Alley set; showcasing wizard rock bands—it was just spectacular. Over 5,000 people were in our parking lot with us as we counted down till midnight. As a true Harry Potter nerd myself, it was just magical.
When I book authors to come to the store, I look at their previous books (if they have them) to see how they were received and how well they sold here at the store. I also look at the subject matter and see if it’s a good fit for Austin and is topical. There are so many variables into bringing authors to BookPeople—definitely not an exact science!
Do you ever bring self-published books into your store? If so, how often and under what circumstances?
We do carry quite a few self-published books here. We have a consignment agreement with those authors that stipulates how long the books will be here, what the selling arrangement is, etc. We always look through the book first to make sure it is of good quality as well.
What are the benefits of physical distribution when so much is available cheaply on Amazon and other online retailers? Do you see the recent popularity of eBooks or the economic downturn significantly affecting your store?
One thing you can’t get on Amazon.com is a recommendation by someone who really loves talking about books. You also can’t see author events, have fun at a puppet show, learn about a new book in a subject you’d never read about before, or perhaps see a long lost friend sitting at the café. Sure, online stores (and big box stores) may sometimes have cheaper deals, but I always look at where my money is going as well. If I buy online, none of my money is staying in Austin, and, frankly, that’s pretty crappy. I’d rather pay regular price for something and support a place I love than get $3 off and send my money to a different state altogether.
As far as eBooks go, I don’t see them as “the death of books” or anything like that. It’s a change in medium, something new and exciting happening in the publishing world, but nothing that will forever change the love people have for holding a solid book in their hands. BookPeople will soon be able to sell eBooks as well, and we’re excited to offer something for our tech savvy customers out there. The times man, they are a’changin’.
If you feature staff picks, how are these selected? Does the staff have complete freedom to give face-out placement to any book they like?
Staff picks are all over our store. We encourage out staff members to write selections for any and every book they are passionate about. Then, about once a week, our inventory managers rotate out the staff selection cards on the floor (we have so many we can’t display them all at once). I’d say at any given time we have over 500 staff selection cards out on the floor.
Since BookPeople is such a large store, we love having such a variety of staff selection cards because they help us in suggesting and finding books for customers. I know little to nothing about the real estate section, for instance, but I’m able to use the staff selection cards there as a guideline when helping someone else in that section.
If all books were sold on a non-returnable basis, how would this affect your buying? What if all books were printed without a retail price so you could set the price as you saw fit?
That would cripple us, as it would most bookstores. We would not be able to host events, because if they didn’t go well due to unforeseen reasons what would we do with 50 copies of a single book? We would be hesitant to order unproven titles, so say goodbye to debut authors, books in any of smaller sections, and there would definitely not be any special ordering (something we do dozens of times every day).
What’s the most embarrassing book in your personal collection?
I own (and love) most of the Baby-sitters Club series. I will never get rid of them. Ever.
Check out BookPeople's website, blog, and awesome "This Is My Favorite Book 2008" catalog [PDF alert], which collects picks from eleven BookPeople booksellers.
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Why Ingram Returns Your Books and Then Orders Them Again
March 31, 2009
by Tanya Hall
One of the most common questions we hear from authors is "Why does Ingram return my books only to order more the next day?" And it’s true: Ingram, the biggest player in the book wholesaling game, will frequently send books back to a publisher’s doorstep only to turn around an place an order a few days later. Why on earth didn’t they just keep them?
All books that bookstores ship back to Ingram are sent to their Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, warehouse for processing and then are directly returned to publisher or distributor of the title. Unfortunately, Ingram does not restock returned inventory. (You can imagine that tracking, inspecting, and restocking undamged returns would be a time-consuming endeavor for an operation of that size.) At the same time, Ingram has to bring in new stock to cover ongoing demand.
Another scenario that creates returns followed by more orders is a shift in regional demand. Ingram has four warehouses serving the country by region (in Pennsylvania, Oregon, Indiana, and Tennessee). If your cookbook is overstocked in Seattle bookstores, but you just did a great local radio tour in the Chicago area, Ingram’s going send the Seattle books back to you while simultaneously asking you for more to cover the new demand in Chicago—no matter how inefficient that seems.
The best way to minimize returns is to balance supply with demand by trying to maintain supply at a level that will sell in less than three months. So, as we’ve told you before, avoid overstocking and subsequent returns by always communicating your marketing and publicity activities to your publisher or distributor.
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The 2009 Indies Choice Book Awards, and What Indie Buzz Can Do for You
March 6, 2009
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In case you missed the announcement, the voting for the 2009 Indies Choice Book Awards has begun. Put on by the American Booksellers Association, this is an opportunity for all of the independent bookstores to vote on what they think are the best books of the year, as well as induct their top 3 picture books into the Hall of Fame.
As authors, this is a perfect opportunity to remember the important role independent book stores can play in the success of a book. Get to know the people running the independent stores. They would not own a bookstore if they did not love books, and the authors who write them. These booksellers want to know you, as evidenced by the category for "Most Engaging Author." The feedback they give is instant, and if there is enough support for you or your message, you might be amazed at how quickly word can spread about your book.
Consider Sara Gruen and her book Water for Elephants. Sara made herself and her advance copies available to the independents right from the beginning, during trade shows and mailings. The response was so positive her advance copies had to be printed three different times to keep up with demand from stores and big-media reviewers. This led to a huge increase in print run for the final book, and close to two million copies of the book have been sold to date. Her success was due largely to the immensely positive response from the independent bookselling community.
Having your book carried in the larger stores is very important for any author, but it is nice to see the effect the independent stores and old-fashioned word-of-mouth can have on the book industry. While you might not be able to vote in the ABA poll, it is fun to imagine who you might vote for if given the chance . . . or even what your book's title might look like on next year's ballot.
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Working Blind: The Sales Technique That Keeps Secrets
December 7, 2006
by Aaron Hierholzer
Would you buy a book you knew nothing about--if a trusted source told you it was good? Many bookstores are facing this question, and in the beginning, many answered "yes." "Blind selling" is a practice commonly used in the publishing industry to sell books into bookstores without revealing the author's name, title of the book, or subject matter. Oprah Winfrey popularized the trend by having bookstores order boxes of each unknown Oprah's Book Club book before she announces the selection on her show. She doesn't have to leak the month's choice in advance, and booksellers still have plenty of copies in stock. But many booksellers are rethinking the practice, thanks to the blind sell of O.J. Simpson's book If I Did It.
Publishing companies often use blind sales for a known quantity like a new John Grisham book or an Oprah's book club title, said Kelly Justice, the manager of Fountain Bookstore in Richmond, Va., but in the Grisham case the author is revealed, “and you have a pretty clear idea of what an Oprah title is.” But blind selling can also be used to push a controversial book with a lot of marketing support. O.J.'s book was pitched "totally blind, with no information provided other than publisher and price.” Andy Ross, owner of Cody's Books, said sales reps sold the untitled, anonymous work as "the most stunning, headline-grabbing story of the year." A sales rep letter to booksellers read "This book will be the talk of America."
Although the practice is common, the booksellers questioned could recall only one other recent example of a completely blind sale. In August, William Morrow (a HarperCollins imprint) sought orders for a book without giving its title, author, or subject. Morrow championed the book as "a shattering, provocative and mesmerizing true story" which "will receive major national media attention" in both the U.S. and abroad. It turned out to be a tell-all by Princess Diana’s former butler, Paul Burrell.
Burrell has been accused by those close to the Princess of betraying Diana's name and cashing in on his association with her. The blind sale of the book angered Doug Dutton, an independent bookseller in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles. He refused to order any copies of what would eventually be revealed to be the Simpson book when he saw HarperCollins repeating the strategy.
“It’s moved to the point where it’s almost a regular part of publishing,” he said. “I was feeling part of something that had nothing to do with books, and everything to do with marketing.”
Mr. Dutton, whose bookstore is in the neighborhood where Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were killed, felt betrayed when the Simpson book was revealed. “The first time it was foolish; this time it was offensive,” he said of HarperCollins’s approach, adding that he would avoid such books in the future. “I think as a policy I won’t buy them unless I can be presented with an overwhelmingly good reason by the publisher.”
Most booksellers believe they won't see another blind sell as they did with the O.J. book or the Princess Diana tell-all book, but one thing is for sure—many will be suspicious of these sales from now on.
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Bigger Discounts Just in Time for the Holiday Season
October 25, 2006
by Aaron Hierholzer
Barnes & Noble announced deeper discounts for their membership club members to help compete against discounters, warehouse clubs and online retailers. Members pay $25-a-year and receive a 40% discount on fiction and nonfiction bestsellers, and a 20% discount on all hardcover titles. They will also continue to receive a 10% discount on everything else sold in the store, including coffee and paperbacks. Members had received an extra 10% discount in addition to the usual 30% discount off hardcover bestsellers, and a 10% discount on other adult hardcover titles.
In an article by Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg of the Wall Street Journal, Joseph J. Lombardi, Barnes & Noble’s chief financial officer, is quoted as saying "You have to be competitive. We've been talking about softness in the hardcover business, and this lets us support that format with our best customers."
To learn more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116174027712702867.html?mod=2_1167_1
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The Good News About Christian Bookstores
October 19, 2006
by Aaron Hierholzer
Rick Warren could not have anticipated the success of The Purpose-Driven Life, his Christian life manual that is closing in on a record-breaking 25 million copies sold. So widespread is the phenomenon of the book that Warren, head of a massive empire of followers, is now well on his way to creating what he calls the first “Purpose-Driven nation” by reforming Rwanda from the top down.
Maybe you won’t get to be head of your own small African country, but by tapping into the same market as Rick Warren, you may be able to see a book with the right themes blossom. According to the American Association of Publishers, the religious book market grew at a rate of 8.5 percent per year between 1997 and 2004, and Christian titles are still breaking into the mainstream and flying off shelves.
Here are some steps that can take you and your book down the straight-and-narrow path to success:
Get a Christian Code. (This has nothing to do with Dan Brown, by the way.) Labeling your book with a Christian Product Category (CPC) code will make smaller Christian retailers more eager to stock your book. These codes used to consist of a super category, primary category, and sub-category printed just above and right-justified with the bar code (e.g., GENERAL INTEREST / OTHER RELIGIONS / CULTS). Recently, the Christian Retail Solutions Committee (CRSC) approved the new BISAC code list, which now integrates CPC codes into this industry-wide cataloging system. The industry hopes the new codes will both simplify inventory management for independent Christian retailers and facilitate integration of Christian titles into mainstream bookstores. Many found the old CPC listings confusing and redundant; accordingly, 20 percent have been altered in some way and 10 percent have been eliminated in the merge with BISAC codes. Changes take effect January 2007.
Fit in. There’s no rule that says your book has to cite a certain number of New Testament verses to be sold in Christian stores. CPC codes actually make room for quite a wide variety of topics (Romance, Action/Thrillers, Westerns, Personal Growth, Time Management, and my personal favorite, Whodunits). That said, emphasizing Christian elements that aren’t there is exploitative and strongly discouraged.
Spread the Word. Networking works wonders in the Christian community. Any chance to join relevant organizations or write for denominational publications can increase your name recognition among Christian consumers and get you closer to distribution through Christian channels. Attend the annual Christian Booksellers Association (CBA) conference and make contacts. Speak to church groups. The Christian community will be eager to evangelize about a good book that fits their worldview.
Join the Club. It’s a big draw to Christian bookstores, such as the 124-store LifeWay chain, if you happen to be with a distributor affiliated with the CBA. The CBA is pretty selective about who it works with, but you can have your trade distributor submit your book to Spring Arbor, a division of Ingram which carries Christian titles, to be CBA flagged. You may need to mark relevant passages to help them decide. Once you’re flagged, you will be part of a list from which most Christian bookstores order inventory. You can also try submitting your book to local Christian stores; LifeWay has a program through which you can give a title to a regional manager to be considered for local store placement. Make sure no child labor or breaches of Fair Labor Standards Act were involved in the manufacturing of your product before submitting it to LifeWay and other stores; this is one of the things they check out before accepting a title.
Getting your book into Christian outlets can be the catalyst that helps it succeed. Interested browsers come to topical stores like these for the wide selection and a confidence that all the merchandise has been preapproved by like-minded people. A Barna Research Group study identified Protestant senior pastors as one of the most active book-buying segments of the population, typically purchasing twenty books per year, or quadruple the amount purchased by the average book buyer—and the majority preferred to shop at exclusively Christian stores. Pastor recommendation can really help a book take off, and the practice of using books as church curriculum can create buzz of biblical proportions (a big player in the “Purpose-Driven” craze).
The Christian shopper is part of an active book-buying niche; demand for Christian books is steady and strong. Learning to position your book correctly can help open it up to a vast, involved, and interconnected audience. And that’s good news for everyone.
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Can You Buy Your Way onto the Front Table at Barnes & Noble?
October 11, 2006
by GreenleafBookGroup
Short answer: yup. More accurate answer: sort of. Answer you will likely hear from a publisher or distributor: “It depends.” Answer from a retailer: “You’ll have to talk to corporate.” Corporate’s response: click.
Translation: premier shelf placement, face-out arrangement, and positioning on promotional stands (e.g., end caps, new release tables in the front of the store, and virtually all placements in airport bookstores) are paid for by publishers, distributors, and authors. It’s a common misconception that store employees select the titles to be featured and base their decisions on the quality of the content or perhaps the power of the author’s message. Pshaw. Not only do retailers sell the front-of-store placements, but they also sell obscure arrangements such as “in section, top shelf, face out” and “regional placement on end caps in section.” So, does this mean that any author—regardless of the quality of their work—can pay their way into the most trafficked areas of bookstores? Are we being fed content based on riches instead of richness?
Not exactly.
Authors cannot simply walk into Barnes & Noble’s corporate headquarters with a check for twenty thousand dollars and demand premier placement across the country. Though publishers, distributors, and authors do pay for the placement, retailers are very selective about which books get the opportunity to be promoted. They base their decisions on sales potential, which boils down to
- Author’s platform and name recognition
- Cover design
- Quality of content
- Author’s marketing plan
If you want premier store placement for your book, make sure you have
- All of the items listed above
- A publisher or distributor with a history of negotiating strong co-op promotions
- Six months of lead time
So, how does a book end up on the new release table at the store’s entrance or the holiday table in the children’s section? Here’s a quick breakdown of the process:
Publisher or distributor’s sales rep meets with the category buyer.
WHEN: The reps generally pitch buyers five to six months in advance of publication. By that time, they already have dust jackets; galleys, blads, or review copies; and marketing plans to add weight to the pitch.
WHO: Each rep must have at least five titles in the category in order to get a meeting with the buyer, so note that sales reps are not self-published authors with no distributor.
WHERE: The reps meet with the buyers at the retail outlet (if the outlet is independent) or the corporate headquarters (if it’s a chain). Unless the retailer is a small independent, store employees and floor managers do not decide on what books to carry or promote, so do not waste your time pounding the pavement. (Exception: some stores will support local authors with small displays, but in general, placement decisions are made by buyers, not managers or clerks.)
The rep solicits a buy and a placement promotion if co-op money is available.
WHAT: Co-op is what retailers call placement promotions. The term comes from “cooperative advertising,” stemming from the major publishing houses’ practice of allocating a set percentage of the previous year's sales for co-op to be divvied out between titles as agreed upon by the publisher and bookseller.
HOW: After the sales rep finishes pitching a book, the buyer typically tells the rep how many copies that particular retailer will likely carry when the book comes off the press. If the publisher, distributor, or author has a budget for co-op promotions, the rep negotiates the placement directly with the buyer.
WHO: The buyer will only offer a co-op placement for the book that he or she believes will sell the most copies in that space at that time. Retail 101: location, location, location. Buyers will not sell the best real estate in their store to a title that won’t perform. If Dr. Phil’s diet book will outsell your book of poetry on the front-of-store table, it is not likely that the space will be available to you.
If the title performs well, the rep can negotiate an extension.
WHEN: Co-op placements are usually sold in blocks of two to four weeks. If the book sells well during that time, reps can negotiate extensions.
HOW: Extensions are based on sell-through. If a book sells well and the retailer believes the demand will be sustained for a notable period of time, they will offer to extend the promotion. Time your consumer marketing efforts (such as publicity) to coincide with your co-op promotions. If you do not drive consumers into stores while the book has the premier spot, your product will likely move to a spine-out placement in section the moment your co-op promotion expires.
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