Book Business – An Insider’s View with Linda Shirley, Border’s Books Store Manager
March 19th, 2010
Business of Selling Books
Wondering how the book business is these days from a bookstore manager’s perspective? Recently I had a chance to speak with Linda Shirley, manager of the W. Lebanon NH Border’s store, where we discussed coming out of a tough year, authors to watch and…is it really ok to just hang out at the store and read?
S. Becker - What’s hot at the W. Lebanon NH Borders these days? There are a few local authors who have great new books out right now.
L. Shirley – Chris Bohjalian’s Secrets of Eden is doing very well, as is Jodi Picoult’s House Rules. The areas of the store that have grown dramatically in sales and interest over the past year include young adult and independent readers — it’s truly wonderful to see more kids reading and some of the books (like Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series which starts with The Lightning Thief), are fun and very well written. Speaking of young adult books, the twilight series remains a strong seller and we are having a midnight release party this Friday (March 19th) for the New Moon DVD.
Spring is coming which means the gardening section should be a strong selling area for the next 6 months — and there are more new books on vegetable gardening in particular this year, following the interest in books such as Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Mineral and Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food. Our cafe sales have been growing steadily — especially the coffee and cocoa drinks. People may be saving money by not going out to eat as much, but they are still treating themselves to something fun once in a while and good whipped cream never seems to go out of style.
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The Art of Persistence – Balancing Persistence and Follow-up in Publicity
February 5th, 2010
There is a scene in the movie “Miracle” when the 1980 USOC Olympic hockey coach Herb Brooks has his players conduct line to line skating drills late into the night after a particularly bad game. It is this scene, where Coach Brooks, is yelling “Again,” “Again,” to Assistant Coach Craig Patrick who is blowing his whistle, that reminds me what it is like to be a literary publicist, aka book publicist. While Brooks is hoping to build up leg strength and stamina in his players, as well as form a cohesive unit, the book publicist often finds his or her strength from not giving up and working again and again and again with its contacts and with new pitches until the book, product or organization gets the exposure its deserves.
Filed under: Public Relations 101, The Blog | 1 Comment »