Holiday Sales Look Good From Coast to Coast

Holiday sales this season were up compared to the previous year according to most of the independent booksellers who recently spoke to Bookselling This Week. While a few reported that sales were sluggish or flat in comparison to holiday sales in 2004, most saw moderate to significant increases. In addition, many booksellers noted that Book Sense gift card sales were up.

For those who had solid holiday seasons, the reasons varied: a bookstore in Pennsylvania benefited from marketing more aggressively through print media, while another in Georgia attributed the increase, in part, to better staff training. At stores suffering sales declines this holiday season, some pointed to the Iraq war and increased fuel costs, while another bookseller noted that neighborhood construction had made shopping inconvenient for pedestrians.

The Doylestown Bookshop in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, "did wonderfully," said Krisy Paredes, the bookstore's public relations manager. "We had one of our best seasons." In addition, Friday, December 23, turned out to be one of the best sales days ever for the store. Paredes told BTW that Doylestown's top-selling titles were Marley & Me by John Grogan (Morrow), A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Anchor), and Lennon Revealed by Larry Kane (Running Press).

The bookshop implemented some new marketing strategies for the holiday season. For one, the store increased its advertising in local media. "We're making use of our co-op money," Paredes said. The store placed four ads in The Intelligencer in December, as well as a one-half-page ad in a high-end coupon mailer and an ad in a local magazine.

In addition, the bookstore, which is located on Main Street in Doylestown, held a fundraiser where a percentage of the event's proceeds were earmarked for a local elementary school. "That brought in a lot of people," Paredes said. The store also scheduled three author events and did everything it could "to maximize the traffic."

Another success for the store this holiday season was the Book Sense gift card. Paredes noted that the store completely sold out of the holiday design.

For RiverRun Bookstore in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the Christmas shopping season was "brilliant, we absolutely couldn't have asked for more," an exuberant Tim Smith told BTW. "We were up 15 to 20 percent [over last year] -- a very good December." In addition, Book Sense gift card sales were "excellent. They were up [too], but to a slightly lesser degree."

Bestsellers at RiverRun included Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin (S&S), Portrait of a Restaurant by Portsmouth photographer Brian Smestad, and On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Penguin).

In Oswego, New York, The River's End Bookstore saw sales dip ever so slightly this season, store owner Bill Reilly reported. However, "our gift card purchases were up ... and that was a good thing. There's been a steady increase in the purchase of gift cards in comparison to gift certificates," he said.

As for the downward trend for holiday sales this year, Reilly noted that the entire year has been off. He said he believes the drop is a result "of all the issues that are in play, that everyone's dealing with: the war, the cost of fuel for your car and your home ... when there's a fair amount of negative things going on ... it seems to stall things." In addition, over a year-and-a-half ago a Barnes & Noble Bookstore opened within driving distance to The River's End and that's had an effect on sales, Reilly noted.

Reilly said the hottest titles this year were A Million Little Pieces by James Frey (Anchor), Teacher Man: A Memoir by Frank McCourt (Scribner), The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (Knopf), and Team of Rivals, which, he said, the store couldn't keep in stock.

Like Doylestown Bookshop, River End's biggest day was the Friday prior to Christmas.

Sarasota News & Books in Sarasota, Florida, saw sales decline by about 10 to 15 percent this holiday season. The main cause, said the store's new owner, Andrew Foley, was that neighborhood construction made it inconvenient for pedestrians to shop. "The whole downtown is dealing with a lot of new construction, so we're going through some growing pains," he said. "We just purchased the store, and there are [also] transitional issues."

In Atlanta, Georgia, Outwrite Bookstore & Coffeehouse saw sales increase by approximately eight percent, owner Philip Rafshoon told BTW. Top sellers were Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx (Scribner) -- "in all formats" -- and Jimmy Carter's Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis (S&S). "It was a good season," said Rafshoon.

He noted some of the things the store did this year to help punch up sales: "Better sales training for everybody" and "[pushing] the Book Sense gift cards." The latter, he said, "helped a lot this past weekend.... The gift card did really well -- sales were up." Rafshoon added that Constant Contact significantly helped the store's e-mail newsletter. Outwrite also held author events in the fall to maximize traffic, he said.

In Superior, Wisconsin, sales at J.W. Beecroft Books & Coffee were "brisk" in November and "good" for the last two weeks in December, according to assistant store manager Carrie Sutherland. The store's own catalog, along with the Midwest Booksellers Association catalog, were successful in driving people into the store. "Both adult and children's versions of the Chronicles of Narnia sold very well," she told BTW. "The new books by Amy Tan [Saving Fish From Drowning (Putnam)], Jimmy Carter, and Lynne Truss [Talk to the Hand (Gotham)] were all very popular. Sutherland noted that Al Franken's appearance in Duluth, Minnesota, drove early December sales of his book, The Truth (With Jokes) (Dutton). "And gift cards were big," she said. "The Happy Holidays [Book Sense gift card] went over very well.... Since Christmas, people have been coming in to use their gift cards."

Bill Cusumano of Nicola's Books in Ann Arbor, Michigan, said that he was "pleased with Christmas business, especially considering the state of the state's economy." He linked a general retail slump to massive layoffs in the American automobile industry, centered in Michigan.

"I really didn't think we could beat last year, but we were slightly up. Friday [before Christmas] was jammed." He noted that Simon & Schuster, and its parent company, Viacom, should be celebrating due to the success of several of its titles, at Nicola's. "Teacher Man, Our Endangered Values, and Rachel Ray's cookbooks all sold well," he said. "We sold quite a few of Has Anyone Seen Christmas?, written and illustrated by Michigan locals Anne Margaret Lewis and Wendy Popko and published by Mackinac Island Press."

At The Magic Tree Bookstore in Oak Park, Illinois, co-owner Iris Yipp told BTW that store sales received a boost from the New York City transit strike. "I received a call from a woman who couldn't travel to her usual stores in New York, so she ordered a load of books as gifts for a person in the area," Yipp said, noting that, in general, holiday sales were "okay."

Monica Becker, manager of The Book Vault in Oskaloosa, Iowa, reported that the store was "very busy" throughout December and that sideline sales were especially good. Baby sock change purses were a very hot item, and big titles included The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins), Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (Regan), Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (Vintage), and a true crime mystery, Midnight Assassin: A Murder in American's Heartland by Patricia Bryan and Thomas Wolf (Algonquin). According to Becker, the latter is a revisiting of a 1900 Iowa ax murder of a prosperous farmer, apparently by his wife, written by a presumably happier husband-and-wife team, with strong Midwestern roots.

In Omaha, Nebraska, bookseller Nancy Rips, at The Bookworm, told BTW that store sales were "great, equal to last year." Sales continued up until the store closed at about 4:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Big nonfiction sellers included Marley and Me and Team of Rivals.

At San Francisco's Alexander Book Co., sales were down at least 10 percent from last year's December figures, said Michael Stuppin, owner of the 15-year-old store. "I must say it surprised me because the whole year and November had been strong and up. It was the opposite of what happened during the rest of the year. It never really picked up in that last week before Christmas." Stuppin added that the store advertised more than usual and offered several new promotions; however, that still didn't boost sluggish numbers.

"It makes one aware that the retail market is constantly changing and that you have to come up with new ways to promote," noted Stuppin. "You have to keep it fresh."

Top titles there were The Year of Magical Thinking and Candice Millard's River of Doubt (Doubleday).

Gift cards at Alexander were comparable to 2004, Stuppin said, once adjusted for a large corporate order the bookstore received last year. Alexander's website was largely used as an information tool rather than for sales, but customers were using a coupon that was available both on the site and in their e-newsletter.

Further south, in San Diego, Mysterious Galaxy reported a solid gain, which Elizabeth Baldwin, events coordinator buyer, estimated at 20 percent. "Because we're a niche store, we don't necessarily find that the Christmas season creates a big jump in sales, but we did have a jump."

Baldwin explained that the bookstore was proactive about encouraging a busier holiday by hosting readings early in the month and a thank-you event for customers. "Knowing that our December traditionally doesn't spike in sales, we decided to have a customer appreciation event and we invited some of our larger spenders," she said. "We had about 250 people and offered freebies, which generated sales. We wanted to reward our long-standing customers. Everybody had lot fun and was very appreciative."

Sales on Mysterious Galaxy's BookSense.com site (www.mystgalaxy.com) also improved. "I noticed an increase in orders through the system," she said. "It works very well." Books that sold well online and in the store were Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys (Morrow) and Sue Grafton's S is for Silence (Putnam).

Book Sense gift cards sales kept pace with the success of other areas of the bookstore. "The cards did very well," Baldwin told BTW. "People like the way the Book Sense cards look. We were definitely up from last year."

Johnna Hickox, who bought the 23-year-old Winter River Books in Bandon, Oregon, in March 2004, reported flat figures for her second holiday season as a bookseller. "It was about the same, maybe it was a little bit slower," she said. "But there was not a significant difference in either traffic or sales."

Bestsellers at Winter River were Bad Cat by Jim Edgar and Bad Dog by R.D. Rosen, et al. (both Workman). Also selling well were Our Endangered Values and Marley & Me. -- David Grogan, Karen Schechner, and Nomi Schwartz