Wi14 Education: Get Out of Your Comfort Zone — Building Successful Relationships with Publishers

During a panel at the American Booksellers Association’s 2019 Winter Institute, booksellers and publishers discussed best practices for networking with publishers at industry events, what publishers look for in an event proposal, best practices for pitching events in person, and how to keep these relationships moving forward.

The January 24 session “Get Out of Your Comfort Zone: Building Successful Relationships with Publishers” was moderated by Pete Mulvihill of Green Apple Books in San Francisco, California. The panelists were Sarah Bagby of Watermark Books and Café in Wichita, Kansas; Michael Link of Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Cincinnati, Ohio; Craig Popelars of Algonquin Books in Chapel Hill, North Carolina; and Karen Torres of Hachette Book Group in New York City. ABA member booksellers can visit BookWeb’s Education Resources page to see a complete video of the session and access handouts (booksellers will need to log in to BookWeb.org; e-mail [email protected] for login credentials).

“I’ve been with Algonquin for 25 years now,” Popelars began, “and one of the things that, as a publisher, excites me is none of us are leaving this industry. We are all stuck in this forever...if we’re going to be in this together, we might as well get to know each other.”

By partnering with stores like Green Apple, Watermark, and Joseph-Beth, Algonquin has been able to step outside of its comfort zone, Popelars said, but “we’re not picking up the phone as often as we should, and we’re not sharing our success stories as much as we should.”

For publishers to understand what indies do best, he added, indies need to open a dialogue with publishers. “There’s no homogenization across the board. We need to know what you guys in your individual stores want to champion and want to get behind,” he said. “It’s going to differ from store to store...Let us know what excites you.”

Popelars said that he gets excited about what stores and publishers outside of Algonquin are doing. For example, at a Books Inc. location in Alameda, California, he saw a bookseller creating intricately illustrated shelf-talkers, including an Algonquin book. Popelars wanted to find out who made it so he could get to know them. “The idea of going beyond the buyer, beyond the sales rep, to get to know frontline staff — that’s important to us,” he said.

To add to Popelars’ point, Torres read from the session’s handout: “The love of a book or an author can materialize into an event confirmation when a bookseller reaches out to tell the publisher that they love the book.” Torres said that she believes in this wholeheartedly. Building relationships with publishers goes hand in hand with hosting more author events, she said.

“It’s important to know that if you communicate what you’re interested in, what excites you, what it is about a book that made you want to reach out to someone, that’s opening doors forward to do more with the publisher,” she said. “Start with your sales reps.”

“Take advantage of seeing us live at these industry events,” she added. “At almost all these events, you end up sitting with exactly the same people that you traveled with here. Publishers do it and booksellers do it...Make the goal that you’re going to talk to 10 different people.”

For Bagby, her love of books has facilitated all the friendships she’s made with publishers; beyond that, she said, echoing Popelars, booksellers need to share their successes with publishers. Regarding hosting author events and asking publishers for big-ticket authors, she said, “If you don’t have success in your back pocket, you really can’t ask for something that’s beyond that success.”

Link said that when he attends sessions like this one, he’s often asked by smaller stores about how they can host successful events. While some might think big stores have it easier, Link said that isn’t quite the case, as they put the same care and passion into hosting events as smaller stores. One way booksellers can pave the way for successful events, he recommended, is to find the one book they want to champion in their specific communities. One bookseller at Joseph-Beth, he said, set the goal of selling 75 copies of The Ravenmaster (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) in December alone, because the store had an audience for it.

“I’m sure every one of your stores has that title, or you, personally, have that title that you champion day after day. If that author comes up, or if there’s a similar comp title, talk about that. Talk about that passion point, talk about your uniqueness and your success,” he said. “It’s going to take a long time to build that relationship, but it’s always about what you’ve done, what you can do, and what you’re going to do next.”

On creating a successful event pitch, Bagby shared the four main points she believes are most important, which fall under the acronym SCAP:

• Store: Why does this author need to come to your event? How many books can you sell and is that enough? How can you promote it? Where do you host the event?
• Customer: How can you make this event fun, engaging, and relevant to your customer base? What value are you adding? Is the venue adequate?
• Author: From creature comforts such as a recommended hotel to organization of the event, are you hosting this important guest professionally and within the guidelines set forth by the publisher?
• Publisher: How will you sell books at this event? Ticketed, bundled with a tiered tickets system, priority signing lines, or private events?

For the longest time, said Bagby, Watermark wanted to host local author Atul Gawande; every year she would ask his publisher, and every year she would get turned down. When she proved that her store could guarantee sales for the event, she was finally approved. “You can’t just give up, is what my point is,” she said. “Once you have those successes, other things will come.”

“You can’t wait for opportunities to come,” Link added. “You have to do all the due diligence that Sarah was talking about, which also means putting the grid requests in, and not just for [the larger authors]. They want to see that you’re interested in helping them sell books and that you have a specific understanding of your customers.”

Link recommended that after events, booksellers follow up with publishers about how many books were sold and what comp titles they recommended to customers, which will show their passion for the event and author and can help build their relationship with the publisher. Booksellers should also include whether they are reporting stores and what other stores are nearby, as publishers might be interested in sending an author on tour in a certain area.

Stores also need to think about the smaller, regional authors they can host, he added, and don’t scale back promotion for local authors. “Hustle every time. If it’s local and you hustle, [publishers] see that,” Link said.

“Own your local authors,” Torres agreed, “and begin by asking for regional authors. There’s less competition there and it opens a dialogue with the publisher.”

Link also suggested that booksellers get creative. If they can’t host an author in-store, ask about an interview or Q&A with the author to promote on social media. “Think about what the book is and how to best put it in your readers’ hands,” he said. “Don’t start with author events, but what you can build around [the books]. It could be a blurb, something you do on social media. There’s a ton of different ways you can sell books that you love that have nothing to do with author events.”