NCIBA Creates Time and Place for Author to 'Appear' at Bookstores

How can a bestselling author of critically acclaimed literary fiction possibly meet the requests of myriad booksellers for a book signing, even on a protracted publicity tour? Northern California Independent Booksellers Association (NCIBA) Executive Director Hut Landon found an innovative way to meet this challenge, when he contacted Random House about the possibility of distributing signed copies of Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel, Never Let Me Go (Knopf), to member bookstores in the Bay Area.

Landon's initial plan was to ask Random House to let booksellers preorder copies of the book from the publisher and to arrange for Ishiguro to sign the books privately at the NCIBA offices. Landon would then arrange to have the signed books delivered to participating stores. The idea blossomed into a special tea with Ishiguro for over 30 booksellers and 500 books signed by the author on a Saturday afternoon, squeezed in between two appearances.

The idea was a variation on a plan common to book wholesalers around the country. Major authors in town on tour often sign a few hundred books in a wholesaler's warehouse and then these are sold to smaller bookstores. When BookPeople, a popular regional wholesaler, folded a year ago, Landon told BTW, "this was one of the many voids it left -- letting our booksellers know when a big name author was coming to the Bay Area and offering them signed copies. Our idea was to ask the publishers to use [the NCIBA] offices as the venue for distributing preordered, signed books to our member stores.

"Random House was willing, if stores ordered the book in full cases. If we could presell 200 books, the program would be considered a success. Random House sales and telephone reps made all the contacts with store accounts. We agreed to provide the location and the shipping. The book had already been in stores for three weeks, but 28 stores ordered a total of 460 more books. Random House shipped us 39 cartons of first editions."

Booksellers were very happy to participate, but they also wanted to meet Ishiguro, so Landon organized a bookseller's tea with the author on Monday, April 25. Thirty-five booksellers attended. Ishiguro spoke to the group and visited with each of four roundtables of booksellers, who happily left with a complimentary copy of Never Let Me Go, as well as their prepaid cartons.

According to Landon, Ishiguro wanted to meet with the booksellers and seemed to have enjoyed himself. He was willing to fit in extra time on Saturday to sign the 500 copies so that he could spend the time Monday afternoon interacting with the booksellers. "It turned out better than I had expected," Landon said. "Our booksellers were most pleased to be able to preorder the signed books. The meet and greet with Mr. Ishiguro, who was very charming, was a bonus." --Nomi Schwartz