Powell's Rethinks the Newsletter, Saves Cash, Extends Reach

Early this year Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon, reevaluated its print newsletter. The stores' needs had shifted from promoting the Powell's website to increasing sales both in-store and online while cutting costs. The result is The Powell's Books Reader, a full-color eight-pager with a circulation of nearly 100,000. "We're spending almost exactly the same amount each month to reach twenty times more people," said Dave Weich, Powell's director of marketing and development. And the best part is that the store has already seen an uptick in sales on featured titles.

The original newsletter, INK, was developed in 2004. The Powell's Books Reader maintains the same monthly publication schedule and a comparable size to INK (9.75"x13.5"). Both pieces, old and new, include a full list of Powell's events and store information (locations and business hours, etc.), but that's about where the similarities end. "Basically, we're making a newfangled Sunday circular instead of a small magazine," said Weich.

Weich explained via e-mail how Powell's managed to reach many more people without a corresponding jump in expenses. "By switching to a lighter paper stock (similar to your typical, matte-finished, supermarket circular) and vastly increasing the print run (by a factor of 20), our production cost per unit has been reduced to a small fraction of what we'd been spending before."

The full-color cover is dedicated to a single title. Pages two and three introduce 10 to 12 frontlist titles that are discounted. The events calendar fills the foldout, middle pages. More space is given to new, non-discounted books that Powell's recommends. These books get face-out treatment with shelf talkers in store sections.

Increasing the number of advertised books has not only improved sales, but has also created many more co-op opportunities. "Coupled with our expanded circulation (more eyeballs on publishers' titles), we're able to collect significantly more co-op each month than we could in the past," Weich said.

The design of the newsletter allows for a streamlined production process. "In creating the new layout, we aimed to minimize subsequent design work that would be needed to produce each new edition, freeing our designers to work on other projects," he added. "Wherever we could devise a template (without sucking the life out of the piece), we did."

Distribution has expanded significantly. Once a month The Reader is inserted into Willamette Week, Portland's alternative weekly. Weich said, "This means nearly 75,000 copies splashed around Greater Portland (the paper is estimated to reach more than 200,000 people when pass-along readership is factored in)." Copies are also distributed at the six Portland-area stores, and more are mailed to online customers in packages containing Powells.com orders.

Weich said that featured authors have been pleased with the coverage. And the publisher of Willamette Week sent along a kind note upon seeing the first installment: "I want to make sure you know how much I -- and everyone here who's concerned with these things -- appreciate your new Reader," he wrote. "It's incredibly handsome and a wonderful addition to our paper."

If booksellers have questions about reevaluating their own newsletters, they can contact Weich directly at [email protected]. --Karen Schechner