God, I really hate to be the person who comes in when a lot of people are hurting and scared to say "Um ACKshually--" because what people need right now is comfort, not minimization, but...
Authors who this hurts:
- Fall 2022 authors debuting in hardcover whose first run was already printed BEFORE the B&N decision was announced to us 6 months ago
- Fall 2022 authors debuting in hardcover whose publishers either 1) were unaware or not large enough to be informed of the inner policy shifts 6 months ago, or 2) were aware and overconfidently printed HC anyway instead of pivoting to PB for the first run
Authors who this does not hurt:
The bottom line right now is that
America is broke as fuck, and hardcovers are expensive. B&N cannot control the fact that hardcover purchases have plummeted precipitously in 2020 and 2021 (as high as
17% by some reports). Something has to be done.
I think that one of the biggest misconceptions in the Twitter thread, and overall misunderstandings flying around about the difference in book formats, is this one:
"Reminder that most debuts (excluding genres like romance) release in hardcover and don’t even GET paperbacks until they sell well."
- This is antiquated, antiquated, antiquated. It used to be that every single book in the world came out HC, then PB in the next year. Those were in ancient times. Publishers have been far more agile than that for a decade now. Strategically selecting the format to debut in is crucial, and we've all been keenly aware of America's spending money decreasing, and the price tag on HCs. As a result, at my publisher, 90% of MG novels and 65% of YA novels debut in paperback in the first place.
- Publishers aren't just going to blindly keep printing hardcovers that won't get shelf space. B&N told us about this 6 months ago. Good strategists busily adjusted wherever it was remotely possibly to do so. What you're going to see is a lot of pivoting and an increase in paperback debuts in order to appease B&N.
It really absolutely does suck for the Fall 2022 debut authors whose HCs were already printed. I'm sure the disappointment is bitter. I work with one of the authors in the thread you linked, and I really do ache for her. I know it's gonna suck for her to wait until next year, in PB, to see her amazing book at B&N. But the Twitter scaremongering is not in her favor. I have faith in her, and she's going to be incredible. We'll pivot toward trying to sell out our Amazon stock of her HCs, as well as running robust indie campaigns, and then return to our brick-and-mortar B&N retail strategy in 2023 when her book is re-released in paperback.
PBs always vastly outsell HCs anyway -- a book that sells 5k copies HC may easily sell 75k PB. Because, again, HCs are more expensive, so less people can afford them. This is true no matter who you are. According to NPD Bookscan, Game of Thrones #1 has sold approximately:
- 200k HC
- 500k PB
- 1.5 million MM (mass market -- the tiny, thick ones in grocery checkout aisles, etc.)
I think there also may be misconceptions about B&N stocking in general.
I described the concept of "distro numbers" here. When I was teaching one of my classes about distros, and I was explaining 1s and 5s (some stores get 1 copy of a title, others get 5 copies of that title), a student said, "That's just an example, right? A B&N store would never receive just ONE copy of a book!" To which I said, "Oh, yes they WOULD."
Really critically count the numbers of books on the shelves at the store --
or just Google "Barnes & Noble shelf" and count the quantities yourselves. It is completely common for a B&N to stock 5 or less copies of a given title, even if it just came out.
The moral of the story is that B&N stocks way less of every book than you think they do, which is why I've seen some seasoned authors kind of chuckling at this Twitter situation -- to repeat Milo, "When did they stock our books anyway?" If I had a quarter every time I had the "Don't freak out at the # of copies B&N bought" conversation with one of my authors, I'd double my salary. One of the titles I'm marketing came out in June, and B&N took 500 copies total for the whole country. Meanwhile, it's been selling steadily 500 copies per
week on Amazon. (Admittedly, not every book can do that; this was the type of book that we knew from the beginning would SING on Amazon but maybe less so in stores. Every book has a different ideal sales channel.) I
absolutely understand the pain and disappointment; B&N is usually considered the crown prestige achievement of authorship. Emotionally, it represents validation. It represents legitimacy. But the world has changed. Brick & mortars matter a lot, but they're not the end-all-be-all.
Nowadays, "frustrating world events disrupting the publishing process" is just the name of the game for authors. But stories will soldier on nonetheless. Yesterday we had one of our authors come to the office; she debuted on the NYT Bestseller List in 2020, and her sophomore novel, which came out last month, did as well. She was crying talking to us about how terrified and gutted she was when she realized she was going to debut in a global pandemic, when all her tours and events were cancelled, when bookstores closed down. She debuted on the NYT Bestseller List nevertheless.
I ache in empathy for the Fall 2022 authors affected, but given the way the economic situation has been clobbering HC sales... I'm an anti-capitalist, myself, but sometimes the market truly does control the situation, and the only thing you can do is try to adjust.
EDIT:
Authors should perhaps also be mindful of what they post in public. Corporate decisions are made by humans. A conversation this morning:
Director of Marketing: Why did [MG Author] just diss B&N on Instagram today?
Me: Oh, it's trending. [Gives her the Twitter link to #barnesandnoble]
Director of Marketing: But I talked to [author] months ago to prep her for this, and she seemed to understand. Why is she doing this?
Me: I think a lot of people on Twitter are really scared right now. Authors always feel very helpless and vulnerable about sell-in quantities. But we'll do great in 2023 in PB!
Director of Marketing: Uh, yeah, I hope, if no B&N corporate buyers have seen her trashing them on social media.
Me:
