E-books are not just a big store's game, Matt Supko, technology director of the American Booksellers Association, said last week at a Winter Institute panel on e-books. An analysis of IndieCommerce users showed that "a small store with a well-trained staff and good marketing plan can be effective in e-book sales."
Supko said, too, the top questions member stores face from customers are: 1. You sell e-books? 2. On your website? and 3. Cool, how do I buy one?
A panel of booksellers shared how they are trying to make their e-books sales both viable and visible. Topic one for discussion: staff training. Pete Mulvihill, co-owner of Green Apple Books, San Francisco, Calif., said the key first step is for owners and managers to take the lead in learning about e-books. Training key staff can follow, he continued, and making sure "everyone on staff at least know where to find the QR codes on the website" is crucial.
"All of your staff should be trained on why you do this," said panelist Christie Olson Day, owner of Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino, Calif. "It's not financial, its about retaining customers," she said. As for consumers and their e-books expertise, she said, "The spectrum of information is broad. And you don't know the scope of what they don't know."
At Gallery, the staff has been trained to start by asking questions as basic as, "Have you bought an e-book from our website?" Olson Day put an iPad on the front counter of the store for customers to use. "It made it easier to talk with every customer about this," she said. "Customers say, 'I don't want to read an e-book, but this is cool.' "
At McLean & Eakin, Petoskey, Mich., co-owner Mark Norcross said he used to require all of the staff to buy an e-book, for which they are reimbursed. Now he directs them to obtain a free e-book of Private Games by James Patterson. "It puts them through the motions," he said.
But it is one thing to make staff familiar with e-books and another to get the word out to consumers that indie booksellers are in the e-book business. "The gigantic missing piece for us," said Olson Day, "is that with e-books, we are not doing what we do best--curate and recommend titles--either live or online."
Moreover, many customers are not aware that, thanks to the agency plan, most major e-book titles have the same price, regardless of where they're bought. To spread that message, McLean & Eakin coined the slogan: "No matter what the device, it's all the same price." Norcross encouraged other booksellers to borrow the phrase.
Booksellers grappling with how to educate staff and customers about e-books readily borrow from other booksellers. Olson Day said she directs her staff at Gallery to Green Apple's website. Green Apple's Mulvihill said his store took a page from Kepler's on e-books. Norcross said he gives employees $5 gift cards to hand out to encourage readers--whether in the bookstore or online at the supermarket--to try buying an e-book from McLean & Eakin.
Green Apple, Gallery and McLean & Eakin figure e-books tabs prominently on their website home pages.
"The single biggest hurdle in getting your customers to buy e-books at all from you is that first one," said Mulvihill. After that, he said, like all good booksellers, Green Apple is happy to act as drug dealer and enabler to literary addiction, whether in print or e-book. --Bridget Kinsella
