Hut Landon, executive director of the Northern California Booksellers Association, said the organizers of last week's trade show were "pleasantly surprised" by the increased attendance at the educational and rep picks sessions during the two-day conference.
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| Everyone's a Critic author Bill Tancer and ABA president Steve Bercu discussed how bookstores can leverage online reviews. | |
American Booksellers Association president Steve Bercu, owner of BookPeople in Austin, Tex., interviewed Bill Tancer in a session on his new book, Everyone's a Critic: Winning Customers in a Review-Driven World (Portfolio, Oct.). Tancer is the general manager for global research for Experian Marketing Services and author of Click: What Millions of People Are Doing Online and Why It Matters (Hyperion). Like all authors, Tancer said, he became obsessed and distracted by his online reviews. Then, when the volcano eruption in Iceland turned a one-day London trip into a 12-day stay, he said he used the time to study the customer service habits of Hotel 41 and its Trip Advisor-obsessed staff and managers. The experience led him to interview more than 100 businesses for his new book.
Getting right to the meat of things, Bercu said that he understood why hotels and restaurants have to pay attention to online reviews, but wondered how the subject applied to bookstores. "It's not just about getting people into your stores," said Tancer. "It's about competitive intelligence." He advised booksellers to check the Yelp reviews for industry leaders to learn what things they do well and discover areas to improve at their own stores. Should businesses respond to bad reviews, a bookseller asked. Tancer said it's always good to respond with an "open door" attitude and in a way that reinforces the store's "value proposition." The angry Yelper might not be persuaded, but a reasonable response will affect how others perceive the store. Besides, Tancer added, a few one-star reviews make the positive reviews seem more credible.
One thing not to do, Tancer said, is ask customers to post on Yelp. But he suggested bookstores might display a few positive online reviews to show you read them and value them. Nearly every business owner he interviewed for Everyone's a Critic said they hated online reviews, and they could recite the negative ones verbatim. With 86% of consumers using online reviews, Tancer said, they can no longer be ignored.
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| Best shirts of the show: Books Inc.'s Nick Petrulakis, for obvious groovy reasons, and Abrams's Andy Weiner, because this shirt for The Terrible Two by Mac Barnett, Jory John and Kevin Cornell was the hottest giveaway at the regionals this season. | |
In a session called "The Care and Keeping of Buyers," panelists Paul Yamazaki from City Lights, Christin Evans from Booksmith and Kepler's, and Melinda Powers from Bookshop Santa Cruz--a group known for their thoughtful insights on the literary merits of books--turned to the more practical and analytical aspects of book buying.
At City Lights--which Yamazaki described as "primarily a backlist store"--he said they treat every new hire as a potential buyer, and encourage the entire staff to look at catalogues. "We want them focused more on the books, and the metrics is more my job," said Yamazaki. City Lights orders 97% of its titles directly from publishers to maximize discounts and keeps returns down to 4%--to the envy of just about every book buyer in the room.
Evans said that Booksmith's and Kepler's 15%-20% returns rate "feels high." She orders from wholesalers daily to manage the inventory of both stores. Booksmith and Kepler's also see their section managers as part of the buying team, which she said is a policy that "feeds on itself," resulting in more shelf talkers and greater attention to returns.
Powers became the frontlist buyer at Bookshop Santa Cruz just six months ago, having previously worked at Capitola Book Café. Powers said Edelweiss is one of her most valuable tools because it lets her see comp-titles comparison and analyze publisher lists whenever she wants.
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| At the closing reception, Book Passage's Luisa Smith with Sophie Littlefield and her forthcoming The Missing Place (Gallery). | |
Yamazaki prefers "martini-spill-resistant" paper catalogues, and added that rep-provided information about excitement for titles both internally at a house and in the field is the kind of "insider" information that helps a buyer know when to stick to budget and when to be more flexible and take a chance on a book. "We probably have one of the best rep pools in the country," he said.
NCIBA tried something new with its reps this year. In addition to asking them to present tips on titles in packed rep pick sessions, it asked the reps to place "Discover Me" tabs on books in their booth and then had attendees to fill out forms listing their top Discover Me titles from the trade show floor. "As befitting a group of independent booksellers," said Landon, "the range of titles mentioned as favorites is extraordinary and shows no bias toward large or small houses."
The four Discover Me titles with most votes were: Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle (FSG), Bar Tartine: Techniques & Recipes by Courtney Burns et al. (Chronicle), What to Bake and How to Bake It by Jane Hornby (Phaidon) and The Ultimate Construction Site Book by Anne-Sophie Baumann and Didier Balicevic (Twirl/Chronicle). While Landon said the number of returned Discover Me forms was not huge, he added, "For a new idea in its first year, we were pleased with the overall response and will reprise it next year." --Bridget Kinsella