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TRANSITION TIME
April 22, 2007

Late Sunday night. The peculiar pattern we've had here (in Seattle) of late, where it is warmer now (door and windows open) than it was most of the daytime, holds this evening. It's about time to do the lay me down and read thing, though that is usually more wishful thinking than realized doing at this end of the day. Mornings - early mornings - are more often the time. As usual, the front and center reading is split between something by someone who is due to read here in a hot minute (Atul Gawande's Better) and one of many things stacked up for off in autumn-time release (Richard Russo's hefty, wonderfully ruminative Bridge of Sighs.)

This day is also look at the calendar for the week ahead day, seeing what trouble lays ahead.

It could be worse. There are some long-haul days/nights - busiest will be Monday with Sherman Alexie and poets and others involved with Seattle's grassroots homeless activist/advocate newspaper, Real Change. That's a big offsite bit of business. There's an author dinner another night, the pre-publication tour. Another night of selling books at the Seattle Public Library as part of its "Seattle Reads The Namesake" program - in this case live Seattle authors Bharti Kirchner and Indu Sundaresan. There are some other good nights instore  with Gary Shytengart and Kitty Burns Florey.

When I look at the following week's dates, I see a big difference. This week is the last that is free and clear of fall book buying appointments until ... August some time? Is this possible? Maybe late July. I look ... sprinkled in early May, there they are ... the BEA break, then the pick-it-right up in early June.

I don't think I'm ready for all of that yet.

This last season was so nutty, peculiar in many ways. Some of it was changes we made here, which included seeing me buy from publishers I never had (a feat, given I've been doing this for twenty-five years, give or take) or hadn't in a while. Trying to figure National Book Network alone - at a time it was making a big play for the PGW publishers - was a feat. I remember Regnery titles listed but not to be bought from NBN, though one that I think WAS ... and a separate catalogue for ... Music Sales? ... which had NBN's logo stamped on the back of it. I was all ready to try and launch a purge of Music Sales as a separate entity, merging it into NBN for backlist's sake, when I was told, no,  Music Sales is NOT in NBN. Oye. And that was one of the more ... discernible pieces of confusion.

Nothing could top the dramas played out with the organization formerly known as Publishers Group West. The blow by blows have been blogged through the bogs and fogs of court proceedings, statements and assertions, assurances and uh-ohs.

This past week there was finally the hint of official word (from involved reps or online reports) as to who will sell what where. One piece of the puzzle we had very unofficially (but some authority) heard was that Consortium will still be sold by the reps who have been selling it the good and many years - at least for this coming season. It was a close call on this front. The reps selling Consortium will take less commission. For maybe 24 hours, they had thought they had lost it altogether. Now they have it - but with precious little assurance that they'll have it longer. That's one all-day call, bordering on going longer, for us, if anyone is counting.

Then there is what we are presently calling Transition Vendor (nee PGW). Our wonderful rep - and some others - have word that they have work. (Their relief was tempered by many other PGW people being let go, so we have been told.)  If understood correctly here, our TV/PGW rep will sell us what there is of PGW and Grove Atlantic (the biggest publisher client). What I don't know is if she will still sell Avalon - which was sold, lock, stock and barrel, or if that goes over to the Perseus person.

Our TV/PGW rep will sell Avalon AND Perseus Book Group (Basic, Da Capo, Public Affairs, Counterpoint, etc) AND the Perseus Distribution Services lines to secondary/smaller accounts in what we hear is a larger, more farflung territory. For us, though, she'll be selling PGW ... and maybe Avalon.

We've been told that the person who has been doing yeoman's work in selling Perseus (making more coherent sense of the collective entity than they often were a few years ago) will be doing so no longer. He was something of an exception, in that in this territory he was selling Perseus and PDS to ALL trade accounts, (along with his other commission lines), whereas elsewhere there was a house rep for the larger accounts, with his commission group comrades doing the smaller accounts.

The person who will be selling us Perseus/PDS hasn't been announced to us yet, though a friend at another publishing house has already said he is a very splendid fellow who will be coming up and selling us from the Bay Area.

If it stays like this ... okay. A few of us who compare notes are concerned about the Consortium situation. There is no way we could conceive of a rep selling all of PGW and Consortium, much as we might adore the rep doing so. If she has a big territory there get to be scheduling problems. we would take no less time to buy these than we do now - which would mean she might be seeing us four-five days. I can't imagine the sales conference ... and would wonder, even though it's expensive and logistically challenging, how many present Consortium presses would bolt from such a set-up.

If Consortium was instead aligned with Perseus, I think they'd have to be moving Mr New Rep up here, else he'd be on the road a whole, whole lot. Again, all those varied and vital presses in Consortium - we want MORE time on/with them, not less.

Posted by Rick Simonson on April 22, 2007 | Comments (0)