Booksellers Fear Undersupply of Clinton's My Life
by Karen Holt, with additional reporting by Steven Zeitchik, PW Daily for Booksellers -- Publishers Weekly, 6/16/2004
As the book industry prepares for the biggest publishing event of the year, some booksellers are worried that they won't have enough copies of President Clinton's memoir in stock when it goes on sale next Tuesday.
"We think we really do need more, so it could be an issue, we could sell out of it," said Sarah Goddin, buyer and inventory manager at Quail Ridge Books & Music in Raleigh, N.C. Goddin said the store ordered 150 copies of My Life but found out last week that it will get 100 by the on-sale date, with the rest to come within the week.
Becky Anderson, owner of Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, Ill., said she's also facing the possibility of selling out. The store requested 300 copies, but will get only 250 to start. "They haven't given us any indication when that second printing will come in, so I have no idea when we'll get more," she added.
Anderson, among the throngs of booksellers who sat through Clinton's keynote address at BEA, increased her original 200-copy order by 100 copies after the show. Although she was bullish on the book even before seeing the president-turned-autobiographer speak, Anderson said his performance did exactly what it was intended to do. "I think the speech and how 'up' it was prompted some people to up their orders," she said.
Random House spokesperson Stuart Applebaum declined to discuss how copies from the 1.5 million first printing or subsequent printings are being allocated, except to express confidence in the company's ability to handle the distribution. "We're optimistic that we'll meet the test of both the initial laydown and the replenishment of copies without overshipping or undersupplying. The Random House Sales Group and everyone with account responsibility are very focused on doing right by all," he said.
Meanwhile, one insider said Random House of Canada has around 30,000 copies to distribute in its market, but already has orders for 80,000. Applebaum would not disclose figures for Canada, saying only that the division was getting "tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands" of copies. "Canada remains very much a targeted market for our author and us in terms of our long-term sales goals," he added.
At Ingram, chief commercial officer Jim Chandler said he anticipates that the wholesaler may not be able to immediately fulfill all requests for the book. "We, like everybody else, got less than we hoped," he said. Chandler would not say how many books Ingram asked for or how many it expected to receive initially, but said the two numbers differ by "a material amount."
Borders spokesperson Jenie Dahlman said only: "Just as we did with Scholastic for Harry Potter VI, Borders will be working with Random House on a daily basis to manage our in stock position on Clinton's My Life and to meet our customers' demand for the title."
At Barnes & Noble, spokesperson Carolyn Brown said the company had put in an order in the 300,000-to-400,000-copy range, adding, "We haven't had any indication that that order won't be filled."
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