Many of the independent booksellers contacted by PW yesterday reported solid holiday sales over the Thanksgiving weekend. Memoirs, led by the difficult-to-get The Autobiography of Mark Twain and the still surprisingly hot Decision Points, were the most popular titles. Hardcover sales remained on the soft side and some booksellers were anxious about the impact of e-books and e-readers. “I have a feeling this is going to be a real Kindle/Nook Christmas,” predicted Buttonwood’s Betsy Detwiler. The reportedly imminent launch of Google Editions could help indies gain some traction in the e-book business however.
While few bookstores could match Saturday sales at Park Road Books in Charlotte, N.C., up more than 30% because of the the closing of a nearby Joseph-Beth Booksellers and the impending closure of a Borders store, many reported solid sales for Black Friday weekend, a PW survey found. Sales were up 15% at Washington, D.C.’s Politics and Prose, according to general manager Tracey Filar Atwood, who was unsure whether to attribute the increase to the attention the store has received in the wake of co-owner and founder Carla Cohen’s death, American Express’s Small Business Day on Saturday, or luck. At Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Mass., which has had flat sales for much of the year, both Saturday and Sunday “far exceeded what we expected,” said co-owner Jane Dawson. Others, like Jill Miner, owner of Saturn Booksellers in Gaylord, Mich., said that the holiday weekend was down, 10%. Still she remained undaunted about the Christmas season as a whole. “A strong December can still pull me out,” she said. (Barnes & Noble reported this morning that comparable store sales in the Friday-Sunday period rose 17.2% at its stores and jumped 105.7% online).
That one of the season’s big books would come from an academic press caught some booksellers off guard. But a bigger surprise was just how difficult it has been to get The Autobiography of Mark Twain. “Usually when it’s hard to get a book, it’s because a big publisher is sending all their copies to the big stores and the big box stores,” says Charlie Leonard, owner of the Bookcase in Wayzata, an affluent suburb of Minneapolis. “Same thing, different problem,” he added, alluding to University of California Press’s inability to keep pace with demand.
Some booksellers, like a few political pundits, misjudged the enduring appeal of former President George W. Bush, a mistake much easier to rectify via Ingram and Baker & Taylor. His memoir, Decision Points, topped bestseller lists even in blue communities like Cambridge. For Lisa Baudoin, owner of Books & Company in Oconomowoc, Wisc., however, a bigger surprise was that Sarah Palin’s new book is not selling. “And this is coming from a store that did well with her last book,” she said. America by Heart was also a disappointment at Chaucer’s Books in conservative Santa Barbara, according to buyer Ed Conklin.
Even so, it could be a very memoir-able Christmas. In addition to the Twain and Bush books, Stacy Schiff’s Cleopatra has been moving well, if sometimes hard to get into stock, along with Keith Richards’s Life. All four have topped most adult bestsellers lists. Jay-Z’s memoir, Decoded, has also been selling briskly at a number of independents. “We were lucky enough to host a simulcast of the Jay-Z/Cornel West event in New York,” said Frank Reiss, owner of A Cappella Books in Atlanta, Ga. “The signed copies we received as part of that event have been a hot item for us.”
Other nonfiction titles gaining ground include Unbroken, which received a starred review in PW, and Emperor of All Maladies, which has benefited from the author’s recent touring. Politics and Prose also singled out 40: A Doonesbury Retrospective. “When you consider the [$100] price, it’s selling well,” said Atwood.
Although hardcover fiction has fallen off at a number of stores, Freedom is continuing to perform well, as are the Steig Larsson books. Bear Pond Books in Montpelier, Vt., has even begun selling copies of the Larsson Millennium gift set ($99). Elizabeth Jordan, general book buyer at BookPeople Bookstore in Austin is one of several to report success with Emma Donoghue’s Room and David Sedaris’s Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. “I am selling a fair amount of hardcover fiction, but more in paperback from the backlist,” she noted. And some potentially big books are just hitting stores now, like the paperback edition of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, releasing today. “I have a feeling that that’s going to be a staple for us for Christmas,” said Betsy Detwiler, owner of Buttonwood Books & Toys in Cohasset, Mass., who does well with trade paper year round because of book groups.
At Breakwater Books in Guilford, Ct., “hardcover adult fiction has really taken a hit,” said Maureen Corcoran, owner/manager of the 40-year-old store, who attributes it to reading devices. Other booksellers have also expressed concern about e-books and e-readers. “I have a feeling this is going to be a real Kindle/Nook Christmas,” predicted Buttonwood’s Detwiler, who at 77 is not planning to get into the e-book market. Others, like Baudoin at Books & Company, can’t wait for the ABA to offer Google Editions, whose launch is reportedly imminent. “It’ll be a nice alternative. It’ll help keep us in play,” she said.
Still, for booksellers like Kelly Estep, manager of the Bardstown Road Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Ky., shopping local trumps individual titles when it comes to making sales. “In the last couple years,” she said, “we’ve had an uncountable number of people saying, ‘I’m calling you first. I want to buy local.’ ” Local extends to some in-store bestsellers, for which some booksellers have exclusives, like Sally Van Winkle Cample and Thomas Hart Shelby’s Saving Kentucky (Limestone Lane), available only at Carmichael’s. At the Bookworm in Omaha, the top seller is Five Minute Talks on Life, Love, and Faith by local priest Rev. James Fschwertley, which it began selling exclusively after the local Catholic church parish, which published it, discovered that it was spending too much time on book sales. As of Sunday the store had sold 253 copies.
On the children’s side President Obama’s just shipped picture book, Of Thee I Sing, has been fast out of the gate. “It’s really doing well for us,” said Meghan Dietsche Goel, children’s book buyer at BookPeople. But the two real standouts are the fifth volume in Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid series and Rick Riordan’s The Hero of Olympus. “I don’t have to work hard to put those in the hands of people,” said Jane Knight, children’s book buyer at Bear Pond.
Whether Black Friday Weekend will be a good predictor of holiday sales overall depends. Weather can play a big role, as it did at Bear Pond with ice on Friday, snow on Saturday. For many though the big push comes at the end. The last two weeks before Christmas is Carmichael’s biggest time of the year, and the final three days are often triple the sales of a normal day. “Christmas Eve was almost our biggest day of the year, and we’re only open ‘til 5,” said Estep. “We are a last minute stop. That’s for sure.” No one mind’s last minute, as long as the sales keep coming.
-With reporting by Claire Kirch, Marc Schultz, and Wendy Werris
