Lynn Bond might be onto something. Speaking about women involved in the bargain book business—and of the transition from understudy to leading player that many have made of late—the CEO and president of Book Club of America in Hauppauge, N.Y., tells PW, "Women are smart and they take good notes." Among these smart, upwardly mobile ladies are entrepreneurs like Stina Forsell, who left Georgia's Kudzu Book Traders to found Maximus Books (named for her pug) in Tannersville, Pa., and sales managers like Rachel Geer, who recently added purchasing and overseeing operations to her other responsibilities at A1 Overstock in Netcong, N.J.

"It's taken a long time for women to be taken seriously," says Gail Press, who cofounded World Publications in North Dighton, Mass., 22 years ago with her husband, Jeff, and started the company's promotional publishing business, JG Press, in 1992. She recalls many dinners at Frankfurt and other shows at which she was the token woman.

Some younger women, like 33-year-old Geer, continue to fight that battle. Despite working for seven years for After Words, a bargain bookstore in Ann Arbor, Mich., and handling sales for Daedalus Books, before taking over Ben Archer's job at A1 last fall, she still has customers who ask, "Who's going to replace Ben?"

"They have a preconceived idea," says Geer, "that every company has to have a more established male."

For Tamara Stock, co-owner of Daedalus Books in Columbia, Md., who likes to joke that she got her job through nepotism (her husband is Daedalus founder Robin Moody), the biggest change is in sales. "It's taken a long time for women to get used to traveling alone," she says, remembering just a few decades ago when society frowned on women eating alone in restaurants or staying alone in hotels. She was one of the first to open up the sales territory for women through her work with a succession of companies, including Prentice-Hall and Routledge. Currently, she manages Daedalus's inventory and warehouse, buys books and creates approximately 20 32- to 84-page catalogues a year.

The Journey

The women who sit at the head of the bargain book table bring with them a number of strengths. Looking back over her past 22 years in bargain, first at W.H. Smith/Smithmark, Random House Value, Modern Publishing and now Parragon Inc., where she is president of the North American division, Wendy Friedman says, "I got my present job by working harder than any human being should." And she expects those around her to work equally hard to satisfy customers. Friedman's recipe for success is not much different from that of her male counterparts. "It just comes down to working hard and loving this business," she says. "Have the best product, the highest quality possible, get it out to the market at the best retail to the consumer and have a team of people that work every minute to make the experience of a customer dealing with us absolutely as pleasurable as possible."

Forsell attributes the successful launch of her own business in part to the men who served as mentors to her when she was starting out. "Moving from Dan Wiener at Universal Sales and Marketing to working with Albert Haug at Book Club of America taught me the value of a good purchase," says Forsell. "Albert taught me not to buy something I couldn't sell, that we were in business to make money. When I look at what I've been able to contribute, certainly being recruited by Kudzu to shape and shift their profile in the environment of a private owner was quite a feat. And to leave with it profitable and in the right direction."

By contrast, Virginia Taylor, one of the first independent reps and founder of seven-year-old Taylor Marketing in Cypress, Tex., which provides a variety of services including repping, wholesaling and some brokering, was forced to find her own way in the bargain business almost from the start. In 1994, she switched from pharmaceutical sales and retail management to bargain books at the suggestion of a friend, who told her about a new bargain book division that was being started by now-defunct East Texas Distribution. "My strength," says Taylor, "is that I am a go-getter. My boss at ETD gave me a book with a list of retail accounts and said, 'go for it.' This was a huge opportunity, and I opened up key accounts such as Barnes & Noble, Target, Walgreen's and Dollar Chains."

What Taylor sees as women's biggest advantage is not so much their passion for the business, but that many of the categories that do best in bargain books are the ones that women are most interested in, such as cookbooks, kids, decorating, gardening and inspiration. Similarly, says Press at World Publications, there's an advantage for women buyers. "Women are the shoppers, and from my experience women buyers have their finger on the pulse of shoppers. They understand what we shop for: the cookbooks and the craft titles. So many of these books are bought by Mrs. America."

Most women also strive to make their companies comfortable places to work. "I'm really proud," says Daedalus's Stock, "of the tone that Robin and I have set. We have tried to make it a place where people will enjoy working and make it as open as it can be with a staff of 160. Everything is geared to pushing the positive. We've tried to get managers to treat people so that everything is collegial. Most of our employees pick up on that."

For Daedalus sales manager Cheryl Gant, who has been selling for the past 18 years, first for Texas Bookman, the wholesale division of Half-Price Books, and later as an independent rep for both Texas and Daedalus, the positive atmosphere carries over to her sales calls: "To me the job is not like going out to sell a book but going out to visit friends."

The Road Ahead

Just as the traits that enabled women to move up the ladder frequently resemble those of men, so, too, does their vision of the future of the bargain book business. Many are optimistic as they head to this year's CIROBE. Forsell at Maximus continues to regard the bargain business as "the opportunity business." Gant adds, "As long as our bookstores are healthy and people are reading, people will want bargain books."

"I think the future is very bright," Book Club's Bond concurs. "Given the retail marketplace and the process of publishing, there's always going to be some leftover inventory. I've always looked at a bargain book as a laboratory. You learn about how the public responds to that book. I think there are opportunities to do promotional publishing as a result of bargain books. There are opportunities to be publishing partners to take excess inventory."

"If you had asked me five years ago," says Stock, "I would have said that there's not much of a future. I was concerned about the rise of the electronic book. I think a lot of people like me overreacted. As long as books are published, I see a future for bargain books." Still, she worries that inventory could shrink in the not-so-distant future. "As a few publishers have gotten smarter with their print runs, there are fewer books. There is that possibility that people can print on demand."

For Press, getting adequate inventory is also exacerbated by publishers making exclusive deals. "Although World Publications will always do great," she says, "I'm not optimistic overall. It's getting very difficult to get product. We see our cost of product rising. I'm afraid it will create a situation, 'is it a bargain?' A bestseller at $4.99, $5.99 you don't see anymore. They're creeping up to $6.99 and $7.99. At JG Press we can create our own product if we have to. But I wouldn't suggest that people get into this business. I'm realistic; it's getting more difficult."

As Bond at Book Club sees it, many of the challenges are logistical, moving inventory in a timely and cost-effective manner. "We're always looking to be a better service provider to our vendors, and we're always trying to look for new markets," she says.

Some worry that the number of outlets is also shrinking. Geer sees bargain bookstores facing many of the same problems as the rest of the book business—fewer stores. And Gant expresses concern about succession for independent bookstores that began in the 1970s, whose owners are reaching retirement age.

On top of that, many outlets are asking for more services, such as stickering and shipping to individual stores. "This is very costly, but you have to do it sometimes in order to compete," says Taylor, who is looking to expand into the African-American, Spanish-language and Christian book markets.

"The bargain book business is always challenging," notes Parragon's Friedman. On the other hand, she says, "There isn't a day that's mundane: keeping up and ahead and at the forefront of the marketplace, being adaptable, being entrepreneurial and creative. Putting one foot in front of the other, no matter what, even when we sometimes aren't sure where we are going."

"It's a family-friendly business," says Taylor, who has set up an office area in her house in order to be near her two young children.

Still, to a woman, each underscored the openness of the bargain book business, and publishing as a whole, to women. And if there were any doubt that at the end of the day it's worth it, Geer's answer was universally repeated, "Your biggest competitor is your best friend."