There’s only one thing on booksellers’ minds this season: e-books. That and the price of gas. Or so it seemed from much of the conversation at Wednesday’s day-long All About the Books! author event with educational programming sponsored by the New England Independent Booksellers Association at Springstep in Medford, Mass. After a morning of readings and talks by ten New England writers, ranging from Melissa Coleman, author of the memoir This Life Is in Your Hands (Harper), to Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Geraldine Brooks, author of Caleb’s Crossing (Penguin), a hundred booksellers got down to e-business with a panel moderated by American Booksellers Association COO Len Vlahos titled How to Sell E-Books.
Vlahos presented statistics that confirmed slow e-book sales for most IndieCommerce stores since Google eBooks went live at the beginning of December. Only 117 stores sold at least one e-book in February; 142 in March. Thirty-one stores sold at least five e-books in February; 45 in March. However, Vlahos anticipated a ramping up of those numbers in the next 18 to 24 months, which could be facilitated by several ABA projects, including a mobile friendly IndieCommerce.com Web site before BEA and a one-click e-book purchasing experience later this year. At present, as panelist John Hugo, co-owner of HugoBooks with three stores in Massachusetts, pointed out, it’s about a 30-minute process to get a Google e-book onto a Sony Reader. While the Nook is easier, it’s still not all that easy. The iPad, he found, works fine.
“E-books aren’t going to pay the rent,” said Hugo. “But they might in two years.” The other panelists, who included bookseller Josh Cook, online presence manager at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Mass.; assistant manager Kate Robinson at Brookline Booksmith in Brookline, Mass.; and sales representative Suzette Ciancio with John Wiley & Sons, agreed. “Our goal is to be prepared when and if there’s a tipping point,” said Cook. “You always want to have a kids specialist, you always want someone who can talk about e-books,” added Robinson.
Vlahos explained that for technical and legal reasons ABA can only offer Google eBooks through IndieCommerce sites, where it has complete control of the shopping cart. As for going exclusive with Google, ABA was able to negotiate three more percentage points for its members, or 26%. In response to a question from an audience member who doesn’t want to switch from her current site, Vlahos was open to considering an IndieCommerce e-book lite version that would enable stores with their own sites to be able to sell Google e-ooks. He also noted that Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, Mass., is testing Google’s affiliate program, which could go live in four to six weeks.
Not everyone in the room was ready to embrace e-books. Some took heart from Hugo’s story of a customer who was given a Kindle and made her son take it back and give her a $100 gift certificate and a 12-year-old bottle of Scotch instead. But many privately expressed worries about customers receiving, or buying, Kindles, which are not compatible with Google e-books and could wreck additional havoc on weak print sales.
As at other ABA Forums held earlier this spring, e-tax fairness was a major concern. “New England is a hot bed of activity,” said Vlahos, who singled out efforts by booksellers Suzy Staubach, buyer at U-Conn Co-op in Storrs, Ct.; Liza Bernard, co-owner of the Norwich Bookstore in Norwich, Vt.; David Didriksen, president of Willow Books & Cafe in Acton, Mass.; and Carole Horne, general manager of Harvard Book Store, who testified on behalf of sales tax fairness laws in their states. Didriksen asked booksellers who live in Massachusetts to contact their representatives this week. Annie Philbrick, owner of Bank Square Books in Mystic, Ct., encouraged bookseller to testify. “I was amazed how much your legislature will listen to you,” she said.
Other questions and comments concerned IndieCommerce. Cook asked if it could be set up so that someone can check out without going to an individual stores, which slows down the process. Willard Williams, owner of three Toadstool Bookshops in N.H., asked if ABA could create gift certificates for e-books. According to Vlahos, a number of stores have made a similar request. The challenge concerns making the transaction happen in real time.
Williams also raised the issue of publishers paying independents for stocking their books. “We ought to get some kind of bonus,” he said. “I’d like to know that publishers are going to offer us an advantage.” Vlahos noted that ABA is already having conversations with publishers about bookstores as showrooms/publisher marketing arms. The credit squeeze was also mentioned. Susan Novotny, owner of Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany and Market Block Books in Troy, noted, “Things with credit departments have only gotten worse.”
One other area of concern was nonfiction, a category where independents lag. “Publishers showed us we don’t sell nearly what our competitors do in nonfiction,” said Vlahos, referring to both frontlist and backlist. Ana McDaniel, manager of the Book Cellar in Brattleboro, Vt., wondered how to get more nonfiction galleys. The response from several publishers in the room was: ask and write a blurb.
