CHAPTER 1 Bookshops Getting published nowadays, especially if one is a novelist, even a previously much-published novelist, is difficult enough. Getting one's book into the bookshops seems to be almost impossible. It was a lot easier when I first entered the book trade in 1949. My first job, at seventeen, was as a shop assistant in a good bookshop in a medium sized town - 70,000 inhabitants. Whereas last year in excess of 100,000 new titles were published in the UK (twice as many in the USA) in l949 only 20,000 new titles were published. It was possible, therefore, for publishers, most of whom were small with their own 'travellers' or 'reps', to establish good relations with each of the many hundreds of bookshops large and small throughout the country. It was also possible for these reps to be given half an hour or so by the shops' buyers to talk about their new titles and to check the shelves for possible re-orders of back lists. Many bookshops would automatically order copies of all new fiction because they knew where to sell them - the libraries. Apart from the hundreds of public libraries, each with it's own acquisition budget, there were all the privately owned 'circulating libraries' which bought mostly fiction and a few popular biographies. The 'High Street' bookshops in those days also had to face very little competition from the remainder merchants as there were few, if any remainders available. In the UK and the British Commonwealth, for example, the Net Book Agreement was in force. Bookshops were prevented by law from selling books at less than the cover price. The only exceptions were books to some libraries: these carried a small library discount. The real impact of the paperback revolution was still to come and nearly all new fiction was issued only in hardcover. The libraries demanded this. And library sales of all kinds were the novelist's life blood. The situation is very different now. The small, independent bookshop is becoming a rarity as the chains take-over. They demand high discounts, which reduce the authors' royalties and the publishers' profits. They take most new books only on a sale or return basis - and returns are high. Increasingly they demand payments from publishers for shelf space, super-market style, and a pre-publication order - or not, as the case may be - can determine whether a publisher actually brings out a particular book. As a result the first novelist, or mid-list novelist, has very little chance of exposure in the bookshops which concentrate on authors whose books they know they can easily sell and on which they get high profit margins. Most novels are now published only as paperbacks - thereby reducing the profit per copy - and the library trade has dwindled. All the private circulating libraries have gone out of business and the budgets of public libraries have not kept pace with the increased number of new titles being published each year. Although good reviews do not always lift a book into the bestseller category many librarians and individuals used to read them as buying guides. Sadly, most of the publications that carried book reviews, especially of fiction, are no longer available. And then there are the on-line booksellers. Admirable as these are from the book-buyer's point of view, they are of little help to the un-promoted novelist. Because publicity, of any kind, is either expensive and often far from cost-effective, or if free, very difficult to get publishers are naturally very careful indeed when deciding whether to accept a novel for publication, even if it is from a reasonably well-established novelist. I am beginning to think that many novelists may need to be satisfied with selling a couple of hundred copies of their books. And when all is said, they will be no worse off than the composer whose string quartet enjoys one performance before an audience of a hundred. And how many people see a new work of art by an unknown artist? It's a thought. Go to Home Page | Chapter 1 - Bookshops | Chapter 2 - Kinds of Fiction | Chapter 3 - Multiple Submissions