B&N Orders

mogajones said:

...Problem is, I'm new at this game, and I don't have an agent. So I can't ask anyone: is that good?

Click to expand...

You do have someone you can ask: your co-writer, who as an "established author" would know...

Why won't you ask the person? Have you two had a falling out or something?

Also, do you have a contract that helps to protect your interests in this co-writing venture?

I'm not trying to be nosy, but it might helps us to understand your situation better if you'd provide more details.

That's the standard auto order for a big six mass market. It's 4 copies per store, roughly.

The putting them on a table thing is a bigger deal; that cost money. It may have been cash in the form of a "co-op" payment or a bigger discount, but the publisher is putting some backing behind the book.

The putting-them-on-a-table deal is sometimes restricted to specific stores, which means a bigger stack on the table.

The Big Six? Bertelsmann, von Holtzbrinck, News Corp, Viacom, Time/Warner, and Hachette. May also include Houghton Mifflin, Pearson, Harlequin, John Wiley, and Bloomsbury, depending on who you talk to and who's counting what.

These are the publishers (or media conglomerates that include publishers among their holdings) that account for around 90% of the books sold to readers.

The US Government prints far more books (Army field manuals, tax codes, fishery reports, etc. etc.), but those aren't for sale in stores, and you won't see them on best-seller lists.

There's a Publishing FAQ about the Big Six.

Mass market refers to a standard paperback novel, not the oversize "trade" paperback. Your average paperback is a mass market paperback. You might go take a look at the FAQs, and especially the Publishing Terms.

comments from a B&N peon...

4 copies per store means it's going to get lost on the table or may get shoved off the table, by stacks of books in greater quantity. Of course, your buy may be intended for the bigger stores, in which case they'll have ten copies to put on the table and the small stores will have one or two copies to put in section.

However, it will be listed as supposed to go on the table, which means that people will keep looking for it to fill, if for some reason it's bumped off the table to make space for books with more copies.

4 copies per store does mean, however, that it will likely go face-out in section. It's more space-efficient to merchandise four mass-markets face-out than spine-out, as their collective length is greater than the width of the cover.

3200 is an average to good buy. When I worked for a small independent house, our B&N buys were usually around 1200-2,000, which is 1-2 copies per store.

JSSchley, who does daily battle with promo tables and face-outs.

It really does depend on the publisher. For one publisher (or imprint) a pre-order of a certain size may have them popping bottles of champagne. For another publisher or imprint the same size order may make the editor have a serious talk with the author about using a pseudonym for the next book.