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Oh to be a young writer in South Africa today! The myriad exciting stories waiting to be told, the stimulation of a multicultural society always in flux: the perfect canvas for any creative artist. And then there are the legions of eager publishers beating down the writers' doors, advance cheques in hand, the millions of book buyers panting for the latest local offerings and the media, breathlessly waiting in the wings to review and promote home-grown publications ...
Alas, although we are indeed privileged to be working in such an amazing country at such a remarkable time, we realise that the realities of the book business in South Africa are somewhat harsher than the fantasy painted above.
I am certain that many local authors would cheerfully strangle local booksellers for what they consider less than enthusiastic support, especially when seen in the light of the massive quantities of overseas publications piled high on bookshop floors. Self-published and first-time writers find it difficult to get their books onto the shelves in the first place, and may find the bigger general booksellers very challenging to deal with.
This essay will try in some small way to write the story from the bookseller's perspective. It aims to be an exploration of some of the challenges facing general booksellers in South Africa today when it comes to business and market considerations. It will attempt to explain some of the practical considerations involved in bookselling and then finally to offer some suggestions regarding gaps in the market. It must be emphasised that these are my personal opinions, based on my ten years in the general book trade.
Bottom line
Over the past six years or so, the general book trade has on the whole become much more bottom-line driven. Increased turnover has always been important, but profitability is key in today's competitive retail environment. Booksellers have high overhead costs, but relatively low profit margins in comparison with other retail businesses, yet the expectations of the customer are relatively high. Each book on the shop floor has to pay for itself and for the other expenses incurred in selling that book. These include high rentals in premium shopping malls; good-quality shopfittings, essential for creating a sophisticated ambience; and relatively high salaries for staff, who are expected to possess above average literacy and skill levels.
It is thus important for the stock-buyer to buy books which are potentially highly profitable. This means that the bookseller must receive a good discount on the stock (usually 40 percent or more) and that it must sell through as quickly as possible. Most bookshops would regard three months as a reasonable selling time. If a title takes longer than this to move, it is very unlikely that it will be reordered.
The initial decision on whether to order a book depends on several key considerations:
- What else has the author written and what is his/her previous sales history?
- Is the genre generally saleable? (Short stories are difficult and poetry nigh impossible.)
- Does the book fill a gap in the market (especially in the case of non-fiction)?
- How does the price compare with that of similar publications?
- Does the finished product have the right "look" and "feel"?
- Is the book being offered on a sale-or-return basis? In other words, does the bookseller have the facility to return the book for credit if it doesn't sell?
- What marketing and publicity will be done to promote sales?
This last consideration can often be the deciding factor. A book may not score well on points 1 to 6 above, but because there is guaranteed publicity in quality media, one would be inclined to stock it. The importance of marketing in getting the South African book-buying public to buy your book cannot be underestimated. How much and what kind of publicity is behind a book will determine in what quantities it will be bought initially. The catch-22 is always that the larger the pile in the shop, the more favourable the initial sell-through. However, if a book does not have the right look, or if it is not appropriate for the particular shop's market, even a large display in a prominent place will not result in good sales.
The importance of marketing
Those millions of people standing in line at midnight to buy your latest release ... This is a fantasy in the difficult local book climate. It has been estimated that fewer than 3% of the local population buy books for leisure. (From: Successful self publishing in South Africa by Heather Parker Lewis. Ihilihili Press, Fish Hoek 2004.) And when these affluent book-buyers visit a large bookstore in their local shopping mall, they request the latest overseas releases as seen on TV or on the book pages of the local magazines and newspapers. South Africans, as we know, have traditionally been very resistant to local cultural products.
Thankfully, this has been changing significantly in the past few years. One need only look at the great number of South African publishers which came into being after the birth of our new democracy, as well as the large number of local titles on the market and on national best-seller lists. However, it is fair to say that local writing does not always receive the prominence it deserves in South African bookshops. It is tempting to lay the blame for this squarely at the feet of local booksellers who "won't buy South African ... books" (see, for example, A long time ago by Karin Schimke in Fair Lady, September 2004).
I would agree that we as booksellers need to examine our buying practices and attitudes critically, but argue that there are other important stakeholders in the book business that need to make a concerted effort to promote local books.
I know that it sounds reactive and defeatist, but booksellers do find themselves largely at the mercy of "what the public wants". We go with current trends and fads and sell hundreds of Oprah-recommended titles, Lance Armstrong autobiographies, Dr Atkins diet books and blockbusters by James Patterson (who, incidentally, has recently expressed the goal to become the biggest author "brand" in the world). This costs us very little time, effort and money, because these titles are backed by visible media campaigns, come with posters and attractive point of sale material, and help us reach our anxiety-inducing sales targets.
A local, self-published book may be a bookseller's personal favourite, but without marketing backup the best one may be able to do is display it and hand-sell it to customers walking through the door, provided one is not cashing up, serving the other ten impatient people in the queue or maintaining data on the inventory. The reality of large, busy bookshops is that 80 percent of customers are "sold to" by the shelves, and so frontline buying, restocking, merchandising and outside publicity have become the driving force in book retailing. The brilliant bookseller who can spend quality time with each customer and "make" a title by hand-selling hundreds of copies is a rarity today, merely by virtue of the changing nature of the business.
Booksellers can, however, take care over how they merchandise and where they place local books in order to give them the best possible chance of selling. Staff can be made aware of and more enthusiastic about local books by reviewing them regularly at weekly staff meetings and attending local book launches at every opportunity.
Nation-wide promotions such as Homebru, which showcases local writing, has been an important venture for Exclusive Books. This promotion was launched on a relatively small scale in 2001, but has grown to become an important bookselling event, boosting sales on specific titles by over 100 percent and attracting coverage for local writing in national print media and on television.
The annual Exclusive Books Publishers' Choice promotion has a very glossy "international" buzz about it, but it has become an important vehicle for local sales. Over the past three years a concerted effort has been made to include larger numbers of local books on the list and now, in 2004, 27 out of the 56 titles are South African.
It is clear from what has been written above that the media play a vital role in the promotion of South African books to the local book-buying public. One has seen a general increase in the number of local book reviews in magazines and newspapers, as well as on television and radio. There are media personalities and book-page editors who have been instrumental in advancing the cause of local writers. However, one knows that there is always more that can be done. The dramatic success of the media hype surrounding the launch of the fifth Harry Potter novel in June 2003, although a special case, is an indication that book releases can be as huge and as sexy as film releases.
It is my opinion that we in the book industry at times tend to avoid what we see as the "commerciality" of hype and marketing, because a book is seen as a work of art, an intimate communication, born in solitude and enjoyed in solitude. But how will that reader ever discover the pleasure that only your book can give if he or she is not made aware that it's out there? If we are going to broaden our customer base and make books "sexy" to people who have not viewed them as such before, it is our marketing efforts that will produce the most significant results.
The answer is not necessarily to patronise people by trying to "make" them buy books in indigenous languages or books only about African and/or South African themes, but rather to cater to people's aspirational goals. If people have been inspired by Oprah to explore self-help and spirituality, let's find ways of giving them related, South African-flavoured products. It's pointless for publishers and authors to try and force booksellers to buy products that they are not going to be able to sell and then blame those very booksellers for their own lack of market research and sensitivity. If South African book-buyers right now won't buy your children's books, create something new and exciting that caters to your market, whilst still retaining some of your ideals. If you want to reach non-book-buyers, think of alternative spaces to sell from, which may perhaps not be the traditional bookshop.
Publisher vs self-publishing
Along with booksellers, publishers have become far more market-driven in the past few years, with an increasing number of them consulting with booksellers before finalising the publication of certain titles. The upside has been that there is a greater success rate for each title produced. The downside is that the aspiring writer finds life more difficult as publishers accept very few (and sometimes no) new, unsolicited manuscripts for publication. Hence more and more authors are making the decision to go out on a limb and self-publish.
Until recently, I viewed self-publication and self-published books with prejudice and scepticism, as do many members of the book trade. But I now realise, especially thanks to the efforts of authors such as Colleen Higgs (whose pamphlet on self-publishing can be obtained from the Centre of the Book in Cape Town) and Heather Parker Lewis, that self-publishing is, in fact, an industry that should be encouraged in order to strengthen the diversity of the voices in the marketplace and to help the book trade in general to "push the envelope" when it comes to what is published and promoted.
The decision to self-publish has been, for some, a lucrative, rewarding enterprise and for others a way to establish credibility and find their way onto an established publisher's list. However, I do think it is important to highlight some of the issues that have made booksellers resistant to self-published books in the past.
- Market research should be carried out. The author needs to assess whether there is a need or place for his or her book and how it compares with other similar publications regarding content, look and price.
- Production quality is crucial. An attractive, professionally-bound book will entice the reader and be perceived as value for money.
- Understanding the financial aspects. A bookseller will expect the author to understand talk of margins, VAT, terms and invoices.
- Publicity/marketing is key (see above).
Books I wish I could write
As stated above, one of the crucial factors influencing whether a bookseller will buy an author's book is whether there is a gap in the market for it. Certain specialist categories such as craft, cookery and computer manuals would depend on one's specialist field and the needs of specific publishers. Other non-fiction genres, such as memoirs and travel writing, are open to a wider variety of writers, and may be a useful alternative for a young writer attempting to break into a difficult and restricted fiction market.
Writers will know that publishing and achieving success in the South African fiction market is a real challenge, but they must be drawing encouragement and inspiration from the growing number of successful authors and titles. Here follow just a few, very tentative observations about gaps I perceive in the market at present, and which have prompted me to wish that I could write, because then I'd have a likely best seller on my hands (I can hear the shouts of derision from across the country at this point):
- Unputdownable-type so-called "middlebrow" Afrikaans fiction in the style of Marita van der Vyver, Annelie Botes, Dalene Matthee, Deon Meyer etc. According to the demand we experience in our shop, there appears to be a gap for four or five more such "sexy" manuscripts per year, at least.
- Fantasy novels/series. Fantasy appears to be growing in popularity among Generation Y and younger readers. Is there perhaps room for a South African David Eddings or Raymond E Feist?
- Popular, sexy children's books for South African teenagers in the Mary Kate & Ashley/Luna Bay/Love Stories-type mould. They don't have to be brainless, just funky and entertaining, please.
- Interesting and well-written memoirs about ordinary local people with extraordinary stories, whether it be of hardships suffered and overcome, or exotic places visited. If it's good and well publicised, it usually will go.
In the end, one has to hope that any book written with skill and passion by its author, and then marketed, promoted and sold with as much skill and passion, should achieve some sort of success.
In conclusion, it must be said that bookselling is a business which runs on passion, because, like writers in this country, we sure aren't in it for the money. Booksellers basically are constantly looking for ways to sell more books, and if we can help each other achieve this, so much the better.
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Linda Nell was born in Pretoria in 1969 and spent her
life trying to emigrate to Cape Town, a feat which she achieved
at last in 1993. Educational qualifications include matriculating
from Ixopo High School and a BA (Hons) in Afrikaans & Nederlands
from the University of Natal. A passion for books and a desperate
need to pay back a student loan led to a part-time job in
a bookshop and she has been hooked on the book trade ever
since. After working as the assistant manager at Wordsworth
Books Tygervalley she became the manager of the company's
Gardens Centre branch before moving to Exclusive Books Cavendish
Square. In 2000 she opened the Bloemfontein branch of EB,
but returned to Cape Town in 2001 to manage Exclusive Books
in the Tygervalley Centre.
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