We’re back to share more of what we learned from our What's in Store: The State of Independent Bookselling in Canada report. This time, we want to help retailers and publishers work together to have the best author events they possibly can.
(Previous entries in this series have been: Indie bookselling myths busted, Takeaways from the report from Ampersand Inc. and Hornblower Group, Free perks for retailers using CataList, Can book buyers find your store?, and How to get the most out of your backlist inventory.)
When it comes to events in general, “selling books at on-site events” and “selling books at off-site events” came in at #3 and #5 in terms of efficiency among sales and marketing processes, according to rankings by indie booksellers who participated in our study. About nine in ten booksellers found selling books at on-site events to be efficient (88%).
For on-site events, the highest positive returns on investments (ROIs) were experienced with launches (79%) and readings (74%). For off-site events, the highest positive ROIs were experienced with launches (79%), fairs/ festivals (74%), book signings (72%), and readings (70%).
So it’s fair to say that author events are profitable and of interest to indie bookstores. One respondent even said: “Author tours that go to smaller towns seem to do well with attendance and sales.”
But bookstores are finding that “both Canadian and international publishers are tightening their belts, particularly in terms of events and other promotions” and one respondent asked for more “author event/launch support from publishers.”
Successful bookstore events are a great opportunity for publisher-retailer synergy! Here’s how BookNet can help.
Perhaps you’ve heard us talk about CataList before? It’s our online catalogue service and order management tool that lets publishers create catalogues and retailers (and other purchasers) create book orders both quickly and easily.
But what you might not know, especially if you don’t have an account (which is free for retailers and librarians, BTW), is that there are a plethora of other features in CataList, some of which are particularly useful for this situation.
For example, users who are logged-in to their retailer accounts can see the Marketing tab:
Information on the publisher’s marketing and publicity plans for the book can be found here, if they’ve supplied them. In the example above, you can see that this author is likely BC-based and that a lot of the publicity is planned within that province. If you happen to be a BC bookseller, you can get your tour request in early or make your pitch to be the bookseller for the fall festival events.
We strongly encourage publishers to consider adding tour plans and publicist contact information to your catalogues to help your reps, book buyers, and retail partners. Further details can also be shared between users through direct notes for more one-to-one communications.
Maybe you’re now asking yourself, though: How do I find authors local to me? Well, the good news is that there's expanded support for Contributor place information in the new ONIX 3.0 standard. CataList has started to make use of this information already, and will be building out more functionality around this location data as more becomes available.
We’re always building out more features for our users, so if you want to stay in the loop, subscribe to the CataList newsletter to get every update right in your inbox.
Highlights from The State of Publishing in Canada 2023.