Bestsellers Aren't

As I've mentioned before I have a book-shuffling job and on sundays we do the switchover for the week's bestsellers. We use the New York Times bestseller list (published approximately two weeks in advance so at least with bestsellers I can easily look into the future) which is more or less the industry standard within the United States though other lists do exist. In an empirical world the list would be done completely by volume of sales. In fact, by the very nature of the name you would be under the impression that Best Sellers are determined by volume of sales (literally which ones sold the best). Unfortunately if you were under that impression it would be a mistaken impression. The New York Times list is based on survey samples from independent and chain retailers in the United States as well as wholesalers and other factors which are trade secrets. I'll let you think about that for a moment before I start dissecting it.

It's not the trade secrets part that bothers me too much because in the over sixty year history there has been ample data that if they used the "trade secret" bit to influence the list to their own advantage it would have become obvious by now to people who can do math. There are two things about their methodology in deciding that make me cringe. One thing is the fact that they count sales from wholesalers as part of their formula. You know when you were a little kid and "double counting" was one of those unfair tricks you accused other kids of? That's what they're doing when they count not retailer but also wholesaler sales. Because where do the retailers get their books? Obviously from the wholesalers. The other thing is the word "sample". And here is where I can draw on my movie theater background. When I worked in the movie theater every single night we got a call from not one but two companies (Rentrak and Neilson EDI) that tracked box office numbers and the theater that I worked at was an independent one-screen in a tourist town seating less than two hundred per showing and usually having fewer than ten showings in a week. Rentrak and Neilson weren't taking a "sample". Our little one-screen was not part of their "sample"- they called us because they called every theater. Now that I work at a bookstore I know we don't get a call at the end of the night asking what books we sold during the day and I work at a chain that's been around longer than Borders. So who belongs to the sample? I have no idea.

Although, if I did know which stores belonged to the "sample" and I did have a book being published and also some money I could manipulate my book into being on the bestseller list. It's been done before by some economists who obviously are capable of math and clearly viewed it as a good investment. It's been done even more times with the Amazon top one hundred list but that's another story entirely. It also turns out to not be illegal in any way though the New York Times does frown upon that sort of behavior. But only when it's an individual doing it and not a large corporation. Why do I say that? It turns out that the top ten largest publishing companies in the United States are responsible for 98% of all New York Times bestsellers. The top five largest are responsible for 80% of them. If you were standing in front of a shelf of bestsellers right now and glanced at their spines you'd probably be inclined to disagree with me vehemently. You might say: "I can see Scribner, Bantam, Atria, Tor, Knopf, DelRey, Amy Einhorn, Ballantine, Beyond Words, Simon & Schuster, HarperOne, Little Brown, Razorbill, Hyperion, Harper, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, St. Martin's Griffin, Back Bay Books, Broadway Books, Reagan Arthur Books, and that's only twenty from this week that this blogger happened to remember off the top of their head from doing bestsellers on sunday!" Well, you'd say the first part but the last part was really only to illustrate my point. All those publishers are for books on the bestseller list this week and there are twenty different ones. If you looked at all the books you'd probably find twice that many or even more. So how could just ten companies have a lockout on 98% of bestsellers? Well, if you can name which of those twenty isn't actually one of the top ten in the next five seconds before I tell you I'll give you a prize. Because when I see that list I see Simon & Schuster, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Random House, Random House, Penguin, Random House, Simon & Schuster, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette, Penguin, HarperCollins, HarperCollins, Workman, Macmillan, Hachette, Random House, Hachette and that right there is the top six largest publishing companies in the United States plus Workman (and if you guessed Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill you won a prize).

And those companies are the reason that bestsellers aren't. Say you work for Bantam, an imprint of Random House, and you receive this amazing manuscript from me and everyone who reads it loves it so you know it will make your company money. When you print that book you're going to want to print a lot of that book because you think it will sell well. When wholesalers buy that book you convince them to buy a lot of them because you think it will sell well and the wholesalers do buy a lot of them. The wholesalers then convince the retailers that it will be worth their while to buy a lot of them. To further this cause the publishing company likely has a contract with many retailers across the country to display certain books in a prominent position and even if those books never sell the retailer still gets money for putting them on a special display. More than likely, though, those books will sell because they're in a highly visible position and the public has been trained to buy books from these special displays because it's an easy way of finding "high quality" books without doing much looking. Then, because the publishers printed a lot of them and convinced both wholesalers and retailers to buy a lot of them and get the retailers to put them in a prominent position so they sell well they make it to the bestseller list. Once on the bestseller list not only are they in an even higher visibility spot for customers but they're now bestsellers and the consumers believe that lots of other people are buying this book and use that as a reason to buy it, thus prolonging it's stay on the bestseller list. Long story short, publishing companies basically expect something to become a bestseller so it does. A self-causing self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Death of Borders

Friends, readers, literates; spare me your thoughts for a moment
I say goodbye to Borders and not heap its praises
the corruption and bad practices of corporations often live after them
the good ideas that they had will be liquidated with their inventory
the devoted employees that worked for them will be the first turned from their doors
so let it be with Borders
in its time- just fifteen years- Borders did many things
with their major competitor was their biggest accomplishment achieved;
the pioneering of the Big Box Bookstore co-created with Barnes & Nobel
to their credit is also responsibility for the graphic novel boom
and they will be remembered for bringing pastries and caffeine to their stores-
a concept which cannot be removed from the heads of their consumers
but despite the veneer Borders suffered from an inner sickness
poor management hobbled them
near-sighted misunderstanding of how the Internet works dealt a grievous wound
relying on the mysterious cure-all of branding over business sped their decline
a business plan that did not make money led to their ultimate failure
they serviced the faceless masses and primarily opened stores in underserved areas
and yet the corporate world has deemed that their customer base isn't worth as much as their inventory
from the way that people speak of Borders while it's still being inhumed-
one would think that three times they would have crowned it-
if only bookstores could wear crowns
yet I doubt if presented that Borders would have three times refused
still- I wish not to praise Borders or to spit on its name-
I wish only to present what important notes about its life as I can
many did love Borders once and it was not without cause that they loved
so why not now grieve for this passed giant?
if you grieve for Borders you may feel your heart is in the ground with it
but please let us pause so it may come back to you
because as surely as Borders is dead there was a reason that you loved it
and that reason is the same reason you must take your heart back
Borders was first and last a bookstore
and any love that lay with them had its heart first and last within books
so surely Borders may be worth mourning
but you would do yourself wrong and books wrong and authors wrong
if in mourning Borders you say this is the death of books
books existed sixteen years ago and forty years ago and, indeed, eight years ago-
eight years ago when Borders was at its peak of thirteen hundred stores
but though Borders will soon be gone books will remain
so after you have grieved for Borders or cursed its name
I invite you to start a new book or begin a new chapter
because the death of Borders cannot and will not be the death of books

Buying Books for Children

Some of my fondest childhood memories aren't just book-related but bookstore-related. The children's section in my parent's favorite bookstore had this great train track you could play with and an awesome boat-shaped sitting area you could climb all over and shelves that come up only to my waist these days. Though sadly this particular bookstore no longer exists I never came out of it without a new book. Miss Rumphius was one of my favorites. So much so that though I have no idea what became of my original copy I bought another one when I was sixteen or seventeen. When I stopped being such a little kid I not only devoured a huge portion of my father's library but I didn't come out of the bookstore without several new books every time we went. Their only real rule was that we didn't buy hardcovers because they're quite expensive (my father still never buys hardovers). The other thing was that they weren't going to buy books I wasn't going to read (and why would I want them anyway?)

My parents are not rich people by any stretch of the imagination. My mother is a school teacher and my father is a commercial fisherman. I'm the youngest of four children. But my parents understood the value of reading and education. My mother read out loud to all of us until I was eight or nine which put my oldest brother at sixteen or seventeen. She only stopped then because my second-oldest brother and I kept stealing the book from her and reading ahead. They also bought books for all of us, not just me, so it wasn't uncommon for them to spend hundreds of dollars once every month or two at the bookstore. As a result I spent most of highschool reading my books instead of paying attention but still, somehow, managed to get good grades.

So maybe I was pampered as a child and I understand that some children's books can be expensive but aside from the bargain books we carry (which are, as far as I can tell, publisher overstocks that they sell off for the cost it would take to destroy them) I could pick out dozens, hundreds of books probably, for children in our store that would cost you half the amount for one romance novel or a quarter what you might pay for a girlie magazine. Not to mention the fact that young people and young adult books (which can run to several hundred pages) often cost much less than adult books of the same binding or even quality. So I'm not quite sure why it is that when parents come into the store with their children in tow so they, the adult, can pick up a copy of Twilight or grab some truck magazine or even porn (yes, people bring their children into the bookstore for seemingly the sole purpose of buying porn) and their child asks them for a book they don't buy one.

Maybe, maybe you think your kid should get books from the library (which are free after all), or maybe you think your kid does plenty of reading in school and doesn't need you to purchase books for them. But when asked to purchase a book for their child parent's don't say: "Not today sweetie, but tomorrow we can go to the library." They don't negotiate: "How about this book about a little princess just like my little princess instead of that book?" In order to convince them they want a less expensive one. I rarely hear one say: "Maybe next time." But I often hear parents say: "No, because when we go to you're just going to ask me for a toy there and get upset because I already bought you a book." ...You actually want to buy your child more noisy toys instead of a book which might encourage them to be quiet and probably more introspective which may lead them not to whine at all? No? How about a book that encourages your child not to whine? You wouldn't even buy them one of those? What's wrong with you?

Parents will buy themselves a stack of hardcovers but deny their child a book because of expenses. Why not trade one of those hardcovers for a softcover and get your kid a book? Or they'll buy themselves porn, or on a financially if not morally worse decision, get themselves marijuana magazines and tell the children that they brought along to the store that they can't get a book. And why not? Because having a pot magazine (or pot itself) is more important to you than your child's future? And porn instead of books for children? Really? Why not buy your child a book or two and get free porn on the internet like everybody else. Maybe if you bought your kid some books they wouldn't be such a... let's say "nuisance". After all, they're the ones who are interested in reading and learning when they ask about having a book. One day when you shut that down you may shut it down forever. But maybe I know nothing about it. I don't have any children after all. I have been one, though.

Beer is Disgusting

As part of my whole... (here I would like to make some kind of vague hand-gesture but find this difficult to represent in text) I'm going to write more in general. I wanted to start reviewing the books I read again.

I just read I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell and Assholes Finish First, both by Tucker Max.

I'd like to present the books from a two very different viewpoints because I feel conflicted and I don't think I could take one stance.

On one hand they are highly offensive to women and deplorable on many levels. The fact that there are thousands of men (and women) who consider this man their hero and idolize his behavior is disgusting. He behaves as though the world revolves around him. He consumes a great deal of alcohol and has slept with women numbering in the low triple digits. He is not the kind of role model you would want your fourteen-year-old son looking up to.

On the other hand some of his stories are both fantastic (in the sense that they are hard to believe and not in an exclamatory sense) and hilarious. My stomach muscles hurt from laughing so hard at certain points during the books. His writing style is more or less expository. He is writing a story as he (and other first-person accounts) remember it and he mentions that certain things included in the stories he doesn't remember at all. He wraps up the stories with finesse and knows how to set up his jokes for maximum impact. He is also highly intelligent and insults people in ways that are both demeaning as well as intellectual. One quote from a friend of his in a story goes something like: "Are you actually quoting Chinese philosophy at me right now?"

If you're thinking about buying this for yourself I would recommend reading some excerpts first to decide if you like it. If you're thinking about buying one for someone else I would say that you need to not only have already read it but also know your intended audience very well lest you seriously offend them.