by SB Sarah • Wednesday, November 05, 2008 at 01:30 AM
In early October, Gennita Low started an online campaign to ask folks to write to Wal Mart’s headquarters and ask them to stock her book. According to Low, Wal-Mart didn’t stock her first book, Virtually His, and as a result her sales numbers were so low, Mira has delayed the release of the sequel, Virtually Hers.
In an open letter that was posted several places online, including Karen Knows Best, Low invites people to contact Mira, and to contact Wal Mart’s book buying department to try to get her book in stock. Several fans have posted comments saying how eagerly they were awaiting the book, and many have mentioned that they’ve contacted Wal Mart on Low’s behalf.
One reader wrote to me that she was hella pissed off, because she’d pre-ordered the book and been told by Amazon that it was delayed again and again. She was livid that so much power of what she was able to buy in her romance selections was determined by Wal Mart.
Virtually Hers appears to be available starting December 1, so perhaps the nudging helped? Who knows. CORRECTION: Per Gennita Low’s comment below, she received the rights back from her publisher. Virtually Hers will not be released Dec. 1. I hope it finds a new home.
But this is not the first time I’ve heard of Wal Mart putting the sinker on someone’s sales.
An author who asked to remain anonymous told me:
Walmart placed a HUGE order for my first book (68% of the print run). They returned 80% of their order almost immediately (aka 50% of my print run), meaning it’s likely those books never even saw the shelf (I lost my slot to a backlist title of a NYT best seller most likely). As far as I know they didn’t order book two at all (honestly, I just don’t want to know). Walmart basically trashed my career before I even had a chance. No amount of great reviews or awards is going to offset a 49% sell though (the book sold VERY WELL at book stores, for all the good that does me).
I asked her how she knew about the Wal Mart connection to her sales, and she replied that her info came straight from her editor:
My editor told me my numbers were “in the toilet”. Nice. I was surprised, since my agent had told me that my numbers were great (cue the lesson that Walmart doesn’t report to things like Bookscan, so your sales numbers can look fab when they’re not). I expressed this surprise and my editor said, “Let me poke around a bit and call you back. I remember something really wonky happening with your book and Walmart . . .”
Most authors check their sales figures by subscribing to Bookscan and calling the Ingrams’ number incessantly. These two sources get their info from actual sales (Ingrams from stores ordering from their warehouse and Bookscan from bookstores that report in their actual sales). These two numbers have historically been considered fairly reliable (kind of like polls). There are all sorts of formulas people use to get an idea of what those two numbers equate to in total sales (like triple your Bookscan total or multiple your Ingrams # by 6, etc.). But the idea was that if your Bookscan and Ingrams #s were healthy your book was doing well.
This is no longer the case.
Book sales have begun to be heavily driven by big box stores (Walmart being the most important one apparently), and those stores don’t report to Bookscan. So if it’s true that something like 47% of all mass market fiction is sold ad big box stores (I think) and your book isn’t in said big box stores (because it wasn’t picked up, or like me, they trash you right out of the gate) you’re royally screwed. But you may not know you’re screwed until you get blindsided by your royalty statement and the fact that your publisher isn’t picking up your next contract.
Now, I know next to diddly about Bookscan and sales numbers, and how sales and success are quantified. So I asked an editor: What’s up with Wal Mart?
Does Wal Mart have that much power?
The answer: an unequivocal “Oh, holy shit, yes.”
Wal Mart is the single largest bookseller in the US. Period, full stop. Most books in this country for retail sales are sold to Wal Mart. And so they have the most power, according to my source.
The completely wonky part is that they don’t make as much money selling books as they do selling, say, tires or automotive supplies or groceries. Books are a very small part of their selection, and a small part of their profit margin.
But books at Wal Mart are a holy hopping damn huge part of of the profit margin of your average romance publishing establishment, because when Wal Mart orders a book, it is an order that often has many, many more zeroes in it than orders for all the other retailers combined. It is not far fetched for editors and marketing staff to ponder amongst themselves, ‘But how will this sell at Wal Mart?’ Selling to Wal Mart is crucial for any author, any publisher, and anyone who hopes to realize a profit in publishing romance, particularly as predictions of the financial future of publishing in general turn dire indeed. Wal Mart is the most powerful figure in romance publishing, bar none (after Dear Author and us, of course) (snort).
Some of the email I received regarding Gennita Low’s campaign thought that readers of romance should boycott Wal Mart in protest of their outrageous market power. This is not the first time I’ve heard anti Wal Mart sentiment. As the nations largest retailer, they have attracted more than one lawsuit for alleged discrimination against women.
In the Fall 08 issue of Bitch Magazine, there’s an article about Wal Mart’s latest marketing campaign, which asks if moms have “formed their ‘momtourage’ yet,” targeting female readers and television viewers as potential customers. This is troublesome to the article’s author, because
[t]he superstore is currently involved in the largest workplace gender-discrimination lawsuit in history, with more than 1.3 million female employees suing the retailer for failing to equally promote and pay women.... In one 2005 ruling, [Wal-Mart] was fined $188,000.00 by the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission for violating state law when it refused to reinstate a woman after she completed her maternity leave.
Now, personally, I don’t have a Wal Mart within driving distance, so I don’t shop there. I don’t know if I would had I the choice, given what I know colloquially of their labor practices from friends of mine who worked there while we were all in college.
But I also know that for a lot of people looking to mind their budgets and feed and clothe their families, Wal Mart is the only option in town. Literally.
And for those of us concerned with the health and continued viability of the romance book market? Wal Mart might as well be the only option in town as well. They are literally the most powerful, and books aren’t even their main source of income. How do you fight such a behemoth with that much power over an author’s career future? Is it even possible? Or do we have to play within that power structure to advance our cause - the continued availability of romance novels? According to those with whom I spoke, it’s not possible to circumvent Wal Mart and survive in the current market. They buy in such quantity and sell in such volume that it isn’t possible to go without them. There is simply no way to avoid them.
When I asked my editorial source what readers could do, the answer was immediate: shop there. “We should all get down on our knees and thank God for Wal Mart. They buy romance, we have jobs, you have books to read.” It might leave a sour taste in one’s mouth, but we should go out of our way to shop there, according to this editor, because if more people shop for romance there, and it becomes more of a profitable enterprise for them, then they’ll buy more. If they buy more, there’s room to publish more, and there’s more for us to read. Turning-page economics, if you will.
I’m not pretending I know the answer to this one, and for the time being shopping at Wal Mart or deciding not to isn’t a question I face. But I know a lot of our readers look to Wal Mart for their book needs. GrowlyCub mentioned recently in a comment to my review of Lori Borrill’s Unleashed that:
I went and read the excerpt at Amazon and holy smokes, I want to read that book now! Our local Walmart does not carry Blazes any longer, so that means either a trip 80 miles down the road or waiting till Bamm.com can deliver.
No Blazes in the Wal Mart means one reader waits for shipping, or goes without. Even in the isolated cases, that’s a lot of power for one store to wield.
What’s your take? Do you shop at Wal Mart for books? Or do you avoid it? And if the biggest of the big box stores has that much market power and control over the genre, will that ever change? And how?
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 04, 2008 at 12:46 PM
Our Grade:
Title: The Unmasking of Lady Loveless
Author: Nicola Cornick
Publication Info: Harlequin Nov. 2008, ISBN: 9781426826016
Genre: Historical: European
Part four of my liveblogging an Historical Undone.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
Chapter Four: The Night before Christmas
Bliss is the word for it: they’ve “gotten to know” each other now that the hot sex has cleared the air, and it’s time for a merry Christmas and a merrier denouement and conclusion.
Lord Alex WALON has even offered to help with the chores.
HOLY CRAP.
But oh, noes! Melicent has discovered pages of Lady Loveless’ deathless prose, and is horrified - a blueprint for her seduction! He must have written it! No, he says, you did!
“You think that I wrote this filth?” Melicent demanded.
“It isn’t filth.” Alex felt moved to protest. “It is very well written and extremely erotic.”
HOLY CRAP.
So who is the author of this erotic, sensual prose that’s filled to the brimming tip with gossip and scandal? Who really wrote Lady Loveless’ erotic novels? Was it Melicent? Alex? The mutton?
I won’t tell - but I will say this: given the extreme brevity of the format, the leaps of emotional dedication and the combining-to-the-point-of-conflating sexual attraction with emotional ardor are elements to this story that the reader will have to forgive. But in four chapters, there’s a narrative worth pursuing, even if the protagonists are a little emo and prone to emotional outbursts and confessions, and the ancillary characters are flimsy and overly simplistic. Is it possible to embed a great deal of nuance to a character in four chapters? I don’t know. But it is possible to enjoy a morsel of romance over lunch.
Yum!
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 04, 2008 at 12:36 PM
Part three of my liveblogging of my reading of this Historical Undone.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
Chapter three: Melicent tries to concentrate on her mutton, but her hot husband is distracting her, to say nothing of her wastrel brother, the Feckless Aloysius, and her tyrant harpy of a mother.
Her stomach squirmed with sensuous longing. She wondered what on earth was happening to her....
Better check the mutton, ma’am.
Melicent ruminates upon her crush, which, since this is a historical is called a tendre, which I pronounce with as much nasal pretension as the name of that chick on 90210, Original Recipe, who was played by an actress in her 30’s. You know, Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnndrea. So: taaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhndre is now the word of the moment in my brain.
...for although she had conceived a schoolgirl tendre for her husband on sight, she had never felt this immodest, wanton and reckless lust for him. He caught her eye. His firm lips curved into a smile that promised to fulfill every one of those wanton thoughts.
Whoa! So in chapter 1 she was cold, indifferent to his sexual attentions, and shy. Now she’s a twitching sexpot in an out of date ballgown, squirming over her mutton. Woo damn! Behold the power of writing!
Oh,but Melicent’s trip down the lustful corridor of memory lane has hit a cold moment:
She was no longer the starry-eyed innocent he had married four years before. She had worshipped him when first they were wed, and his cold preference for spending time on the Beaumont estates rather than on her had broken her heart.
On the estates rather than on her? No wonder she turned to erotic writing.
But given the heated glances they’re sharing, they’ll be on each other like a four year old political sticker on a hot car bumper, and sex will smooth the way to repairing their differences. Mark my words.
Wait, was I not supposed to reveal the ending? Oh. Sorry. Maybe it’ll end unhappily! Who knows?!
But soft! What misunderstanding through yonder plotline breaks? It is a conversation with double meaning, and she does not understand the “stimulating writing” to which he refers. Suddenly he’s kissing her ferociously, thinking she’s using an elderly neighbor for help with her writing, and she’s thinking he’s all hot and bothered by architectural manuals. Whoa!
she opened the door of her bedchamber and he kicked it shut behind them. Only then did he let her go, spinning her around, ripping the buttons from her bodice and the neck of her chemise with it.
Does that qualify as bodice ripping? Because if so, HA!
But soft again! What twist on standard operating cliche breaks upon this tender story? The honesty of her response, the heights of erotic fulfillment, the multiple - and I do mean multiple- orgasms, they point to an honesty of character, and he couldn’t believe that she’d possibly been unfaithful.
She was simply a very candid and giving person.
Of course. Who has very candid and giving orgasms, possibly in the double digits by the time the tally is done. But of course, sex clears away the interference that blocks communication, and instead of making things more complicated, makes them clearer and easier to resolve. Hell, given the heights of passion and the depths of the plunging thrusts, I can believe they’d clear the air to get a little more of that action. Lord Alex WALON is quite the accomplished bed partner. Lucky Melicent.
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 04, 2008 at 12:15 PM
Sam Wollaston of the Guardian wrote up two programs that aired this weekend on BBC4, one a drama weaving together three Mills & Boon plots, and one a profile of a writer who hopes to write one, entitled, How to Write a Mills & Boon. The best part of the article?
The programme is a success too - for one because Stella Duffy, as well as throwing herself into it whole-heartedly, is very good company (not many novelists make good TV). But also because of all the amazing Mills & Boon ladies she meets along the way: the editor, the established writer who’s teaching the course in Italy, the aspiring writers, the fans. They’re all brilliant, clever, funny, women. Modern, even. But they also understand that romance - and cuppy-kissing - lives on.
WORD UP. Now I want BBC America to carry this program (sorry “programme") so I can see it, too.
[Thanks to Briony for the link.]
by SB Sarah • Tuesday, November 04, 2008 at 12:15 PM
Part two of my liveblogging of my reading of this Historical Undone.
Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV
Ok, their estate in Yorkshire? Peacock Oak. Poor Alex WALON, I hope that’s not an endorsement of his endowment, or the sexual preferences of his brother.
Melicent’s mother apparently feels “sick as cushion,” whatever that means, and is a pain in the ass. Melicent is hiding downstairs writing. Writing the scandalous gossip? Nope. Architectural guides. Seems she’s also a technical writer. What a woman of excellent depth of talent!
And of course she doesn’t recognize her husband when he arrives, partially because it makes for a moment of tension, and partially because she was expecting the doctor for her hypochondriac pain in the ass mother. Yet again - characters are either the height of awful or noble and emo. But not so emo that I want to kill them.
Melicent is intimidated by her husband, his polish and style contrasting with her cold cottage, histrionic mother, and embarrassed financial straits. Although why she’s in such financial straits I’m not sure I get. She nurses a crush on her husband (awwwww, I love that) and a bucket of hurt feelings over his indifference and callous dismissal of her, but a sense of relief that within moments, he’s kissed her cheek, looked at her with an interest thick with intentions, and tossed her drunk brother, the feckless Aloysius, into a fountain.
“One way and another, Alex’s arrival in their household had set the cat amongst the pigeons.”
There’s going to be eating? In a Harlequin Morsel of Historical Romance? WORD UP.
So where was Melicent’s monthly allowance? Why was she managing a drunken feckless Aloysius, and a hypochondriac tyrant mother? And why was Melicent leaving Lord Alex WALON alone in her sitting room, the manuscript pages of her latest fiesty novel available for his prurient eyes?
Because it makes for some hot reading, yo. Word up to Lady Melicent.
Of course, the lust is coded as love within the text, despite his indifference to her earlier and his anger at her after that:
“Melicent stood in the doorway, dressed in an unfashionable evening gown. He found that he wanted to rip it off her and make love to her on the carpet.”
Was it “make love,” or fuck her silly? There’s a difference, but when you’re reading a Harlequin Morsel, the emotional connection must immediately be entwined with the sexual attraction. I mean, we’re working with a limited timeline here.
That said, Alex is so taken with his lustful thoughts, the new prose he’s stumbled across in her desk, and her lush pink lips that he kisses her with passion because he can’t help himself.
They broke apart as the dinner gong sounded. Melicent was panting, her hair ruffled, lips soft and damp, eyes wide and dark with desire. Alex felt another spear of lust go through him.
OW!
And with that violent thought, here endeth chapter two. Chapter three: they head into the dining room to eat mutton. HOT HOT HOT!
