Something memorable happened to me years ago in a bookstore in the ocean resort of East Hampton, NY. No, it wasn’t meeting Peter Matthiessen (a founder of The Paris Review and recipient of the National Book Award for The Snow Leopard) rearranging the display of his amazing trilogy Killing Mr. Watson, Lost Man’s River and Bone by Bone. Nor was it bumping into Billy Joel in the addictions section. I encountered what I think is that rare bird, a “handseller.” Why so memorable? Because if that’s what it was, I haven’t seen one since.

It was summer and I decided to read as many books as I could about the Vietnam War while rotating in the sun at Georgica Beach. I’d pushed through Winston Groom’s Forrest Gump and Better Times Than These, John Del Vecchio’s The 13th Valley, Philip Caputo’s A Rumor of War, Tim O’Brien’s Going After Cacciato, Michael Herr’s Dispatches, and was searching the local bookstore for Francis Fitzgerald’s Fire in the Lake. At some point a young woman, who had been sorting and shelving books when I walked in, turned to me and offered to help. When I mentioned Fire in the Lake, she knew immediately that the bookstore didn’t have a copy. After we chatted briefly about the books in which I was interested, she offered to order Fire in the Lake or any other book I thought I might like to read on the subject of Vietnam, and she made some recommendations about additional titles. I told her not to bother to order Fire in the Lake. I thought I’d just pick up a copy at the B&N on Fifth Avenue and 17th Street in New York City.

About three weeks later, I walked back into BookHampton. This same woman was sitting at the cash register. When she saw me, she lit up, reached under the counter, pulled out a book and waved it at me. You guessed it: Fire in the Lake! She hadn’t known my name. She hadn’t known if I’d ever be back in the store, but she had special ordered this book and reserved it for me: “Save for tall woman with great tan.” I bought the book. Handseller?

Before I switched over to the business side of publishing, I’d just finished my third nonfiction book and completed a 16-city tour organized by St. Martin’s Press. No matter how tired and disoriented I was on this tour—running from TV show to radio station to local newspaper to airport—I managed to locate the local bookstores and do what every other author does: sneak around, look for my titles, and turn them cover face out. (Guilty, as charged!) Not once during that entire process did anyone ever walk up to me and offer to help me find a book.

Lo, these many years later, I can honestly say my experience in quaint BookHampton remains unique, unless you want to count the time I stumbled across a shelf filled with employee recommended books in Barnes & Noble on Sixth Avenue in New York City. Each book had a brief, handwritten synopsis and a few personal comments about why this book was so liked by the employee. I bought Mikal Gilmore’s Shot in the Heart through the recommendation of what I’ll describe as a variation of handseller. Shot in the Heart was a gripping book and a real page turner. It was written by Gary Gilmore’s younger brother. You remember Gary Gilmore? He requested a firing squad for his execution…and he got just what he asked for. Last time I looked, that shelf was gone.

Wandering a bookstore, clearly looking like I am browsing for something appealing, should bring a handseller trotting over. (I’d even welcome a recommendation for another book at point-of-sale.) I’m just not sure what one looks like because sightings are as rare as those of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in Arkansas. I’ve heard they exist, but the sightings are suspect. I don’t come across them in the independent bookstores and I certainly never see them in the bookstores like Barnes & Noble or Borders. In fact, I have to track those guys down and wrestle them to the floor if I want help, then it’s: “Let me check the computer to see if we have it…. Next customer.”

Actually, come to think of it, I was a handseller once! I was nosing through the display of new fiction titles at B&N alongside two women about my age who were trying to figure out what to buy for one of their mothers. I reached for Isabel Allende’s Daughter of Fortune and said, “My mother just loved this book.” Sold!

My personal experience leads me to believe that handsellers are on the endangered species list, and very close to extinction.

Posted by: Lynne Scanlon

It’s Monday, 9:01 a.m. I’m sitting in my office, feet up on the desk. I may look like I am doing nothing, but I’m actually thinking, and thinking hard, about which author’s book will get my attention first. The phone rings. Caller ID tells me which author it is. I ignore the call and let it go into voicemail. The phone rings again. Another author. Another ignored phone call. The phone rings a third time. I grab the receiver. Why? It’s my favorite author, Publisher’s Pet!

Teacher’s pet. Publisher’s pet. It’s a good thing.

No one gets more of my attention than an author who can help me do my job and make me look good doing it. I’m crazy about authors who can write well, understand marketing and sales, and will roll up their sleeves to promote “our” book.   

I want a well-thought-out marketing plan attached to every book I have to launch, and I want it to come from the author, who should know his market even better than I do. Yes, authors fill out an Author’s Questionnaire, but these forms are rarely taken seriously and are often ignored. The marketing plan is as important as the quality of the book. Actually, with a great marketing plan an awful book can succeed! People will buy it, though they may not finish it! (I’m thinking Nabokov’s Ada, but feel free to disagree. I just don’t want to hear it!)

Last week I sat in on a writers workshop and listened to members read excerpts from their previous week’s writing. One aspiring writer had completed a lengthy, turn-of-the-century novel and was fine-tuning it by reading it out loud to the group before trying to find an agent. I talked to her about some of the critical sales tools she might use to separate her from the pack: the upbeat covering letter, exciting book outline, and smart marketing plan that would accompany sample chapters of her book. It never occurred to her to develop a marketing plan. Big mistake. And good luck finding an agent.

Unsolicited manuscripts “in them thar hills” of the slush pile may well get a serious read if you attach a marketing plan that proves you know your market and how to reach it with your book. Otherwise, the reader, associate editor, acquisitions editor or agent will just get another paper cut while shoving your manuscript into the self-addressed, stamped return envelope.

I’m good at sussing out a market and moving books, but I’m even better and faster with a helpful author who has taken the time to understand the book’s market (fiction or nonfiction), supplied me with every idea, from the harebrained to the brilliant, that he has, and then sat down to work with me, side-by-side, to combine my harebrained and brilliant ideas with his into a primo marketing plan virtually destined to bust through the competition.

But to really lock in the position of Publisher’s Pet, I want a proactive author. (Not a pest, asking me what I’ve done lately to promote his or her book and why I haven’t sent a copy to a friend of a friend who works in publishing.) I want someone “out there,” flogging the book with me, implementing those parts of the marketing plan to which he has committed and sustaining the effort.

James Brady, columnist and author of The Scariest Place in the World and The Marines of Autumn, gets it. We bumped grocery carts in Amagasett last summer and chatted. This author never, ever stops promoting his books. In a telephone conversation we once had, he told me ”flogging” his book came first.

William Hood, coauthor of A Look Over My Shoulder–A Life in the CIA, doesn’t get it. He’d been away for months, and I had assumed he was promoting his and the late Richard Helm’s book. Smart, I thought, but no, he had been summering in Maine. Bill told me he left the publicity entirely up to the publisher. Not smart, I thought.

Rigel Crockett, first-time author who wrote Fair Wind and Plenty of It, a memoir about working on a tall ship as it circumnavigated the globe, sort of got it. He booked himself on his own speaking tour at places like The Explorers Club and Mystic Seaport, but was hesitant to ask his publishing house for reimbursement of some of his expenses. After we spoke, Rigel went back to the publisher, and sure enough, the publishing house found a few pennies to help cover his expenses. 

Sandy Jones, coauthor with Marci Jones of Great Expectations–Your All-in-One Resource for Pregnancy & Childbirth, gets it. She supplied me with well-thought-out marketing plans that included an analysis of her competition, lists of doulas, ob-gyns, associations, and radio and TV shows specializing in family issues. She targeted major companies manufacturing baby products and became a consultant. While Sandy was busy pitching in, I got her a multipage spread in Fit Pregnancy and a massive commitment for content exposure and links to Barnesandnoble.com on Ivillage.com, the #1 women’s network with “25 million unique viewers each quarter.” Sandy, my Publisher’s Pet.

When Publisher’s Pet calls, I reach for the phone every time. Pronto.

Posted by: Lynne Scanlon

Lawrence LaRose neatly ducked a question thrown at him today while he gave a talk about his 2004 book Gutted—Down to the Studs in My House, My Marriage, My Entire Life at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton, New York.

He was asked how well the book was doing. Amazingly he didn’t blink. He didn’t get dodgy-eyed.

Gutted is selling as a used book on Amazon for $1.23.

LaRose’s 1996 book, The Code: Time-Tested Secrets for Getting What You Want from Women–Without Marrying Them, is selling on Amazon for $.30.

He wanted $20 for the hardcover version of Gutted, a few copies of which were available on a table nearby. I offered him $10. He said: ”But you’re an author, too.” (Like I’m supposed to show some sympathy.) I pointed out to him that I could buy the book for $1.23 online! Sold: $10.00!

Cruel and heartless though I may be toward a fellow author, I know he is just learning a lesson that I learned a long time ago—and moved over into the business side of publishing. The retail price of a book is meaningless. There is no money in publishing for the vast majority of authors. Having a book sell more than 100,000 copies is as “difficult as making an NBA team” I read somewhere, and I believe it. My titles sold very well – over 600,000 copies. Maybe his first book did, too, since he smartly spoofed and rode the coattails of The Rules: Time-Tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right on the publicity circuit and onto a sofa beside Oprah. But just because you sell tens of thousands of copies or even hundreds of thousands of copies, doesn’t mean the big checks will roll in for the author. Not like they do for the publishing house. Read the contract.

What’s an advance against royalties, really? It’s a loan. Something you have to “pay back” calculated on your paltry royalties before you see a dime more. Yes, there is the possibility that enough copies will be sold at high enough prices and you’ll receive the maximum royalty, and you may actually manage to “pay back” that loan, but the likelihood is slim, slim, slim. And that’s the way publishers like it. The contract is designed to fill the coffers of the publishing house, not the polka-dotted, porcelain piggy bank of the author.

Here’s what I recommend for authors today. Don’t accept an advance against royalties. (Yippee! A $100,000 advance against royalties! OK, make it $10,000.) Surprise! It’s doled out upon signing the contract, turning in an “approved” manuscript, being published, and (horrors!) reaching the six-month mark after the pub date if the publishing house can get away with it. Get a check upfront as payment in full, and get as much as you can. Say the magic words “work for hire.” Then make them pay more than the advance they intended to pay because a work-for-hire contract relieves them of that much-hated task of figuring out how much (actually, how little) they can owe you.  

Determining royalties is a matter of interpreting the contract – which is done in favor of the publishing house, naturally. Money you have in your hand today is worth much more than money tomorrow. By the way, the size of the check you are offered will indicate the kind of support your book will get.

Let the publishers do what they want with the book. Give it away, make it a loss leader for another book, sell ads in it, slash the price, ignore it, remainder it. Once you’ve got your money, you can spend it, save it, invest it and get on with your next book. You won’t have to worry about losing your book’s champion when the editor changes publishing houses, you won’t have to sweat the contract clauses that take that dollar you would have earned for each book sold and reduce it to $.15, you won’t have to worry about your “intellectual property rights.” You’ll know what you have. Period. You’ll no longer be a pathetic figure waiting at the end of the driveway in a blizzard, hopping up and down in the cold, waiting for the postman to drive up and hand you that slim white envelope from your publishing company. You’ll be out of the publishing crapshoot.  

Posted by: Lynne Scanlon

I've been howling for years about the spinelessness of the US book publishing industry when it comes to "returns" from bookstores. US books are not "sold" to bookstores; US books are essentially on consignment at US bookstores.

My nonfiction books have sold in excess of 600,000 (count 'em) copies. Yet, that is a bogus figure because, according to industry statistics, 40% of my books that were "sold" to bookstores were actually returned by the bookstores. In other words my books have shipped a lot more than 600,000 copies!

I have a "reversal of rights" for all my now long-out-of-print books, yet for years my publishers (HarperCollins, St. Martin's Press, Berkley Books) kept accepting copies back from the bookstores.

"Reserve against returns," that nasty little clause in contracts to which authors have to agree, assures that even moderately successful writers will have to keep eating rice out of the back of the cabinets while knowing that the publishing house is holding back cold hard cash.

Why can't the US be more like New Zealand?

Richard Charkin, former CEO of Macmillan Limited London, visited New Zealand bookstores, and when he returned to the UK, he wrote in his blog:

"When a bookshop orders a book, the responsibility for selling it is theirs. If it does not sell, the cost of the mistake belongs to the bookseller not to the author."

"Are there millions of unsold books washing around New Zealand bookshops? No. Booksellers have had to develop a sense of their market and they have - New Zealand booksellers are the best in the world and they sell the most books per head in the English-speaking world."

What's the message here?

Are publishers so intimidated by the major chains like Barnes & Noble, Booksamillion, and Borders Books and the independent bookstores that publishers can't find the spine to say: Too late! You bought 'em. You keep 'em. You sell 'em.

What does the vendor contract say about the date after which books may not be returned? Who is looking the other way when these books are allowed in the back door of the distribution centers?

I remember calling my editor and asking why in the world my books were being returned years after they had shipped. The answer I got was "that's the way it is."

Stop it! Stop it and bookstores will pick books more judiciously. Stop it and the publishing industry will begin a long-needed self-correction.

As an author, I'd much rather know a royalty due is a royalty paid. As a publisher, I'd much rather know a sale is a sale.

Posted by: Lynne Scanlon