What is selling well in the young adult & middle grade market?
One
of the things that we have done this summer is sell our used books to students with a
buy 2 get one free promotion. This has worked well. We also have a staff pick
section recommending books for the reluctant readers and the not so
reluctant. If the books are part of a series, it has been our practice to
hand all of the books, if possible, to the customer. Once they are in their
hands, they are more apt to buy them all. We have a unique situation of
selling both new and used books so this practice really helps when the books
don't come back very often. If we have them all, we can give them to the
customer and say that we rarely have them, so it would be wise to buy them while
they can get them.
Anything paranormal is selling very well with the young adult market.
What do you do to get the young readers into the store? and what do you do to get them to buy once they are in the store?
What challenges are you facing within the industry, and how do you deal with them?
I think that the biggest problem we are having
right now is the street dates publisher have. We have customers come to us
to buy a book with a street date of say August 11 on the 4th because they have
seen it in Target or Kroger, etc. This is very frustrating because we then
lose a sale since we don't have the book and can't sell it even if we have
it. Another trend we have noticed is that customers do not want to pay $17
for a young adult hardcover. They will wait for a used copy or wait for
the book to come out in paperback. I know myself that I don't like
spending this kind of money for a young adult book for my own kids when the
books tend to be shorter in length than an adult novel.
What makes you continue to wake up in the morning and come to your job with a smile on your face?
What makes me wake up each day and come to work
with a smile? I love working with books and helping people find new
authors. I have worked in other fields and in retail before but nothing
has been as satisfying as working in the book industry.
This interview was with Carol Anderson of Books Connection. You can contact her at: booksconnection@ameritech.net
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