At the September 17–18 California Independent Booksellers Alliance meeting in Pasadena, members looked for effective ways to capture sales, promote their stores online and in person, and communicate with publishers and distributors.
Marketing and direct-to-consumer ad campaigns were on the minds of booksellers eager for a strong holiday sales season. Executive director Hannah Walcher reminded members to participate in CALIBA’s holiday catalog program, the association’s “biggest source of income—it pays for staff and for this event.” CALIBA has joined the New Atlantic, Great Lakes, and Southern Independent Bookseller associations in the Regional Association Marketing and Promotion (RAMP) consortium, which is a coordinated site for print and digital tools including social media ads, newspaper inserts, and an Edelweiss list.
CALIBA treasurer Mimi Hannan of La Playa Books (San Diego) emphasized that “ordering a box of catalogs for your store, which is easy and free, is a great way to support the publishers.” Hannan added that CALIBA is “exploring other ways for publishers to engage with bookstores,” and publisher relations committee chair Vanessa Martini of Green Apple Books (San Francisco) will be building those connections in the year ahead.
Publishers and bookstores do interact around co-operative promotions, but booksellers don’t always claim the co-op they are entitled to. At a session on giving credit where it’s due, moderator Mallory Groff of Warwick’s (La Jolla) spoke with Brittany Greenway, sales representative at Macmillan, and Ronnie Kutys, associate director of retail marketing at HarperCollins, about collecting co-op.
Prohibited from talking about specific dollar amounts, the panelists recommended that booksellers plan ahead with reps, documenting events and submitting claims within the requisite time period (usually 90 days). The panelists agreed that co-op can be meaningful for a small business, although the process is time-consuming and not always transparent.
Chasing that almighty dollar can lead owners to rethink their business models. In another session, moderators Michelle Pierre of Lido Village Books (Newport Beach) and Matthew Hein of the Book Catapult (San Diego) talked with Amanda Hall, COO of for-profit Kepler’s Books and the nonprofit Kepler’s Literary Foundation (Palo Alto), and Michael Centeno, executive director of nonprofit Tia Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore (Sylmar).
Kepler’s combines a retail side and a 501c3 nonprofit to produce, manage, and fund activities. When the foundation hosts a ticketed event, the store supplies the books and publisher co-op helps pay for marketing. “The complexity of running two organizations is a challenge,” with two different payrolls, missions, and staffs, said Hall. And even though the hybrid has been “successful in raising wages, the store is not profitable,” and remains underwritten by the foundation. “The idea that just selling books will make bookstores sustainable, I think, is mythic,” Hall said.
Tia Chucha’s is fully nonprofit, focusing on literacy festivals and curating BIPOC, queer, and social justice books to be donated to the community. "This year, we gave out 1,300 free books, and we also have the audience that wants to purchase books and enjoys purchasing books,” Centeno said, adding that Tia Chucha's is transitioning to a fundraising-centered board of directors. “We are very intentional about who we accept donations from. You have to stick to your values.”
Centeno and Hall both suggested that nonprofit-curious store owners consult California’s Center for Nonprofit Management; seek a fiscal sponsor; and build their volunteer boards with development-oriented folks who have access to a wealthy social network. “Is there a lawyer in the room? Is there a banker in the room?” Hall asked. “In order to support your mission, you need talented people” aligned with the store’s values.
‘The Story That Is Your Store’
CALIBA booksellers filled a roundtable on marketing, moderated by Jhoanna Belfer of Bel Canto Books, a Filipina-led shop with three locations in Long Beach, and Jennifer Caspar of Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City, which recently expanded from 3,000 to 5,400 square feet of retail and event space.
Participants in the session use automated rewards like BookManager’s frequent buyer points program to establish repeat customers; Zibby's Bookshop in Santa Monica hosted an event just for influencers, to acquaint them with the store, and brought in a photographer to take free headshots.
Audience members talked about “turning likes into dollars,” a particular challenge for shops frequented—but not always financially supported—by Bookstagrammers and BookTokers in search of a charming backdrop. Holly Thompson of Avid Reader Bookstore in Davis suggested booksellers positively acknowledge would-be influencers or “run a giveaway that requires an Instagram follow [of the store] to enter.”
Low-tech marketing methods work too. “Sometimes good old-fashioned branding is as good as social media posts,” said B.J. Hegedus of PostalWorks in Silverlake, whose store gift-wraps books in plain craft paper, adds a ribbon, and applies a branded sticker at the top corner for a signature style; other booksellers rubber-stamp their logo on gift-wrapped books.
Everyone agreed that these personal relationships build community. A'isha Saleh, a bookseller at A Seat at the Table in Elk Grove, compared a bookstore visit to a scene in a narrative. “When a customer enters your store, you want them to feel like they’re becoming a character in the story that is your store,” Saleh said.
Effective marketing—identifying evergreen titles and assessing a book’s shelf life—animated a CALIBA session on inventory management. Sean Moor, who manages new-and-used shop the Book Jewel in Los Angeles, said he loves “having different price points” for the same title, and while he’ll shelve a used copy next to a new one, he never places two used copies side by side. He also can tell when a former "It" book grows stale, by the used copies he receives: “I figure books have a fuse, and at a certain point, everyone’s on to the next thing.”
Seth Marco, owner of the Book Catapult in San Diego, said he gives a book 90 days to succeed. Categories such as architecture, biography, and history get “a longer leash” than fiction, adding that since it’s too expensive to ship stuff back, some titles, like cookbooks "are going to stay forever.” When Marco is undecided about keeping a title, he recalls former Books Inc. owner Michael Tucker’s remark: “You have to think of every book on your shelf as a $20 bill” and act accordingly. The discussion turned to the pros and cons of returns, with CALIBA members vouching for Pirate Ship, a site that pre-negotiates UPS and USPS discounts, then enables clients to print labels and ship on the cheap.
Jessica Hahl, children’s frontlist buyer for Books Inc.’s 11 stores in the Bay Area, said she comes to inventory management with “a horrifying set of spreadsheets,” trying to rely on the cold, hard numbers to ensure she is making the most of her space. “With kids’ books, everything’s cute,” she said, “so I have to to be cutthroat about it and say, ‘I’ve got this amount of square footage, and books have to earn that space.’” Picture books “may be the biggest culprit” when it comes to taking up room, she added. “You have to prepare for that when you’re buying, because you have to keep Blueberries for Sal and Where the Wild Things Are around,” regardless of hot new frontlist faceouts.
Then there are the unsold books that never catch on. At the Book Jewel, Moor uses Basil to create stickers for inventory, orders only five to 10 new copies at a time, and donates used copies to local book sales once they’ve overstayed their welcome. During the session, inspiration struck. “I’m going to start a ‘worst sellers’ book display,” Moor said, as his co-panelists pondered “book adoption days” for their least popular, yet worthy, titles. “Take home this unloved book.” It could be the next big thing.
