| Bookselling | ||||||||
Seasonal Sales Heating Up John High -- 12/11/00 Booksellers evaluate the initial holiday spurt: What's hot, what's not, what's the mood?
Thanksgiving weekend marked the launch of the holiday sales season and if early results hold, booksellers have reason to be optimistic. Bookstores around the nation were bustling. High-ticket items did well over the long weekend, and presidential politics have not dampened book buyers' appetite. The consensus--so far at least--is that if the nation's economists stop their humbug predictions and there're no coup attempts in Washington or Florida--it will be a very good season. "It's always a little dicey around presidential elections. We saw this in '92 and '96, but we're not worried," Patricia Sado at Coliseum Books in New York City told PW. "The hot ticket items are moving nicely, and it's still early. We'll get the last-minute rush before Hanukkah and Christmas, too. Booksellers have a good inventory to draw on this year." The already predicted hot-ticket -item The Beatles Anthology (Chronicle), as well as the Harry Potter "classics," are holding steady into December in most stores. Most buyers have stocked up in anticipation of last-minute sales. Brisk sales were reported for Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass (Knopf) in the young adult category as well, delighting buyers from coast to coast. John Bennett, co-owner of Bennett Books, Wyckoff, N.J., told PW he is "cautiously optimistic" about this Christmas. Bennett's #1 handselling pick for Christmas is Frances Mayes's coffee-table book In Tuscany (Broadway); he's been moving 15 or 16 copies per week. Other top titles include Deck the Halls by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark (S&S); Roses Are Red by James Patterson (Little, Brown); and Building Big by David Macauley (Houghton Mifflin). So far, his big surprise seller of the season has been Can You Take the Heat?: The WWF Is Cooking! by Jim Ross (ReganBooks).
"Gopnik is definitely our big surprise of the season," said Susan Seioli at Community Books in Brooklyn, N.Y. Janet Owens at Millrace Bookshop in Farmington, Conn., agreed: "We're amazed at how well it's doing up here." Some stores on the West Coast have the book on back order and noted the sales are dramatic for this early in the holiday rush. The National Audubon Society's TheSibley Guide to Birds (Knopf) is another title flying off the shelves. "We do a lot business in nature books in the northeast," said Owen. "But this book is incredible." "TheSibley Guide is an unusually gorgeous book and customers are gravitating to it," Mary Price-Dunbar reported from Beaucoup Books in New Orleans, La. Despite its $35 price tag, booksellers expect sales to increase as the holidays come on. Knopf is shipping its third printing of the book this week to satisfy the generous back orders at virtually all wholesalers. Knopf expects to have a total of 200,000 copies to be in print by mid-December. Some booksellers have used Sibley's out-of-stock status to handsell Kenn Kaufman's Focus Guide to the Birds of North America (Houghton Mifflin), which, ironically enough, has a rave review on its front cover by the Audubon Society's director of science. The third Random title with large sales and multiple printings is Anna Quindlen's A Short Guide to a Happy Life, which will be back in circulation this week, after a third printing brings its in-print figure to 250,000. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (Houghton Mifflin) is another high-ticket item that buyers are excited about. "It's more than a dictionary," Tim Morell at Skylight Books in Los Angeles told PW. "It's going to be a Christmas hit, we're certain. The sales are unexpectedly good so far." With its first update in six years, this new fourth edition comes with a CD-ROM. Tim Skipp at Chester County Books in West Chester, Pa., told PW that another book and CD combo is selling well: J Garner's And the Fans Roared: The Sports Broadcasts That Kept Us on the Edge of Our Seats, narrated by Bob Costas(Sourcebooks). And even without an audio track, Philadelphia 76ers' owner Pat Croce has made new fans with his motivational memoir I Feel Great and You Will Too (Running Press).
David Cockcroft at Wordsworth Books in Little Rock, Ark., told PW that children's books are soaring in sales and outdoing fiction and biographies. "I'm not sure if it is just that there are a lot of good children's books this year or if we're just lucky. Robert Sabuda is a wizard with the pop-ups. His MovableMother Goose did wonderfully last year; and now his The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: A Commemorative Pop-up [both Little Simon]is a tremendous book for us. For a $25 item, we're amazed. We've sold hundreds and continue to sell five or six a day." Another popular selection in the children's department is Laura Numeroff's When You Take a Mouse to the Movies (HarperCollins), a hilarious Christmas-themed sequel. Seioli cited Numeroff, along with Kevin Henkes's Wimberly Worried (Greenwillow) and the Brooklyn Public Library's Brooklyn Pop Ups (Little Simon) as good for both kids and adults. "But it looks like Olivia is leading the way in sales," Seioli said. David Sedaris's new collection of essays, Me Talk Pretty One Day (Little, Brown), continues to do well, and buyers contacted by PW noted that his Holidays on Ice (Little, Brown) is back in demand for the season. The Unexpected and ExpectedSteve Martin's novella Shopgirl (Hyperion) has surprised many booksellers who thought the somber tome might deflect the actor/playwright's wild and crazy fans. Many stores are having a hard time keeping the book in stock. And Mary Karr's legion of fans hoping for another slice of The Liar's Club (Penguin) have been rewarded with Cherry (Viking), a continuation of her memoir. "Quindlen sells very well for us," Karen Pennington at Kepler's, Menlo Park, Calif., said. "Happy Life is no exception. We're also pleased with the sales for Frances Mayes's In Tuscany and Bob Woodward's Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom [S&S]. But what delights us most as booksellers is to see books like Annie Lamott's Traveling Mercies [Anchor] and Po Bronson's TheNudist on the Late Shift [Broadway] have a resurgence at this time of year. We have customers come in with newspaper clippings from the summer, and even the spring!" Some buyers were disappointed with sales for Margaret Atwood's expansive Booker -winner, Blind Assassin (BDD), and Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer (HarperCollins), but the consensus among them is that these novels will surge as Christmas approaches. Kingsolver's national "environmental tour" has already boosted book sales immensely (Bookselling, Nov. 27). "Another big theme for us this year is book club books," said Cockcroft from Little Rock. He described trade paperbacks Kent Haruf's Plainsong (Vintage), Ann Ross's Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind (Harper Perennial) and Susan Vreeland's Girl in Hyacinth Blue (Penguin) as "bustling."
In the realm of literary fiction, Kazuo Ishiguro's When We Were Orphans (Knopf) is a favorite nationally, and the author's extensive touring schedule continues to boost sales. Other favorites for the season are Jonathan Letham's Motherless Brooklyn (Vintage), Hunter S. Thompson's Screwjack and Other Stories (S&S), Robert Ludlum's ThePrometheus Deception (St. Martin's) and Jhumpa Lahiri's Pulitzer Prize-winning Interpreter of Maladies (Houghton Mifflin). Book Sense is making a difference for many bookstores. "We're feeling great, in large part because of Book Sense," said Mary Price-Dunbar from New Orleans. "Fiction and nonfiction are doing well, and regional titles, such as The Brothers Neville [Little, Brown] by the musical Neville Brothers and Commander's Kitchen [Broadway] by Ti Adelaide Martin and Jamie Shannon, are selling incredibly. Book Sense is part of our growth. We're seeing a dramatic change, a real improvement." Many buyers are preparing for seaworthy holiday sales by stocking up on Derek Lundy's Godforsaken Sea (Anchor) and Nathaniel Philbrick's National Book Award winner, In the Heart of the Sea (Viking). And stores with followings in biographies and memoirs have noted strong pre-sales for Eugene Gaddis's Magician of the Modern: Chick Austin and the Transformation of the Arts in America (Knopf) and see the father-son joint football biography, Manning by Archie and Peyton Manning (Harper), crossing over from its sports-fan base. Maria Luisa Lobo Montalvo's Havana: History and Architecture of a Romantic City (Monacelli) is demonstrating good sales, despite its $75 price tag. And Tom Segev's One Palestine, Complete (Metropolitan) is seeing strong out-of-the gate sales. Despite all the media attention--both positive and negative--for the NBA-nominated Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon by Patrick Tierney (Norton), the book is thus far not selling as well as expected. Susan Sontag's novel In America (FSG) has yet to get a real boost from her NBA win. "With the exception of Paris to the Moon, we're not seeing any runaway books this year," Seioli of Community Bookstore told PW, echoing the reports of bookstore buyers and owners nationwide. "But we have good books across the board, and it looks promising. David Cockcroft told PW that while some buyers are nervous about the economy and the uncertain election results, he's extremely confident. "I think all of this is good for booksellers," he said. "People might be uneasy about spending a lot of money, but they seem very willing to spend $20 to $50 for a book. I'm very encouraged. It's going to be a terrific season." | ||||||||
Seasonal Sales Heating Up
Dec 11, 2000
A version of this article appeared in the 12/11/2000 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline:
