With the economy listing into recession and the country at war, Ingram reports that the events of September 11 continue to cast a pall over book retailing. The market is "still uncertain," though the product mix has changed significantly since the attacks.
Ingram buyer Susie Russenberger told PW that immediately after September 11, books on terrorism, the Twin Towers and Nostradamus were in demand, though this has fallen away--especially in the case of Nostradamus titles--and has since refocused on Islam, the Taliban and Middle Eastern history. "At first any title with those words in the title was seeing increased demand," she said. "But now they are focused on the better known authors."
Titles Ingram has strongest demand for include: The Ultimate Terrorists by Jessica Stern (Harvard), Germs by Judith Miller (S&S); Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid (Yale); Power, Politics, and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said (Knopf); Fighting Terrorism: How Democracies Can Defeat Domestic and International Terrorists by Benjamin Netanyahu (Noonday); and Islam: A Short History (Modern Library) by Karen Armstrong.
But the popularity of what Russenberger called "the personal reevaluation thing" hasn't continued, and demand for spirituality books has waned.
In their place, Ingram has seen a big pick-up in orders for cookbooks, crafts books, quilting, nesting and all manner of stay-at-home activity books. Russenberger added that books "you could absolutely count on"--such as Stephen King and Peter Straub's Black House (Random)--"just aren't selling as well any longer."
Ingram remains unconvinced of its ability to sell instant books about September 11. "At first there was one, then four, then six," said Russenberger. "I'm worried that there are so many, and I'm not sure there's one leader that's going to emerge. We have not taken humongous stands, and we've bought them in more modest quantities. I'd be less worried about How Did This Happen? [Public Affairs] or Restoring Faith [Walker], both of which we're getting pretty good advance demand on." So far, only Our Mission and Our Moment, Newmarket' s reproduction of President Bush's address to the nation on September 20, "has had a little life, mostly due to its $6 price tag."
"The instant is over and a lot of that stuff isn't moving," Audrey Seitz, Ingram's v-p of marketing, told PW. "Plus, sales of the patriotic titles never panned out, and the September 11 commemorative coffee table books that are just now coming out, might be best for collectors. These people will buy a shrink-wrapped title and put it away and give it to their grandkids. Again, the price point will have a lot to do with it."
Non-topical Hot Titles
Books unrelated to September 11 that are selling strongly at Ingram include The Best Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, edited by Caroline Kennedy (Hyperion); The Mitford Snowmen by Jan Karon (Viking), Roosevelt's Secret War: FDR and World War II Espionage by Joseph E. Persico (Random); and the Left Behind series (Tyndale). Fiery Cross, the fifth in the Outlander Series by Diane Gabaldon (Delacorte) has just arrived at Ingram and is also selling "really well," something Russenberger attributes to Delacorte's repackaging and aggressive marketing of the series.
Despite recent controversies involving both authors, demand for front and backlist books by Jonathan Franzen and V.S. Naipaul has also "been huge for a couple of weeks."
With the winter holidays looming, Russenberger identifies single-topic nonfiction books as potential bestsellers. In particular, she sees two books from Walker--Diamond: A Journey to the Heart of an Obsession by Matthew Hart and Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky (Jan.)--as strong titles in this category.
The two big movies of the season, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and The Fellowship of the Rings, are expected to help sell tie-in titles. But it looks like 2001 will go down as the Year of the Presidential Biography, with David McCullough's John Adams (S&S) and Edmund Morris's Theodore Rex (Random) "the biggest books of the year," according to Russenberger.
Ingram said it is also unconvinced shoppers will pay higher prices for coffee table and gift books. Titles such as Femme Fatale: Famous Beauties, Then & Now by Serge Normant (Viking Studio), The National Enquirer: Thirty Years of Unforgettable Images (Talk Miramax) and Vera Wang on Weddings (Harper Resource) "are a big question mark for us right now," said Russenberger.
When asked about their favorite titles for Christmas, Audrey Seitz recommended John Keegan's The Illustrated History of the First World War (Knopf). "It's a big, expensive book but it's well worth it," she said. Nancy Stewart, another buyer at Ingram, suggests this season's "other" big literary novel, Peace Like a River by Lief Enger (Atlantic Monthly), while Russenberger, Ingram's "resident anglophile," has been "entranced" by Peter Ackroyd's London: The Biography (Doubleday).
Looking forward to January: Ingram is expecting "lots of interest in Mark Twain titles" due to a Ken Burns TV documentary expected in the new year, and The Secret Life of Bees (Viking), an "Ellen Foster-esque" first novel by Sue Monk Kidd that has "independent bookseller phenom written all over it," said Stewart.
