Who's Fault?

The publishing industry is looking at the marketing. That's the reason, surely, that they can't sell more books. It's because the readers don't know. Knowledge is a powerful thing, and if the public only knew, then sales would climb.

With that in mind, they've asked their reps to stop in at little shops and the like, whatever catches their fancy, and try to convince the shop owner to add books to their line-up. The suits at Time Warner are even willing to coordinate the colors on the book cover with the store's products so that everything looks quite lovely together. Hence, the preponderance of such attractive tones as 'margarita' and 'sangria' on the HarperCollins jackets this spring. That's green and red to the rest of us. But you see, I don't judge a book by its cover. (I had to say it; it's just too tempting).

The marketing minds at places like Simon & Schuster realize that not everyone can get a book at a bookstore, particularly when they reside in a place like Ogallala, Nebraska or a similarly small town. They're not going to buy from Amazon if they can't turn the pages and read a bit to decide if they like the book. Placing books where people go, even if it is the feed store, is actually a very good idea, and non-book store sales have exceeded independent store volume. Given that there are fewer and fewer indie book sellers, I'd expect it. Just like placing how-to books at a hardware store would work, people will buy when the book fits the space.

There is one thing that the publishing houses could do to really boost sales. They could publish novels worth reading. They could publish novels that tell a story without getting cute, with multiple fonts and silly POV changes, that don't make a holy show of breaking the rules of grammar because it's do your own thing, baby. It's easier to play the marketing angle, to crunch numbers and come up with facts and figures. Good literature is art, not mathematics. Want to increase sales? Improve the product.