Comments on: LDS Bookstores: What is your role?

By: Kevin

Kevin — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 19:33:41 +0000

I stumbled across your discussion on LDS bookstores and found it interesting enough to read all the comments. I have my own ideas about what bookstores should be. I remember when I was in college many years ago at the University of Texas, my favorite bookstore was a place on the main drag that shelved books according to categories and then in alphabetical order. There were no special displays promoting any one book over any other, no signs in the windows, no discount tables, no “events”, as you call them. Once a book was priced, the price never changed until it was sold, and I found several treasures for under $2.00 that had probably been on the shelf for 10 or more years. It was more like a library that sold books instead of loaning them. It was a great place. Like a library, there were places one could sit down comfortably and read (or sleep). But those days are gone. When I was a kid, I used to love to spend hours in Deseret Book in Salt Lake. I remember it being much like my bookstore in Texas. But those days are gone, too. Those kinds of bookstores still exist in other countries. Spain and Chile still have them (I know because I’ve discovered many there). I think I can give some insight as to why DB has changed so much. Deseret Book carried two of my titles in a dozen or more of their stores for almost a year until a little over a year ago. During that year, they sold out of the 100+ copies of each title they ordered from my distributor, after which they decided to no longer carry those titles. When I was finally able to find someone to answer my inquiry as to why, I was told that it was a business decision: there was only so much room on their store shelves and that putting my titles there meant someone else’s would have to be removed. I suspect there are other authors who have lost their place in DB to the knick-knacks and paraphernalia that have taken over their stores. I walked into the Logan DB just yesterday, and discovered so much there that it no longer has the feel of being a bookstore, certainly not the DB of my memory. I sat there for a good half hour and made some mental notes. Yes, more than 80% of the patrons who came in were female, and most of those spent very little time if any perusing the bookshelves. The clear majority were either at the display tables or in the knick-knack area. I think DB has made a decision to market to those types of customers and let the internet have guys like me. As to your discussion point about the internet not being a place where one can go and read the first few chapters of a book before deciding to purchase it, I have a suggestion for all those authors like me who rely mostly on their author websites to market their LDS books. Do as I do and make the first 100 pages available on your site. Make your site more like a bookstore–the old fashioned kind we all miss.

By: William Morris

William Morris — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:46:59 +0000

Related to that: the Olivewood Gallery experiment is interesting. Anybody been there yet?

By: Kent Larsen

Kent Larsen — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:22:39 +0000

Trossa:

I’m not sure why you think the prices at Seagull Books (of all places) are too expensive. Seagull is generally a discount store, so I would expect that prices are lower there than Deseret Book. And, from my New York City-based perspective, $300 paintings don’t seem unreasonable (although I generally don’t care for the kind of art that Seagull and Deseret Book sell).

BUT, I agree that it is a waste to spend a lot of money just to show off your affiliation.

I would hope that the reason for purchasing LDS books, music, film and other cultural goods isn’t just to advertise our Mormonism.

By: William Morris

William Morris — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:06:38 +0000

Absolutely.

Which gets back to using podcasts, videos, etc. so that they can create events that transcend time and place and hopefully create excitement and a sense of commitment that will lead to more people participating in person.

By: Kent Larsen

Kent Larsen — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:50:24 +0000

Sariah:

I’m not sure that you are correct about Book signings. I’ve heard of plenty of successful authors who use book signings to promote their works. Yahoogroups has a list for Booksigners that discusses techniques for Book Signers.

It is true that the largest publishers have largely abandoned Booksignings as a promotion technique. But I think this is principally true because of the model for booksigning that they use — the assumption that the author will travel all over the country, that large quantities of books need to be shipped to the stores involved, etc.

However, just because its not working for the large scale publisher, doesn’t mean that it can’t work in other circumstances.

Part of the problem is that bookstores are less and less filling their ideal role — that of community center, a place where people can go to be associated with books and experience culture as a whole. Booksignings are important as cultural events, and bookstores need to promote them and everything other event that helps spread culture.

Authors and publishers simply need to re-discover and reinvent how booksignings should work.

By: Trossa

Trossa — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:06:02 +0000

I think that the high prices at Phariseegull Books make it a little too expensive to be a Mormon for most of us. I’m too busy tryng to maintain the fundamentals, I don’t have the dollars to waste on a three-hundred dollar painting so that I can scream out to the world that I’m Mormon. I’ll let the pile of kids do that.

By: Sariah Wilson

Sariah Wilson — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 02:42:26 +0000

Book signings are ineffective unless you’re a NY Times bestseller or a master marketer/salesman (which most authors are not, seeing as how they’re introverts which is why they became writers in the first place). This is not confined solely to the LDS market – it happens in the national market as well. Publishers simply won’t pay money for a newer or midlist author to do signings or travel. The only reason an author does a signing these days is to establish relationships with the staff in each store. Getting to meet someone who will be handselling your books is more important than the handful of books you might sell to the few non-relatives who show up to your signing.

I would bet though with the Seagull/Deseret consolidation you’ll be seeing even fewer bookstores as they’re no longer in competition with one another.

By: Kent Larsen

Kent Larsen — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 04:26:40 +0000

Catherine, it is my impression that DB stores in Salt Lake City and perhaps elsewhere in Utah are still general book stores, while elsewhere they tend to be more oriented towards LDS products only. Like most general-interest bookstores in the US, price pressures have made it increasingly less likely that the people behind the counter know anything about books.

The chief independent bookstore that carries both LDS books and other books also is probably Sam Weller’s (although I’m not always happy with their selection of LDS books, and they definitely avoid the LDS knick-knacks and paraphenalia. Sam Weller’s is also a great place to browse and has a fabulous used and rare LDS book section. I feel like I can browse there while I don’t at most DB stores.

By: Catherine Ockey

Catherine Ockey — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:52:46 +0000

I grew up in Utah, but have lived away from there for over thiry years. That long ago (and pre-Sherry Dew), Deseret Book was a general bookstore, not just LDS. It was a great place to browse, and they actually hired people who knew books. Is there an independent bookstore in Utah that sells the LDS books along with other books too? I used to love the old Frost’s books at Foothill Village, because it was like that, but I have lost touch with the books scene in Salt Lake.

By: Kent Larsen

Kent Larsen — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 04:10:02 +0000

Well, William, I wasn’t too worried about you. Other commentors were less nuanced, however.

Its an important point that I think needs to be made repeatedly — that the Internet is only an advantage if we make it into one. In this case, if we produce or gather the pieces that make it a tool for Mormon literature and culture.