Selling books is hard

[Jack Cade]

So the little publisher I co-run is having a book launch on Monday at the British Film Institute on South Bank.

The author/editor of the book, who's been generally great, organised nearly everything, but we're in touch also with the events organisers, and in the last couple of days the whole thing started to feel a little odd. The point of launches, for a small press like us, is to get a good start on selling the books by doing a big event around it. You've just sunk a lot of money into the printing, and you need to start getting it back, and most of the people who come to the launch and see the author/contributors read from it will probably buy a copy.

So the events guy at the place has made sure we're going to have a cash bar, which is great. However, we were also talking about me (as the publisher) maybe bringing some wine and juice so that people could have free drinks. I envisaged I'd just turn up with four or five cheap bottles and some plastic cups or whatever, but then, when they started talking about the cash bar, I thought maybe that was now happening instead.

Yesterday, though, the email exchange seemed to suddenly lurch, without my input, toward the idea of paying for ten bottles of in-house wine, costing £150! I said I was a bit confused - am I buying this wine and then making the money back by selling it through the cash bar? No, apparently this is a free drink for everyone who attends, and after it's run out the cash bar will then come into operation. I said there's no way we'll need ten bottles for one small free drink per person, but really I was thinking "£150! WTF!"

Then I also get an email from the guy in charge of the BFI bookshop, who reminds me that since it will be on their premises, all the books sold need to be through the bookshop, but they don't have many, so I need to bring more books.

So now ... hold on ... I'm bringing a box full of books I've just paid for at around £3 a unit. We sell them for £7. The bookshop takes its 40% cut, which is £2.80 each. That leaves us with £4.20, a £1.20 profit per copy. But I'm paying £150 for wine, so that means I would need to sell 125 copies just to break even! And there aren't even going to be 125 people there! And if there were, I'd need to spent even more on wine!

I never expected to make much money doing this on the side, but I've got to say, I wasn't expecting to have to enter last minute negotiations not to be out of pocket.

[KingMob]

Don't pay the wine if you can argue that their communication was misleading, and/or suggest that you will indeed bring your own bottles and ask if they can provide glasses (pay a small charge for that), then go along the wholesalers and get some cheap plonk.

Bizarrely, 2 of my past careers were in a bookstore chain and in events catering. If your event also somehow involves sound engineering I'm going to feel extremely weird.

Anyway, there's not much you can do about the bookshop wanting the takings to go through the till, but make sure you go through the process; don't just rock up with the books and let them cash them through as unregistered sales, ie pure profit for the company. Get invoiced and make sure everything is balanced up.
You could argue with them that you'll sell them direct, we allowed that on occasion, but in that case you'd likely get no help from the staff, ie they'd go "yeah, set up over there", then ignore you for however long you stay and not promote your event.
That's another thing, make sure they're promoting it. If they want in on the takings, get them to poster it, announce it in store or handsell. Make sure there are staff in the event location not just to work the bar but to stand ready to help your guests with their purchases.

They're taking the mick with making you pay for the catering last minute, but you might not be able to get out of it. Ask yourself if the store's business is important enough for you to feel like the one doing them a favour. While events are annoying and don't usually make a great deal of money for the store (staffing and later opening costs), you're still a customer. THough the way they treat you may depend on how much business you generate with them.

Good luck, and apologies if any of that sounded patronising, it just reminded me of old jobs and I wanted to try and help!

[Metal Vendetta]

We've had a couple of issues with the BFI lately, but then they gave us an award so I've kind of forgiven them, as the award indirectly means that we're going to have a cinema release in Italy and we'll probably sell more DVDs with a "Best Film" laurel* on the front than if not. Right now, though I'm still a bit out of pocket :/

KM seems to offer good advice above, but (and I know it sounds wanky) the most important part of anything like this is networking - if you can meet the right people then it makes things so much easier in the long run. Try and minimise your costs however you can, but go along with as many business cards as you can carry and make sure you speak to as many people as you can.

And good luck, sounds like these issues aside, it'll be a blast.

*Two "Best Film" laurels actually, but who's counting

[bumblemusprime]

I have little to offer save that unexpected costs will always snatch at you at the last minute in any creative endeavor.

Emvee's right that most of the money you spend initially is for the sake of networking. I've poured lots of dough into lots of cons & workshops and now have some direct lines to important folks in publishing--of course, now I have no time to write, but that's the trap.

[Jack Cade]

Many thanks for the advice and encouragement, guys!

They've already ordered the wine in but relented on selling the books through the bookshop and said we'll work something out.

Mostly I'm kicking myself for not ordering a bigger run, because that would have helped knock the per unit price down some, and we're going to be sold out soon-ish if sales keep up the way they are. But when I say 'sold out', I mean to the tune of maybe £100 in the black (not counting whatever comes of tonight) because of selling them at discount to bookshops and the authors!

Unfortunately, I'm pretty terrible at networking, except when there's a natural, obvious mutual interest. Mostly I'm just too tired by the time it gets to the events and things ...

[Jack Cade]

Wow.

On the night, everything turned out all right and the BFI people were brilliant. Amazing!

[bumblemusprime]

Many thanks for the advice and encouragement, guys!

They've already ordered the wine in but relented on selling the books through the bookshop and said we'll work something out.

Mostly I'm kicking myself for not ordering a bigger run, because that would have helped knock the per unit price down some, and we're going to be sold out soon-ish if sales keep up the way they are. But when I say 'sold out', I mean to the tune of maybe £100 in the black (not counting whatever comes of tonight) because of selling them at discount to bookshops and the authors!

Unfortunately, I'm pretty terrible at networking, except when there's a natural, obvious mutual interest. Mostly I'm just too tired by the time it gets to the events and things ...

Hire me. I'll network for you.

Um... you're gonna have to provide airfare, though. And a place to sleep.

[saysadie]

I'll network for you, too!

I'm pretty good with nets!

[KingMob]

Wow.

On the night, everything turned out all right and the BFI people were brilliant. Amazing!

Huzzah! All the best for future endeavours.

[Jack Cade]

Hire me. I'll network for you.

Ha ha ha. Can't even afford to hire myself! The books just about pay for themselves in the end but I have another job for purposes of rent, food etc.

One of our earlier titles sold out today (except for a few copies at the distributors) and according to my spreadsheet, we made £61.50 overall, once you take off all the costs. Then again, according to my spreadsheet we still have 100 copies left, so something has gone wrong. I've started accounting more rigorously ...