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Booksellers roll out New Year sales promotions
03.01.12 | Lisa Campbell
Booksellers are discounting books and e-books by up to 80% in post-Christmas promotions.
Amazon, which began its January Deals early in December, ran a Boxing Day Deals Week which finished on Sunday and is also offering books with large discounts though its Stock Clearance and 12 Days of Kindle promotions.
A collection of five Jo Nesbo books is being sold for £9.99 – a discount of 75% off, through the Stock Clearance promotion for example and the 12 Days of Kindle promotion is selling a range of e-books for 99p.
Waterstone’s is offering customers up to 50% off books in store and online, running promotions reminding customers to "look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves".
W H Smith is offering up to 80% off many of its titles. The high street chain bookseller is also offering customers Kobo e-books from 99p, rivalling Amazon’s 12-day Kindle deal.
Play.com is advertising a Winter Sale, selling the likes of Inheritance by Christopher Paolini for £9.39 instead of an r.r.p of £18.99.
Blackwell is offering customers up to 50% discount from frontlist titles, and has promoted from its 100 History Books of the World collection. Euan Hirst, manager of the flagship Blackwell Broad Street branch in Oxford, said sales in his store were up year-on-year and said larger stores like Cambridge and Edinburgh had done well this Christmas.
He said: "We had a strong week in the run up to Christmas and I think the better weather helped our year-on-year sales. I think customers are bored of the straight forward January sales deals and are looking for something more imaginative rather than red sales sign everywhere."
Across print and online The...
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It is clear from Adele's comments that smaller presses can't prevent Amazon from discounting them without their complicity, and neither do they have the money to take them to court over it. Anyway, sadly, Old Bookseller, I doubt it is illegal to sell something at a loss, even if it could be called a predatory strategy. So we need to do as Adele says and start shouting about it. And we need to stand together, not bicker over past mistakes. Booksellers and publishers need each other, and Amazon hurts us all, so stop blaming all publishers for the actions of the big few, and start lobbying everyone who should be standing up for our interests and isn't, such as the BA.
Adele,
As somebody who runs a large and successful fiction section in a large bookstore, I would be very interested to know who you represent and what you would recommend? I am looking to expand my short story and poetry sections and am always keen to support the more specialised and knowledgeable publishers since the majority of my short story fans are literary readers, rather than the blockbuster type.
Do you have a website I could check out (forgive me if you've already mentioned this elsewhere).
Mr D - is there some discreet way you can be contacted? I imagine there would be a lot of people keen to recommend their books to you, and realise that this is not the place for that!
Mr D - I co-own Ward Wood Publishing and won't promote our authors here but if you look on the wardwoodpublishing.co.uk website you will see they are award winning. They are also very aware of the need to promote their books and are very active. If you're in London I would also help in other ways, and I would like to take up the challenge thrown down for publishers and booksellers to help each other rather than bickering by saying I do promote any bookshops who stock our books and would like to put a page on our website for that. Thank you for asking!
I should say that I mean I'd help in London with events but we do support bookshops all over the UK and Ireland as our authors are widespread in the UK and Ireland.
I believe 'loss leading' is actually illegal, it just needs somebody powerful enough to have the legal support to prove it. I've had it suggested to me that French bookshops are more likely to do this and it's bound to happen.
Stay tuned. I will get you some means of contact. As you said, please don't give me a list of authors anyone. This isn't the place. Was simply looking for a contact for Adele, since I have been impressed by her blogging, reasoning and passion on these here pages.
In the meantime. Thanks for the website link Adele. I will discuss it with collegues and hopefully some orders will be in the pipeline (even if it's only for myself).
My contact details are on the website so do email me. Thank you for the support and encouragement. The Andrew Motion/Jo Shapcott anthology is probably worth a shot for most bookshops. I am a bit passionate about books!
I don't think A Publisher is really a publisher. I think it's a flamer trying to raise the temperature here and bring out some lively argument. The publishers selling in supermarkets expect an even higher volume of sales than A Publisher quotes, and would be using this forum in a different way, if they were using it at all.
I don't believe I quoted any sales volume figure...... Please do correct me if I am wrong.
Supermarkets take many of our titles.
I can't find it any more so perhaps it was on another thread. It was a joke about a number being the quantity of sales over a short period rather than a longer period. We do get contacted by authors who have been with one of the main publishers who sell to supermarkets and who have lost their contract due to not selling in high enough quantities, although they sell very well, so I have an idea of the volume needed. Although they sell well we can't take them - sales aren't everything. They tend to write novels where even the darkest bits have to have a rosy glow and that's not our thing. Another one of our authors turned down one of the supermarket publishers as she didn't want her writing changed into 'blockbuster' style. High volume sales aren't everything for everybody, although I can understand it if it's your main focus as a publisher.
Mr D, I run a publishing house dedicated to supplying new pulp fiction novellas. Please do check us out at www.pulppress.co.uk and do get in touch. It will be very much appreciated.
Hear! Hear!
I should say that I mean I'd help in London with events but we do support bookshops all over the UK and Ireland as our authors are widespread in the UK and Ireland.
I believe 'loss leading' is actually illegal, it just needs somebody powerful enough to have the legal support to prove it. I've had it suggested to me that French bookshops are more likely to do this and it's bound to happen.
Mr D, I run a publishing house dedicated to supplying new pulp fiction novellas. Please do check us out at www.pulppress.co.uk and do get in touch. It will be very much appreciated.