My thoughts exactly... of course publishers are backing a product that retails at 2 to 3 times the price of a cheaper version.

They don't sell. Only sellers are new Julia Donaldson's hardbacks, and they only have a six-week key sales period. Wake up publishers! Elisa Offord was going well with 'if there were a market for them'. If her sentence had stopped there her comment would have been bang on. Kate Skipper may be unexpectedly verbose, but she's 'fundamentally correct with her pictorial narrative sales observation'.

As an independent bookseller I feel that there is a very strong market for quality well produced hardback children's picture books e.g. Mouk, Beverlie Manson's Fairies and Jackie Morris "Snow Leopard". Waterstone's stocking figures for these titles, in my opinion, reflects the mindset of Waterstone's buying departments rather than a potential customer market which corporate chains choose to ignore.

To suggest that the market does not exist shows the manner in which this trade is happy to tout dreck yet unprepared to make a concerted effort to market quality hardbacks. My shop is located in one of the smallest market towns in England ; many of my customers are sourced from the very towns 20 or more miles away where the chains are all dominant. My customers know that here, as with many other quality indies, they will see (and thankfully purchase) a broad selection of hardbacks that the chains choose to ignore. My shop has sold dozens of copies of two of the titles I mentioned, and I am well aware that other indies have experienced similar success. I might add that I stock approx 50 hardback children's picture books and approx 40 paperback titles : furthermore all these books are taken firm sale.

Blah blah blah Please cease your comments on a section of the publishing industry you clearly know nothing about, and keep your sweeping generalisations to yourself.

I have nothing but respect for Klaus and have heard him declare on many occasions that the H/B picture book does not get a fair 'retail outing' in the UK. I also know having spent many years selling Walker H/B picture books to all and sundry from Mothercare/Woolworths to Hammicks (who could sell tons of the right H/B picture book in Harrogate..) and Independents....I also had the job of 'disposing discretely' of the H/B picture book overstocks that the mass retail market does not want to even try and sell. Does no one think it is odd how the school book market allowed Nick Ison @ Pandora Books to sell up and retire with a good cheque largely off overstocks and print run add ons? I also observe that perhaps the mass retail market does not want to sell anything that cannot be hyped/price promoted/Tied-in or generally taken a risk on....sad fact even after all purchased is still good for SOR! If Guess How Much I Love was to be published today in H/B as it was many years ago, I'd wager it would largely disappear without trace in the high street market. Customers WILL spend 10 quid on a picture hardback which is not seen as expensive as long as it's packaged right, they spend much more on other kids consumer items, many of which are a total indulgence.

I know there is a market for H/B picture books for the general public on the high street, I also accept that there is a bigger market for the same product in paperback. I still think that in many cases the hardback should be published AFTER the paperback as a collectors/special edition.

Yes publishers have tried to hype too many weak H/B picture books over the years and many have a print run of less than 2000 copies in the UK, but the real issue is that very few mass high street market retailers have ever done kids books justice. The best chain of recent times was Ottakars and then they were subsumed by the Waterstones monster before they went bust...and as they say the rest is history.

Now if you were to apply the same criticism to H/B fiction I'm amazed that anyone can still justify paying 12 quid+ for a black and white print job!!!!! Yet the punters lap up the right property....which to me is one the great publishing cons, but hey you gotta make money while the sun shines.

I also accept that Klaus who has many years of knowledge, will not be listened too by anyone in the mass retail market. That fact is a sad state of affairs......

I agree Knee-jerky Waterstones is a business whose overwhelming concern is with profit margins and Kate Skipper

PBA, please demonstrate this huge market then if I'm so clearly clueless. I think my argument is valid and informed, and you have your head in the sand.

Its great to be in the minority on the comments section, especially on a topic close to my heart - giving youngsters a good start in picture and reading books. Mine is certainly not the only bookshop which proves that there is considerable potential investing time and capital in sourcing such quality hardback titles. A cursory glance at Waterstone's branch stocking figures for the likes of Runaway Dinner, Ghost Party, Lord of the Forest etc etc shows just what a different sales world awaits customers in most indies.

I suppose this is the attitude among most high street managers when it comes to children

It takes a great deal of time, dedication and money to produce a picture book and the product isn

The books I refer to do sell very well here like many others but you would never see them promoted or displayed in the high street. The lack of passion is self-evident if you walk into any high street store that sells picture books.

I agree with David Livesley (and what David doesn't know about selling picture books isn't worth knowing) - there certainly is a market for hardbacks. And even if there were no market at all in the UK, publishers would continue to produce them, because the UK high street is not the be-all and end-all of hardback picture book sales. It's just rather disheartening when consumers all over Europe and further afield are happy to order hardbacks, while the chains here, who have so much power to shape our pub lists, are not.

Do stop fighting everyone - its hard enough selling books as it is at the moment
But to anyone who says there is no passion for picture books on the high street - you're quite simply wrong. I work for W where picture books are always part of our offer -promoted and locally recommended. We have a monthly picture book club as well and can pick local recommends - occasionally these are hardbacks. But as a rule parents don't want to pay a hardback price. Sad but true. But that doesn't mean we don't love picture books and the work that authors/artists put into them.

What's the backstory? Are sales in a death spiral? In Spring 2008 we did a back of an envelope calculation that showed with increases in raw material and production costs and the fall in Sterling hardback flatback prices would need to be around

The thing about all these comments, and a key difference between the independents and the chains, is that the independents have staff who know about the books, see the reps, unpack the books, and are therefore better able to sell them to customers. They simply know more about them. The staff also tend to be older, often with children themselves, and almost always better able to make a (valid) qualititive judgement about which books are better for which customers.

None of this is a criticism of chain booksellers - it's just that because of the pay, staffing structures, job descriptions, etc, it's simply (and I know it's a generalisation, but it's largely) true!

The other thing, is selling price. The chains, generally, rush to discount by up to half the cover price any book that they want to push. It's madness. And the effect of this is generally a short term sales hike for these titles - and the long term effect is the erosion of customers trust in the trade - and certainly an erosion of trust in the chains themselves. Why pay full price for something that the retailer cheerily discounts on publication?

Our customers are content to pay full price because they know that thy can trust our judgement about what is a good book for them.

So if the chains want to sell more hardback pictures books they really need to put pressure on the chains to pay their staff better, staff their shops adequately, and cut back on the discounting.

Or leave the hardbacks to us independents who can flog them happily, hand over fist because our customers trust us and we know what we're doing. And we make far more selling a hardback than we do a paperback!