Last week, multiple middle grade and young adult authors, agents, and booksellers posted on Twitter about Barnes & Noble’s stocking policies, causing alarm online. A number of authors were finding out for the first time that their new hardcover releases will not be stocked at the chain, including Kelly Yang, Kalynn Bayron and Newbery winner Meg Medina.
PL reached out to Barnes & Noble and publishers for clarity. The chain has been telling publishers for some time that middle grade hardcovers, as well as to a certain extent YA and adult fiction hardcovers, are not selling through well, and new title count will be reduced in favor of trade paperbacks of better-selling names. CEO James Daunt wrote in part, “A good bookseller sells good books, and to do so must exercise taste. This role of curation is essential but one that for many years Barnes & Noble abrogated…. Up to 80 percent of middle grade hardcovers bought by B&N were routinely returned unsold to publishers. The rates of returns for adult fiction were little better.”
One publisher’s frustrated translation of that strategy was to say, “They’ve given up on category after category and format after format and now seem to feel like if they eliminate all the books that aren’t selling they’ll sell more of the ones that are left.” Publishers say BN has been communicating a preference for original trade paperback releases for a while now, while also trying to drive returns to very low levels, though Daunt’s statement is softer: “As to the notion that some new titles should be introduced as paperbacks, this is sensible in moderation. At the lower price point, and in a format friendlier to children themselves, some titles which will struggle to sell in more than very small quantities in hardcover will be better served if published in paperback. It is not all one thing, or all the other, but a common sense judgement to be made by the publisher.”
While authors expressed concern that the chain is taking fewer chances on new and under-represented authors, Daunt says the policy is intended to do just that: “Barnes & Noble now works hard to improve its selection, precisely to be able to present a more dynamic bookstore. It will buy fewer titles inevitably – this is what happens if taste is exercised – but also more copies of those it seeks to champion. This will be especially valuable, when done well, for new and emerging talent. Far from carrying only ‘bestsellers’, by which is meant the very well established and small number of authors who sell year in, year out, Barnes & Noble will give the space and devote the energy to propel the success of new voices. This is what it is to be a good bookseller.”
The company also said that the pervasive rumor of the chain only stocking one or two hardcovers per publisher is untrue. “The book team reviews each book individually and places an initial PO to have the book stocked in the right stores,” a representative said. “The stores take it from there.”
Some BN booksellers expressed contrary experiences, however: Erin Haley, who recently left B&N after five years, described what authors are experiencing as “part of ‘shortlisting’ crackdown.” She wrote, “Booksellers need ‘approval’ to get books on shelves from someone who works in outside office. This hurts new authors and diversity the most.” Other current BN booksellers expressed problems re-ordering children’s hardcovers “unless the hardcover is selling REALLY well.” (One bookseller did comment back, “That’s interesting because my store has never came across this situation before. We re-order what sells without any pushback.”)
Agent Victoria Marini echoed the booksellers’ reported experience of finding “we were told NO to ordering them in hard cover when the paperbacks release were 6-8 MONTHS AWAY,” writing, “Did we get to the part where B&N corporate will also mark titles with ‘forthcoming’ paperbacks as Non-replenishable meaning, as far as I understand it, that even their own booksellers can’t get more copies?”
Another bookseller noted that part of the problem is B&N has communicated to publishers that hardcovers don’t sell well, but publishers have been reluctant to change marketing strategies or switch to paperbacks. She wrote, “It’s also publishers causing this, too. Basically, BN said “hey, hardcovers don’t sell that well and you (publishers) don’t allow us to return these books if they don’t sell after a certain amount of time.”
Daunt responded by saying all of these assertions are false. He said there is no shortlisting crackdown: “Quite the opposite is true: for the last 3 years, B&N has been steadily working to improve its backlist stock and to make this individual to each store.” As to the hardcover restocking issue, he pointed to the “average the life of a hardcover” which he described as under one year, after which sales decline. He said, “Every hardcover has its own life cycle. In simple principle, a hardcover will be stocked and reordered by a store for as long as the store believes sales will continue.” How long a book stays on a shelf is up to the “judgement of the bookselling team in each store.” He added, “In short, an assertion that B&N will not restock if there is a paperback coming in X, Y or Z months, is false.”
Overall, he stressed that it’s not that the chain is selling fewer hardbacks, but that they’ve worked to bring down returns to 15 percent. Because of the new policies he said they “are selling more books as a result, but ordering less.”