Inside Track- The Publisher Disconnect

Librarians were not welcome at the American Booksellers Association conventions when LJ first started tracking them over a decade ago. There was no welcome mat out from either the association or from publishers themselves. No galleys, no discounts, no giveaways, no recognition, if you were a librarian. One of the first things LJ did was to distribute stickers for librarians to put on their badges that said, "I'm a library book buyer, and my book budget is $____."

Now, virtually every librarian who attends finds widespread acceptance, even courting, by publishers at the show, rechristened BookExpo America (BEA). There is greater awareness of library purchasing power, and in cases where the publisher is savvy enough to have a library marketing department, there is true outreach.

On a deep, fundamental level, however, there is still such a huge disconnect between librarians and publishers that even an excellent library marketing department can't bridge it. It exists despite libraries buying more books than the Internet sells, most libraries buying more copies of a title than many small, independent booksellers sell, and libraries perhaps being the greatest underused marketing tool publishers have. After all, 70 percent of the public use libraries on a regular basis.

Librarians will never have a direct channel to trade publishers, however, because, unlike booksellers, who place their initial orders directly with publishers, libraries purchase books through distributors. There are many good reasons why they do so, but the ultimate effect is an absence of open, fluid communication between librarians and publishers, as well as a lack of basic knowledge of who to contact in publishing companies—and vice versa.

Publishers' ignorance about library issues, and the frustration librarians experience, was evident once again in several exchanges at LJ's pre-BEA Day of Dialog, begun five years ago to encourage just such communication. When a librarian complained that she had to pay $15,000 to an agent to bring an author to her library, Viking president Clare Ferraro retorted, "Why are you calling agents? Call our publicity departments."

Much as the publishing executives on the panel concurred with Ferraro, librarians can attest that the publicity departments they deal with aren't always on the same page. Later in the day, at a panel on marketing the midlist, Algonquin associate publisher Ina Stern reiterated what Marcia Purcell, library marketing director at Random House, has been telling publicists for years: "Not enough people come to bookstores" to hear and see authors. They come in droves to libraries.

Even if the message does get through to publicity departments, the publishers reminded librarians that they have their own constraints. Marketing dollars are tight, and they go to new books, not older ones. Brand-name authors may be hard to get, unless they're on tour with a new book. One of the best bets, publishers said, is to request second novelists, since they don't generate the same buzz as first finds.

The publisher disconnect was obvious in another exchange at Day of Dialog when a librarian reported that books had fallen apart after three months. "We need to know [that]," said Ferraro. "Pack [the book] up and send it back [to the publisher]." The librarian had sent the books back—but to the distributor.

Some of this may sound mundane, but for librarians, getting authors into libraries and not paying huge fees to do so is a major issue. For publishers, hearing that books are falling apart after a few uses is a major issue, too. In both instances, the librarian's lament remains, "Who you gonna call?"

One Day of Dialog a year can't begin to make up for the lack of routine contact. Librarians have tremendous purchasing power. They buy books and don't return them. Publishers are searching desperately for ways to market books on the cheap to a wide audience. Given all those factors, the American public library system should be high on publishers' radar screens.