In early October, Gennita Low started an online campaign to ask folks to write to Wal Mart’s headquarters and ask them to stock her book. According to Low, Wal-Mart didn’t stock her first book, Virtually His, and as a result her sales numbers were so low, Mira has delayed the release of the sequel, Virtually Hers.
In an open letter that was posted several places online, including Karen Knows Best, Low invites people to contact Mira, and to contact Wal Mart’s book buying department to try to get her book in stock. Several fans have posted comments saying how eagerly they were awaiting the book, and many have mentioned that they’ve contacted Wal Mart on Low’s behalf.
One reader wrote to me that she was hella pissed off, because she’d pre-ordered the book and been told by Amazon that it was delayed again and again. She was livid that so much power of what she was able to buy in her romance selections was determined by Wal Mart.
Virtually Hers appears to be available starting December 1, so perhaps the nudging helped? Who knows.
CORRECTION: Per Gennita Low’s comment below, she received the rights back from her publisher. Virtually Hers will not be released Dec. 1. I hope it finds a new home.
But this is not the first time I’ve heard of Wal Mart putting the sinker on someone’s sales.
An author who asked to remain anonymous told me:
Walmart placed a HUGE order for my first book (68% of the print run). They returned 80% of their order almost immediately (aka 50% of my print run), meaning it’s likely those books never even saw the shelf (I lost my slot to a backlist title of a NYT best seller most likely). As far as I know they didn’t order book two at all (honestly, I just don’t want to know). Walmart basically trashed my career before I even had a chance. No amount of great reviews or awards is going to offset a 49% sell though (the book sold VERY WELL at book stores, for all the good that does me).
I asked her how she knew about the Wal Mart connection to her sales, and she replied that her info came straight from her editor:
My editor told me my numbers were “in the toilet”. Nice. I was surprised, since my agent had told me that my numbers were great (cue the lesson that Walmart doesn’t report to things like Bookscan, so your sales numbers can look fab when they’re not). I expressed this surprise and my editor said, “Let me poke around a bit and call you back. I remember something really wonky happening with your book and Walmart . . .”
Most authors check their sales figures by subscribing to Bookscan and calling the Ingrams’ number incessantly. These two sources get their info from actual sales (Ingrams from stores ordering from their warehouse and Bookscan from bookstores that report in their actual sales). These two numbers have historically been considered fairly reliable (kind of like polls). There are all sorts of formulas people use to get an idea of what those two numbers equate to in total sales (like triple your Bookscan total or multiple your Ingrams # by 6, etc.). But the idea was that if your Bookscan and Ingrams #s were healthy your book was doing well.
This is no longer the case.
Book sales have begun to be heavily driven by big box stores (Walmart being the most important one apparently), and those stores don’t report to Bookscan. So if it’s true that something like 47% of all mass market fiction is sold ad big box stores (I think) and your book isn’t in said big box stores (because it wasn’t picked up, or like me, they trash you right out of the gate) you’re royally screwed. But you may not know you’re screwed until you get blindsided by your royalty statement and the fact that your publisher isn’t picking up your next contract.
Now, I know next to diddly about Bookscan and sales numbers, and how sales and success are quantified. So I asked an editor: What’s up with Wal Mart?
Does Wal Mart have that much power?
The answer: an unequivocal “Oh, holy shit, yes.”
Wal Mart is the single largest bookseller in the US. Period, full stop. Most books in this country for retail sales are sold to Wal Mart. And so they have the most power, according to my source.
The completely wonky part is that they don’t make as much money selling books as they do selling, say, tires or automotive supplies or groceries. Books are a very small part of their selection, and a small part of their profit margin.
But books at Wal Mart are a holy hopping damn huge part of of the profit margin of your average romance publishing establishment, because when Wal Mart orders a book, it is an order that often has many, many more zeroes in it than orders for all the other retailers combined. It is not far fetched for editors and marketing staff to ponder amongst themselves, ‘But how will this sell at Wal Mart?’ Selling to Wal Mart is crucial for any author, any publisher, and anyone who hopes to realize a profit in publishing romance, particularly as predictions of the financial future of publishing in general turn dire indeed. Wal Mart is the most powerful figure in romance publishing, bar none (after Dear Author and us, of course) (snort).
Some of the email I received regarding Gennita Low’s campaign thought that readers of romance should boycott Wal Mart in protest of their outrageous market power. This is not the first time I’ve heard anti Wal Mart sentiment. As the nations largest retailer, they have attracted more than one lawsuit for alleged discrimination against women.
In the Fall 08 issue of Bitch Magazine, there’s an article about Wal Mart’s latest marketing campaign, which asks if moms have “formed their ‘momtourage’ yet,” targeting female readers and television viewers as potential customers. This is troublesome to the article’s author, because
[t]he superstore is currently involved in the largest workplace gender-discrimination lawsuit in history, with more than 1.3 million female employees suing the retailer for failing to equally promote and pay women…. In one 2005 ruling, [Wal-Mart] was fined $188,000.00 by the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission for violating state law when it refused to reinstate a woman after she completed her maternity leave.
Now, personally, I don’t have a Wal Mart within driving distance, so I don’t shop there. I don’t know if I would had I the choice, given what I know colloquially of their labor practices from friends of mine who worked there while we were all in college.
But I also know that for a lot of people looking to mind their budgets and feed and clothe their families, Wal Mart is the only option in town. Literally.
And for those of us concerned with the health and continued viability of the romance book market? Wal Mart might as well be the only option in town as well. They are literally the most powerful, and books aren’t even their main source of income. How do you fight such a behemoth with that much power over an author’s career future? Is it even possible? Or do we have to play within that power structure to advance our cause – the continued availability of romance novels? According to those with whom I spoke, it’s not possible to circumvent Wal Mart and survive in the current market. They buy in such quantity and sell in such volume that it isn’t possible to go without them. There is simply no way to avoid them.
When I asked my editorial source what readers could do, the answer was immediate: shop there. “We should all get down on our knees and thank God for Wal Mart. They buy romance, we have jobs, you have books to read.” It might leave a sour taste in one’s mouth, but we should go out of our way to shop there, according to this editor, because if more people shop for romance there, and it becomes more of a profitable enterprise for them, then they’ll buy more. If they buy more, there’s room to publish more, and there’s more for us to read. Turning-page economics, if you will.
I’m not pretending I know the answer to this one, and for the time being shopping at Wal Mart or deciding not to isn’t a question I face. But I know a lot of our readers look to Wal Mart for their book needs. GrowlyCub mentioned recently in a comment to my review of Lori Borrill’s Unleashed that:
I went and read the excerpt at Amazon and holy smokes, I want to read that book now! Our local Walmart does not carry Blazes any longer, so that means either a trip 80 miles down the road or waiting till Bamm.com can deliver.
No Blazes in the Wal Mart means one reader waits for shipping, or goes without. Even in the isolated cases, that’s a lot of power for one store to wield.
What’s your take? Do you shop at Wal Mart for books? Or do you avoid it? And if the biggest of the big box stores has that much market power and control over the genre, will that ever change? And how?
I used to work for a kids video company, and we would have to design special DVD displays and packaging just for use by Walmart. We’d do the “normal retail” versions of everything, then separate versions for Walmart and Sam’s Club. And my company had to absorb the expense of multiple versions of the same basic thing or we wouldn’t get the large WM orders. So, yes, this control WM has covers far more than books.
I have a love/hate relationship with WM. I live about a 1/4 mile away from one, and it’s where I go to pick up all of my household stuff – laundry detergent, kleenex, dog food – because it is so much cheaper than grocery stores or even Target. And I do swing by the book department, which is so-so in my particular store. It’s actually a great place to pick up new authors for me because I can get the book for cheaper than via Amazon or B&N;or Borders.
But the choices are so limited, I never go to WM looking for a book. If I want to buy 500 copies of each of the Twilight Series titles or Nora Roberts seventh reissues of ancient releases, I’m sure to find them there. But if I want a specific title or a specific author, I head to the bookstore or order on-line. The idea of supporting WM in order to try to change the situation seems counter-intuitive, although I do see the point. Unfortunately, I just can’t imagine that the community of romance readers willing to write and complain is large enough to make any difference. It’s like an ant poking at an elephant.
My husband used to work overnights at Wal-Mart and he told me to chime in and let everyone know that the book sections physically in Wal-Mart stores aren’t handled by the employees in said store. Another company came in once a week and rotated the book stock and put more/new releases out. Wal-Mart employees are specifically told not to touch the books, as they are a “vendor controlled item”.
Now, I don’t know if our store is the only one like that…but that makes me wonder who really controls the books. My hubby says the woman who used to stock our WM said she wasn’t a WM employee, but an independant contractor.
I’m wondering if maybe WM purchases the books, but contracts the “handling” out to someone else so that if a book is put out early, they can claim ignorance?
Either way, I just think it’s odd that Wal-Mart has such power when their store employees don’t even handle the books…
Just thought I’d share.
Yes, that is the rep I was talking about. I believe it’s Levy Home Entertainment that’s the distributor, but I could be wrong. Walmart employees don’t know who/what/where to order. That’s why my friend told me that it is best to write to Walmart HQ. It’s all bureaucracy at its best, that’s all.
In case anyone doubts the power of Walmart in an author’s career. This is from 3 years ago, but still valid. Anderson has the bulk of Walmart distribution.
“Over a three week period this summer, the following sales numbers were recorded for a NYT bestselling thriller writer’s most recent book:
B&N;: 4,140
Waldenbooks: 4,888
Borders: 3,993
Anderson Merchandisers/Walmart: 47,671
Target: 16,341
Price/Costco: 17,291
Sam’s: 14,108
Amazon: 320 “
Source:
http://www.sarahweinman.com/confessions/2005/07/there_is_no_bet.html
They distribute for Target. Anderson distributes for Wal-Mart.
I don’t know if there is crossover from one to the other, but I highly doubt it. The Coke vendor at your local convenience store doesn’t stock for Pepsi products and vice versa.
I live in a city, and probably only see the outside of a Wal-Mart a few times a year. I do end up shopping for books at chain stores with good selections – they’re handy, they have the books, I get a discount, and I’m lazy – but I’m in a position where I can afford to snub Wal-Mart, at least.
It’s no secret what they do to small towns – open up, undercut the local stores, hire away all the salespeople, and then shut down when they decide it isn’t profitable enough. By then, the local stores are long out of business and everyone’s seriously shafted. Add what they do to their employees and their suppliers, and yeah, they are seriously scary.
I hate Walmart. I’m a disgruntled ex-employee (overnight stocker). I learned the hard way that you don’t know ANYTHING about an employer until you’ve worked for them around Christmas. I had 6 bosses all wanting different things, and not one of my co-workers was happy to be there. They expected long hours (but didn’t want me to get overtime), they wanted no backstock (which no retailer wants, but eventually you do run out of room to stock crap), and complete subservience.
I used to buy everything from Walmart when it first came into town. They had deals on everything. Then after a few years they weeded out the competition and their prices jumped.
Now I avoid them if at all possible. The only thing I buy there anymore is DVD’s when they are on sale and the occasional book.
They remodeled the book section, and its a lot bigger with a lot more choices. They cut out the 2nd section of Mormon books and replaced it with “spiritual” books. They expanded their YA books. They have 5 extra feet of romance. Unfortunately their romance section consists mostly of Nora Roberts, Lavyrle Spencer and Danielle Steel. I usually check there for new paperbacks first, but they almost never have what I look for.
So I make my membership at Barnes and Noble worth it. Last year I ended up saving almost $500 dollars using their coupons and extra online discounts. Which IMO kicks Walmarts ass.
I can’t say I’m proud that I’ve bought books at Wal-Mart, but I’ve done it. Not that often (I don’t live near one, so I only go if I’m following someone else along in another town), and I’d rather buy at an actual bookstore WITH GOOD SELECTION, but occasionally I’ll find something I was going to buy anyway, saw it at Wal-Mart first, threw it in the cart.
Their selection is so low, though. Really pretty paltry. That’s what really annoys me about this is that they are so big and it is so LIMITED.
I’m like many others—I hate Walmart’s practices, but I can’t afford to put my money where my mouth is when it comes to buying things like cleaning supplies, generic OTC meds, diapers, and cat food. Those things seriously add up and since I’m a stay at home mom, we need to make one income stretch. If we’re flush, I’ll head to Target, whom I used to work for and had a good employment experience. (Except I don’t buy Walmart clothes. Crap quality and they don’t have a maternity section, which means they expect us pregnant women to get plus size clothes instead, which is an insult to both pregnant women and plus size women.)
It’s sad that Walmart has such power over authors, but the same authors have little power due to how small WM’s book sales are relative to their overall profit. Same goes for many other types of goods, it seems. In a better economic climate where I have the luxury of eschewing WM because doing so won’t jeopardize my ability to put decent food on the table, I’ll switch to Target fully. Until then, what few books I can indulge in will come from Walmart.
That’s true. Almost all of the major retailers have a vendor come in and stock. I also used to work for Shopko. They have a magazine/book vendor, American Greetings vendor and a dvd vendor. Nothing gets put on the shelf without an ok from the vendor. The vendors are third party employees given partial access to stock rooms.
Now, if a vendor item had to be returned, the vendor doesn’t do that unless its a quanity controlled/full refund item. But for general releases, store employees (of Shopko atleast) would repack dvd’s. Books were destroyed (stripped) by the key receiver and discarded. Magazines were returned to the vendor for a partial refund, and AG would take back all of the excess holiday stock in cards.
The only major thing that the store controlled over a vendor item was the sale price.
I’m very sympathetic to Ms. Low’s position and regret that circumstances may make it yet more difficult for me to read her work in the future. Even so, I cannot wrap my head around the suggestion that to preserve reading options I need to shop more at a company that has at its core a business process that exploits and creates a *lack* of options. I fear that if I transferred my book buying dollars to Wal-Mart and the book providers I abandoned went out of business I’d be at the mercy altogether of whatever it is that Wal-Mart wants me to be able to read. In other words, buying books at Wal-Mart may be a good idea in the near- and mid-terms but I’m pretty sure that it would be a terrible strategy for long-term positive results.
In this season of my life I can afford to take advantage of choice and spend in ways consistent with my values. This may not always be the case but while it is I’m going to do my best to avoid Wal-Mart . If more people who could had done so in the past, perhaps Ms. Low would not be in the position she is in today.
It’s really interesting reading about everyone’s experiences with WalMart. For 3 yrs, we lived in a small town where the WalMart wasn’t even super, and the nearest bookstore was a BDalton or something, 40 mins away. I ordered from Amazon, like, twice a month. Now we live in a small city that is a regional hub. I tend to buy my books from Books-A-Million, but when I’m really waiting for something—a magazine, one of the new Heather Graham books, WalMart gets it faster, so I succumb. Our book section is all right, really, and has 2 columns of categories—including, right now, my favorite title of all time, “Ruthlessly Bedded by the Sicillian Billionaire,” and a bunch of Spanish Drs who have mistresses in one book, and babies in another (you’d think they’d know how that happens).
But I had no idea how much power WalMart had over book sales—given the small variety of titles they have, that’s really insane. Joel Osteen and Oprah don’t need that much money, I’m sorry. I don’t see how my buying books there, just to get them faster, is going to make them shelve more romance/suspense, because they don’t need to sell the number of titles other stores do. They’ll just keep on doing what they’re doing. This article makes me think I need to be more patient and wait for stuff to come out at BAM, or order it from Amazon.
(Oh, and let me just add to the WalMart gripes…
1. Very pregnant young cashiers standing during holiday rush. Don’t tell me you can’t get them stools)
2. Cashier last week who asked for 4 days off a month ago, not given them and told to “find people to switch with.” Yeah, right. Her coworker urged to to quit. I (standing there with my cart and boys) told who who was hiring right now.
3. NO sweaters for kids! No pretty dresses for girls above size 5T; tons of thin, short sleeved crap, most of it with Hannah Montana or HSM on it. Where do their buyers think we live? Florida?
Must stop now. BP rising…..
Please let us know what happens with your books, Gennita!
I NEVER shop at WalMart. Not after reading the book Nickel and Dimed
http://www.readinggroupguides.com/guides3/nickel_and_dimed1.asp
Last year we managed to stop WalMart from opening here on the Coast, at least for now. The protests were HUGE and they finally gave up after local bylaws were changed to prevent a store of their size from going into the location they wanted.
After reading about the power they have over authors and their sell-throughs, I’m now even seriously considering forgetting being published. How they hell can I reconcile my success as an author being dependent on sales to WM. It is NOT right that any one retailer has that kind of control AND practices censorship to boot. Utterly disgusting.
I’m fortunate for my book buying needs that we have not one but TWO great indies here on the Coast who will special order anything I want. Yes, I have to wait, but I’m willing to do that if it means avoiding buying from WalMart, Chapters or Amazon.
Even if there was a WM here, I’d find a way to scrimp so as not to buy there. My cats get their food/litter from the vet or from the indie pet stores – I doubt WM would even carry the litter we use (it’s earth friendly etc).
That said, for those people who live in towns where there is no other choice, you have my sympathy and understanding. Must really suck to be beholden to Evil and Cheap.
Not that I’m some huge fan of Wal-Mart, but I don’t see how deciding what they want to sell in their own store can be considered ‘censorship.’ They can sell whatever books they like. If they want to be the next big Christian bookseller, that is their right. No store should be forced to have any book or item on their shelves.
I’m one of the people who lives in the middle of nowhere. Groceries are 20 min. away. Wal-Mart is only about 30…and I can save so much more buying food there, the extra drive pays for itself with just a couple of items. However, they do have an odd selection because it is not a high-demand area. The weirdest thing? ONE brand/type of pretzels. That’s it. If you don’t want Hanover small pretzels, you’re out of luck. They also just took their tofu off the shelves because it is considered ‘seasonal.’ When did tofu become a summer-only food? But that’s what the shelf-stocker told me when I tried to find some.
Wal-Mart will never die until they are either unionized by their employees or sell so many defective and deadly Chinese items that they end up bankrupted in some huge lawsuit.
Leah,
I’m curious, why don’t you buy at Bamm.com online?
I don’t buy books that often, but Wal-Mart is not a place that I would even consider if I was looking for a book or magazine. I am a Wal-Mart shopper for many other things, but it wouldn’t cross my mind to buy books there. Since we don’t have any independent bookstores here, I don’t really see the advantage in shopping locally. I go with Amazon.
If they want to stock Inspirationals, no problem. But if they do it by pulling Blazes off the shelf, then I see that as censorship. And look what they did to Susan Grant? I mean, do they think their customers are THAT stupid?
As for unionizing, it’s happened twice here at WMs here in Canada, and within months, WM closed down those locations. They will NOT allow a union in. Yet more evidence of their pure evil intention to make money of the backs of people who deserve way more than the pittance they’re paid and the horrible treatment they receive while working there.
So, since Wal-Mart doesn’t carry every book available, is that also censorship? Maybe the Blazes were not selling well for them…maybe they had customer complaints about them. It’s their choice to carry books/products or not. Even if it seems ridiculous to you. It is a business, not a library.
My library doesn’t have Blazes available for me to read…are they also involved in censorship?
I don’t like Wal-Mart’s practices either, but this argument doesn’t fly with me.
I hate to say it, but this is called “capitalism.†That’s the way things work. And it’s not just retail, it’s everywhere. California does the same thing. They pass laws that products have to have certain kinds of labeling or be packaged a certain way, and the manufacturers can’t afford to not sell to the huge population in California, so they retool their factories and redesign labels and packaging and do all of their products the California way and pass the cost on to the rest of the country. Walmart isn’t the only 600-LB. gorilla throwing their weight around, it’s just that some folks find them less, er, entertaining than some of the other gorillas in the big, American, capitalist cage.
I also think the word “censorship†gets bandied about too much. We’ve already seen from the responses here that some of the Walmarts carry all the Blazes and others don’t. Some have a large selection, some small. Some carry a lot of religious books, some have a ton of romance, others are all Harry Potter all the time. That’s not censorship, that’s marketing. Like it or not, they are in business to make money, and each store manager is going to stock what he thinks will please his customers, make them spend more money and let him keep his job and maybe even earn himself a raise. He may be clueless about how to do that, but, really, that’s his goal. From that standpoint, yes, buying more books there and writing letters requesting that they stock certain items will eventually get a response. If it doesn’t, if the manager is clueless or has some agenda other than serving the customer, enough letters to corporate offices will eventually get him fired and get someone else in there. And, if they finally stock the books you want, and you’re the only one buying them, then those books will go away again and they’ll go back to stocking the previous shlock that they were able to make a profit on.
Having said all that, I rarely shop at Walmart and I’m pretty sure I’ve never bought a book there. The closest one is 30-35 minutes away and I’d spend about the same amount on gas as I’d save by shopping there. I’m over that way a few times a year, and I stop in sometimes to buy cheap clothes that I don’t mind mucking about in the garden in. I think I bought a clock and a skillet there. The clock no longer works, the skillet is cheap crap and I only use it when I get lazy and it’s the last clean thing to cook in.
The town I live closest to has two places to buy books. An Albertsons and a used book store. I’ve stopped buying books at the Albertsons because I can get them cheaper (and therefore buy more) from Amazon. The used book store is where I find new authors to try and find older backlist books that are out of print. I can’t afford to give them up. I can’t get books cheaper anywhere else, but I still spend more on new books than I spend on used because I’m too impatient to wait for some other reader to give up the goodies from her keeper shelf when she runs out of space.
fire88: probably means about 88 rounds fired in my direction because didn’t agree Walmart was evil personified.
We don’t have a Wal-Mart near me, so I can’t comment on any of this. But am I the only one to get an immature giggle out of the author’s name? If I’m EmmyS, she’s GennitaL!
Um, because I am a doofus? Seriously—I guess I’ve got a word association thing going where “books=Amazon.” I’ve not even thought of bamm.com before! (smacks forehead)
Leah, 🙂 I switched completely to Bamm.com because they have the best prices (after club discount, which I get for free because we are military, otherwise $15 a year, half of what B&N;charges for their club).
The only ‘issues’ are that I have to pay sales tax – I don’t know if that applies to every state or just to a few – and that they recently took away the 10% discount they had on paperbacks, booo hiss!
But even though a minimum order (just over $25 for free shipping), usually costs me about 50 cents or so more than Amazon, they deliver faster and they aren’t trying to take over the world as Amazon.com has lately.
Can somebody who is a B&N;club member elucidate on the coupons? How many, how much, what do you have to do to get them? Bamm.com doesn’t seem to have those, or if so, I’m not signed up for them.
It’s not just me that mentioned WM and censorship. Others mentioned it further up the thread. PBS has also done a show on the topic:
http://www.pbs.org/itvs/storewars/stores3_2.html
There’s nothing anyone here can do to convince me WM is a good thing. Sorry.
This in particular, from the PBS webpage, caught my eye:
“Magazines don’t escape Wal-Mart’s “family values” rule, either. Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone, Vibe and others have been pulled off the shelves because the retailer deemed the covers too provocative. Some magazines willingly send advance copies to big retailers like Wal-Mart for their approval, and will even alter cover artwork to avoid losing sales. “
No one company should have this much power. Not that I think it’s a bad idea to shelve Cosmo up higher on a shelf, away from small kids (though considering some of the stuff they see on TV and at the movies…), but altering covers JUST for WalMart? Huh? And publishers do this? Cater to the whims of these people? Puh-leeze.
Look up the definition of censorship…Wal-Mart ain’t it.
Never said Wal-Mart was a good thing. Just that I find it useful for my needs. But I mostly buy groceries there, not products.
When we start telling stores what products they can and cannot carry, that is a sad, sad day in America.
Tara,
you are correct to an extent. It’s entirely possible that the Inspies sell better than the Blazes. I do after all live smack in the middle of the Bible Belt, but if the decision may have been based on customer complaints, then I’d indeed call that censorship.
I shop online a lot, but not only do I lack patience, which makes this a frustrating enterprise on occasion, it often leads to the books finally getting here, but I’m no longer in the mood and they then languish on the TBR mountain range. If you read about a woman slain to death by the books stacked on the headboard of her queen sized bed, that would be me, grin.
I’m also sure I’d buy lots more new books if I had a brick and mortar with a good romance, SF and science section.
I’ll have to try it. I have a vested interest in BAM staying solvent. Where else would I go for that new-book-and-coffee smell?
KG,
if your library decided not to carry Blazes because they do not have enough money in the budget then that’s not censorship. If the acquiring librarian however decided not to carry them because s/he considers them ‘dirty books’, then that’s censorship. Naturally, it would be hard to prove that’s what happened.
WM makes decisions on which products to carry mostly for economic reasons, but not always. When the decision is not economically based, but on ‘family values’ then I consider that they are committing censorship. That said, I do not know that’s what happened at our store. Nobody knows who the stocker is, when s/he is supposed to be there and I have not yet lucked into going to WM when this mythical entity is actually in the process of fulfilling its job function, so I couldn’t ask why the Blazes went off the shelves.
I guess I’m in the minority here, but if I buy books, I buy them at Target or Walmart. I love going to Borders and Barnes and Noble to look at their selection, but I don’t buy romance there. I know it will be at least $2 cheaper at Walmart or Target. I can’t justify spending those $2 and clip out coupons for $.25 at the same time. I actually try to wait to buy a new book. My sister (who has pretty much the same taste) buys books the minute they come out at her local Walmart, so I just borrow them from her. Or if she doesn’t buy it, I’ll wait and go to a Half-Price Books to look for it. I actually have a gift card for Borders and I still can’t justify buying romance there. I’ll buy other books that Walmart and Target don’t carry. I rarely order from Amazon since they also seem to have higher prices and I might have to pay shipping too.
Growlycub—
Our WalMart book stocker is there pretty much every day, between 9 and 11 (the time when I run errands because my boys are in preschool). And yeah, lately it seems like I’ve been at WalMart pretty much every day.
spam detector—times 19. Ok, ok, I’m busted!
I know someone who works in a warehouse that ships music to Walmart and she told me that they have seperate CDs for Walmart and for the rest of the stores they ship to. Why? Because Walmart requires all the naughty words be taken out of music. I didn’t believe her until I had to buy a CD twice. The first CD was at Walmart. All the words that George Carlin said you can’t say are cut. I bought the second CD at a music store and nothing was cut. Needless to say, I no longer buy my CDs at Wally World.
I would bet dollars to donuts the reason Walmart doesn’t stock certain romance novels is that they cross whatever morality line Walmart execs have drawn in the shifting sands. That would explain why a book got bought then shipped back before it hit the shelves – someone holding a different moral compass checked up on the buyer and vetoed the purchase.
Hmmmm, I’m not sure if I agree with that. I’ll have to think about it some more. I mean, one side of my brain says that if the complaint comes from a customer, and they’re not pissing off a lot of other customers by pulling it, maybe it’s still just playing to your market. But the other side of my brain, the one that rants a little more often says, if you don’t like the cover, keep your damn kids up in the children’s section, bitch! Yes, I’ll think about that some more….
What really pisses me off, and I’m damn sure it’s censorship, is when non-patrons (of a book store, library, music store, whatever) feels the need to bitch about what’s on the shelves, even though they never go in that establishment. A religious group in a nearby town recently got the book “The Joy of Gay Sex†taken off the shelves and put behind the desk. Some of the members of the group were from that town, and some actually held library cards, but a lot of them were from other towns in the area and never went to that library. And yet, these religious f— um… folks, religious folks wanted the book off the shelves so that kids couldn’t see it. Not their kids, just kids in general. Yeah, God forbid some kid trying to figure out his sexuality could go to the library and learn a thing or two. I guess it’s better to just go take a wide stance out in an airport restroom. You can learn so much more that way, right?
Come to think of it, I think Larry Craig grew up not too far from that particular town. That may explain a lot…
If you live in Washington, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, or California, I can’t recommend WINCO Foods highly enough. They are employee-owned, and their book and magazine section is great. They also discount all books and magazines. They also have the lowest-paid CEOs for a company of its size. Not so top-heavy as the other warehouse stores.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinCo_Foods for more info.
I’m not an advocate for Walmart… or any other store that makes me walk 4 miles to peruse a half-stack of books. I grab whatever credit card isn’t smokin’ and order my books so I’ve bought books at Walmart .com. When I just looked they were still carrying Harlequin Blazes there—available online only.
Just for my own curiosity I did put Ms Low’s name in the search and they have two of her back list books available…. which is sort of weird. (and I know I’m not saying that right but I mean no insult to the author, for sure, just that not to carry the new releases and still have these is odd)
http://www.walmart.com/search/search-ng.do?search_constraint=3920&ic=48_0&search_query=Gennita+Low+&Find;.x=24&Find;.y=9
I don’t buy my books at Walmart … because I don’t shop at Walmart.
I just can’t stand the shopping experience there.
Their business practices are just the icing on the cake.
Luckily I live in a town where I have options other than Walmart!
I can’t explain that either, Joanne, but yes, two of my titles by Avon Books are available at Walmart ONLINE. I’m not sure how Walmart Online works. All my Avon books were available at Walmart when they came out.
I’m not the only author this is happening to 😉 even though it seems so that way because of my newsletter. I felt, at the time of writing it, that I had no choice but to make my situation public since, from the way it was explained to me, my next book coming out or not depended on Walmart ordering it (or not). I did not mean for readers to boycott Walmart or any businesses; nor did I mean to tell anyone to go buy at Walmart and Walmart only.
What I was aiming for was to make some decision-makers at Walmart realize that shoppers who buy books at their stores are looking for variety, and not just the top 3 or 4 bestsellers and their backlists, that’s all. It used to be, even two years ago, I could browse at their book section and pick up five to ten books that I might be interested in. Last week, while I was looking for the Presents books Jane recommended at DA, I found none—no Presents/cat. section any more, no other newest titles that we recommend to each other online.
As an author, I really had no desire to learn about the marketing part of the book business. So when I received news about my book not being in Walmart last year, I didn’t have a clue how it would affect my future. Some of the newer authors aren’t affected because they don’t have numbers that publishers compare and contrast during each contract negotiation, but I had five books sold at Walmart before Virtually His, so you have to understand how devastating that particular column (retail) looked to the bean counters when they compared and contrasted with my past numbers.
So, I’m putting myself out here with my numbers as a lesson, I guess, for other writers who, like me, thought the TOTAL units sold was the all-important number. Not so.
Sure, I could have just taken this lying down and keeping quiet. But so many of my readers have been so patient and supportive. So I decided I would try to do something positive, which is, to try to get myself back on Walmart shelves. Maybe not VHers, but hopefully, with enough letters, the vendor rep. will get my next book.
To be sure, if this strategy works, I’ll be the first to tell you guys 😉 because I’m all for more romance books in Walmart or any department stores where readers shop.
Thank you again, everyone, for letting talk about myself. I appreciate the opportunity.
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*Highest discount rate applied to most expensive book
*IN STORES: 1 coupon per book, not per order.
*ONLINE: 1 coupon per order
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Hi Tara! Isn’t the censorship at Nampa Public Library craptastic? I live one town over in Meridian and the censorship reigns over here. I couldn’t believe those people advocated so hard to have that book removed…wasn’t there another one too. And what the local media said about random complaints…nope, not true. It was one central group complaining, and what made me so angry was that the book has been on the shelves for a long time. Not one week or one month, but years. And a few religious fanatics want to censor the libraries….not right. Didn’t it take almost a year for the people against the censorship to win too?
I second your thoughts on Larry Craig…what a hypocrite. Did you watch him on the news last night at the Republican headquarters? He sure wasn’t in any of the acceptance speeches. :))
I don’t buy books at WalMart. Period. I either buy through amazon.com or at Border’s if I’m there. I didn’t realize WalMart had such a big say-so over what books get sold when I’ve seen there book selection, and there’s not much to it. OTOH, I’ve dealt with them when they come into a town through real estate and when it came time to do the old soft shoe that we real estate folks love to do, WalMart pretty much just puts their foot down and says “We don’t negotiate. We’re WalMart.” WTF?? So they sell religious or semi-religious books, some secular books, and screw authors who are starting out?? Why am I not surprised. After all, they’re WalMart.
WinCo is awesome. Its a like Sam’s Club without the miserable experience. Great prices and the workers are competent and suitably paid. The WinCo’s in my area don’t have many books though. Pretty much 8×8 areas…but if they ever did expand them over here to include more romances, I’d probably buy more. 🙂