The Indie Question: Independent Book Buying in a Mainstream Economy ~ Guest Post by Christopher Currie [01.02.2010]

I am, amongst other clichés, a writer who works in a bookshop. Which is to say, I am a bookseller who writes. Despite having my first novel on the publication horizon (Text Publishing, 2011), I still rely on my day job to keep me supplied with Moleskines, Firefox add-ons, and other essential tools of the modern author.

My job, possibly among the best in the world, is stock buyer at Avid Reader, one of Australia’s best independent bookshops. As such, I am responsible for which books are put on the shelves. And all allusions to kids in lolly shops and idiots in charge of asylums are, of course, correct.

Despite being for the main part immensely fun, this role has opened my eyes to the actual mechanics and economics of a bookshop, and especially how this relates to independent/small press publications.

As someone who still has remnant stains of “Emerging Writer” chrysalis attached to his person, it is safe to say I have an enormous affection for the literary journals, anthologies, and small presses that have supported me and published my writing over the past ten years that I’ve considered myself “a writer”. I’ve thoroughly served my apprenticeship in self-publication, unpaid writing work and the general high-level of shit-kicking associated with growing your authorial profile, and without the opportunities offered by small presses and literary journals I would have given up long ago.

This is where my conundrum begins. Despite my deep allegiance to publications giving opportunities to new writers, and my belief in the importance of independent/small presses, my job affords me a look at the harsh reality of what a small press faces in the marketplace. After three years in the role of buyer, one thing has become abundantly clear. My job is, quite simply, to order in titles that people will buy. This, as it turns out, is a category that ignores much independent publishing.

Back when I was completing a Creative Writing Programme and had no money, I assumed that people with the means all regularly bought Granta and Meanjin, had subscriptions to both The New York and London Review of Books and habitually purchased Creative Writing Programme anthologies to discover the next great literary voices. This was the Great White Hope as an undergraduate writer, that as long as your work was being published somewhere, it would be read and appreciated.

As with any other book, however, titles by small presses need to have both profile (i.e. publicity) and ready availability. As much as I try to provide both at Avid Reader, the truth is this: I have to buy in stock that will sell. Titles by small presses, I’m afraid to say, in the majority don’t. Bookshops, especially independents, operate on unimaginably thin margins, and despite the sale-or-return rule, every book you buy in as a retailer (no matter the author’s status or the publisher’s marketing budget) is a gamble, and with only a finite amount of space and money to work with, you’ve got to win that gamble more often than not to stay successful. The margin with small presses is even tighter.

That is the bad news. But here is the good: some of these titles do sell, and many of them outstrip “mainstream” books in content, design and importance. My job, as a buyer with vested interests in independent publishing, is to address this balancing act. There is no way I’m going to stop stocking small press titles, but I have do to be smarter about how I do it. This starts with the actual ordering. Whereas in the first year of my job I automatically ordered in anything with the words “emerging”, “literary” or “anthology” in the title, now I have to think more carefully about what titles to pick and when. Unfortunately that means many small press titles miss out, but it does mean that the good ones will get their chance.

And there have been some very good ones. While mainstream publishers battle each other to death by copying tired readership trends (“No, this is different. It’s a vampire detective!”) small presses have been the ones publishing exciting and important voices. Sleepers Publishing, for instance, have made every post a winner in their first year as publisher, with their first book, Things We Didn’t See Coming, winning the Age Book of the Year (and its recent US release is garnering strong reviews). Arcade Press made a move with some strong nonfiction last year, and Affirm Press are set to publish their first two collections of short fiction.

Some slick anthologies made their mark in 2009, with Dion Kagan’s The Reader, an initiative of the Emerging Writers’ Festival and wonderfully comprehensive guide to writing life; and Lisa Dempster’s The Words We Found, a collection of the best writing from Voiceworks over the past ten years. Journals such as Brisbane-born The Lifted Brow and Vignette Press’s Mook series have also made homes on Avid’s shelves.

As well as this, one-off, self-promoted titles like Josephine Rowe’s How A Moth Becomes a Boat, Rosie Percival and Ruth Friedlander’s Martha Goes Green and Breakdown Press’ How to Make Trouble and Influence People have proven popular, confirming that you don’t always need a distributor to be a success.

What do these success stories have in common? To put it bluntly, apart from excellent content, they look good. As sad as it is to say, most of a book’s battle to sell is getting the customer to pick it up in the first place. All these small press/independent titles I’ve mentioned have smart production values, a keen eye for design and a strong identity. There are a lot of badly designed books out there, many from small presses, but many more from established publishers. In today’s book market, having bad design just doesn’t cut it any more, no matter what your budget.

The lesson for the bookseller is to give these titles their due. If you treat these publications as inferior, this is how they will come across. Many bookshops confine their journals, zines and small-press titles to their own “special” area, usually in the hardest-to-reach place in the shop, and are then surprised when none of them sell. Categorising independent titles as you would any other book from a major publisher lends them the legitimacy they deserve, while allowing your customers to discover them of their own accord.

The other lesson is don’t order truckloads of stock. There is nothing more depressing than twenty literary journals sitting on your counter gathering dust. The people behind small presses are without exception much nicer than big publishers, and are always approachable about how to best sell their books. Order conservatively, and top up your stock when needed.

So I suppose the moral for me has been to invest strongly in well-produced local content in sensible amounts, focus less on overseas literary journals, and find a way to present small presses on a level pegging with books by the major publishers. And be nice to the people behind independent publishing, because they have not only given wonderful opportunities to me and many other writers like me, but they will one day be running the industry.

Christopher Currie is buyer at Avid Reader Bookshop in Brisbane. His first novel, Reception, will be published by Text Publishing in 2011. His writing, and writing about writing, and 365 short stories, can be found at www.furioushorses.com

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