Mbdlevin@aol.com wrote:
> Mario Taboada writes:
>
> << By the way, and only tangentially related
to the above, have other US
> raravians
> noticed how hardboiled literature is eschewed
(there, I knew some day I wold
> use this word) by public libraries?
>
> What's a typical sales number for a hardboiled
hardcover novel?
> >>
>
> The Portland, Oregon, public library does a pretty
good job on hb purchases,
> but they may be the exception (most of the branches
are even open Sundays).
> I'd encourage readers to frequently request library
purchases of titles that
> might otherwise be missed. I've also encouraged at
least one small publisher
> to try to generate sales by asking buyers to ask
their libraries to buy the
> books--a sort of grassroots marketing tool--not sure
how it would work. I'd
> be curious to hear an answer to Mario's last
question too. The other thing
> I'd be curious about: how low must sales drop before
an author gets dropped
> by his or her publisher?
As a public librarian, and one who does the ordering for
genre fiction, I have to comment on this.
I've noticed no policy to avoid ordering hb literature at any
library I've gone to, and I certainly order my share of hb
fiction. But the problem for most libraries lies in the
amount of money available to order books (small) and the
demands of the library's patrons (great). If two-thirds of
the books which are checked out from a library's mystery
collection are cozies, then it only makes sense for a library
to order more cozies; that's what the patrons want, so that's
what they're going to get.
I realize that this is something of a self-fulfilling
dynamic; without the hbs, the patrons only get cozies, and so
that's what they read. But every library I've ever worked at
or known (and I was a contract librarian for two years, so I
worked at a number of libraries) tried to order from every
genre, to have a well-rounded collection. It just so happens
that hbs, in the libraries I've worked at, are simply not in
as much demand by the public as other genres. I have to
tailor my ordering policies to satisfy my public. I try to
give them things that they might not know about that they
might enjoy, but when Pelecanos languishes on the shelves,
unread, and I'm repeatedly asked when the next Left Behind
(*gak*) book will be in...well, there's only so much
independence I can show.
All of that said, if you want something that the library
doesn't have, ask for it. We librarians can only go by
circulation numbers (which are the surest sign as to what is
popular with the patrons) and by what we are told by the
patrons (which is the surest sign as to what we're not
ordering that we should order). If you don't tell us what we
need, we're not going to know what you want...and that makes
nobody happy.
jess
-- # To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis" to majordomo@icomm.ca. # The web pages for the list are at http://www.miskatonic.org/rara-avis/ .
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 05 Jun 2000 EDT