I don’t have much time today, so of course I’m going to try to tackle a hugely complicated topic in maybe an hour.
If you’re the kind of person who spends time reading authors’ social media—and some of you are, at least, because how else did you find this newsletter—you may have noticed that authors with books coming out soon (e.g. yours truly) are, unless they happen to be Stephen King or Nora Roberts or someone like that, stressing pre-orders even more than usual.
Now the fact of the matter is, pre-orders are always important. Here’s my imperfect understanding: bookstores use pre-order volumes to determine the size of the order they place with publishers, order sizing affects (but by no means determines) the size of the print run, the size of the print run affects (but by no means determines) how heavily sales pushes the book, sales’ investment in the book affects (but by no means determines) how many copies bookstores order—so there’s potential for a virtuous cycle here. Of course, none of this determines how successful the book is with readers, but it’s hard for readers (who visit bookstores and libraries) to find books that aren’t on shelves. So it does matter.
You’d think that this cycle would be less relevant thanks to the existence of e-books, and… well, some demand definitely shifts from physical to electronic editions. But, the thing is, a physical book’s presence in a library or bookstore also reminds people who go to bookstores and libraries—who are people who buy books, in their physical and electronic and audio editions—that the book exists, and the author exists, and maybe someday they’d like to give them a shot, without the dubious consequences of associating that book with “another advertising email I have to delete.”
Let me give you a personal example. A month or two ago, Amal was extremely enthusiastic about this book by Lincoln Michel called The Body Scout. I wanted to read it! But even though it’s available in e-book, so I could have theoretically bought it right at first mention, I didn’t want to pull out my phone, so the desire drifted off onto my someday/maybe list, where it lingers alongside “visit the Acropolis” and “Minotaurs????”. Anyway, two weeks back, I was working outside Porter Square Books, and saw The Body Scout on a shelf-topper display. “Oh, that’s right, that book exists, my friend loved it, and I want to read it!” I thought. And then I… didn’t buy it. This week, I was working there again, and I saw the book again, and this time, I finally did. The physical token in the shop window served as its own advertisement and reminder. Time to purchase from enthusiastic recommendation by trusted friend: eight to ten weeks. And it would have been longer, if not for the PSB shelf display!
So, why are people more concerned about pre-orders now? Well… Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: we have supply chain issues.
The funny thing here is that some of these supply chain issues actually pre-date COVID. I’m not a supply chain expert, I don’t even play one on TV, but I do ask my friends who have more to do with the widget-printing part of publishing what’s going on, and this is the story I’ve been told, to the extent I understand it. In the last five or six years, the U.S. has seen a crunch in the supply of the kind of paper that books (and booklike things) are printed on. See, it turns out, there’s a lot of online retail happening, and online retail uses a lot of cardboard boxes, and that, plus a (welcome) shift away from plastic packaging across the marketplace, has created a huge demand for cardboard, which is cheaper to make than paper. On top of that, previous-administration tariff rules made it much more expensive to import pulp (and paper?) from Canada. This makes it hard to find more paper, fast, when you’ve run out. I believe it also makes paper more expensive across the board.
Imagine a book that ends up breaking a lot bigger than expected. Let’s say the first print run was a few thousand copies—no one expected blockbuster success, more of a midlist opening, but all of a sudden Reese Witherspoon and Tim Ferris are all about this lucky author and their new project. The initial print run sells out in a snap. Under eight-years-ago conditions, the publisher would buy more paper and print more copies to meet demand. Under present conditions, where does that paper come from?
So, reprints are delayed. Debuts may be delayed or rescheduled, depending on stock availability. And so it goes.
From the author’s perspective, this isn’t great, since a person who’s excited to buy a book right now might not be in the mood for that book two weeks from now, let alone a whole season. I’ve had this happen with books—great momentum, sell through the initial print run on launch week, only for the second print run to be delayed by over a month, by which time the launch buzz has moved on to other titles. Not a great feeling! But it is, as they say, what it is.
Of course, COVID made things worse. In some predictable ways: labor shortages, factory downtime, the same shipping snarls that have hit every other industry. And in some surprising ways! Sales of print books jumped last year, for example, especially in the backlist, which bucked a lot of forecasts. Various shipper issues have apparently led to a bottleneck from Ingram, the exceedingly dominant player in the book distribution market (that is, the company that actually gets books to bookstores, including Amazon). Venturing into extreme saw-a-twitter-thread type of hearsay, well, I saw a twitter thread indicating that a truckload of an important printing ink precursor chemical went off-road during the Texas freeze, which has affected ink supplies. True? Who knows! But entertaining to think about. Publishers that print in Asia face the same oh-no-our-shipping-container-is-buried-nine-stories-deep-at-Long Beach situation as any other business that manufactures its products in Asia. And so on, and so on.
All of this is to say: if you’re excited about a book that’s coming out in the near future, and it matters that you read a paper copy on or near release day, I’d pre-order that book if I were you. (Including, selfishly, Last Exit)!
Beyond that, who knows what the future holds, or how long this will last, or what its knock-on effects will be. It’s easy to feel perplexed and a little doom-y given the oddness of the supply chain situation in many industries right now, but it’s also nice to remember that books have an extremely long, ummmm, shelf life. (Sorrynotsorry) The great thing about books as gifts is that there are a lot of books, so the odds of any book you love being new to the person you give it to are pretty high, even if the book is old. If you’re having trouble scoring a copy of this or that hot new title to give as a gift, perhaps consider looking for a 2020 or early ’21 debut—there are some great lists here and here, and I’d like to single out (agent-mate) Ryan Van Loan’s The Sin in the Steel (Sherlock Holmes vs pirate swashbuckling fantasy), Micaiah Johnson’s The Space Between Worlds (Dystopia + Sliders+ Love), Ryka Aoki’s more recent The Light from Uncommon Stars (Los Angels! Donut Shops! Demons! Aliens! Violins! Also Love!) as titles that might interest, depending on taste. The lockdowns did lead to a spike in physical sales, but debuts had a hard year without the usual support infrastructure of conventions, conferences, hand-selling, and the like—so give them a look.
Take care of yourselves, and enjoy the fall!
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I have a reading next week! I’ll be sharing the mic with Laura van den Berg at the Writer’s Room of Boston Readings from the Room series. I’ll be reading a ten minute excerpt from Last Exit, and we’ll both be answering questions. It should be a fun, tight program, just 30 minutes, through Crowdcast if all goes well. Join us Wednesday at 7pm, and register at this link!
Thank you for this! I didn't know about the longer pre-COVID history of supply chain issues, so this was quite the illuminating post!