Bargain Book Dealers Welcomed to Atlanta for Spring Book Show
More than 50,000 book titles from hundreds of publishers will be on display for dealers at South's largest bargain book show, slated for Atlanta's World Congress Center March 17-19
Atlanta, GA, March 02, 2006 --(PR.com)-- When Spring Book Show 2006, the largest bargain book show in the South, opens for its March 17-19 run at Atlanta’s downtown World Congress Center, one of the leading figures in the bargain book business in attendance will be Knoxville’s Larry B. May. In addition to being one of the early entrants in the industry, he’s the organizer of the show, which has grown from humble beginnings to the second-largest bargain book exposition in the nation.
May will be welcoming remainder dealers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Korea, Japan, Australia, India and other nations to Atlanta, where they’ll be privy to the largest collection of remainder books, returns, white sales and promotional books in the South.
According to May, the bargain book business has come a long way from the 1980s, when the way of doing business was to rent abandoned grocery stores for a few months, attract book lovers with huge “Book Sale” signs in the windows and market the books on tables or in corrugated cardboard bins called “gaylords.” Bargain books are big business now, one of the main attractions drawing buyers to the “big box” book chain stores and neighborhood Mom and Pop shops as well.
May has seen a number of changes in the book business since then. Print on demand publishing has made the cost of entry into book publishing low, enabling many micropublishers to enter the market. Small self-publishers are driving up the number of new books issued each year, to more than 195,000 new titles in 2004. Discount chains and “big box” stores like those operated by Borders and Barnes & Noble have made it difficult for small neighborhood stores to survive. The American Booksellers Association, which represents the small independently owned stores, has gone from more than 5,000 members two decades ago to less than 1,800 today. The trend toward economies of scale has also affected Christian bookstores and other specialty bookstores targeting niche markets. The stores that have survived have been the spacious ones in big cities or the little ones in small town America where chains like Barnes & Noble, Borders and Book-A-Million are not interested in opening stores.
The latest market changes, May says, are the growing importance of Internet book sales and the entry of discounters like Wal-Mart and Costco into the book business.
All of these changes, May says, have opened up the bargain book market. Because of the competition that makes fast turnover of inventory necessary, a large percentage of new books manufactured and shipped to bookstores are being returned to publishers after a few weeks on bookstore shelves. Anything that doesn’t sell quickly is returned to the publishers and enters the “off price” market.
As for those deeply discounted books you see when you first walk into many bookstores, says May, most are remainders or returns bought by the bookstore to be sold at 20 percent or so of the suggested retail price. Some are also likely to be what the trade calls “promotional” books. These are usually lavishly illustrated “coffee table” books that carry a high suggested retail price, but were intended from the start to be sold for much less. A promotional book with a $39.95 suggested retail price might be sold by a bookstore for $19.95, giving the appearance of a great buy, when in fact the book was intended to be sold at $19.95 from the start.
What’s the difference between a remainder and a return? Take the case of a best-seller by an author like John Grisham, where perhaps 1.5 million copies of a new title are manufactured. One million are sold. Another 250,000 copies might be stored in a warehouse, still shrink-wrapped on skids, in pristine condition. These are the remainders. Another 250,000 copies might get returned to the publisher or distributor’s warehouse by bookstores unable to sell them – these are the returns, many of which may be lightly shopworn. It’s these remainders and returns that end up being sold at places like Atlanta’s Spring Book Show.
One of the larger deals May has seen completed at a recent show was for $350,000, involving around 500,000 books. Another deal that just came across his desk is for 350,000 audio tapes that the vendor would like to sell to one buyer. DVDs and computer software are among other items popular at the Spring Book Show.
How are the books sold? Large lots at the Spring Book Show – lots that may range up to 300,000 and even 500,000 copies - are often put out for bids. Smaller lots – four to 10 copies, 100 copies, or perhaps 1,000 copies – may be sold directly by vendors taking orders from librarians, school media specialists, small neighborhood bookstores and the like. All sorts of deals are made at the show, from micro-deals to the truly titanic. One rule of thumb is that smaller orders cost more, bigger orders cost less. For a book that was designed to retail for $24.95, a librarian ordering 10 copies might pay $3 a copy, a large neighborhood bookstore might buy 100 copies for $2 each, a buyer for one of the chains might pay $1.50 per copy for 1,000 and a bulk distributor might buy 100,000 copies for 60 cents each. A wide range of negotiation goes on at bargain book shows like Atlanta’s Spring Book Show between sellers and buyers.
Just as there are large publishers and large bookstore chains and discounters, there are large bargain book companies, May notes. “One of the largest is American Book Co. of Knoxville, Tenn., where I’m located,” he said, "and Discount Christian Bookstores of Knoxville, Tenn., is the largest Christian bargain book distributor in the nation. Another major player, headquartered in Cartersville, Ga., is Kudzu Book Traders, a sister company of Academic Books.”
May recounted one deal that took place several years ago in which Harper Collins published a biography of Dolly Parton. The publisher was ready to issue the paperback version of the book, which would kill further sales of the $24.95 hardbound copies. Harper had printed 800,000 hardback copies. Of that number, 600,000 copies had been sold, leaving 200,000 remainders. Harper Collins feared that flooding the remainder market with 200,000 books would invite wholesale returns of the hardback while diminishing sales of the mass market paperback. The publisher opted to remainder 100,000 copies at $1 to $1.25, to be sold by retailers at around $6, and destroyed the remaining 100,000 copies.
“Another example,” said May, “involved the inspirational best-seller The Prayer of Jabez by Dr. Bruce Wilkinson. Multnomah printed more than a million copies and was successfully mass-marketing them not only through traditional Christian bookstores but to discounters like Wal-Mart. While the book sold extremely well at retail, it was also generating astronomical returns. The owner of Discount Christian Books, Steve Slack, agreed to become Multnomah’s return center. But even he hit a point of saturation when the Jabez returns started numbering in the hundreds of thousands.”
May was introduced to the bargain book business through a next-door neighbor who asked that he help with a new concept of selling books. Soon his wife, Valerie, became involved in the new venture, and together in the late 1980s they, along with their neighbor, Paul Cowell, created a business called National Book Warehouse.
“We put discounted books into outlet centers throughout the United States,” he said. “We built the business to 60-some outlet stores, and were also doing temporary events around the country. We would take a short-term lease on a vacant space, usually in a distressed strip center, filling the stores with four or five truckloads of books discounted at 80 percent off of the publishers suggested retail price, staying for a few months before moving to a new low-rent location. In those days, one of our slogans was, ‘no book over $5.’ As the temporary lease neared its end, the books would be discounted to 90 percent of retail. Anything left was loaded on a truck and moved to the next location. Our peak year was in 1990 when we conducted 158 temporary stores across the nation. We generated revenue of over $13 million that year. That was a lot of $1 and $2 books!
“The outlet business was really strong back then,” May added. “In Georgia, I opened a store in Lake Park, near Valdosta, in an outlet center. It was hard to keep the store full of books. People traveling from the north to Florida would see the outlet center sign off the Interstate. The perceived value of outlet malls was very strong at the beginning. Now, people don’t see the outlet centers as presenting such great values, and the outlet centers are struggling.”
May said just about every genre of books sells well as remainders. “There’s one company that specializes in children’s books and has notable Caldecott and Newbery award-winners and sells them at 80 percent off of publishers retail. They do a huge business.”
May started the annual Spring Book Show in Atlanta eight years ago, in 1999. Before creating the national show in Atlanta, he organized smaller regional shows as part of a cooperative of which he was the director.
At the first show in Atlanta, only about 80 buyers participated, with books displayed on 100 floor units. The show has grown by leaps and bounds since then, May said. At Spring Book Show 2006, he expects more than 700 buyers from around the world to be buying remainders from vendors representing nearly 200 dealers displaying their product on 500 tables in 60,000 square feet of space!”
Who are the biggest buyers of bargain books? “The big box stores – Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, Half Price Books, Hastings, Tuesday Morning, Ross Stores – are among the biggest buyers,” May said. “Add to that Amazon.com, B&N.com and some others plus all the foreign companies who will be at the Spring Book Show.”
Asked if members of the general public could go to the Spring Book Show to buy books at bargain prices, May explained that the show is not open to the public. “However,” he said, “one of the things we’ve done this year is to open the show to educators, librarians and school media specialists, who may attend free of charge to stretch their book-buying dollars. They’ll be able to buy books for a fraction of the retail prices they normally pay. I majored in education at Ohio State, and although I never taught, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for educators. The educators and librarians should be able to attend the show and quadruple the number of books they can buy with the same dollars on the retail market.”
###
May will be welcoming remainder dealers from the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Korea, Japan, Australia, India and other nations to Atlanta, where they’ll be privy to the largest collection of remainder books, returns, white sales and promotional books in the South.
According to May, the bargain book business has come a long way from the 1980s, when the way of doing business was to rent abandoned grocery stores for a few months, attract book lovers with huge “Book Sale” signs in the windows and market the books on tables or in corrugated cardboard bins called “gaylords.” Bargain books are big business now, one of the main attractions drawing buyers to the “big box” book chain stores and neighborhood Mom and Pop shops as well.
May has seen a number of changes in the book business since then. Print on demand publishing has made the cost of entry into book publishing low, enabling many micropublishers to enter the market. Small self-publishers are driving up the number of new books issued each year, to more than 195,000 new titles in 2004. Discount chains and “big box” stores like those operated by Borders and Barnes & Noble have made it difficult for small neighborhood stores to survive. The American Booksellers Association, which represents the small independently owned stores, has gone from more than 5,000 members two decades ago to less than 1,800 today. The trend toward economies of scale has also affected Christian bookstores and other specialty bookstores targeting niche markets. The stores that have survived have been the spacious ones in big cities or the little ones in small town America where chains like Barnes & Noble, Borders and Book-A-Million are not interested in opening stores.
The latest market changes, May says, are the growing importance of Internet book sales and the entry of discounters like Wal-Mart and Costco into the book business.
All of these changes, May says, have opened up the bargain book market. Because of the competition that makes fast turnover of inventory necessary, a large percentage of new books manufactured and shipped to bookstores are being returned to publishers after a few weeks on bookstore shelves. Anything that doesn’t sell quickly is returned to the publishers and enters the “off price” market.
As for those deeply discounted books you see when you first walk into many bookstores, says May, most are remainders or returns bought by the bookstore to be sold at 20 percent or so of the suggested retail price. Some are also likely to be what the trade calls “promotional” books. These are usually lavishly illustrated “coffee table” books that carry a high suggested retail price, but were intended from the start to be sold for much less. A promotional book with a $39.95 suggested retail price might be sold by a bookstore for $19.95, giving the appearance of a great buy, when in fact the book was intended to be sold at $19.95 from the start.
What’s the difference between a remainder and a return? Take the case of a best-seller by an author like John Grisham, where perhaps 1.5 million copies of a new title are manufactured. One million are sold. Another 250,000 copies might be stored in a warehouse, still shrink-wrapped on skids, in pristine condition. These are the remainders. Another 250,000 copies might get returned to the publisher or distributor’s warehouse by bookstores unable to sell them – these are the returns, many of which may be lightly shopworn. It’s these remainders and returns that end up being sold at places like Atlanta’s Spring Book Show.
One of the larger deals May has seen completed at a recent show was for $350,000, involving around 500,000 books. Another deal that just came across his desk is for 350,000 audio tapes that the vendor would like to sell to one buyer. DVDs and computer software are among other items popular at the Spring Book Show.
How are the books sold? Large lots at the Spring Book Show – lots that may range up to 300,000 and even 500,000 copies - are often put out for bids. Smaller lots – four to 10 copies, 100 copies, or perhaps 1,000 copies – may be sold directly by vendors taking orders from librarians, school media specialists, small neighborhood bookstores and the like. All sorts of deals are made at the show, from micro-deals to the truly titanic. One rule of thumb is that smaller orders cost more, bigger orders cost less. For a book that was designed to retail for $24.95, a librarian ordering 10 copies might pay $3 a copy, a large neighborhood bookstore might buy 100 copies for $2 each, a buyer for one of the chains might pay $1.50 per copy for 1,000 and a bulk distributor might buy 100,000 copies for 60 cents each. A wide range of negotiation goes on at bargain book shows like Atlanta’s Spring Book Show between sellers and buyers.
Just as there are large publishers and large bookstore chains and discounters, there are large bargain book companies, May notes. “One of the largest is American Book Co. of Knoxville, Tenn., where I’m located,” he said, "and Discount Christian Bookstores of Knoxville, Tenn., is the largest Christian bargain book distributor in the nation. Another major player, headquartered in Cartersville, Ga., is Kudzu Book Traders, a sister company of Academic Books.”
May recounted one deal that took place several years ago in which Harper Collins published a biography of Dolly Parton. The publisher was ready to issue the paperback version of the book, which would kill further sales of the $24.95 hardbound copies. Harper had printed 800,000 hardback copies. Of that number, 600,000 copies had been sold, leaving 200,000 remainders. Harper Collins feared that flooding the remainder market with 200,000 books would invite wholesale returns of the hardback while diminishing sales of the mass market paperback. The publisher opted to remainder 100,000 copies at $1 to $1.25, to be sold by retailers at around $6, and destroyed the remaining 100,000 copies.
“Another example,” said May, “involved the inspirational best-seller The Prayer of Jabez by Dr. Bruce Wilkinson. Multnomah printed more than a million copies and was successfully mass-marketing them not only through traditional Christian bookstores but to discounters like Wal-Mart. While the book sold extremely well at retail, it was also generating astronomical returns. The owner of Discount Christian Books, Steve Slack, agreed to become Multnomah’s return center. But even he hit a point of saturation when the Jabez returns started numbering in the hundreds of thousands.”
May was introduced to the bargain book business through a next-door neighbor who asked that he help with a new concept of selling books. Soon his wife, Valerie, became involved in the new venture, and together in the late 1980s they, along with their neighbor, Paul Cowell, created a business called National Book Warehouse.
“We put discounted books into outlet centers throughout the United States,” he said. “We built the business to 60-some outlet stores, and were also doing temporary events around the country. We would take a short-term lease on a vacant space, usually in a distressed strip center, filling the stores with four or five truckloads of books discounted at 80 percent off of the publishers suggested retail price, staying for a few months before moving to a new low-rent location. In those days, one of our slogans was, ‘no book over $5.’ As the temporary lease neared its end, the books would be discounted to 90 percent of retail. Anything left was loaded on a truck and moved to the next location. Our peak year was in 1990 when we conducted 158 temporary stores across the nation. We generated revenue of over $13 million that year. That was a lot of $1 and $2 books!
“The outlet business was really strong back then,” May added. “In Georgia, I opened a store in Lake Park, near Valdosta, in an outlet center. It was hard to keep the store full of books. People traveling from the north to Florida would see the outlet center sign off the Interstate. The perceived value of outlet malls was very strong at the beginning. Now, people don’t see the outlet centers as presenting such great values, and the outlet centers are struggling.”
May said just about every genre of books sells well as remainders. “There’s one company that specializes in children’s books and has notable Caldecott and Newbery award-winners and sells them at 80 percent off of publishers retail. They do a huge business.”
May started the annual Spring Book Show in Atlanta eight years ago, in 1999. Before creating the national show in Atlanta, he organized smaller regional shows as part of a cooperative of which he was the director.
At the first show in Atlanta, only about 80 buyers participated, with books displayed on 100 floor units. The show has grown by leaps and bounds since then, May said. At Spring Book Show 2006, he expects more than 700 buyers from around the world to be buying remainders from vendors representing nearly 200 dealers displaying their product on 500 tables in 60,000 square feet of space!”
Who are the biggest buyers of bargain books? “The big box stores – Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, Half Price Books, Hastings, Tuesday Morning, Ross Stores – are among the biggest buyers,” May said. “Add to that Amazon.com, B&N.com and some others plus all the foreign companies who will be at the Spring Book Show.”
Asked if members of the general public could go to the Spring Book Show to buy books at bargain prices, May explained that the show is not open to the public. “However,” he said, “one of the things we’ve done this year is to open the show to educators, librarians and school media specialists, who may attend free of charge to stretch their book-buying dollars. They’ll be able to buy books for a fraction of the retail prices they normally pay. I majored in education at Ohio State, and although I never taught, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for educators. The educators and librarians should be able to attend the show and quadruple the number of books they can buy with the same dollars on the retail market.”
###
Contact
Anvil Publishers, Inc.
Noel Griese
770-938-0289
www.anvilpub.com
Noel Griese
770-938-0289
www.anvilpub.com
Contact
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