On Book Sales

This was the weekend of the semi-annual booksale held by the Friends of Jefferson Parish Library. After buying something like five boxes of books at the sale last fall, we told ourselves we were going to be good this year. Unfortunately, the sale is held in the Pontchartrain Center, which is just a few blocks from our house, so it’s so easy to go back, again, and again. Also unfortunately, they had a LOT of books this year—people cleaning out their houses to move or disposing of the libraries of deceased relatives, bookstores donating their remainders to the local libraries because of Katrina, etc. I actually think I was more restrained this time, but Steve more than made up for it.

Since we went the first day (Thursday), and each day thereafter, including today (when everything was half price) it was interesting to watch which books sold and which didn’t. There were two tables (with many more boxes underneath) of what they called “Choice Fiction,” which basically translated into hardcovers by mega-selling NYT authors such as Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel, Sandra Brown, Mary Higgins Clark, Dan Brown, etc. By today, those tables were almost bare and all the boxes underneath were gone. Hardcover fiction by other writers, even those who hit the Times but don’t stay there long, such as Stephanie Laurens or Alice Hofman, were relegated to another section. Their books were cheaper ($1-3 as opposed to $5 for the “Choice” fiction). Yet as of 3:00 this afternoon, there were still three tables full what I suppose we could call “non-choice” fiction, with dozens and dozens of full boxes underneath (yes, I did crawl under the tables and rummage through the boxes). Obviously, those authors who sell well in bookstores also sell well at the booksale. Not a big surprise, but still vaguely troubling, since with a few exceptions, you couldn’t GIVE me a book by most of the authors on the Choice Fiction tables (ahem, notice I didn't say which ones).

They also had several tables of Biographies, which were not the biographies of people such as Charles II (those were on the “History” table), but the likes of Vanna White, or Nancy Reagan, or George Burnes’s wife Gracie. Those tables, also originally with overflowing boxes underneath, were likewise almost clear by this afternoon. I bought the biography of Charles II from the history table, but why anyone would want to read a biography of Vanna White eludes me. I suppose whoever bought Vanna would be equally mystified that someone would want to read about a king who died over 300 years ago.

This year I went to the sale with a clearly defined strategy. I am looking to buy hardcover books to replace my paperbacks of authors I love, mainly Pat Conroy, James Lee Burke, and a few others. I was excited to find a hardcover of M. M. Kaye’s THE FAR PAVILLIONS, and a lovely embossed edition of Petronius’s SATYRICON. I also look for history books that catch my interest (deadly, since my interests range from ancient Greece to WWII). And I look for books I can use for research in my own writing. Thus, I found a great book on the history of sailing ships, complete with illustrations and diagrams, another on English vernacular architecture, another on India (I have this idea…)

Books I would or could walk into a bookstore and buy, I don’t buy at the booksale. You see, I found myself looking at those tables of remaindered hardcovers and thinking, How many people buying those nice, like-new hardcovers would otherwise go into a bookstore and buy that book in paperback? Writers like Nora Roberts will never notice the loss of the sale, but I’m sure that couldn’t be said for many of the authors with books on those tables.

And yes, I did see copies of my paperback romances for sale on the Romance table, but I didn’t see a copy of WHAT ANGELS FEAR. Is this good, or bad? It could be good, if it means everyone who bought it loved it too much to get rid of it when they were finished reading it. But it’s also bad because it means that, unlike the authors on the “Choice” tables, my sales aren’t in the stratosphere.

Yet.