Spotlight on Bookstores: Vroman’s Books in Pasadena, California

I am so pleased to welcome Christopher Meeks back to She is Too Fond of Books.  Last year, Chris wrote a guest post responding to my concern about the perceived difficulty discussing short stories in a book group setting.  Check out his post for insight from an author of two published collections of short stories (The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea and Months and Seasons), a play (Who Lives) currently in production at the Pico Playhouse, and a just-released novel, The Brightest Moon of the Century.  Here he shares about Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, which bills itself as “Southern California’s oldest and largest independent bookstore.”  He also has some very interesting thoughts about the future of publishing and changes in the way books are distributed.  (photo credit of the author: Daniel Will-Harris)

At 32,000 square feet on two floors of sales space, the independent bookstore Vroman’s in Pasadena is not a mere book nook. Of course, it’s had time to grow. Adam Clark Vroman opened it on November 14, 1894, five blocks from its current location on Colorado Boulevard. The new store has three entrances, a great coffee bar, and a huge area for readings where at least a hundred people can meet.

My ten-year-old daughter loves going there because they sell Webkinz, which are stuffed animals with a web address and codes that let her play games on the Internet. She also loves the huge children’s book section, which seems to have plenty of books about dogs. She’s presently reading Goosed by Bill Wallace (about a dog harassed by a goose), and next up is Promise of the Wolves, part of The Wolf Chronicles by Dorothy Hearst.

I love the place because it was the first bookstore to carry my books, and it will be hosting a reading and publication party of my new novel, The Brightest Moon of the Century, on March 7^th at 5 p.m.

I also like its “Our Staff Recommends” section, with its friendly and passionate  notes on the choices, and the “Autographed by the Author” section, which reflects the eclectic array of speakers in its reading series. There’s usually a reading every night of the week.  The place radiates energy. Publishers Weekly last year selected Vroman’s as the Bookseller of the Year.

“A small business can respond better than large chains,” said former Vroman’s Bookstore president Joel Sheldon.   “Chains have economic advantages, cheap capital. They have economies of scale. We have the ability to react quickly,”

When my first short story collection, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea, came out in 2006 and was reviewed favorably in the Los Angeles Times, I wrote Mr. Sheldon to ask him if he might stock that book as well as my play, Who Lives?, even though those books were unreturnable. Mr. Sheldon reacted quickly. He ordered fifteen copies of each book. I was forever endeared to his store.

The books were unreturnable, by the way, because they were published through Lulu Press, which had and has a new model for publishing and distribution.  The old model is that a publisher guesses how many books will be sold, and then prints a hair more than that. The books are warehoused as the publisher entices bookstores across the country to carry its books. If a bookstore orders a new title and it doesn’t sell, the store can return the unsold books to the distributor or publisher and get money back. Thus, for the last century, publishers print more books than are expected to be sold in order to get shelf space.

I recently searched for statistics on the percentage of books returned and found that on the average 17% of books do not sell, so they are returned to be pulped or remaindered. Lots of books are shipped back and forth.

This was inefficient and not “green,” thought Lulu and many small publishers.  Thanks to digital printing, books now can be printed only when ordered. Thus, if a bookstore in Buffalo wants copies, the book can be  printed within hours and shipped—from one copy to hundreds. There’s no warehousing, which saves on space, labor, and inventory taxes. 

Lulu and others of this new model don’t allow books to be returned. The idea is to save materials and energy.  Books are only shipped one way. The thinking is if you don’t want a title, don’t order it.  After all, if a grocery store can’t sell a dozen steaks, can they return them to the butcher? If CVS doesn’t sell all its Crest toothpaste, does CVS get to ship the toothpaste back?

In practical terms, what I found with my first book is that bookstores are incredibly careful about ordering books that cannot be returned.  Because they could not return my title if it didn’t sell, they did not order. They stayed away in droves.

With bookstores having a razor-thin profit margin anyway, there’s no room for a new model, best I can tell. With the economic slowdown, some stores are simply not making money. There’s talk that Borders might go away like Circuit City. I’d hate to see that.

Thus, my books’ imprint, White Whisker Books, has moved to a different printer and distributor, which allows books to be returned. Bookstores can order Months and Seasons, The Middle-Aged Man and the Sea and The Brightest Moon of the Century with a full retail discount and returnability. My guess is that the books will be ordered in small batches anyway, so the returns will be minimal.

My guess, too, is that not far in the future, when digital printing machines can be made smaller, Vroman’s and other large bookstores will be able to house such a machine, and if a book isn’t in stock, you order it at the printing desk, and you’ll have it within an hour.

“I’ve seen a lot of changes since I started working in the store as a child,” Joel Sheldon has said. “There have been three cycles of how people shop—including mail order and the Internet—and three different cycles of media—from newspapers to television to the Internet. I tell people you have to embrace change, or else it will run you over.”

I expect Vroman’s to weather the economic crisis and coming changes, and I’m rooting, too, for two other independent stores in Los Angeles that carry my books: Skylight Books and Book Soup. Some Borders and Barnes and Nobles have carried my title, and I love them too. Last year, I stopped by the Barnes and Noble in Union Square in New York City, near my agent’s office, and I saw one of my books on its shelf. That made me inordinately happy. We writers are an odd bunch.

I adore all bookstores who are willing to take a chance on me. In fact, I’m flying to Minnesota next month to sign at the small, independent store, The Bookcase of Wayzata. The event is on March 21^st, 7:30 p.m. I’m originally from Wayzata, so this signing lets me see my family there.

Vroman’s was the first store for me, though. Thank you, Vroman’s!