For starters I tackled W. H. Smith in Pontypridd for the third time - the previous times they had no westerns on their shelves but at least today they had several Louis L'Amour and some Cormac Macarthy. I handed them a flier for the Black Horse Range and told them they had lost their way as the people's bookseller. Next up was Borders in Talbot Green - several Louis L'Amour titles and a few William Johnstone. Again I complained about the lack of variety but then this particular store has been going downhill for some time - what is it with all those empty shelves? I know there's a credit crunch but this store is badly managed - Last year I visited every day looking for a copy of the Steve Holland edited High Noon and they didn't have it on display. After maybe a week I ordered it off Amazon and that very same day I visited Borders and I noticed they had maybe twenty copies of High Noon stacked behind the counter, not on display at all. I visit Borders at least three times a week and as far as I can tell they have never put the book on display. Did some arse decide it wouldn't sell and returned them to the publishers? What was the reasoning behind this? I do hope they get their act together ... I'd miss Borders if it went.
I visited three libraries today - Pontypridd, Tonyrefail and Tonypandy and they all have great western displays. I requested each of them order Tarnished Star which they said they would. I also promised to give a talk to the local writing group. And I walked away a happy chappy.
So what about you folks - what did you do for this Wild West Monday?
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6 comments:
I'm off to Borders this evening.
I went to my library and checked out a library market book from Avalon Books—Shannon's Express: A Sheriff Shannon Mystery by Charles E. Friend.
My local library does a pretty good job with these library market books. No Black Horses yet, thought I've requested The Tarnished Star!
I just got back from two stores and one library where all three managers/librarian kindly listened and in one case pulled a notebook and asked which authors I would recommend. I feel they were very open and appreciated the input.
Your Borders experience sounds typical, Gary. A few years back this company expanded into the New Zealand marketplace with the biggest bookstore in the country in downtown Auckland. I believe it has now been sold off to the biggest local book-retailing chain, Whitcoulls -- a kind of W. H. Smith monster, as much (or more) interested in selling stationery and DVDs. Anyway, Borders lost interest. Borders Australia, Borders New Zealand and Borders Singapore are reported as discontinued operations. Wales next?
Well, in my neck of the woods (SW Oregon), the booksellers are not the problem.
Our local Walmart recently had a makeover and moved a bunch of stuff around. While they did knock out a bunch of bookshelves and eliminate some genre sections, Westerns still have a well stocked section. (I really thought they were going to be gone). There are mostly well known names on that shelf; L'Amour, Gray, Cotton, Kelton and the stuff brought in from the major publishers, but you'll also see a lot of Leisure Westerns in there. Our other "new book" store is Oregon Books, a really great locally owned book shop. In addition to specializing in local and regional non-fiction, not only are the shelves well stocked with Westerns, but they are well stocked with books on the Old West too.
Our library is on its last legs (we have the only public library system in the U.S. that doesn't receive federal funding) and though the shelves are heavy with books, operating funds are the problem.
Beyond that, our used book sellers still carry A LOT of Westerns. Our best used bookstore actually belongs to one of my mother's friends and she has told me several times that Westerns outsell everything else.
I also know that a lot of everyday people are still interested in reading new westerns. My own site, www.western-stories.com has some pretty high search engine rankings and though I don't get as many hits on a daily basis as I'd like to see, I do get a lot of e-mail from people who read my work and I get new subscribers for my opt-in newsletter on almost a daily basis (sometimes more than one a day). That's despite not making a great big effort to attract potential readers - yet. So there is still interest out there for Westerns.
From a personal standpoint, I believe that the real issue is that editors/publishers have this weird idea that the Western is dead. With the exception of Leisure, who still devote a large portion of their Western line to reprinting work by folks long gone, mass market publishers just don't seem to be interested. Agents are not interested.
To make matters worse, there is no Western small press movement to speak of. If you're a writer and you look at fiction markets like Ralan.com and others pretty regularly, you know what I mean. The markets to sell (hell, even give away!) your Western work are barely existing. By contrast, when I wrote horror under a pen name, when I made a moderate effort, I could get work into over 100 markets in a year.
Those of you in the UK are lucky in having Hale around, but here in the U.S., we have no equiviliant to Hale's Black Horse imprint. But even then, Hale's reach is still limited and doesn't really extend outside the UK.
We've got to come up with something all of this.
So what did I do for Wild West Monday?
Well, it's still Monday here in the Far West. The day isn't over yet and so there is still time for me to do something.
That "something" is an idea that I have been hashing over for awhile. For a long time I have beeen saying that what the Western really needs is a small press movement. Some of you writers who frequent here know that I have a little bit of background in the publishing world.
With that in mind, I think it's time to launch a Western small press specializing in traditional length Western novels (100 to 140 pages), as well as anthologies of Western short stories and getting new books out to readers. And why not non-fiction about the Old West too?
Those of you who are interested, please drop me a note:
kerby@western-stories.com
I'll be interested in hearing not only from writers looking to get their work out there, but also from readers who just want to read more Westerns. For the writers, to start out, we'll be looking at copy + royalty share for anthologies and a small advance + copies + royalties for full length works.
If you own a blog or website, please cross-post this or slap together a little news brief.
Kerby - the Archive is behind you 100% on this.
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