Waterstones not stocking the old Gemmel books

[mixa]

Been browsing Waterstones and noticed a real lack of stock for Gemmel's best works, instead they just had two of his last books, the Greek series.

Can't believe it! No Waylander; No Legend; No Shannow books! How can they not stock Wolf in Shadow!!! Disgraceful!!!

I own all those books, but noticed a lot of younger people then I browsing the shelves, and they would never have the chance to read them!!!

 

[biodroid]

Maybe the books aren't selling anymore after his death? It happens I guess.

 

[iansales]

Are the books still in print? If they're out of print, it's unlikely they'll be in stock.

 

[Rane Longfox]

The store I work at has about 20 different ones in stock... which store are you looking in? In general stores will only stock one copy of most books, so if someone has bought a load of them, they won't be replaced for a week or so usually.

Mind you, we haven't sold any for a couple of months to my knowledge, so if other stores are in a similar position, can you blame them for having less stock?

 

[Werthead]

Gemmell was a solid seller, but never a mega-unit-shifter. I remember him saying that he had to write a book a year to keep his head above water, even after he became well-known. On that basis, with no new novel coming out annually to help keep his backlist afloat, it's possible that his sales are starting to drop, which would be a shame.

It's also possible that the bookshop simply doesn't have enough space to keep many of his books on the shelf. My biggest local bookshop has 5-10 Gemmell books at any one time, but the smaller ones might only have 1-2.

 

[chopper]

in common with rane, i know a little about store ranges. which store are you looking in? if for example, it's chesterfield, or another smaller town (or a smaller branch, with less footage), then the store will be graded to stock a certain selection of books, fiction and non-fiction alike. larger stores will have more generous grades. grades are also tweaked according to local markets - and the presence or absence of a knowledgable buyer or manager can also affect the mix. (my store manager can't stand world cinema and anime and traditionally tries to force them off the shopfloor at christmas. "We need the space! It doesn't sell!" he cries. no, it doesn't, not when it's sitting in crates in the staffroom....)

 

[sloweye]

Canterbury waterstones stocks next to nothing. unless you want a biography, a history book or student text books your better off hunting round the charity shops. If you have one with any Gemmel books your lucky

 

[woodsman]

I'm trying to picture Waterstones in Canterbury, where is it?

There's lots of Gemmell - old and new - about in the stores around here although Trudi Canavan's Black Magician series appears to have vanished totally.

 

[sloweye]

I'm trying to picture Waterstones in Canterbury, where is it?

Pretty much opposite the Canterbury Tales, nextdoor but one to HMV.
They have 1 set of shelves of fantacy, about 2 sets of Sci-fi. the historical fiction is just mixed in with the general fiction... its aweful.

 

[goldenapples]

I once went into a book shop and asked where Canterbury Tales might be and the assistant said, "Try Travel". (Sorry about that, couldn't resist it, I'll lie down for a bit with the curtains closed).

 

[woodsman]

Pretty much opposite the Canterbury Tales, nextdoor but one to HMV.
They have 1 set of shelves of fantacy, about 2 sets of Sci-fi. the historical fiction is just mixed in with the general fiction... its aweful.

Gotcha, shame. I bought most of my books in the oxfam and various other charity shops in Canters.

I once went into a book shop and asked where Canterbury Tales might be and the assistant said, "Try Travel". (Sorry about that, couldn't resist it, I'll lie down for a bit with the curtains closed).

 

[goldenapples]

Gotcha, shame. I bought most of my books in the oxfam and various other charity shops in Canters.

After being frisked a tenner to use the cathedral loo there was nothing left for books. I bought a Nielssen CD for £1-99 in Oxfam music.

 

[biodroid]

Sounds to me as though management from each store order differently

 

[woodsman]

After being frisked a tenner to use the cathedral loo there was nothing left for books. I bought a Nielssen CD for £1-99 in Oxfam music.

First time visitor? Looking at the cathedral even (£3.25 charge) is considered a rookie mistake.

 

[goldenapples]

First time visitor? Looking at the cathedral even (£3.25 charge) is considered a rookie mistake.

And they asked me to remove my baseball cap

 

[mixa]

The store I work at has about 20 different ones in stock... which store are you looking in? In general stores will only stock one copy of most books, so if someone has bought a load of them, they won't be replaced for a week or so usually.

Mind you, we haven't sold any for a couple of months to my knowledge, so if other stores are in a similar position, can you blame them for having less stock?

Big store in Nottingham...!

 

[mixa]

I'm trying to picture Waterstones in Canterbury, where is it?

There's lots of Gemmell - old and new - about in the stores around here although Trudi Canavan's Black Magician series appears to have vanished totally.

Nottingham, they're still stocking Trudi's books though, nice book covers...

 

[mixa]

Gemmell was a solid seller, but never a mega-unit-shifter. I remember him saying that he had to write a book a year to keep his head above water, even after he became well-known. On that basis, with no new novel coming out annually to help keep his backlist afloat, it's possible that his sales are starting to drop, which would be a shame.

It's also possible that the bookshop simply doesn't have enough space to keep many of his books on the shelf. My biggest local bookshop has 5-10 Gemmell books at any one time, but the smaller ones might only have 1-2.

Man, I can't believe that! I thought he would be a millionaire with the number of books he wrote! Better stick with the day job...

 

[Rane Longfox]

Big store in Nottingham...!

Having looked on the system, Nottingham Bridlesmith have both Waylander and Wolf in Shadow in stock, but they only came in yesterday. Legend is not in stock, but it is on order.
So, they were sold, and then re-ordered as I suspected. Books can take a few days sometimes to make it from the totes they arrive in onto the shelves - what we always encourage people to do is simply ask a member of staff if there's a specific book they're looking for, because we can look up which tote it arrived in and, if it's not yet shelved, go and get the book from the back of store


The main problem for this is that model stock of authors like Gemmell is only one copy, due to the pathetic market share sci-fi and fantasy holds. Something like 5-6%, and in actual stores that figure is closer to 3%, since a lot of SFF is bought from online retailers, more so than other genres.
Where a genre like crime can afford to order vast numbers of fairly obscure books, due to their market share being closer to 15% (We had 80 copies of the new paperback of Three Seconds arrive last week, after having sold 3 copies of the hardback in 6 months). This book has been ordered for us by head office due to being on a special offer, so even if we don't want the books, they still send them to us.

The main problem Waterstone's faces with stock levels is that model stock - books that are always stocked is dictated from head office, not by each individual store. For example, David Eddings is no longer listed as model stock, despite still being quite a good seller. This is a decision handed down from on high, with stores having no input, so I have to now manually order a copy of each of his books when we sell one.

This comes back to the model stock problem - since in SFF I've never seen a book with a model stock level higher than 1 copy (this may be different in bigger stores, but only in exceptional cases), any orders for extras copies are only made by a store if the book is constantly selling well. And for Gemmell this simply doesn't happen - as I said in my earlier post, we haven't sold any for months, and in fact are looking at taking some off the shelves because we need more room in that particular bay for authors like Feist, Gaiman and Peter Hamilton, who are all bigger sellers.

 

[Rane Longfox]

the historical fiction is just mixed in with the general fiction... its aweful.

This is a bugbear of many booksellers, and is yet again due to people in head office merchandising sections without having been booksellers themselves.
Basically, at some point it was decided that historical fiction was not its own genre.
It does seem odd though, since if you took authors like Ken Follett, Bernard Cornwall, Hilary Mantell and CJ Sansom, in some stores they probably have a bigger market share on their own than the whole of SFF.