Holiday Season Sales Report: Did Indies Shine?

The 2006 holiday season shone brightly for many booksellers. Among those contacted recently by Bookselling This Week, most reported that they saw sales increases for the holiday season over last year, or had matched 2005 results. While many pointed to a range of strong fall titles and the popularity of gift cards as strong contributing factors, there were still a number of unanswered questions about consumer behavior.

Even booksellers with decades of experience shrugged their shoulders along with the newbies in deciphering the annual mysteries: Does snow, or the lack thereof, help or hinder Christmas sales? Does a Christmas Eve on a Saturday night give customers extra time to spend in stores, or, by cutting into the fourth weekend of Advent, are many heading to church and not the malls? And, then, there is the recurring Hanukkah dilemma -- first, how to spell it, and second, how does its variable occurrence impact holiday sales?

Despite the snowstorm that hit Western states one week before Christmas, the 26-year-old Moby Dickens Bookshop in Taos, New Mexico, enjoyed about a 10 percent jump over last year, reported co-owner Susan Bachrach. "People were happy and satisfied with our selection. You can never have everything people want, but they were willing to go through our selection and find something just right."

Sales were higher this year, said Bachrach, because the store was better stocked. "We made some good buying decisions," she noted, adding, "after 20 years we ought to be able to do that." Inventory was so full in the 2,000-square-foot store that Bachrach was a little nervous. "It looked like our shelves were completely full. Then the FedEx guy came in with another 15 boxes. But it all worked out beautifully."

She also credited the bookstore's staff for keeping Moby Dickens in the black. "We have the most cohesive and best staff we've ever had," she said. "They're so knowledgeable, and each is a buyer for one or two sections. This way, we can do a really in-depth job of buying from each publisher."

Monkey Portraits (Jill Greenberg, Bulfinch) was the "surprise hit of the season," she said. "We probably sold 25 of them. We couldn't get anymore. We called the publisher, who told us that unfortunately it won't ship until February." Another big hit was Mommy? (Maurice Sendak, Arthur Yorinks, and Matthew Reinhart; Michael di Capua Books/Scholastic). "It's full of all monsters. It's just darling," said Bachrach.

For Eagle Harbor Book Company on Bainbridge Island, Washington, some forethought helped garner a two percent gain over last year. After the mid-December storm that hit the Pacific Northwest, the bookstore's generator enabled them to stay open for five or six days while the island was without power. "Without the generator we would have just broken even this year," said manger Paul Hanson. "People came down the street and saw all the dark storefronts except for us. We served free coffee. There was a lot of gratitude." Hanson also credited the excellent selections in the PNBA Holiday Catalog for improving sales.

Eagle Harbor bestsellers included No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks (Ed Viesturs and David Roberts, Broadway), along with The Audacity of Hope (Barack Obama, Crown) and Mountains Beyond Mountains (Tracy Kidder, Random House Trade Paperbacks).

Hanson noted that Book Sense gift cards also "did extremely well." The BookSense.com site was not a "cornerstone" for store sales, but he said it "was a good way to keep in touch with customers." Eagle Harbor's Constant Contact newsletter also kept customers informed of events and other store news.

Not only was San Francisco's City Lights Books up 10 percent for the holidays, but it had a great year overall, reported long-time buyer Paul Yamazaki. "We had a record-setting year," he told BTW. "We were about seven percent over last year and about five percent over our last best selling year."

Yamazaki speculated that the healthy numbers stemmed from "having the great good fortune of name recognition" as well as a smaller store. "People really look to us in a curatorial sense. They walk in and see things face out that will be slightly different than in other stores."

Some of City Lights' more popular titles included Allen Ginsberg's Collected Poems 1947 - 1997 (HarperCollins) and I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg (Bill Morgan, Viking), as well as The Road (Cormac McCarthy, Knopf) and, in paperback, 1491 (Charles C. Mann, Vintage).

Sarasota News & Books in Sarasota, Florida, also enjoyed significant gains. New owner Andrew Foley reported a 23 percent leap in sales, which he attributed, in part, to an end-of-the-year author event with Paula Deen (Paula Deen Celebrates!: Best Dishes and Best Wishes for the Best Times of Your Life, written with Martha Nesbit, Simon & Schuster), which sold 800 books. "It was our biggest event of the year," said Foley.

Sarasota's downtown revitalization project, which Foley was very involved with, also helped the 2006 numbers, as did the near completion of an 18-story condominium building. Construction had hampered foot traffic. But now that the building is almost finished, foot traffic is back up, and Foley was looking forward to reaping the benefits of having 130 apartments across the street. "I'm optimistic about the future," he said.

He also pointed out that the bookstore's growing gifts section (with sales up 175 percent) helped offset the "constant slip of books." Top-selling items came from the Unemployed Philosopher's Guild.

Along with the 800 copies of Paula Deen Celebrates!, Foley said The Audacity of Hope; The Iraq Study Group Report: The Way Forward -- A New Approach (The Iraq Study Group, James A. Baker III, and Lee H. Hamilton, co-chairs, Vintage); and Sarasota Modern (Andrew Weaving, Ken Hayden, principal photographer, Rizzoli) sold well.

Mild weather in Montpelier, Vermont, may have contributed to the very good holiday sales at Bear Pond Books, according to store co-owner Claire Benedict, "The rush started earlier than it usually does; in the past the last 10 to 14 days are the busiest." She said, "This year [the rush] started right after Thanksgiving.

"Sales were good, and we were up a little over last year. We sold tons of political books, and holiday standards -- art books, cookbooks, and some fiction." Among the political books, Obama's The Audacity of Hope stood out. But local politics trumped national issues with Dateline Vermont (Thistle Hill), by Chris Grass, former AP reporter for Vermont. "It was our top-selling book for the season," Benedict noted.

Many gift buyers opted to purchase George Bush Presidential Countdown Clocks, along with political items from the Unemployed Philosopher's Guild, such as "Impeachmints," and "National Embarrassmints." The politically neutral Republic of Tea products "sold like crazy," Benedict said. "The store began carrying [the product line] earlier in the year, and we could barely keep in on the shelves."

At Rivendell Books across the street, co-owned and run by Robert Kasow, Benedict's spouse, business in both used and new books was brisk. "We sell more new books at Christmas," Benedict said, "But we do sell a ton of used books. People aren't shy about giving them as gifts. And why should they be?"

The population of Montpelier, Vermont's capital, is socially conscious with an awareness about supporting local businesses, Benedict believes. "Maybe people came to us after reading stories in newspapers about ... the day after Thanksgiving at Wal-Mart. Customers might appreciate a place where the staff knows them by name."

Book Ends, in Winchester, Massachusetts, had "a fabulous December," marketing manager Alice Lee told BTW. Business at the store picked up the week after Thanksgiving and remained constant and steady through Christmas. Lee described the annual downtown shopping night, held this year on December 4, with special sales and events until midnight.

"There was no huge blockbuster," Lee said, "But people were excited about Barack Obama's [The Audacity of Hope], The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker (edited by Matthew Diffee, Simon Spotlight), and Nora Ephron's, I Feel Bad About My Neck (Knopf)."

At Oblong Books and Music in both Millerton and Rhinebeck, New York, owner Dick Hermans said that after a very busy December sales were up at least five percent in Millerton and about 10 percent in Rhinebeck. "That helped because sales for the rest of the year were slack in Millerton, and, so, we came out about even." Business was slightly better in the five-year-old Rhinebeck store, which Hermans said was probably up about five percent overall.

Sales were helped along by an event with Annie Leibovitz at the Rhinebeck store in early December, Hermans said. Her new book, A Photographer's Life: 1990 - 2005 (Random House) sold well, as did two books of local interest, one on the birds of Dutchess County and The Rise and Fall of the Taconic Mountains by Donald W. Fisher, with Stephen L. Nightingale (Black Dome Press).

Hermans noted that CD sales were down at the Millerton store, "even though we moved the music downstairs," but that music sales at the Rhinebeck store were better. He said that he believes, "[they were] affected by the closing of Tower Records [in Manhattan], 95 miles away."

At Books on First in Dixon, Illinois, co-owner Larry Dunphy found holiday business a bit ahead of last year, but a little below for the whole year. "We had a good Christmas," he said, "The 22nd and 23rd were our biggest days. Throughout the season we had a lot of traffic. There were no really big books, but we sold a lot of [Illinois Senator] Barack Obama's book.

For children, Dugald A. Steer's Wizardology and Piratology (both from Candlewick) sold well, as did toys from the company Melissa and Doug. CD sales, however, were about half of last year's.

Book Sense gift cards were very popular, according to Dunphy, who estimated 2006 sales of 50 percent over last year's. The store ran out of its supply of gift cards by Christmas. "I'm a big believer in gift cards," Dunphy said, "We sold some for very large amounts -- $150 to $300."

Contributing to the less fortunate was also very popular, Dunphy said, "Through Lutheran Social Services, people purchased books for children in need and a percentage of the sales went to buy them hats and scarves. We were provided with names of children, with their ages and gender, and 10 days early, we ran out of names."

Holiday sales were not as good as Susan Danner, of Danner's Books, Gift, and Yarns, in Muncie, Indiana, had hoped. But she had anticipated a drop since a new Books-a-Million store opened on May 1 a few miles away, but by diversifying its merchandise, Danner's broke even overall.

"Book sales must have been down about 10 percent," Danner reported. "But sales were up on our other things -- we sell lots of jewelry by local artists and unique gifts, and all the yarns sold very well. We started selling yarn in March; we need to sell things with higher margins," she said, "but we'll always be a bookstore."

Nonfiction outsold fiction, Danner said. Top selling books included Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir (Broadway), Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (Simon & Schuster), John Grogan's Marley & Me (Morrow), and Erik Larson's Thunderstruck (Crown).

Michele Cromer-Poire, co-owner of The Red Balloon Children's Bookshop in St. Paul, Minnesota, shared her calculations with BTW as she computed them. "December almost came up to last year," she said, "We were down for the month by 2.8 percent, but up for the year by 3.07 percent -- a much more significant number.

"The store was full and business was steady," she continued. "Things often slow down immediately before Christmas because people shop for the kids first, but this year it was steadily, crazily, busy. But people were not spending quite as much.

"We sold our gift cards online from a laptop at the register and still sold more than last year. We're finally going to upgrade our computer system so we can sell the cards through the register."

Backlist books and classics sold well. Dragon Rider from Cornelia Funke (Scholastic) was also popular. Once again, Cromer-Poire noted, Who Is Coming to Our House by Joseph Slate, illustrated by Ashley Wolff, sold very well. She recalled the first year Putnam introduced the picture book in the mid-1980s, "We immediately loved it and wanted to stockpile a lot of them since our sales rep told us the print run was only 5,000. We ordered 100 -- a huge number for our store -- and based on our enthusiasm, the sales rep sold 1,000 more copies during his first 10 days out. That was one-fifth of the entire print run," she laughed. "He told Putnam that he sensed that this book was a winner and they should probably print more. It has stayed in print all these years, now it's a board book, and always a holiday favorite for our store." -- Karen Schechner and Nomi Schwartz