Strong Fall List Has Booksellers Feeling Optimistic

The promise of a stellar list of new releases from bestselling authors has indie booksellers excited and upbeat about the upcoming holiday season. Booksellers who spoke to BTW are optimistic that fall sales would outpace last year's and then some.

The buzz really began in August, with bestselling releases from Pat Conroy (South of Broad, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday), Thomas Pynchon (Inherent Vice, Penguin), and Richard Russo (That Old Cape Magic, Knopf). And the industry will look to continue this momentum throughout the fall season with an impressive array of new releases from established authors.

In September alone, there have been, or will be, releases from Dan Brown (The Lost Symbol, Doubleday); Lorrie Moore (A Gate at the Stairs, Knopf); Sara Paretsky (Hardball, Putnam); Mitch Albom (Have a Little Faith, Hyperion); Diane Gabaldon (An Echo in the Bone, Delacorte); and Audrey Niffenegger (Her Fearful Symmetry, Scribner); as well as True Compass, the late Sen. Edward Kennedy's memoir (Twelve).

And October and November will see releases from John Grisham (Ford County, Doubleday); Stephen King (Under the Dome, Scribner); Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger (Highest Duty: My Search for What Really Matters, Morrow); Malcolm Gladwell (What the Dog Saw and Other Adventures, Little Brown); and Alice Munro (Too Much Happiness: Stories, Knopf).

At Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vermont, Stan Hynds said that he is optimistic about the fall season. "If we aren't up this fall, I'll be shocked. It really is the strongest list I've seen in while," he said.

On December 2, Northshire will be holding an event with Stephen King, who will appear at the store to promote Under the Dome. And the store will hold a drawing where one customer who pre-orders Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol will receive a signed copy. "As for other titles, we've got a lot of really strong bookseller reads," Hynds said. With the release of Lorrie Moore's A Gate at the Stairs, "there has been a lot of interest in her backlist, which has been hard to get. And there is interest in Alice Munro backlist" in anticipation of her new book Too Much Happiness: Stories, which will be published November 11.

And while new books by Brown, King, and E.L. Doctorow (Homer & Langley: A Novel, Random House) may be taking the spotlight, Hynds said he is looking forward to handselling the new Nick Hornby novel, Juliet, Naked (Riverhead), as well as The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda (St. Martin's Press) and The Order of Good Cheer by Bill Gaston (House of Anansi Press), a fictionalized portrait of Samuel de Champlain.

Rick Simonson of The Elliott Bay Book Company in Seattle noted that things started rolling with the new Thomas Pynchon and Pat Conroy novels, which were released in August. "It has already begun," he said, and noted that the store always does reasonably well in the summer. However, strong August releases "help build into what comes next."

Simonson observed that last year not as many people were buying and reading books due to the economy and the presidential election. But this year, he said, "it feels like more people are reading and paying attention to books. This wasn't the case a year ago."

Elliott Bay prides itself on being a strong handselling store, Simonson said, "so once a customer comes in the store, [the handselling] begins. We try to be strong on helping people with their book needs. People here are very well read, and we try to aid and abet that." One title with a regional bent that Simonson will be recommending is The Big Burn: Teddy Roosevelt and the Fire That Saved America by Timothy Egan (Houghton Mifflin).

For BookPeople in Austin, Texas, it's business as usual this fall, said Steve Bercu. "We're doing the same stuff. We have tons of author signings.... With the quality of the authors, we're expecting a pretty strong fall. August was pretty strong, too. We were up by eight percent in August, and we will be up in September. We're comping with 2007." Though currently down by one percent for the year, he expects the store to be up by the end of December.

Handselling plays a huge part at BookPeople, and staff will try to lead customers who come in for one particular author or title to similar authors and titles. And, Bercu added, the store will pump up the backlist of the authors releasing big titles this fall.

For Betsy Burton at The King's English in Salt Lake City, the fall list is a record breaker. "I've never seen a better fall list in my 31 years of bookselling. Every famous writer has a book out and they all seem to be good." And she believes the list will translate into sales. "Although the economy is bad, people are still buying books. Those who might have traveled are staying home and reading."

To offer another incentive that will bring customers into the store, Burton is contemplating launching a First Editions Club, starting with Richard Russo (That Old Cape Magic, Knopf) and Sherman Alexie (War Dances, Grove), since both will be visiting the store. Offering signed first editions brings in customers for events, she said, but stocking some on the shelves will keep them visiting throughout the holiday season for a "wonderful and meaningful gift."

Some of Burton's favorite titles this season include The Children's Book (A.S. Byatt, Knopf -- "big and fascinating and interesting"); Family Album (Penelope Lively, Viking -- "a brilliant writer"); The Year of the Flood (Margaret Atwood, Nan A. Talese/Doubleday -- "reads like a thriller"); and Generosity (Richard Powers, FSG -- "futuristic theme and fascinating book"). And, finally, though it's not from this season, Burton couldn't help tout one of last year's Indie Next List selections -- Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone (Knopf) -- "people come in and buy four or five at a time".

One of Burton's recommendations by a local writer is The Devil's Trill (Minotaur) -- a "well-written mystery with all kinds of musical analysis" -- by Gerald Elias, a violinist with the Utah Symphony.

To upsell along with the big titles this season, Burton is tinkering with building a reading list featuring various Salt Lake City public figures' choices for the book they've been most thankful for, aside from religious books. "We'll be asking a lot of people around Salt Lake City -- the mayor, the head of the symphony, all kinds of people from all walks of life," said Burton. "We're hoping to elicit some backlist that we can talk about and feature alongside the big fall titles."

Also happy with the new crop of titles is Gayle Shanks at Changing Hands Bookstore in Tempe, Arizona. "I'm optimistic about the fall and think that customers are going to be excited about the fall lists, both fiction and nonfiction," she said. "We have a full line-up of authors, and I'm grateful that they are on the road and backed by full publisher support." Big authors this fall at Changing Hands include Garrison Keillor (Liberty, Penguin); Jon Krakauer (Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman, Doubleday); Sarah Vowell (The Wordy Shipmates, Riverhead Trade); Sherman Alexie (War Dances, Grove); and Barbara Kingsolver (The Lacuna, Harper).

Shanks is especially excited about Jeannette Walls' Half Broke Horses (Scribner). "It is set in southern Arizona and features Jeannette's strong, resourceful, often funny grandmother," she said. "Walls' descriptions of life in the early 20th century are like reading a wonderful history book filled with amazing people."

Another pick is The Children's Book. "It is huge, almost 700 pages, and hard to put down, and I was sad to finish it. [A.S. Byatt] is an incredible storyteller -- uses myth, psychology, fairy tales -- and this novel has stories within stories. You learn about early pottery making, the beginnings of the Arts & Crafts movement, British aristocracy and their attempts to help the poor, and, most importantly, the strange and convoluted relationships that develop among family members and their immediate sets of friends. She's an amazing novelist."

To help market the list, Changing Hands will send out weekly e-mail blasts and create in-store displays. Part of Changing Hands' strategy is to ensure staff is well informed. "I've asked all my sales reps to come in early for their appointments with me, bring bagels, and talk about the fall releases to the staff," Shanks said. "We're hoping in this way to get the staff excited about the fall list, too, and have information about the books even if they haven't read all of them."

Arsen Kashkashian at Boulder Bookstore in Boulder, Colorado, is feeling less rosy about the upcoming season, although not because he doesn't love the list. "I'm guardedly optimistic at best," he said. "I think there are many great titles, and a lot will sell well individually. But I'm not very optimistic about that being enough to overcome the hurdles of the economy and the downturn in book sales in general."

Kashkashian looks forward to the new Dan Brown ("interesting"), but thinks it will be a fast moving storm. "Like with Harry Potter sales, I think it'll sell during the first few weeks, but by December 1, anyone who really wanted the book will have it." And he considers it unlikely that The Lost Symbol would help upsell other titles. "People will run in, buy it, and run out," Kashkashian said. "I'd be stunned if they bought another hardback fiction." However, he does think it might lead to some used book, remainders, and chocolate sales.

Pat Conroy and Richard Russo will have longer legs, he said, but the darlings of Boulder Bookstore are Barbara Kingsolver, who will "be very helpful," and Jon Krakauer, who will sell more than Dan Brown, and who is appearing at a Boulder Bookstore ticketed event two days after the release date.

Kashkashian said the store is seeing surprising sales from local, self-published writers, who are paying for shelf space and marketing (and are happy to do so, he said), as well as bringing in sizable crowds for events. --David Grogan and Karen Schechner