A&R

[peteryoung]

A story I've been keeping my eye on the last couple of days is the one generated by Angus & Robertson, the large chain of Australian bookstores, in their attempt at extortion from Australia's small publishers by 'charging' them between A$2,500 to A$45,000 for the privilege of having their books stocked. This money is, according to A&R, "requested" to make up for the shortfall of profits they hoped to have made by having stocked those small publishers who, the shame of it, are consistently failing to produce bestsellers that will make A&R a stack of money. Failure to cough up the cash will result in a termination of contract.

It's the sheer undisguised arrogance shown by A&R's Charlie Rimmer in his letter to Tower Books's Michael Rakusin that particularly galls, and Rakusin did the right thing by making the letter public to the Sydney Morning Herald. While it's no secret that, say, supermarkets receive kickbacks for strategically placing a supplier's goods on their shelves at eye level, this is not an unrelated scenario except that small publishers would get nothing out of the deal A&R are enforcing, other than the supposed privilege of being stocked by A&R who by tacit admission have declared themselves crap at selling their books anyway.

The SMH has run the story online with a facsimile of Rimmer's letter and a transcript of Michael Rakusin's brilliant reply in full, supplemented by over 200 comments variously condemning A&R and praising Mr Rakusin. Also certainly worth picking over is tnh's elegant point-by-point deconstruction of Rimmer's letter. drjon has also been tracking this story.

The Australian Society of Authors has now called for a boycott of all A&R stores (though not their franchisees), pointing out how much A&R's action will hurt Australian authors.

So, armchair activist that I am, I fired off a three-paragraph 'Angry of Tunbridge Wells' e-mail to customersupport@angusrobertson.com.au, and it has (surprise) bounced, which might suggest A&R don't wish to be reminded any more of how royally they have screwed up here. Instead, I've discovered you can do it via their website's contact page (and ticked the box marked 'I require a reply').

This has created a phenomenal amount of ill-will towards A&R, who really ought to make a full retraction, then as a penance go twice as far in the other direction by actively promoting these small publishers and their authors instead of punishing them. But what's the chance of that? Fat, I'd say.

Comments

[drpete.livejournal.com]

According to Private Eye, Waterstones have ben adopting a very similar tactic in the UK, and one that is likely to see Waterstones stocking very few of the big bestsellers in the run up to Christmas...

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

How so?

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

I read about this, too, but I don't recall when or where... Waterstones had a set list of prices for exposure at Xmas: so much for a table top, so much for an endcap (sort of thing, anyway), and the most for space in the window. Fees were in thousands of pounds.

(Google "Waterstones Christmas fee" for stories about the display pricing.)

[dyfferent.livejournal.com]

The Times do an article about this once a year.

Basically, if there's a preprinted card/poster for it that says Waterstones anywhere on it, it's not a valid recommendation, even if they have inserted the name of a staff member on the card as alleged author. Staff do not write these recommendations; they were done by a PR firm (although the newer ones are probably written by head office staff). They initially asked for permission, but now even staff who didn't give permission (ahem) have found their names used on reviews that are far inferior to the reviews they actually write, and on books they may not have read. This includes reviews in the Christmas catalogue and/or quarterly magazine.

If it looks homemade (either printed off in Word or handwritten) then it's a labour of love by a local bookseller. If it's a book which was imported from another country, it's also a genuine recommend, as the kickbacks thing has, so far, been restricted to UK publishers only.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

Oh, and a mere £500 for inclusion in their holiday catalog.

[miramon.livejournal.com]

Of course, WH Smith have been doing exactly this in the UK for years.

[stevegreen.livejournal.com]

In the late 1980s, local WHS managers were allowed some discretion over "local publications", meaning they could stock regional histories or books by authors with a very parochial following. Somehow, Martin persuaded the Birmingham manager to stock Critical Wave, which was quite pleasing.

Didn't take too long for the beancounters to shut the idea down, of course.

[peteyoung.livejournal.com]

Kickbacks yes, but do WHS issue demands to publishers for a shortfall in the money they had hoped to make from the public?