As I work in a bookstore, my first inclination for marketing
any book collection is to create eye-catching displays. Simply putting products into the sight
line of customers is often enough to get them to pick it up. Hiding books in the shelves is
efficient, but not a particularly great way to make the collection
appealing. Facing books out so
that their covers, rather than their spines, are most visible will catch
someone’s eye. The majority of the
displays should be comprised of books; other materials can be included as well,
but the focus should be on the fiction materials. It’s also important that those displays remain full, and
change frequently so that people don’t become accustomed to what they see and
begin to ignore it. With a little
bit of practice and preparation, displays are an easy way to market a
collection.
Another great way to market your collection is through
social media and other online avenues.
Writing up book reviews on a blog that is linked through the library
website can highlight some hidden gems, while featuring new arrivals on the
library’s Facebook site lets patrons know about new materials. Simply letting people know through a
wide variety of online avenues what is available in the collection will cause
an increase of interest.
Similarly, the online catalog should be easy to navigate, so that
patrons can easily find what they’re looking for.
Finally, keeping updated lists and resources is a great way
to market a fiction collection.
Bookmarks, flyers, and annotated booklists are all easy ways to
highlight some lesser known parts of the collection. Simply making a short list of books in a very specific genre
(like Amish fiction, zombie novels, fractured fairy tales, or reimagined
classics) can help users find something that they’re looking for. Creating a short, NoveList-inspired
flyer to popular titles can help direct patrons who have enjoyed one work to
something new. It is also
important to keep these lists updated and constantly changing so that there is
always something new to discover.
There are innumerable ways for librarians to market their
fiction collections, and no one way is going to work well for every
library. However, including
passive methods like the ones above alongside more proactive methods like
programming makes for a well-balanced combination that is likely to reach every
library user.
Is there a guideline at a bookstore as how many books should be facing out on a shelf? My impression is that a bookstore would use end caps and face-outs on most every shelf if possible. Does a bookstore advertise the popular books or the less popular books? My impression is that a bookstore tends to offer the popular materials more prominently, and tends to offer them in displays with related popular materials. The other item is that a bookstore would tend to have multiple copies of a current best seller but the library would tend to have copies only on the hold shelf.
ReplyDeleteAt my store, we like to face out about 1-2 hardcover books per shelf, and our shelves are about 2.5 feet wide. We try to create a combination of displays that feature both new materials and older books, instead of just featuring bestsellers.
DeleteMy bookstore is a little different from the typical Barnes & Noble model because we're a used bookstore. Because of this, we have the same inventory issue that libraries might have - we don't have many copies of recent releases. When we do have used copies of bestsellers traded in, they rarely last more than a couple days before they make their way to their new happy homes. We do feature new condition copies on our displays, but most people don't come into our store for new releases.
Face-outs are truly, amazingly effective. Or at least they work on me extremely well. But I will say, for about half of the libraries I've been in in my life, their shelves have been so full that any major use of face-outs wouldn't have been possible. I also can't help but wonder, as someone who did a lot of shelving but has never worked in a bookstore, wouldn't it be harder to shelve with face-outs? e.g. My Barnes and Noble keep book together by author, but don't organize the titles alphabetically, where as the library I worked at would alphabetize the titles within the author's section. Having the book facing out without the spine information/label seems like it would add to the already lengthy shelving process. Not that it might not be worth it, but there could definitely be some staff push-back if a library tried to implement it.
ReplyDeleteI think that shelving in a library would be quite a bit easier simply because the bibliographic control is so much more important. At our bookstore, we don't have the same cataloging resources that most libraries do, and we don't have the time to make sure every piece of information is 100% correct, so there's a lot more grey area when it comes to shelving. We do our best to keep things organized, but I've never noticed the face outs being a detriment to shelving. That's probably because we don't rely on spine labels the way that libraries do; we rely on the information on the cover first, then the spine. It's simply a different approach, but it does make it a lot easier to feature books that wouldn't normally get much attention.
DeleteLauren, there have been many weeks this term when it was especially interesting to hear about issues from a book store perspective. And marketing is definitely an area where book stores have much to teach us. My favorite book stores keep things fresh by changing displays often and creating an atmosphere that suggests that books are moving in and out at a quick pace. I'd like to do a better job of this at my own library. I think college students would respond well to the energetic vibe.
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