I’m in Kansas City for American Booksellers Association and the National Association of College Store events, which have been great so far.  Lots of great energy, and great ideas that I can bring back to my store.  Looking at today's session information, I’m pleased to see an opportunity for a Publisher/Bookseller focus group. But then there’s this sentence from the session description:

These Focus Group meetings are an opportunity to dialogue about ways in which booksellers and publishers can better communicate and work together in the mutual interest of selling more books -- they are not intended to talk about specifics regarding the publisher's terms of sale, operational practices, or backroom issues.

Leave aside using “dialogue” as a verb and look at what we’re “not intended” to talk about. The thing about “terms of sale” is that they’re more than just numbers – 25 copies earns a 46% discount. Terms are a statement of values, a manifestation of how publishers view the relationship between their companies and booksellers. Ultimately, it’s really about supporting the relationship that stores have with readers.

The fact is that we get the top-line stuff in this business right. Lot of great books are being published, more than enough to allow booksellers to fill their shelves and allow readers to find something that will suit their preference. In other words, there’s a more than adequate supply of great product to satisfy consumer demand. The passionate book lovers in the industry – and there are lots of us - might even argue that the best thing about the business is that we don’t usually think of what we’re peddling as “product.”

The problems we encounter as publishers, as booksellers and even as readers tend to flow from publisher’s terms of sale, operational practices and backroom issues. Usually, that's what stands in the way of getting the right book into the hands of the right reader and the right time. Minimum order requirements are too high. Publishers and wholesalers don’t work well together. Shipping times are too long. The flow of information overwhelms store buyers. Some firms (publishers and wholesalers) are clearly offering better terms to select retailers, making it hard for the rest of us to compete. Some publishing companies are seeking to bypass stores altogether, offering incentives for readers to buy direct.

I realize that there might be legal implications to discussing things like terms of sale in a group setting (especially after the federal government’s ridiculous action on ebooks). I also realize that it’s a lot less fun to talk about operational issues than good books. But as an industry, we need to find more ways to have these conversations, instead of suggesting that these questions are off limits.

Three lines in three different posts in this morning's Sisters in Crime listserv stuck me:

"So I suspect that the designers who charge orbit-high rates for work with InDesign may be trying to recoup the cost of the program."

"I think this shows that publishers don't like/appreciate libraries."

"I think the risk (and the reward of jacking up prices) is being miscalculated ... publishers that make it hard for people to try out books are the ones who are risking irrelevance."

I think we are all struggling with assessing value in a dynamic environment, and I think it's especially interesting to look not just at the ideas expressed here but also the words that we're using.

"Suspect" has at least a connotation of something inappropriate.  That connotation is reinforced by "orbit-high."  But is there anything wrong with a professional trying to recoup costs?

It's always difficult to ascribe motive, but do we really believe that publishers don't "like" libraries?

When we're talking about risk and reward, we're using terms that put us into the right realm -- commerce.  But are we imputing a duty -- trying out books -- that publisher should not have to bear?  Not that I don't agree with the trying-out goal.  I just don't know how we pay for it.

Perhaps because I've just completed another text rush season at my day job, I'm feeling bruised on price issues. It's easy for a consumer to decide that he or she is being overcharged, something that students seem to have little hesitation to say to us.  I actually prefer that our customers vocalize the thought, because at least it gives me an opportunity to have the conversation, to explain how we set prices, why our prices are different from what they see at Amazon, what our costs are, and that we're a nonprofit trying only to recoup our costs -- primarily wages, which in some cases are shockingly low at our store.  I don't tell students the last part; I don't think they need to know specific hourly wages.  But otherwise, we are willing to share all of our financials with students and everyone else in the community.

Of course I turn around at do it myself every time I fill up at the gas station.  I think I know what's wrong with gas prices -- that they're manipulated by speculators, and not driven by pure supply/demand considerations.  But who am I to say?

I don't like how much Adobe charges for InDesign, but I pay the price because I like the results I get out of it when I lay out pages.  I wish that the designers I work with cost less, but I know that they've studied hard to get to where they are, that they're proficient both technically and aesthetically, that they haven't skimped on the tools of the trade, and that their files will be trouble-free at all the vendors who'll be processing them.  It always seems that Lightning Source is charging a lot just to set up a title and accept files, but I also know that they've made a huge investment in their digital infrastructure and that the people who support those systems get paid well (as they should for their expertise and education).

There's lots wrong with the book business -- including the prices of various services, and the prices of our products.  But I think we could all be more careful about how we think about and talk about these questions.  I don't think we can suggest that it's wrong for a service provider to try to recoup the cost of the tools of the trade.  If the terms of an arrangement aren't favorable for users, it's probably not because the seller doesn't "like" them.

Except, of course, the gas companies.  They obviously don't like me.

After our move to Ohio a couple of years ago, we faced the daunting task of dealing with all our books. We still don't have all the shelving we want in our house here.  It's a slow process getting that all figured out, especially with an old house where nothing is standard.  Those nice six foot tall bookcases that we brought from our previous homes, don't work as well in rooms with 11 and 13 foot ceilings!   So a lot of our books are still in boxes, slowly getting unpacked as we find time and shelf space.

It's been a lot of fun to rediscover books in our collection, and one of those rediscoveries was P.M. Carlson's AUDITION FOR MURDER. I had fond memories of this book, and of an entire series that I adored. As I pulled AUDITION out of the box, I opened the cover.  I didn't put it down until I was something like a hundred pages into it. Finished it the next day.

I like everything about AUDITION FOR MURDER. Carlson's characters are wonderful, real people with real emotions and real problems. They're joyful, passionate and committed -- just take a look at how Nick O'Connor describes his work as an actor in chapter four, for example. And without flinching from tough realities -- war, justice and the personal demons (the book is set in 1967) -- they're also positive, upbeat and capable, ready to face anything, from a supercilious French restaurant waiter to the challenge of staging one of Shakespeare's greatest works, HAMLET. The HAMLET stuff in this book is great; you'll learn a lot about the play from Carlson -- and you'll enjoy learning it.

Because these books were originally published as paperback originals, and because they were first published in the pre-internet dark ages, you won't find much about them online. But if you look back through mystery bookstore newsletters and mystery fanzines, you'll find folks raving about Carlson's books. Tom & Enid Schantz in The Rue Morgue newsletter: "terrific characters, funny incidents, genuine suspense, and an absolutely right sense of period and place." Kate's Mystery Books newsletter: "this is an inspiring book, a joy to read and, except for the murderer and murderee, it seems that just about everybody is set to live happily ever after, just as in the favorite fairy tales of my childhood." Phyllis Brown in the Grounds for Murder newsletter: "Carlson is one of those writers who demonstrate an amazing degree of wisdom and knowledge about human nature and an equal degree of compassion and sensitivity. The characters and their interactions alone would make this a deeply satisfying novel. In addition, the reader is treated to skillful, literate writing and an engrossing, suspenseful mystery story. This is one of my favorite mysteries of all time."

Pat's books are just too good to be out of print. It's a privilege and a pleasure to make them available again.

AUDITION FOR MURDER and MURDER IS ACADEMIC are out now. They're in print, and you can get them through bookstores everywhere (independent, chain, online, US, UK and EU). We're also doing digital editions, which you can find on Kindle, iTunes/iBooks and Smashwords (epub for Nook, Kobo, etc). MURDER IS PATHOLOGICAL will be out in December, and we'll have the rest of the series available in early 2013.

Find more info at www.crumcreekpress.com, where we've posted a note from the author about these reissues.

In an hour, I'll be part of a panel at Bouchercon 2012 entitled "Bucket List: Books to read before you kick the bucket." Not exactly sure how this session is going to go, but thought it might be useful and amusing (for folks here in Cleveland and elsewhere) for me to post my list. I'll try to come back to the blog here and talk about this a little more, but for the moment, here are the titles, a highly idiosyncratic list that would probably look a lot different if you ask me again about this next week.

CLASSICS
Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers
Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett
Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

(Look at 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century from the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association for lots more classic choices.)

COMMUNITY
Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell
Concourse by S.J. Rozan
Briarpatch by Ross Thomas
Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger
Still Life by Louise Penny

TAKE ME AWAY
Cut to the Quick by Kate Ross
Death Comes As Epiphany by Sharan Newman
Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill
A Nail Through the Heart by Timothy Hallinan

BOOKS ABOUT BOOKS
(genre is conversation among texts)
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Bloodhounds by Peter Lovesey
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
Holmes on the Range by Steve Hockensmith
Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong by Pierre Bayard

YOU THINK YOU KNOW (PERCEPTION, INSIGHT, ETC.)
Hindsight by Peter Dickinson
Breakheart Hill by Thomas Cook
What the Dead Know by Laura Lippman
The Lincoln Lawyer by Michael Connelly
The Ax by Donald Westlake

Happy reading!

An edited version of a response to another Sisters in Crime discussion list conversation.  This is a little redundant -- you've heard me say much of this before -- but it's not like others aren't also saying the same things too, about the inevitable death of the print book and how young people are all about ebooks.  So this is just today's contribution to to the continuing conversation.  (At least I hope it's a conversation!)

Print will survive.  Obviously, it won't be the same, but I have no doubt that committed and creative readers, publishers and booksellers will find ways to sustain a market for books.  The mass market may move away from paper -- that's what the Bookscan figures are hinting and what folks at Apple said to the SinC summit team during our visit with them two years ago (members only at http://www.sistersincrime.org/login.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=21).  But that's not the same thing as saying that print is dead.

At my day job, I work among the young folks who've been mentioned here in various messages and who are always citied in a discussion like this.  You can argue that the kids who find their way to Kenyon aren't typical.  As a group, they are more devoted to words than most.  But if you have any doubt about their devotion to books on paper, you need only observe how they browse the shelves of the Kenyon College Bookstore, dip into and out of books that catch their eye, and then take books to the register and spend their money on their new treasures.  It's not just our regular college students, it's also the high school kids who are on campus for summer programs.  You'd be impressed with what they're reading, too.  We sell a lot of Penguin Classics and Dover Thrift Editions, for example.  We also sell Jennifer Weiner and that new Doctor Who book you're seeing everywhere.

That's not to say there aren't challenges.  We can say that there will be a sustainable market for print books, but somebody has to actually do all that sustaining.  Of course it's not just a singular "somebody," it's all of us who care for books -- readers, authors, publishers and booksellers.  Publishers have to be smarter and more equitable.  Booksellers have to work harder.  Authors have to inspire us.

And readers?  Readers have to decide what they want the marketplace to look like.  At the end of the day, this business is driven by your dollars.  Whether we're talking about the dollars you spend on books or tax dollars that go to your local library, you have all the power there is to support the market for books.

Books are not so big an industry that a change in the behavior of a relatively small number of customers will go unnoticed.  I guarantee you that for most community booksellers, the decision of even just two or three individuals to buy their books elsewhere (be it the grocery store or online, or as e-books from a site not allied with a local store -- whatever) on any given day makes a difference.

This isn't about electronic books versus print books.  This isn't about being a luddite versus embracing technology.  I'm not talking here about the merits of one thing over another thing.  What I'm getting at is the fatalism.  The discussion here (and elsewhere) is largely framed as one inevitability.  The reality is likely to be more complicated and more interesting, with print and electronic text continuing to exist side by side.  So it's really the nature of that co-existence that's at issue, something that I believe is entirely within the power of readers to shape in the context of their communities.

At the end of an intense week of discussing bookselling, marketing and sales on the Sisters in Crime discussion list -- a great resource and a great community that you should consider joining if you haven't already -- this is a slighted edited version of what I'm posting there this morning:

It may be that a writer can find success online with Amazon.  Or perhaps success can still be found in person in communities and their brick and mortar bookstores, local independents or national independents like Murder by the Book -- stores that if you're publishing nationally, I would consider part of your community too.  More likely, success will be found in some combination of virtual and real world marketing and sales efforts.

For writers who've concluded that brick and mortar stores are no longer capable of being a part of their success, all I can say at this point is that I'm disappointed that we won't be working together and that I wish you well.  Your vision, relying as it does on a single mighty online bookseller to sell all books, isn't my vision.  But that doesn't mean I hope you fail.  (For some reason, "one store to rule them all, one store to find them, one store to bring them, and in the darkness guide them" is running through my head right now.  That punchiness is a sure sign that my participation in this discussion has run its course.)

Wherever you are in the discussion, at least you're passionate.  This business, such as it is, has always been driven more by passion than by dollars.  Not to reopen that argument; I'm just saying that we're all here -- writers, readers, booksellers, librarians, publishers, all of us -- we're here in the first place because we love books, the world of books, and the people we get to hang out with because they love books too.  If dollars were all that motivated us, well, there are more dollars to be found elsewhere -- virtually or in the real world.

What we're talking about here isn't anything new.  Take a look at Daniel Pool's DICKENS' FUR COAT AND CHARLOTTE'S UNANSWERED LETTERS for an illuminating examination of these issues more than a century ago.  It's one of those books that leave you with a "the more things change, the more they stay the same" feeling.

That's not to say that this discussion is uninteresting.  I believe that every day we have opportunities to help create the world we want.  As consumers, we have an enormous amount of power to use our dollars to shape our communities, to understand how spending money locally sustains the businesses that make our communities good places to be.  And that's true of businesses as well.  Businesses -- including writers as businesses -- need to use their resources wisely; a writer's decision to promote Amazon isn't just about the access to books at a discount price, it's about the writer validating Amazon too.  (Mostly, that's why I find Ann Patchett's new venture -- http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/16/us/ann-patchett-bucks-bookstore-tide-opening-her-own.html?_r=1&ref=books -- so exciting, that it's such a strong, tangible statement in the opposite direction.)

The more we discuss, examine and understand what we're all doing, the better off we are -- wherever is it we each decide we want to be. I hope that writers and publishers will continue to want to be a part of what independent bookstores are trying to do.  But if not, I have to respect your decision as I hope you'll respect those of us who continue to do this work.

On the Sisters in Crime discussion list, we've been having a conversation about -- among other things -- how one should measure the success of a book signing. I suggested that a signing is about more than just the number of books sold during the couple of hours a writer is at the venue, while some writers argue the opposite, that this situation is all about selling books. One writer offered an anecdote about a library event where the library engaged a bookseller to handle sales. The bookseller was reluctant to order in books for itself, and instead tried to get the author to bring books to the venue, where the bookseller would sell them for a 40% cut of the transaction. On her blog http://libbyhellmann.com/wp (scroll down to 11/6 - "Bookselling Today: A Cautionary Tale), she expressed her unhappiness.

What follows below is a slightly edited version of the response I posted to the SinC list, a description of how I as a bookseller look at sales at an offsite venue.

I'll repeat something that I quoted on this list earlier: the plural of anecdote is not data. (This quote is from a great article you'll find here: http://tiny.cc/deathofbooks.) I'm sure you know that I could offer counter examples, tales of Heroic Booksellers Who Nobly Went Beyond The Call of Duty -- and I know you know I could. But if you're already soured on bookstores, well that probably won't help, and the plural of anecdote is not data so dueling anecdotes aren't the answer here anyway.

So, let's talk about this library situation, and how I look at offsite events.

As a general matter, I've used 40% for consignment situations. At the same time, I would normally not expect to need to go the consignment route for an author whose books are available on standard terms through the usual channels. My feeling is that the bookseller behaved badly in asking you to bring books when they're normally available, so I'll give you that point.

But 40%? I know that sounds like a lot, but 40% of what? If we're going to create a profit and loss statement for the event, we need more information. How many books were sold? What's the dollar value of those sales? Expenses? Did the bookseller take credit cards? Electronically or by hand? Who bore the risk of bounced checks or card transactions that could not be processed? (The risk of either bad checks or bad manual card transactions is not big, but it's not zero.)

How much time did the bookseller put into the event? Mileage or gas money?

Did the library ask the bookseller for a commission on sales? (Or for one of those "suggested" donations to the friends group?)

Libraries often pay authors honorariums for an appearance. They don't pay honorariums to booksellers who support author appearances by selling books. I'm not quarreling with the money that a library pays to an author for the event. But I would hope that others would join me in not quarreling with the money that a bookseller gets out of sales at an event. If that comes at a cost of a 40% margin on book sales, I'm okay with it.

In my experience, even at a 40% margin, offsite events are rarely profitable -- the few at which you can sell lots of books are more than offset by the ones where sales are minimal. I'll give you a detailed example. I sold books at a poetry reading 11 days ago. For about two hours in the room, I grossed $118 in sales. (I'm home now, so I'm doing these numbers off the top of my head -- forgive me if I'm off a little.) I think that the title I sold most came in at a 35% margin, and the other came in at 40%. Call it a 37% margin overall -- probably close enough. That's a gross profit of $43.66. I know that we paid freight on one of the shipments -- probably about $6 or so. We're at $37.66. No credit cards at this event -- which is unusual, but good because we don't have to figure a percentage for that, and no risk of messing up the transaction. No checks, so no risk of bouncing and no fee for depositing a check. (Hard to believe, but commercial accounts are often charged for depositing a check.)

What else? The trade book buyer and I put in about two hours' time between us to locate books from this poet's small presses, evaluate available titles and make decisions about appeal and quantities, discuss terms, place those orders and receive them. Working out logistics for this offsite event (arrangements, needs on site, packing books and putting together a cash bag to make change, finding and packing the receipt book, bookstands, etc) was relatively simple in this case -- call it 45 minutes. Event was in another building on campus, so travel time there and back was only 15 minutes. Post-event, I had to input the sales into the system, return the books to the display, return the leftover cash to the safe -- all easy in this case, call it 15 minutes. We've already returned some unsold stock to one vendor -- probably 15 minutes of processing and packing plus $6 or so for shipping. That $6 gets us to $31.66 or so. If you've been adding up all the time, the pre- and post-event time was about 3.25 hours. I was at the event for 2 hours, for a total of 5.25 hours. $31.66 divided by 5.25 nets out to $6.03 per hour. I'm salaried so the extra time -- I worked a full day came home then went back to campus to do this event -- is just extra time. But the store pays for the trade books buyer's time, and shouldn't have to count on extra time from salaried personnel to cover events. I just remembered that I haven't put in anything for mailing checks to three companies from which we purchased books -- another $1.52 in expenses for postage, not counting time for our accounting dept. to issue checks.

I type that all out not because I'm intending to offer an anecdote -- I said I wouldn't do that. I'm typing this out in full detail so that you can see that there are a lot of details involved in being a bookseller at an offsite event. In this particular case, I haven't yet even touched on the issue of in-store display that supports the event, and how much that front of store space ought to be worth. (We sold I think 6 more copies of the poet's books from the in-store display, but if the measure of an event's success is what happens in the room, then these sales don't count.)  I also haven't touched on any other aspect of publicity, something Libby's bookseller promised and failed to deliver -- but something that booksellers do indeed deliver on occasion.

Some events go better. Some go worse. But this one is in most respects utterly typical, esp. in the steps that we had to go through. Rarely is an event easier to arrange than this one -- it's not unusual to spend more time having to figure out details, esp. for the first time in a venue (which this was, but we had good support from the event's host). Rarely is an event closer than this one -- 15 minutes of travel time is hard to beat. Sometimes, it doesn't take 2 hours to locate, order and receive books. But it's always a noticeable amount of time for these steps.

Anyway ... more than you want to know. Or is it? From a bookseller's standpoint, this is the process, and all this is what we have to think about when we're measuring the success of an off-site event. Does this make 40% any more understandable?

It happens that I enjoy author events -- talks, readings, Q&As -- even when it's poetry. I enjoyed the reading that I described above; I was happy to be in the room for it. But as a business proposition? Well, you tell me. Did I make a good decision to commit my store to supporting the event by selling books there? Is there a business reason beyond dollars that justifies this effort? I'll be interested in your answers.

That’s what I posted to the list. Let me add two final notes. First, I love libraries – I was on the Friends board in my previous community, I’m speaking today at my current library (no honorarium or book sales) – and I’m delighted that libraries are hosting events, and that they’re trying to find a way to do book sales at their events. But if the current compensation system for bookstore is somehow objectionable, we're going to need to find an alternative. Secondly, if you shop at an online bookseller, I would ask you to think about whether that online bookseller would ever support an event at your local library.  This is another example of the way in which you spend your money having an effect on your community.

On the Sisters in Crime discussion list, a writer is asking for a simple way to distinguish mysteries and thrillers, and also asks whether mysteries "always have less suspense than thrillers."  Here's my reply:

A young Dane dons an antic disposition to investigate his father's murder.  That retrospective look at something that's already happened makes Hamlet a mystery, though at the time, of course, Shakespeare didn't know he was writing a mystery.  (Which accounts for the play's many frustrating failures to observe genre conventions!)

Driven by his ambitious wife, a Scotsman plots to kill the king and steal the throne, and then has to live with the consequences, as others plot to stop him.  That contemporaneous narrative focused on events as they happen or as they are about to happen makes Macbeth a thriller.

The question about the suspensefulness of mysteries versus thrillers is an interesting one.  My feeling is that the answer depends less on the elements of the narrative and more on the preferences of the reader, i.e. where you get your kicks.  If you prefer the ticking time bomb, chases and explosions, then thrillers are for you.  If you dig the intellectual challenge of puzzling out whodunit, howdunit and whydunit, then you probably prefer mysteries.

The main thing to remember, though, is that the two forms borrow shamelessly from each other.  Many great mysteries employ thriller tropes.  So, for example, the cat and mouse games that protagonists and antagonists play are present in both thrillers and mysteries.  Great thriller characters employ ratiocination to investigate and figure out what's going on.

The elements of mysteries and thrillers work well together and are intimately interwoven in our greatest stories and iconic figures.  That's why it makes sense to view both as sides of a single genre rather than two distinct forms of literature.  Sherlock Holmes is as likely to be involved in stopping a train wreck as he is to investigate why two trains collided.  As long as the game's afoot, we happily follow, regardless of which game we're playing.

On DorothyL yesterday, a writer posted this comment:

The woman who came across as "flat, stale" is a side character.  Yes, one of the more important side characters, but still only that.  How much time should an author spend developing the minor characters in a story?

Here's my reply:

At the beginning, what struck me about Crais' work was his ability to make the clients real.  Sure, Elvis and Joe were good, engaging characters.  But what I remember most about THE MONKEY'S RAINCOAT is Ellen Lang, and Crais' portrait of a woman who's so dependent on her husband that she doesn't even know how to write a check.  This was the focus of my short essay on this book that's in 100 FAVORITE MYSTERIES OF THE CENTURY, but you could also say the same about Karen Shipley in LULLABY TOWN or the kids in INDIGO SLAM.

When Elvis is focused on his clients and their problems, I'd rank him among the great fictional private eyes of all time -- right at the apex of the "private eye as social worker" movement.  (I'm often asked which among the mystery booksellers associations 100 favorites are my personal favorites.  My answer is look at the book; I was assigning the essays, so there's a clue in which titles I wrote up myself.)

When Elvis is dealing with his own issues (girlfriend, etc.), he's a bore.

Minor characters?  No such thing!  Great fiction only works when every single character is a vividly portrayed individual.  One other example: take a look at S.J. Rozan, if you haven't already.  She's an extraordinarily talented writer who does everything right -- intricate plots, great wisecracks, pitch-perfect portrayal of the uneasy relationship between her two principle characters.  But what single things do I remember most about CONCOURSE?  It's Ida Goldstein at the piano and, late in the book, the girl and the kitten.  Small moments with characters most would describe as incidental, but these small moments make big impacts.  CONCOURSE is another one of my 100 favorites essays.

Not familiar with IMBA's 100 favorites list?  Visit your local IMBA store (find one at http://www.mysterybooksellers.com/), or you can order the book online at http://crumcreekpress.com/titles/100-favorite-mysteries-century.htm.

There's a conversation on the Sisters in Crime discussion list about Amazon and sales taxes.  One poster wrote:

the great question is why some, many think the state is entitled to these 'extra' revenues.  The company who ships the product to you is not taking advantage of any of the services of your state.

I've just posted this reply:

Lawyers on this list should answer this question, because they'd do a better job than I will.  But the word here is "nexus" -- an outpost, a facility, a brick & mortar element within a state.  That's what entitles the state to ask a merchant to collect sales tax.

So the issue here is not a matter of "extra" revenue or "new" taxes.  It's whether existing, well-established law applies to Amazon and other online merchants.  If Amazon has warehouses in your state, that seems like a pretty obvious nexus.  If Amazon has affiliates in your state, is that a nexus?  It's a debatable question, but Amazon seems to be taking the position that affiliates count as nexus because it withdraws its affiliate program from states that ask for taxes.  More interestingly in this internet era, does the hosting a website or a blog within a state count as nexus?  (How many of us could say for sure where our websites are housed?)

The California settlement isn't a capitulation -- by either side.  It's going to be interesting in this anti-federal moment to see whether the federal government will step up the way that Amazon is asking it to.  At the debate last week, a GOP candidate proposed a national sales tax system.  Anyone think that either Amazon or Herman Cain will get what they want?

I will add just one thing: the notion that an out of state merchant is not taking advantage of "any of the services of your state" seems to me to be to be an extreme position.  For example, state and local government pay for most of the cost of the roads that those products travel on.  State and local government respond if the vehicles that transport your purchases are involved in accidents.  (And there sure are more delivery vehicles out on the roads these days!)  If you shop over a cable modem, your local government was involved in the provision of that service (through regulation of the lines).  In some areas -- not where I am now, but in other places I have lived -- local government might take care of all the trash and/or recycling that results from all the extra packing used in shipping a product to you.  (No bringing your own tote when you're shopping online!)  If you have problems with your purchase, your state government offers consumer protections that the merchant probably hopes you don't take advantage of.

You can argue that state and local governments that are supported by sales taxes should not do any of these things.  But taking the position that Amazon does not benefit in any way from the existence of state and local governments seems a little over the top, no matter how fashionable that position is today.

This Saturday, April 23 at noon, I'll be back in Indiana to moderate a panel discussion on The Future of the Mystery Novel.

In a sea of change, there isn't anything that we knew about books yesterday that we can be confident will remain true tomorrow.  We'll tackle a wide range of questions about how readers, writers, publishers and booksellers are adapting. We'll look at technology, of course, but especially at how technology might change the nature of the fiction itself.  We'll talk about the preferences of today's readers -- including young readers -- and we'll look at the ways in which change is serving or failing book lovers.

Our panel features:

Kate Stine, editor of Mystery Scene magazine, the premier guide to the genre.  www.mysteryscenemag.com 

Jeff Stone, author of the very successful Five Ancestors series of historical suspense novels for younger readers -- over 500,000 copies sold. readjeffstone.com 

Larry D. Sweazy, a 2010 Best Books of Indiana nominee whose third Josiah Wolfe, Texas Ranger novel, The Badger's Revenge, was published earlier this month. www.larrydsweazy.com

The conversation will begin at noon on Saturday at Barnes & Noble at 3748 E. 82nd St, Indianapolis.  (Store map page.)

The program is sponsored jointly by The Midwest Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and the Indiana Chapter of Sisters in Crime.  The program is free and open to the public. 

Hope you'll join us!

This week, SJ Rozan reported from Digital Book World on the Sisters in Crime blog (http://tiny.cc/SJatDBW and two other parts).  Her posts are fabulous, important and thought-provoking reading for all.

I was especially struck by one of SJ's editorial notes, on session eight, the future of independent bookstores.  She writes: "this session had a true-believer quality that made it hard to judge the realistic nature, or lack thereof, of what the speakers were saying."

I would turn this around.  It's only because readers, writers, publishers and store owners all together shared that "true-believer quality" that we ever had a strong independent bookselling community in the first place.  The book business has always been a challenging one, and independent stores survived only because all involved -- customers, shopkeepers and suppliers alike -- had an unwavering faith in the importance of what these stores were doing.

Interlopers have tested that faith, seducing both customers and suppliers with economies (real, sometimes, but more often false).  But the future clearly depends on the true-believers who will continue to count on independents' knowledge, erudition, curation and passion, and on independent booksellers' connections to their communities.  As the book business escapes its chains and, indeed, the entire industry becomes unbound (or is it unglued?), it's good to see the tide turning back towards independents, be it out of fear or necessity among those who have wavered or out of hope among those who've kept the faith.

Either way, it looks right now as though the future will be bright.  Independents certainly face challenges and it's going to be a bumpy ride.  But I do not doubt either the power or the number of true believers who sustained this industry in the past and will see it into the future.

It’s all about the metaphor.

We know what a “real” book is, how it looks and feels, which end is up, how the pages turn.  An electronic book is a different kettle of fish.

Indeed, an electronic book is just as much like a “real” book as is a kettle of fish.  Neither the electronic book nor the kettle of fish has a cover, leaves of paper that can be turned or flipped through, or page corners that can be folded down to mark your place. If we’re not reading a real book with real pages on real paper, then what we’re doing with either an electronic book or a kettle of fish is a metaphor for the process of reading a real book.

There are a fair number of folks who find the very concept of reading an electronic text as sensible and appealing as trying to read fish, but this number is getting smaller every day.  Here in my small, independent bookstore in Indiana, I have customers who are as far from early adapters as you can imagine asking “what’s a Kindle?”  More and more of my regulars have already taken the plunge.

Neither Amazon’s Kindle nor the current version of the competing Sony Reader is a bad piece of equipment.  They work, they have plusses and minuses.  Mostly, they’re good first drafts.  You can see where this is going, but they’re not there yet.

The biggest problem?  Neither has the metaphor just right.  As electronic reading devices, they are both closer to the “real” reading experience than kettles of fish.  But pushing a button isn’t the same as turning a page.  It’s not difficult, but it doesn’t look right and it doesn’t feel right.  It’s just not what we’re used to.

Then my colleague Austin Lugar showed me the Kindle reader on his iPod Touch.  Suddenly, I saw the metaphor done right.  You turn pages with a flick of the finger -- the same motion you’d use to page through a “real” book.  If you want, you can even dogear a page.

The Kindle app lacks some important features and the iPod’s small screen size limits the experience. But it masters the hard part: it gets the metaphor right.  Turning these electronic pages is as natural as turning paper pages.  It’s not something you have to get used to; it’s what you already do. You can feel how the e-book reading experience can be as familiar, comfortable and comforting as reading a real book.

Because it’s all about the metaphor.

As an independent bookseller who’s also an independent publisher, I can’t tell you how torn I feel about what’s going on.  I’m in this because I like to connect people and books -- that’s my mission and that’s my passion.  It’s cool to imagine how electronic books and electronic book systems (be they dedicated pieces of hardware or smartphone apps) will expand readership and put books in front of folks who just aren’t picking up old-fashioned paperbacks and hardcovers.  Like every other person in the book business, I want to see more people reading more of the time.

At the same time, the bookseller in me sees the writing on the wall.  Increased market share for e-books is likely to mean a decreased market share for the small independent bookshop.  The pie will expand, but a lot of the pie will move out of brick and mortar stores.  Once we move from selling the tangible good to providing digital downloads, it’s a whole new ball game, one that we’re not equipped to win.

Recently, the independent booksellers’ trade association, the American Booksellers Association, announced a program that will allow store-branded ABA-operated websites to sell e-book downloads for the Sony.  While this isn’t a bad program, one can already see the problem: e-book downloads aren’t a part of the “real” store. They are instead connected to websites that rely on the association’s virtual infrastructure.  No longer are small independent stores quite so independent.  No longer are we putting books in people’s hands.  We are, instead, web mavens, trying to understand and manage a metaphor for putting books in people’s hands.

On the other hand, the publisher in me is truly excited about the possibilities of the new frontier.  My publishing company has achieved a modest level of success.  Our books are well and widely reviewed. We’ve been nominated for and won more than our share of significant awards in our genre. Given the constraints of our resources, we can’t be unhappy with our sales.

Electronic books are a whole new market, offering even my tiny little publishing house the opportunity to reach a lot of new readers. There is considerable chatter about the fact that Kindle is a proprietary file format and, from a consumer’s point of view, it’s a closed system. There’s also much gnashing of teeth over about Amazon’s pricing practices for Kindle downloads.

On the other hand, Amazon offers small publishers the opportunity to walk onto their site and make Kindle versions of our titles available with little fuss and no expense.  In terms of access to this market, my tiny little publishing company now offers four titles in Kindle format, side-by-side with titles from Random House. Sony does not yet offer this functionality to us. Others provide access, but for a fee.

I’d like to be able to publish -- if that’s the still right term -- in all e-formats, and I’m sure that at some point, my tiny little publishing company will find a way to do so.  But in the meantime, we’ll take what’s being given.  You can now get Kate Flora’s Chosen for Death and Stalking Death and Terence Faherty’s Kill Me Again and In A Teapot on your Kindle, your iPod or your iPhone. You can discover these fabulous books by these fabulous writers.  And that’s what this is all about, it’s it?  The opportunity as a publisher to help put books in front of readers who are going to love them. (Go! Use these links to download them now!  You will love them!)

No longer are we talking about fish confined to a kettle.  As a publisher, I can leave the kettle to seek greener pastures.  Ok, there may be a limit to the usefulness of this metaphor.  But there are fewer limits to what we might now be able to accomplish.

I sent this offer to my store's email list earlier today.  Four hours into the offer, we still have few copies left...

Some guy named Dan Brown seems to have a new book that goes on sale today.  It's called The Lost Symbol, and boy is there a lot of desperation out there surrounding this new release.  In over twenty years of bookselling, I don't think I've ever seen like this!  Folks are falling all over themselves to give the thing away.

It all started with the publisher.  Our very nice Random House sales rep contacted us over and over again to get us to take a few copies. I bet we heard more from her about this one title than we did about every other new Fall title combined.  (Random House publishes many very fine writers whose work must just sell itself, since we hear so little about those books from them.)  If they were spending so much time and energy on The Lost Symbol, they must have been really worried that no one would want it!

I think that stores might have picked up on the publisher's concern because they're doing so very much to get you to buy it from them.  Have you been getting all those emails too?  The ones from the chain stores and online outlets offering huge discounts on this one title?  It just seems weird, doesn't it?  These big, big chain stores and even bigger online stores offer thousands of titles yet use so much of their email bandwith to sell you this one title at a price so low that they can't possibly make any money on it.  Truly they must be worried that they'll end up stuck with lots and lots of unsold copies.

We did oblige the publisher and take a dozen copies of The Lost Symbol, which will go on sale when we open in a couple of hours at 10:30 a.m.  I guess we've caught the bug, and are just as worried as everyone else is that no one will want it.  So we'll make this offer, limited to just the 12 copies we have on hand: buy $35 of other books from us in store, your choice, new or used, and we'll give you The Lost Symbol free.  If you can't make it in to the store, buy $50 of books from us online or over the phone, and we'll throw The Lost Symbol into the box for no additional charge.  As always, we will not add a  charge for standard shipping to any address in the US.

We do have lots of other great books in stock right now.  It won't be hard for you to find either $35 or $50 worth of books that you really want.

It would be nutty to think that a store like ours could get into a discounting war with all the big guys who are trying to trying so hard to give The Lost Symbol away.  But we are just as concerned as they are about being stuck with these things that -- given the signals everyone is sending -- probably no one wants.  So we will literally just give it away to the first 12 people, one copy each.

You can shop online beginning now -- www.themysterycompany.com -- or come in to the store starting at 10:30 a.m. If you shop online, be sure to put at least $50 of books into your shopping cart, and just mention "Lost Symbol" in the special instructions box on the checkout form.

(OK, I may be a little sarcastic about the rationale, but I am serious about this offer.  Don't hesitate to take advantage of it! Once these 12 copies are gone, we're done.)

There's been some chatter on the Sisters in Crime discussion list about conventions.  I posted a long answer to the list earlier this week, and I'm sharing it with you all here today.  I realize that this is coming in on middle of a conversation, but I think that this will still make sense out of context.  If you're not a member of SinC and/or you're not on this list, I'd urge you to join both -- these are interesting and useful resources. (SinC website)

"Is there any panel organizer on the list who is brave enough to tell us the criteria they use to assign authors? "

Is it just me, or does this question sound somewhat hostile to you too? As co-chair of Bouchercon 2009, I have of course been following the comments here about conferences with more than a little interest. It may just be the circumstances that I find myself in -- sacrificing far more than I can afford on a job that's turned out to be way more difficult and distressing than I expected. I went into this process believing that an all-volunteer fan conference such as Bouchercon is a "we're all in this together" experience. That belief is being tested over and over again, each and every day, not just in the messages here, but in many aspects of our planning.

I don't think that the author who asked this question means to be hostile, nor do I think that most folks who comment about conferences mean to be hostile. At the same time, it is sobering to see Rosemary write "believe me, there are still people who give me dirty looks because I didn't do enough to get them to Murder 203." I know what she means, though. A programming decision that I made earlier this year has already cost me several twenty-year friendships.

Your Bouchercon 2009 program committee is right now deeply engaged in trying to find a way to give over 400 writers some kind of opportunity to be a part of the formal schedule. The answer to the question is really pretty simple: we schedule the participants that we believe are most likely to be of interest to our audience. To be sure, we look at popularity -- of course the big names are big draws -- but we also look at author's books, recall what we've seen authors say on lists like this one, visit websites (our browser histories for the last few weeks are dominated by your web pages), and solicit and heed the suggestions of folks we trust. We've all read widely. We've been to conferences. As program chair for Magna Cum Murder, I've already worked with hundreds of writers over the years.

All of this research and all of these experiences go into assembling the program. If you're not on the schedule, ultimately, it means one of two things: 1) despite our best efforts, we just couldn't find a way to include you or 2) we didn't think you would be as big a draw as other folks. It's pretty much as simple as that, so simple that you probably didn't need me to tell you that.

To the extent that it's called for, bravery lies not in saying "we did our best but couldn't find a spot for you" or "in designing program, we're looking for ways to reward service to the genre" or even "we found someone else more interesting." That's all kind of obvious, isn't it? Bravery (or foolhardiness -- it's often hard to tell the difference) lies in being willing take up the challenge in the first place.

Will we make mistakes? Of course we will. We'll get the mix of people wrong. Someone will turn out to be a bore. We'll miss out on a topic of importance. We'll meet someone whom we didn't schedule and find him or her so charming that we'll wish we did. I've told my committee -- which is working harder right now than you can imagine -- that we must not be afraid of making mistakes. We'll do the best we can and hope that we got more right than we got wrong.

And then we'll just have to learn to live with the dirty looks.

If one approaches a convention with an entitlement mentality -- i.e. the convention owes me a spot on the program or owes me XX number of book sales -- one will inevitably be disappointed. Nothing we can do as convention organizers can ever live up to these kinds of specific demands. No program assignment will ever be good enough. No quantity of book sales will ever be sufficient. I've written before (perhaps even here?) that if your convention experience depends on the few minutes that you'll speak to an audience as one-fifth of a 55-minute panel discussion, then please don't even think about registering for Bouchercon 2009. That's a bad attitude, and while we welcome everyone, we don't welcome bad attitudes.

I fully agree with Pari, who writes "even if a writer gets a crappy panel (and I've had my share), there's still the hospitality room and the bar and the restaurants -- even the darn hallway or lobby -- all places to make connections for current and future sales." As a conference bookseller, I've often heard folks say that they made the decision to buy a book because they chatted with the author at lunch or at the bar.

And more generally, I strongly agree with Barbara who thinks "the key to a good convention experience is remembering it's about extravagant love of mysteries and the reading experience, a bonding of people who are quite honestly a little obsessed about a genre and like being among their peers."

I would add only that we need to remember who our peers are. At a conference like Bouchercon, every one of us is there first and foremost as a fan. We may identify ourselves as writers, librarians, booksellers, agents, publishers, etc. But we all come to Bouchercon because we share a passion for our genre, and for books themselves. Sandy asks "why not cater to writers and to fans?" My feeling is that fans are the ONLY constituency that matters because we are all fans.

A few comments on some other points:

ON THE MONEY, PART 1 - PAYING PEOPLE: This may not be the ideal way to run a railroad, but Bouchercon has grown up around an all-volunteer model. What that means is that no one is paid for their work on the event -- not the organizers, not the presenters, no one. In fact, like presenters, my co-chair and I are paying for the privilege of hosting Bouchercon 2009. We wrote the first and second registration checks that Bouchercon collected. We needed to. At the time we got the ball rolling, we had not yet received any pass-along funds. The first expenses that the committee incurred -- making up flyers, application fees for the corporate stuff (such as non-profit status), copying and mailing registration acknowledgements -- were literally paid for out of these first dollars kicked in by the core members of our committee in the form of registrations. This is the model we're working with. Would another model, one that allows Bouchercon to pay staffers and presenters, be better? My feeling is no, that having everyone (other than guests of honor) kick in their own registration and expenses preserves the fan nature of the event. It's an arguable proposition, but until we take the time to have that argument, we're doing the best we can with the model we have. Bouchercon 2009's ability to attract so many people, including some of the biggest names in the genre, suggests that the model still works.

ON THE MONEY, PART 2 - BUYING BOOKS: I wish that more people recognized that the booksellers who are willing to stock and staff tables in the dealer's room are providing a valuable service. Instead, booksellers often feel like punching bags, having to endure complaints from writers who haven't thought about just how hard it is to be a bookseller at a conference. Think for a moment about the 20-copy number from Murder 203. In terms of sales, Liz writes that this is "a lot or a little." However you may look at this as an author, it's not a little thing for the bookseller, who might be contemplating a list of 400 writers at 20 books each for a total of 8000 books -- even before scaling up from Murder 203 attendance to Bouchercon attendance. If booksellers are cautious, if booksellers expect returnability, if booksellers ask for a 40% discount, don't automatically assume that booksellers are lazy or incompetent or greedy. Think about the quantities, about the hours to order, to haul and to return, and about all the sunk dollars in inventory before you lodge a complaint.

ON THE MONEY, PART 3 - CONVENTIONS ARE EXPENSIVE: I'm glad to see folks try out low-cost approaches to running a convention. But most low-cost alternatives do come with other "costs," such as kid-sized desks in a school setting. I'm astonished by how much things cost at our host hotel and at the other venues we're working with. But if you want a nice setting, you have to pay the price. Our A/V costs alone will be over $40,000. While you’re sitting in our lovely hotel in the heart of Indianapolis’ lovely, convention-oriented downtown, think about that number. For the 1600 - 1700 or so people we'll have at Bouchercon, that means that about $25 of your registration dollars will go just to microphones, an occasional projector or two, etc.

ON FREE BOOKS AND WASTE: You will not receive a load of free books at registration at Bouchercon 2009. Instead, we are designing different opportunities for readers to get free books. We're doing this for a lot of reasons, but avoiding waste is a big part of our planning. We believe that the mass distribution of sacks full of books on arrival is a really poor use of resources. Especially in this brutal economy, we are all trying to be smarter and more efficient about everything -- including the ways we make free books available. As for extra books, Bouchercon 2009 will be working with Feeding Body and Mind to take care of leftovers -- and we will be soliciting donations for this group from all attendees. The bag, incidentally, costs about $4000. We are grateful to the Mystery Writers of America for sponsoring the Bouchercon 2009 bag.

ON ALTERNATIVE PROGRAMMING: Pari was kind enough to note that I've been experimenting with new ideas at Magna Cum Murder. I've been fortunate to work with an inventive and energetic group of authors, and to work with a conference chair who gave me complete freedom to innovate. We'll be bringing a lot of these ideas to Bouchercon: continuous conversation, resolutions, "one conference, one book," a first novelists' round robin, etc., and we'll be doing a few new things, such as a craft room and the Bazaar. You can read about some of this stuff on our website. The overall goal is to foster connections. I agree with Hope, who says of writers that she wants "to listen to them speak as normal people, not someone famous." I think that "one conference, one book" is especially effective for this as it gives everyone a common place to begin a conversation. One thing we won't do is just put a single writer in a room with no topic -- "15 minutes of fame" or whatever other events call this. Though these sessions can sometimes be effective -- and they're a great way to do a bookstore event -- this feels to me too much like an "it's all about me" approach to a convention. Really, no convention session should be all about an individual writer -- other than the few guest of honor feature sessions.

ON INVOLVING GROUPS: Reed notes that organizations such as SinC, MWA and ITW "have vast experience with conferences large and small" and that they "represent the interests of their members." I fully agree with his suggestion that conference planners engage these groups in the planning process, and we have in fact given these and other groups the opportunity to design and sponsor sessions on our program. I have reached out in many different ways to many different organizations and companies because I know that they're capable of bringing different experiences and expertise to the table. In most cases, folks have been eager to find ways to partner with us. Sisters and Crime is doing some extraordinary stuff, including the pre-conference SinC into Great Writing, an incredible value for writers, and a tea that honors librarians. Our vision is simple: Bouchercon doesn't belong to any one group or constituency or point of view, it belongs to the genre as a whole. In bringing in these groups -- and more -- we are trying to make that vision a reality.

GETTING INVOLVED: We've been watching some old episodes of The West Wing at home, and a line from a first season episode has been stuck in my head lately: "decisions are made by people who show up." Leslie urges folks to volunteer to help with conventions. I do too. Show up, participate in making decisions, and help keep these conventions vibrant. These events are important resources that help keep our genre great, and they need your help!

I'm responding this morning to posts on Murder Must Advertise, a list that discusses the marketing of mysteries (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MurderMustAdvertise/ -- you'll need a yahoo id). One poster wrote that "all books read just the same" while author Jeri Westerson (whose debut novel Veil of Lies is lots of fun) wrote:

"... the original model is outdated. I think hardcovers will go the way of the dodo as just too expensive to produce, ship, and sell."

Actually, Jeri, I think that hardcovers can and should be an increasingly large part of the mystery business, at least for the foreseeable future. (Which in this era of technological revolution means what ... maybe five, ten years?)

My feeling is that there are still a lot of readers who value the feel of a book in their hands, for whom reading is a visceral experience as much as it is an emotional/intellectual one.  Clutching a book is a little like holding a teddy bear: the object itself is comforting, apart from the words inside (which can also be comforting).

That's something that's rarely talked about in discussions of where the business is going, but I think we're foolish if we forget the power of the book itself and we're foolish if this industry fails to main high standards in book design and production.  I disagree with the statement that "all books read just the same." They certainly don't sell just the same.  That's why publishers spend so much time trying to get covers right.  It's absolutely vital that we craft a package that lives up to value of the text. The look and feel of the book can be a huge impetus in getting a buyer to take that text home -- or a deterrent.  Publishers who go cheap on production values -- and there are lots who are going this route -- are not just imperiling one title's chances of success but are undermining the appeal of the book itself.

One of the reasons my publishing company's edition of Terence Faherty's In a Teapot was successful (to the limited extent that it was) was that we were able to design a book that looks and feels right.  Faherty's words are wonderful -- and earned him a Shamus Award nomination for best novel. But we also got a lot of compliments for the book itself: an attractive cover, a trim size that's neither too big nor too small, nice interior illustrations (by Robin Agnew) at the head of each chapter, etc.  This book was also a Dilys Award nominee and it won a Benjamin Franklin Award from what was then the Publishers Marketing Association.  Teapot is a great story, but I think that even the author would agree that the package helped the story achieve all this attention and recognition.

Cost-wise, there's not a big difference in producing hardcovers vs. paperbacks (if you're running traditional offset).  The only real difference is the price of the jacket; the difference in the book itself isn't significant. (That's one reason you've seen some folks experiment with jacket-less hardcovers.) Hardcovers are more expensive to ship. But once in the store, they're no more expensive to sell.  In fact, if I take 15 minutes working with a customer to find books he or she will enjoy, I'd just as soon that person buy hardcovers. The unit price is higher, and as a result the gross dollar value of the sale is higher.

(Actually, many of our regulars buy enough paperbacks at a time so that their sales add up to significant sums.  And if we're really talking about profitability, the better gross margin is in used books anyway. Really, I'm grateful for every single sale, especially in this economic environment!)

I'm not knocking e-books. There's no question that e-books are a part of our future.  We're talking about how we'll talk about e-books at Bouchercon 2009, recognizing that readers and writers need to know about what this technological shift means for the stories they love, what kind of experience we're getting with e-books. Should we even be calling an "e-book" a book?  I'd like to see us think in terms of "book" for the physical object and "text" for the words the author has written.  But that may just be me, and this is a conversation that I'd like to see us all have.

Ultimately, of course, it's the words that matter.  But text isn't all there is to the reading experience, and the form of the text has huge impact on how those words reach readers -- or whether those words will reach readers at all.