I work at a bookstore and one of my duties is updating the frontlist bays. Unless you work in the book business, you may not know what a “frontlist bay” is. A frontlist bay is that set of shelves at the beginning of the different genre sections that has that pretty “New Arrival” sign on it. The one with all the covers of the books displayed in such a way to show you what is new or has just been released.
Recently the way our store handles the frontlist titles has changed. It use to be that while all new release hardcovers were displayed prominently, mass market (pocket sized) and trade paperbacks were rarely placed there. Now anything new, usually three months or less, no matter the format it is released in, is displayed in these bays.
This means that if you are a new author and only one or two copies of your small mass market books is sent to our store, your book gets equal display space next to the more established authors. The book won’t be stuck in the backlist section with a narrow spine being the only thing visible.
We have seen more folks picking up those books by the new authors. And as we all know, more people picking it up means more people buying.
As a potential new author, this is very cool. I hope to show off my sweet cover art to the world and draw readers in like bait hooks a trout.
July 23rd, 2009 at 8:59 pm
That’s excellent news, Candi – I hope more bookstores do that!
July 26th, 2009 at 9:42 am
Here Here! Thats an excellent change, I havent liked the way those bays are stocked for a long time. In many cases where there is only 1 or 2 hardcovers the full title is not visible, the mass markets will be fully visible no matter where they are placed, so they may even have a slight advantage on the lower shelves.
August 8th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Ugh, I liked! So clear and positively.
Thanks
Joker