For frontlist titles -- the bestsellers in question -- Having to make firm orders months ahead of time is the rule rather than the exception. The stores, if they receive too little of a title, can reorder (sometimes; there have been times in Canada where no ordering at all was allowed by the individual stores. Hell, there was a period where no new books were being accepted either; I don't know if this has ever happened Stateside).
Given fiction and its lead-time, I'm not sure that publishing has ever been described as "agile" in its business operations. Lead-time can be cut to almost nothing for very timely non-fiction, but non-fiction is an entirely different species of publishing, and one about which I know little.
But in your model, the backlist is where good inventory management would show the best results -- and I believe that backlist is often decided by head offices (i.e. they'll tell you what books you're to keep on your shelves, and in what quantities, once they've seen how it sells otherwise).
As for metadata, I'm embarrassed to say I'm not quite sure what you mean. I'm not sure how to measure obscurity in a tangible way. The internet allows for much faster word-of-mouth, which is generally considered to be the second most important factor in a book's sale (the first, oddly enough, being previous enjoyment of a different work by the author of the book in question).
But in terms of quantifiable numbers, I still don't see much of that.
I was surprised that Bookscan, which is used in so very many outlets, reported about half of a particular books sales (I asked someone who works at a publisher who also has access to bookscan information) when compared to the royalty statement (and we may assume that on a royalty statement, a publisher is highly unlikely to inflate the numbers of books counted as "sold").
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branchandroot
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Date: 2006-10-21 04:44 am (UTC)Given fiction and its lead-time, I'm not sure that publishing has ever been described as "agile" in its business operations. Lead-time can be cut to almost nothing for very timely non-fiction, but non-fiction is an entirely different species of publishing, and one about which I know little.
But in your model, the backlist is where good inventory management would show the best results -- and I believe that backlist is often decided by head offices (i.e. they'll tell you what books you're to keep on your shelves, and in what quantities, once they've seen how it sells otherwise).
As for metadata, I'm embarrassed to say I'm not quite sure what you mean. I'm not sure how to measure obscurity in a tangible way. The internet allows for much faster word-of-mouth, which is generally considered to be the second most important factor in a book's sale (the first, oddly enough, being previous enjoyment of a different work by the author of the book in question).
But in terms of quantifiable numbers, I still don't see much of that.
I was surprised that Bookscan, which is used in so very many outlets, reported about half of a particular books sales (I asked someone who works at a publisher who also has access to bookscan information) when compared to the royalty statement (and we may assume that on a royalty statement, a publisher is highly unlikely to inflate the numbers of books counted as "sold").