That’s a great idea for cross-marketing, Allison, but the way books are distributed, sold, and returned is too complex to make them an appetizing sideline for other-based businesses.

I once witnessed how well selling cat mysteries in pet goods areas would work, only nobody involved was flexible enough to capitalize on it.

I was touring a regional chain of grocery/general merchandise stores with my Midnight Louie cat mysteries. There was a smart tie-in: buy a book and get a coupon for so much off a name-brand cat food.

I was set up for signings in the front of the store
near entry traffic. A dump of my books was set up in the books section far away at the back of the store, and the cat food grocery section with the coupons was also back and far away at another end of the giant store.

Sure, we sold some books and cat food during the signings, but an enterprising employee at one of the dozen stores told me that she’d positioned the cat mystery book dump IN THE cat food section before my signing date. The books and coupon offer were rapidly sucked dry and had to be refilled over and over. That wasn’t the case at any other signing.

I reported this to my publisher’s marketing people, but I already knew this proof of success would fall on deaf ears. When I mentioned this good news to a chain store rep, I learned that what worked to sell books and cat food was a violation of store policy. Apparently each department in this chain was a jealously guarded fiefdom. You were NOT to mix products. I was disappointed to learn that it was better to sell less separately than to think outside the cubicles and cross-market.

You notice that Starbucks features one book at a time, and it’s a sure-seller. Ordering and stocking and accounting for books sold isn’t easy or worth it for most non-book businesses.

Now, if books weren’t returnable, like other merchandise, cross-marketing would be a lot easier.

But if Publisher A is trying to woo megaselling author John Smith away from Publisher B, they won’t be able to entice Smith with a “no advances” offer. At the top of the ladder, big advances will still be the norm. Or publishers will see their biggest authors head for the door.

So I like the concept of better, faster accounting and payment, and if that happened then of course looking at lower advances is always an option. However, that’s not the reality today nor do I see it in the near future.

Right now, co-op IS the best way to market books. Paying for real estate gets the books in front of buyers. Yes, they have to go to the store, but co-op is not just in brick & mortar stores, it’s at Amazon and BN.com. There are other effective ways to market books, but when people go and buy them, they need to be able to find them, and that means they need to be visible in a variety of venues from bookstores to airports to the grocery to walmart. I, personally, think that finding new and different venues for book sales may be a good marketing technique, ala Starbucks book of the month. Put cat mysteries in pet stores; culinary cozies in restaurants; romance in Victoria’s Secret.

Anyway, I still hold that advances are an investment by the publisher in that author, as well as the individual book. David Morrell is working off a different model with his publisher, and it’s working for him. Which proves that there is more than one way to get paid writing.

I do see this as radical due to the high profile nature of the process. Will they get good authors on board? I think so. I also think that to do so, there will be a lot of tweaking of how authors are paid. I believe this is a first salvo in what is going to be an increasing trend; while I don’t see advances disappearing altogether, I can see them shrinking and shrinking over time. Allison might see her advances as part of her business and use them to manage cash flow, but publishers see them as upfront expenses and a way to save all-important cash.

I think the co-op thing really does need to be reigned in — let’s be honest, it supports relatively few authors compared to the dollars spent — there are surely better ways to market books to customers (especially since the entire co-op model depends on a customer being in the right store and the right place at the right time — yes, an oversimplification, but you know what I mean). Why not redirect these dollars to more effective venues?

As to Allison’s final point, I think this is a big issue. I find it unbelievable that major publishing firms cannot report more frequently and more timely. Hollywood studios manage to spit out more complex statements on a monthly basis — and they’re dealing with less standardization across contracts. If no advances are to be paid, it makes complete sense that reportings to authors happen more quickly and more frequently, at least in the initial phases of distribution.