Saturday, September 26, 2009

Stop the Cavalry

I'm delighted to let you all know that it's Christmas. Despite the lovely hot summer temperatures, and it being only 2 weeks since the school children came back from the summer holidays, we received this on Thursday;

and this;

I have no idea where to put them, and Harper collins should be ashamed of themselves for publishing this in September (although they 'claim' that it's published in October, so why send it now).
We have to pay for this at the end of next month, in the knowledge that we won't sell any of them until the end of November at the earliest.
Maybe we shouldn't have ordered them when we did(we actually did this in July, which seems insane), and then simply remembered to do this nearer Christmas, but isn't it about time publishers and booksellers got together and agreed that actually christmas doesn't start in retail until November.

Bah humbug.

1 comment:

John the Independent Bookseller said...

Couldn't agree more.

My back room is stuffed ('Matron') with unwanted and un-necessary Xmas titles that were due October/November. I guess if I were more switched on I'd get the reps to organise delivery end October when I subbed them. My October payments are looking enormous ('Doctor') as a result.

Ho hum. And bah humbug.

But, of course, it does wonders for the publishers' cash flow.

And, by the way, remember that 85% of book sales at Xmas are of titles outside the top 100 sellers...