Waterstones: Guaranteed Shelf Space For Self-Publishers

Posted on May 7, 2005 by Chris Mitchell

Grumpy Old Bookman points out this press release where print-on-demand publishers Authorhouse have teamed up with British book chain Waterstone's. Waterstone's will be providing a "Self-Published" section at their flagship Oxford Street store where featured books will get shelf space for at least 8 weeks. They've kicked off the promotion with a signing by Luke Dice Man Rheinhart, which fascinates me as he's the author of one of my favourite books The Search For The Dice Man.

This is obviously a move to be welcomed. It's an attempt to acknowledge that not all good books come from traditional publishers; and it's also a sign that someone with the market clout of Waterstones's can shake up the industry a little with initiatives like this.

But: it also seems like so much window dressing. Placing the books under a "Self-Published" section seems like a death knell - surely the books should be under the sections to which they belong? And until this selection of self-published books gets rolled out to all Waterstone's stores across the country, I can't see it having that much of an impact on sales. (Although I guess they are testing the waters here).

The key to success here is longevity. Waterstone's have to be prepared to stick at fiddling with the formula of marketing self-published books - the key thing is that someone at the company needs to be an evangelist for finding a consistently great rolling selection of self-published books. If they have genuinely good titles, then they will eventually hit on the best way to get them under people's noses - and I suspect the "Self-Published" tag won't be used as a marketing schtich at all.

For all Waterstone's progressive measures here, let's not forget they summarily dismissed someone for blogging four months ago. Their appallingly heavy-handed approach in that case doesn't bode well for any deft manouevres on the new technological frontier of publishing.