Monday, March 02, 2009
More Wild West Monday
I've spoken to the Anderson rep who puts out the books in the local Wal-Mart, and he agrees that the store should have an actual Western section again, as it once did. He's sort of at the mercy of the higher-ups as far as which books he gets to put out, but he tells me that he keeps asking them for more Westerns because they always sell. And in a bit of good news, he tells me that the local store is considering expanding the book section, which would mean room for more Westerns. It's a slow process, of course, but I think we're starting to see some results.
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7 comments:
That's great news, James.
The Wal-Marts must be different across the country because ours here in PA has a Western section. Small but with a nice selection of authors. Our local drug store, while it only has a small selection of books, does include westerns.
Leisure, which has the most diverse of the current western lines, does a pretty good job of getting into the supermarkets in the Philly area.
Good work, James. You did much better than me.
I had a doctor's appointment, at which I learned encouragingly that my raised blood pressure was under control with the medication I'm on. Being WW Monday and feeling good, I then called in at a local mall and visited a branch of a bookstore chain I haven't spoken to previously . . . or not for a very long while anyway!
I perused their SF and Fantasy section, their Romance section, then went to the checkout and asked where the westerns were. Usual answer, "I think there might be some Louis L'Amours somewhere." I said no, don't worry -- they'll be books from the 1960s and 1970s in their umpteenth printings and I'll already have them at home with different covers. "Perhaps you could give me some other names?" the assistant said, still all helpful smiles.
Why, I responded, I can do better than that -- I can give you some website addresses where there are up-to-date lists of many. "Oh," she said, "our computers here only have access to lists of the stock held by the company." And she didn't know why no westerns, other than the L'Amours, were in evidence. I realized then that the only way I could progress this further without being rude in the face of the smiles would be with a call to the company's head office.
I've also been down that route many times before, too. "Our buyers say there's no demand for them . . . maybe if it was a movie tie-in," and so on, and so on. Even this you will hear only after long persistence and waiting to speak to the "person who can help you".
So, before my blood pressure could start to rise, I copped out and that was the end of my WW Monday. Shame on me! I owe Gary and his campaign so much more.
Keith
Believe it or not, the Alvin, Texas, Wal-Mart now has a western section. I don't think I had anything to do with it, but there it is. It even has two Longarm titles (probably yours, James), though no Trailsman. One and and a half rows of the section are L'Amour. The other half of that one and most of the next one is William Johnstone. It's a good thing he's so prolific after his passing because he's very popular. Then there are the Berkley and Leisure westerns. It's good to see them there.
OK, does Books-a-Million still maintain western sections? I know Borders does, as I mentioned on Patti Abbott's blog today, and B&N doesn't (they put nearly all the westerns in the fiction section). I don't havea B-A-M handy these years.
Since I loathe Wal-Mart, I haven't investigated the local outlets.
I'm still working in Louisiana where the Wal-Mart stores have a nice western section. The Walgreens don't and that's where I confronted some really nice managers today who said it would be easy enough to request.
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