THE Big Fall Season
We heard it at BEA. Now get ready to hear it over and over again; this will be a huge fall book season. Nancy Stewart, Ingram’s lead buyer says that, in thirty years in the business, she hasn’t seen “such a dazzling lineup of quality fiction in a season.”
You can’t help but hope, as Leon Neyfakh speculated in The New York Observer a few weeks ago, that this great lineup “has the best chance of any in recent memory to redeem the industry after one of its darkest years,” a theme echoed by the AP in yesterday’s overview of the season.
But readers are not likely to have more time on their hands this fall. Will the enormous choice actually reduce the size of the audience for each title?
For libraries, this plethora of titles by big-name authors would be a challenge in the best of times. How are you coping? Are you ordering fewer copies of each title than you normally would? Where are you placing your bets?
September 3rd, 2009 at 3:07 pm
I’m ordering fewer copies and checking hold queues frequently. I’m also praying for donations of at least a few titles (e.g. THE LOST SYMBOL). I also watch for “sleepers” like THE HELP. It’s more time-intensive but I don’t have the $$ to do anything else.