Adam O’Brien is an editor at Sterling Publishing specializing in a variety of non-fiction: all manners of memoir and humorous essay collections, in particular. We chat about the differences between working for a Big 5 house as opposed to a mid-sized one, how nice it is when a celebrity rumored to be a sweetheart actually IS a sweetheart (looking at you, Drew Barrymore) and how working in other areas of publishing convinced him that he truly belonged in the editorial department.

Sterling Publishing is an innovative and forward-thinking publishing company committed to creating books that educate, inspire, and entertain.

We also chat with former bookseller Tara Lehmann about the fallout from distributor Baker & Taylor's exiting the retail market, leaving indie bookstores scrambling and the big publishers licking their chops and falling all over one another to scoop them up.

https://www.sterlingpublishing.com/

Yeah, that sounds like what I used to do with my

Women's Studies textbooks when I was a Republican in college.

Through darts at that, yeah, I threw him across the room. It

was like, we're already equal,

ruining this

country. Everything was fine until no fault. Divorce you.

You.

Welcome to the hybrid club Scout podcast with me. Emily

einerlander and me. Corinne Pulaski, hello and our special

guest today for just you know, the shit talking part,

say hi, hi. It's Tara Lehman, welcome back to the show. Thank

you. In our much more comfortable room, yeah, this is

so much better, and it has a place to put your drink and your

dog. He's being real good right now. He is,

anyway. So before we get started, I just wanted to ask

everyone to please review us on iTunes. I'm asking you up top

today because I found out from some lovely people that you do

not get the information and metrics from iTunes about your

podcast unless you are getting new reviews and and ratings. So

interesting. Sneaky, yeah, yeah. Me your data. Give Apple your

data because you love us, yep, please, yeah, and not

necessarily because you love apple, but because you love us.

I mean, certainly not. And I know that a lot of people who

listen don't use iTunes, no, but if you have an iTunes account,

sure, just pop over and if you have a review on there, I will

read it out loud. In fact, to prove it to you, I'm going to

read

the person who, who Jessica Clark, who was on, I think

episode it

was one of the first one, five, yeah. So think Episode Five,

she, I was like, help Jessica, help me. And she, she, she

helped. All right, so Jessica says

fills a knowledge gap, and then I can't read the rest of it

looks like it's gonna say the word Hi,

it's a hyphen, and then it kind of just is like, h i g, dot,

dot, dot. H i g, I was gonna guess hilarious. Before you said

the G, there's a G, yeah, yeah. Highly entertaining. Hey, that

might There you go, yeah, that makes sense. Maybe on the

computer, computer, yeah, I could see it all right. Oh, I

said I'd read it in an accent. Oh, you did, I don't think, but,

but now you have to, yeah, but what one should I do? I don't

know. What accents are you gonna none? Oh, okay, okay, yes, we

get to just pick an accent.

Oh, what about can you do, like a New England accent? That's

kind of hard. Oh, my God,

Boston, that's tough, though,

yeah, what are like Maine? Yeah,

I don't even know what that is, Yeah, me neither. What about,

let's see Italian, I

would like German. Oh, that's a good one. Okay?

I Good poll for next time you guys should pull what accent

Emily should read the next one in? Oh yeah. Well, I think that

it should be in the review. The person should request at the end

please read in blank accent. Yeah. Okay, yeah. HBs offers an

insider look at the traditional and self publishing book

industries that sincere and informed. Emily and Corinne have

a great rapport, and their interviews with people making

their own way in the industry is interesting and helpful.

The occasionally snarky tone is fun, as Phil

All right, you too, if you leave a review, will be able to choose

an accent for me to read your review. I'm really glad we chose

German

that was, like, the best one, that was great guys and make it

a difficult one for her next time too. Like, really go out of

your way. Throw a dart at a geography book or something

like, let's make this a dart. She's

glaring at me. You can't hear it, but you might be able to

that sounds like what I used to do with my Women's Studies

textbook when I was a Republican in college. Threw darts at that.

Yeah, I threw him across the room. It was like, we're

already.

Equal

I have. Feminism is ruining this

country. Everything was fine until no fault, divorce.

Anyway. So yes, thank you for your reviews and the one last

thing is you have, like, four days left at this point when

this, when this comes out of our maple May, Maple leap, amazing

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things, yeah, and win free things. Win free tell your

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things too. Yeah? So you could either be winning a free thing

or just winning the love of your friends. Yeah, who you? Who you

desperately don't know whether they love you.

All right? Well, we have an interview with Adam O'Brien, and

he is an editor, and which we will explain more. Right in the

interview? Sure, with Adam O'Brien, yes. Right now, today,

we're chatting with Adam O'Brien, editor at Sterling

publishing. Adam is an editor based in NYC, specializing in

both short and long form, commercial nonfiction. He

specializes in memoirs, in a broad sense, personal memoirs,

business memoirs, collections of humorous personal essays and

even travel memoirs. Few of the books he's worked on in this

category are Drew Barrymore's wildflower RAINN Wilson's the

bassoon King, sportscaster Joe Buck's lucky bastard and make it

happen by Lisa sugar, founder of the website Pop Sugar.

Adam, thank you for joining us today. Thank you for having me.

Yeah. So Corinne, do you want to just kick it off? Oh, I sure

will. Yeah. Okay. So our very first question is, did you know

from the very beginning that you wanted to be an editor, or were

there a few twists and turns before you came to that

conclusion?

I would say I did know in the beginning, I think most people

that want to get into publishing think they want to edit the

great American novel. Oh, yeah. And so as I got into it, I

actually thought I didn't want to be an editor for a while. You

know, I started out in book retail, and then I got into

production, and then I got back into editorial, and I realized

that I do it is really where my heart is. But, you know, as it

goes on, I found that in my private life, I would say I

enjoy reading fiction more than nonfiction. But as far as work

goes, I found that nonfiction is what I'm good at, what I care

about doing, probably good to separate the thing you like from

the thing you work on, in some ways, I would

think, doesn't ruin the fun. Yeah, exactly.

All right, and now you so you've worked at, obviously, big five

houses, and you're working at Sterling right now, which is,

are they actually? Can you explain a little more about what

sterling is? They're an indie, right? Sure, it's a little

strange. So it's totally owned by Barnes and Noble. Gotcha.

Okay? They do books that are for the main trade market sell. So

they're all retailers, yeah, my specific team I'm on right now.

We focus on their bargain books. So that's when you go in, and

it's the books they print, especially for, you know, the

698, or whatever, right? Oh, wow. I had no idea they did

that. Do they have other publishing imprints?

There's a few. So my imprint is called Fall River, and there's,

there's a lot of imprints there. There's puzzle rate that does

puzzle books. There's Metro books, which does a lot of

foreign type books.

There's just Sterling innovation, Sterling trade.

There's a lot of, like, little small,

I guess you would call them sub imprints within Sterling, right?

Okay, okay, that's, that's, that explains it. Then, thank you.

Okay, so what would you say the major differences are between

working for a big five house and working somewhere like Sterling,

and which one do you prefer? And why? I'd even go a step further

between penguin and Sterling. Yeah, overlook press, where, you

know, depending on the period I was working there, there would

be anywhere between eight and 15 people if in the company

from that Sterling at Yeah, 100 people feels at least middle

sized, right? Yeah. So I can tell you, going right from

Penguin to the small team, it's different. It's not, I wouldn't

say one's definitively better. Penguin is you felt like you're

part of something much bigger. The books felt grander in scale.

There was more there was more publicity driven around them.

But also, you know, the expectations are much higher.

Yeah, there's, there's a lot of horror stories in the industry

of authors coming in and demanding.

That their book premieres at the top of the New York Times list.

Yeah, so I'm familiar, yep,

aren't they all like that?

Yeah, work your magic.

Yeah. And then, but also it's, you know, you feel I was a an

assistant. There an editorial assistant, which is basically

the bottom rung of a very long ladder. So I felt a little bit

like a cog in that. I tried to as much as you running your job

with everything you have, it doesn't feel like you were doing

your own work, whereas at a smaller company, I felt I had a

lot more latitude to chase my own projects. I mean, to be

blunt, there wasn't. We didn't have the same resources. You

know, it wasn't. There was no longer seven figure advances. It

was four figure events. Yeah, did you find that the

environment at Penguin when you were an editorial assistant felt

kind of competitive or tense or anything like that, or was it

just more

factory type vibe. Um, I think it depends, because penguin is a

company where the imprint that you work for really dictates

what the environment will be. So I worked at Dutton, which is a

relatively small imprint, compared to like Viking or

Putnam or Berkeley, like those are much bigger. Where you know

you're there's 20 editors on a team, whereas we had, like, you

know, two executive editors, two editors and then two assistants.

So it didn't feel, I never, I never got any of the the

backstabbing, the cutthroat ambition that I hear about it,

you know, some of the other bigger houses. Well, that's

good. Yeah, that is good. So to that, to that point, high

turnover rates are famously common situation for publishing

houses. Why do you think that is and what do you think it means

for people who work in the publishing industry? I think

there's a couple of reasons even that I see. I think one of them

is, I mean, we always joke that it's next to being a cop. It's

the next most misrepresented job in movies and

television. You know, Katherine Heigl movie. It's not younger,

it's

glass walls and yeah. So I think a lot of people do get in and

within a couple years realize it's not for them. So I think at

the lower levels, that is a lot of the turnover. I know in some

departments editorial is one of them. To move up, people kind of

have to move sideways, right? That's both times I've moved

companies, it was for a higher position. So that's kind of,

it's, I don't know if it's a sign of the times, or if it was

this way. I mean, I wasn't there 50 years ago. I don't know if

people always jumped around a lot, or if people used to be a

company man for 30 years, just kind of the way it is then.

Yeah, but yeah, and I think it's okay. I mean, as much as I

wouldn't mind working in one place, I don't know about other

people, if, like, if it worked out. So I'm not saying I jump

around because I can't stand being any one place, but I think

it really comes down to the person, because there are some

people that start out as an assistant and then work up to

senior editor, right? Editor? Okay? Editor,

okay,

all right, so and you have never, you said, I think you

said before, you've never edited fiction, right? Um, I had a

couple, there was been a couple of books that I was

either the assistant so I was, I was pushing around paperwork for

it, or one that I was I inherited that was assigned to

me after the work was mostly done. Okay, no, I've never

really had my I've never been elbow deep in fiction, though.

Okay, now, would you have any interest in doing that? Or you

would like to keep them separate because you enjoy it. You said

reading fiction? Um, I wouldn't say I categorically don't want

to do it. I'd say, I, I do feel I, when I think about it, that

my skill set is not

the same as well. Say I speak to editor friends who do fiction

or, you know, Agent friends, and they have this like, conceptual

idea of story arc. And it's these things that it's not that

I don't feel I couldn't do, it's that I don't feel I feel like I

would be starting from, like the basics again, like I don't trust

myself to

really to do that without having a lot more practice first. Yeah,

acknowledging that learning curve, it's a different skill

set. Yeah, barely forward, right, right, yeah, okay, that

makes sense also. I mean, I'm just, I'll say I'm just a picky

jerk. I

like so little of what I actually read that's published,

going one step back, I it would be difficult for.

Me to find the right fiction projects that I'd feel

passionate about, right? Bringing to bear you wouldn't

just work on something you didn't like, right? I mean, it's

the thing. Like fiction, if you don't like it, you don't like

it, and that's fine. Nonfiction, I feel that even if you don't

like it, there's a way to make it enjoyable, and it is all

practical. Yeah, that's true. That's putting a puzzle

together. Then, yeah, yeah, creating a painting, yes,

and it feels more relevant. You know, if you're working

economics or science or current events or even memoir, you know,

it's something you can relate to, right? Whereas fiction is a

different kind of experience when you read it. Next question,

let's say now, what have been like a few of your favorite

books that you've worked on over the years? Because I know you

sent us a long list of them, but I can't imagine that every one

of those was your favorite, so that maybe they were, um,

I mean, there's, there's a lot I'm proud of in different ways.

Yes, eight bit Apocalypse was one that I was like, over the

moon, like, I basically went to my boss and I bullied him until

he would let me buy it. Because

it's like, it's video game history, it's the 80s, it's

nostalgia. It's not a very well, there's not a lot of books about

the subject. So it was really exciting to me to get something

that was like that, that deep, a deep dive on something that

there was just no other books about, you know, being a very

indoorsy kid. It was. I was raised with books and video

games. So that is, like the real, a real marriage of my two

great loves. Yeah,

I can understand that. What about? No, I was just going to

ask about because I know you worked on some, I assume when

you were a Dutton, probably the, like, celebrity kind of adjacent

books. I loved it. Yeah, it was amazing. And it's very I was so

those were, mostly I was as an assistant, but as I was there

longer I, you know, I got more and more and more

responsibilities. I'll tell you that the Nick Offerman book

could clean fun was one that I was responsible for wrangling a

lot of

the photos on the art, for transcribing a lot of interviews

between the author and different wood shops. So that's to give

you a quick background, Nick Offerman has a wood shop in

California where they do all, all joinery. So, you know, it's

all really high quality wood furniture. And so he has, I'm

forgetting, between five and 10 woodworkers that make these

really incredible pieces. And so it's sort of a cookbook, slash

love letter, slash love letter to wood

working. And it was also just kind of at the ethos of

woodworking, and, yeah, making things with your hands. And it

was really, it was one of it was, I think, the most work I'd

ever put into one book. It was, I mean, just insane amounts of

of logistics. But it was, very like, the first time I held that

book. I was so proud. So it was all worth it. In the end, I

Yeah, totally. Sounds like a lot of pieces to bring together. Was

it a full color or, Oh yeah, yeah, it's four color, fully

illustrated, which was also my first time putting one of those

together from scratch. Because, you know, Dutton is mostly just

straight pros, and then, you know, sometimes we'd have a

photo insert, but that was, for the most part, most of what we

did, it's a lot. Yeah, it

was quite a lot.

Um, Emily, did I steal some of your questions? I'm sorry, no,

oh, I did it. Oh, good. Okay, great. Okay, well, I am

especially excited for this next question. So now, when you were,

you were a music lead at by BNN, right. Okay, so now, what

exactly does that position entail? That was, I mean, that's

Barnes and Noble. It's mostly just straight retail, okay, the

music, movies and audiobook section that I was responsible

for running, I mean, but also, you know, merchandising and

everything, sure, which is sort of like running a little shop

within a shop, because it was, you know, total, it was almost

total autonomy within the store. And that was, you know, my first

job, the first job I could find out of college, interning,

trying to get

into publishing proper. You're pretty big music guy, I would

say. So I think,

what do you like to listen to everything? I don't it's that's

a hard question to answer. Okay, great. I know Corinne, I don't

know if you're holding back your big question. Well, my question,

Well, my question, I guess, mainly, is, like, what is the,

I guess the selection, well, not even the selection process, but

like, how? Because so Barnes and Noble started carrying, like,

vinyl, like recently, right? I think so I was there for maybe

the first year they started doing that before, okay, okay,

where I left the retail stores, although, gotcha, somehow I'm

back working for Barnes and Noble, technically, again. Oh,

okay. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I guess my question was like,

Why did they.

Decided to start carrying vinyl. Was it just because that was,

like a thing that was happening, a trend kind of that was

happening elsewhere. What it seemed like? And, I mean, I

couldn't, I couldn't speak for sure, but what it felt like was

they were, they needed to just diversify their stock. Oh, like,

I mean, they started carrying more toys. And so, I mean, that

was a big seller on the holidays, you know, yeah, sure.

And you know, as music sales dropped, and then DVD sales and

blu ray sales sort of have been going away, as you would mean to

have mostly gone away, but I think it was something they

found that they could put in that was filling a need for the

final resurgence. Okay, that makes sense. All right. Beyond

that. I don't know what their reasoning is. I don't know if

they regret it and they're trying to get back out of it. I

don't know the big moneymaker, I couldn't say, but Right, right,

yeah, it's just always been a head scratcher for me, like

every time I'm in there and I'm like, Huh, you know, but

whatever. So yeah, I consider it like 50 Shades of Gray. I mean,

it's not for me, yeah, if it helps us keep the lights on and

sell all the that's that's fine. I'm happy that it's making money

for the industry. Yeah, yeah, that's true. It means to an end.

Yeah. So what do you make of the business and leadership woes

that Barnes Noble has encountered over the last

several years?

Surprisingly, I don't have a lot of insight into it. Working at

the store level, it seemed like I wasn't always privy to what

they were to what was going on. It felt like, you know, orders

were just kind of handed down. And maybe that's what happens

when a company gets big enough that the average person on the

floor doesn't know why they do things. Yeah, and now, even

though I'm, I guess, officially, a Barnes Noble corporate

employee, I don't work in their offices, so I don't, it's, once

again, sort of shadowy how decisions are made. So it

doesn't really affect your job on a practical level. Um, I

would say it does in that, in addition to being an editor, I'm

also sort of my own salesperson for their buyers, so I am making

a case directly to them, but

I guess I also haven't been there long enough to really have

gotten they were I mean, they did close a lot of stores down a

few years ago. It seemed like the bottom was falling out when

e readers became big, yeah, and then I think after a few years,

they realized,

well, the fear was that it was going to be like CDs where it

was just going to go down and down and down and eventually

crash into almost nothing. And I think they found that, unlike

CDs, where you don't really get a lot of value other than liner

notes. There's not really a physical component to it that

books did have something that wasn't that easily replaceable

by the screen. So it was more like the 15% 20% or so of the

population that wanted ebooks. It sort of saturated that. And

then everything kind of evened out. And they found, and, of

course, they found ways to actually market ebooks instead

of people just not making any money on them. Well, I just, I

find it interesting how much of

the print book market seems to be nostalgia based. I think that

in terms of of buying habits that's that's kind of unique to

books, because some of the articles I've been reading, it

says that millennials are, you know, buying print books because

they want to hold the physical object, and it makes them feel

better about the books that they're reading. And I just

think it's interesting how that kind of psychological component

makes a difference. So I Is that what you mean by like, it's more

about valuable than liner notes, for example? I think so it is.

There's a tactile component to it,

where even when it's the same book, it's feels better to turn

a page. Maybe it's just people are used to the sensation and

like it.

I think that there's also the fact that

books are more portable and cheaper. They don't the

batteries don't run out, so for a lot of practical reasons,

they're easier, right?

I mean, more abstractly, I've read like, what, only one or two

studies that say they did studies where children actually

absorb material better from a physical page. Something about,

you know, they they correlate with their the material with

something they're touching, like you see what you can remember

where you read something on a page like it engages the memory

center better. But that's a little Woo. Woo. I don't know if

that's established science, but it seems that it's a different

medium for ebooks, but it doesn't seem like it was ever

meant it was ever going to supplant physical books. Now, do

you personally have an e reader, or are you like a physical book

purist? Um,

I.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't call myself a purist. But no, I don't

own an e reader. Okay, okay, two different hand me down Kindles

people gave me that I used briefly, uh huh. And one time I

think I read a book on my phone just because, and that was a

nightmare with an iPhone. I believe that

I do it all the time.

I mean, I will, I will admit that I got sick of having my

newspaper stolen, and so now I just read the Times online. I

changed. That makes sense. Yeah, that's that's one area where I

actually prefer digital, where things are coming at you, if

that you might not hear about until the next day or the day

after, whereas, you know, I could open up the times right

now and find out the Kentucky Derby nonsense with right yeah,

all right. So my other next question, I guess, about so you

had a brief detour, I guess, where you were working in

production.

And so what did you like about that? What didn't you like about

that?

Um,

I think that was when I realized I definitely did want to do, I

wanted to be an editorial when I realized that there was, there

wasn't a lot of

movement to do anything creative, it was basically,

you're pulling levers and filling out paperwork, right?

Which is, you know, I could be an accountant and make a lot

more money than publishing if that's all I cared about doing.

Amen, that is true. Yeah, and it's no bad thing. It's just not

what I cared about. Yeah, that makes sense, but I will say that

it's made the rest of my career much easier. Oh, okay, because I

would say most editors don't really understand what happens.

You have a word Microsoft Word file, and you know, you edit it

with your with your author, with the writer, right? And then, you

know, you do track changes, blah, blah, blah, maybe you even

copy edit. And then a lot of them just don't understand how

it gets from there to

an actual book, you know, PDFs, and then from there to files,

and there's proofing and coming at that from the side, where I

was responsible for looking after all those things and

keeping a schedule. Yeah, I think took out a lot of learning

curve later, when I was suddenly understood how, you know, things

have to have six weeks to ship from China or Right, right? Do

you find that you

explain that to authors, like, are they interested in learning

about that side of the process? Um, I, you know what? I don't

think they're interested in it. They'd rather didn't exist. They

just like, want to close their ears and wait for it all to be

Yeah,

they want to change their book. And I promise this isn't any

specific author, just authors in general. It is authors. Yeah,

they want to make changes up until the book is released, and

you have to explain to them that, no, this, I told you,

like, this was the last day to, like, make substantive changes.

Then we can do edits, you know, through some punctuation or

just, like, a factual error, and then after like this date,

they're just like, it's done, it's over, and then four months

later, your book is released in stores, right? And I think

that's that's a hard thing to explain, because it's just not

interesting to people. Were you ever there for like, a printing

disaster?

Um,

no, I wouldn't say a disaster.

I've heard some stories. I have a book that I found in an old

office of mine that I just like a book from years and years ago,

that there was just like a letter missing on the spine from

a title, oh no.

Just had a letter missing from the but, no, I think for the

most

part, sometimes things won't look exactly as people thought.

You know, I've had

an author come to me and say, I thought we were doing a red

cover. This looks pink and

showing them next to each other like, No, this is basically,

this is within, you know, the 3% different hue limit that that is

just a matter of, of that's the cost of doing business with

printers. Yeah, wow. I know. I wish I had a fun story of

disasters. I don't.

All right, well, do you have a fun story of like, celebration?

That'll work just as well.

Anyway. I mean, like, editorially, production wise,

whatever. Yeah, I love Prince.

No, I think convincing my boss, who was 81 years old at the

time, to let me a book about arcade machine. Yeah, yeah, big

victory. And basically, you know,

we got the and then we ended up, I think, I guess this is a

victory, that we ended up selling the audio rights for

considerable, considerable amount that the book we earned

out the advance before it published, which is nice.

That's, that's awesome, yeah, that's kind of the holy grail

for any book. If you can earn that before it publishes,

that's, oh, wow, yeah, yeah, that would say, so, yeah.

So you said, you said you worked with Drew Barrymore on a book.

Oh, yeah. That was, again, what I mean, I don't want to to, oh,

you don't myself as her, as her, as her as her editor, but I was

the assistant to her editor, so Okay, yeah, I did work on the

book with them. Yeah, did you meet her? Oh, yeah, yeah, she's

she's wonderful. She's exactly as nice as you think she would

be able to. Want her to be. Yay. I'm really happy.

She's hilarious, yeah,

yeah, I don't I wish I had some horror stories the media

celebrities that turned out to be monsters, but that was just

not my experience with anyone I met. Really lucked out there,

because I used to work at Harper, and I was in publicity,

and my boss worked with some BC level celebrities, which are

probably, as you know, much worse than the A list ones,

because they think they're more important than the

so anyway. But yeah, there are some I could I could tell you

some stories, but I am not the guest on this episode, so I'll

save those for another time. But probably shouldn't. Yeah, names,

that's fine. Yeah,

sing the praises of people I've worked with, but yeah, exactly,

yeah, that's more. That's more Mint Julep talk. Yeah, exactly,

it's more fancy hats. And

let me tell you,

all right, so I think our next question is, what are you

reading right now?

Right now I I'm reading a few books.

I get bored with things and I put them down and I pick up

other books. Sure, for you, I respect that I do too. Just

being able to stop reading a book, there's so many people who

are like, what

like I have a book in, like, my gym bag or my commuter bag, and

then I have books at the office and I have books at home, yep,

like, the book on my nightstand that I read before bed right now

is the circle by Dave Eggers. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. So

somebody given to me as a gift. I'd never read Dave Eggers

before, but, yeah, it's, it's good to just read fiction again

without it being a proposal or part of work or anything, right,

right? Which is freeing, yeah, I would imagine. So. I'm also

reading the history of the future by Blake Harris, okay,

which is about VR and how that's shaping the future of media now.

Oh, wow. So he comes from his last book was

console wars, which is the history of Sega and Nintendo. I

found out about him, you know, doing comp research for Oh,

sure. Oh yeah,

and yes. Now, this is his new book that just came out, and

it's, it's good. It's weird to read things about the inner

workings of industries is always a little bit like seeing how the

sausage gets made, just all of the corporate intrigue of tech

companies. And you can just never look at it the same way

again when you're trying to, like, consume, yeah, basically,

yeah,

I guess, like sausages, that's actually really good.

I mean, I'll tell you the truth, my first job when I was 15 was

at McDonald's, and I have no problem eating McDonald's now.

So, yeah, yeah.

Well, great. Is there Adam? Is there anything you would like to

plug or promote?

No, unfortunately, I mean, in what I'm doing it Sterling now

isn't the kind of thing where we have big releases,

but I'll say I'd like to promote your local bookstore. Whoever's

listening, yes,

buy books

from the bargain section at a Barnes and Noble. That's even

better. Yep.

Okay. Gifts.

Great choice.

All right, Adam, thank you so much for being on our podcast.

It's exciting to have an editor on Yes, thanks for having me.

Yeah, absolutely.

All right. Well, we wanted to talk a little bit about some

that was since that was such a, you know, brief, short and sweet

interview

compared to some of the ones we've had.

Stop glaring at me.

That's what you're here for. For me, it's

okay. Actually, no, you're all about to hear why she's here.

I'm here with the purpose people, yes.

So we're going to talk a little bit. We were complaining about

how Baker and Taylor is no longer distributing to indie

bookstores anymore, and lamenting the fact that Ingram

was going to get to have their way, whatever way they wanted

it. Monopolies are only.

Fun and board games kids and not even then. That's true. You

know, everyone's got that friend who's like, just hoarding all

the pieces. I've only played a couple of times. And you know,

the first time I just, like, laid on the floor and, like,

fell asleep or something, because I was so bored and I was

alive. Yeah. And then the last time was when I went to Texas to

visit my nieces and and we played Star Wars monopoly, and I

just started, like, yelling about capitalism because it was,

I was just like, this is a terrible thing to teach

children. I wasn't the one who stormed out. One of the other

kids stormed out. Thank God, I was almost me though I feel like

you missed the point, but you really didn't miss the point of

the game. You got the point of the No, I know the point of it,

yeah. I mean, and I was losing, but, but that's not why you

worked out. Yeah? I mean, it was partially why I just can't get

myself into that frame of mind. I don't know. It's like, it's

just a game. And I'm like, but it's mean,

yeah, yeah, that's a mistake. So since we have discussed that,

there have been some new offerings. We might call them

that, sure, yep. I mean, it's a neutral term, isn't it should

be, I think so. So from other companies, publishing companies,

mostly

for distribution, to indie bookstores, or just, you know,

discounts and more, like generous, quote, unquote terms

for indie bookstores purchasing these companies, books. Yeah, so

Corrine, why don't you take take us? Or Tara, why don't you?

Yeah, in all fairness, looking through the the articles that

you found it, they are at least putting this to the bookstores,

because the bookstores are the ones that are hurt, the worst

case, yeah, absolutely. I mean the companies that they can turn

to, yeah, few and far between. Yeah, you could say that. I mean

not that B and T was really putting up too much a fight

against Ingram there, Baker and Taylor. Yes, Baker and Taylor,

sorry, B and T, for short, I'm here to translate. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, I do speak in way too much jargon. That is my

fault. Um, only because I wasn't I was a bookseller, and I work

in publishing only because it's literally your job. Yeah,

don't apologize for that. I apologize for literally my job.

Um, like a woman.

But I mean, what? Outside of these new offerings, yes, these

neutral offering, right? Sure. What is left for these

companies, these pub these bookstores, like, if they didn't

do this and these publishers didn't give them this, what were

they left with? They were left with what, two, maybe three,

bigger, yeah, sailors, yeah, as opposed to the smaller

distributors, yeah, well, most of these are their own titles

too, right? Yeah, they're their own. They're their own titles.

Well, and a lot of these publishers too act as

distributors, right? They were doing this before Baker and

Taylor closed their bookstore side of things. So like workman

in particular, was what they were distributing for the

experiment duo press and how do

you pronounce that beautiful word, era one, it sounds like an

elf.

Yeah, maybe there's first of her name. No, wait, that's the wrong

wrong book, wrong fandom

that I

wait, I'm not seeing it. Oh, it's not very it's at the very

end of the first paragraph. Oh, yeah, air one books. I mean, I

keep playing to say, Aragon or air horn, airborne or airborne

air horn, Arbonne,

auto. Pawn.

So many options. I'm really enjoying this free association.

But let's see here. We've got how many different publishers

are doing distribution they're doing we got Workman, we got

Simon and Schuster, we got Hachette. We got

Penguin Random House.

Am I missing one? Tara is just throwing papers.

They're everywhere. Publishers scrambling to fill this hole.

Yeah, I feel very strange, very generously, like yes, yes. Weak

ones come to our arms.

You found some pretty fun terms, though, didn't you? Tara, I you

know, like I said, having come from a book selling background

as well as a publishing background, some of these things

kind of stuck out to me just a little bit. Some of them were in

my.

It's definitely a lot more favorable than others. Not

entirely sure they're more favorable to the bookseller or

the publisher, probably the publisher, probably the

publisher, because, I mean, let's, let's be honest, yeah,

however, like, for instance, workman is offering, well, they

describe how they're changing how the backlist is defined to

make it easier for indie accounts to reach minimums on

backless stock up orders. What was going on with their

definition of backless in the first place that it was so

difficult that they couldn't stock

up? I mean, that's just kind of an interesting turn of phrase.

It is for me, yeah? So I would have been really interested to

see a before and after, like a Jenny Craig picture, yeah, yeah.

Are there a lot of, like, indies who are interested in having big

stocks of, like, backless books from workman? Like, I mean,

workman's

got some really good backlist titles, but like, how many, how

many possibly need? Yeah, if you're an indie bookstore, it

depends. I mean, Powells used to have a gardening and home

division their bookstores, yes. So yeah, Pals is indie? Yeah,

technically, technically, although there was recently an

article in PW that was about an independent bookstore and

whether or not they're able to franchise, oh, my God, yes, I

was. I was just sitting there going, am I stupid, like, or

does that not sound like an indie anymore? Well, and they

were like, they're gonna take on Half Price Books as the biggest

indie bookstore in the country. And I'm like, Half Price Books

isn't is is that so is so is an indie defined as anything that

isn't Barnes and Noble? No, because a resale store like, you

know, just your your stereotypical dollar bookstore,

that's like half price, like a half an independent bookstore,

because an independent bookstore relies on the rates that are

coming from these publishers now to as far as our distribution

goes, when it comes to Half Price Books, they're relying on

people to turn in stock because they're used books. There's no

royalties attached to it. There's no sales attached to it.

So basically, a half price bookstore, their sales come from

their stock, and if they don't get rid of it, what are they

gonna do? Yeah, throw it away. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. Dude,

like I PW, clearly thinks they're an indie bookstore, but

I don't think they were talking about it through the lens of

this distribution free for all this is absolutely, it's like,

it's like, that the Oklahoma land, yeah, the land grab, the

land grab Sooners where

they were like, Oh, this land is empty. Massage. You're like,

wait, no,

not empty. We're here. And they're like, I'm going to be

the fastest cart, and then I will put my flag in the ground,

hopefully it will strike oil. Oh,

God.

Oh, kick or death. Cake, please. Cake, please. So, yeah, I mean,

like, that's just one interesting thing that I saw

coming from there. But another thing I noticed from workman's

terms, as far as they were described in this article, was

that they were, where is it? I swear I saw it a second. Oh,

extra discount earned on faced out quantities on all front list

titles, yes, this is my favorite one.

It's brilliant. I think it's, I mean,

Machiavellian, but it is absolutely brilliant because

it's such an amazing incentive. Yeah, bookstores, it's an equal

term opportunity, because not only is the publisher getting

this amazing opportunity, but the bookstore is getting an

extra discount. Let's face it, all bookstores need a discount.

Yeah? It's not like you have to do it exactly like you have to

do it. No one's gonna stock through your bookstore from

workmen and make sure that all the face out books are from

them. Yeah? No one's gonna do that. It's kind of a trust

thing, yeah, well, I mostly meant that, like, you're still

gonna get their other you know? Oh yeah, well, there's that too,

whatever it is. I mean, for all we know, they could probably be

doing this part of their Co Op. Oh yeah, that's true. Could be

explained what a co op is.

Yeah, yes. Co op in bookstore and publishing terms, is money

that a bookstore kind of gets from a publisher, in the

promotion, in the marketing, promotion of a title or a series

of titles. So face out is technically, could be

technically considered Co Op. So are those really fancy cardboard

displays that you see at bookstores? That's Co Op too,

because it's taking up valuable real estate in a bookstore, so

things like that are what is known colloquially as Co Op,

cool. Okay, thank you. Thank you. This has been terminology

corner, so

let's look at some other terms, like, Who do you think is

being.

Oddiest here. Who's the biggest stinker? Oh, don't leave that

one.

I am the oldest. I kind of hear. Want to hear what you guys

think, because, I mean, I have my own opinions, but I want to

hear somebody else's too. Well, you were talking about IPG, oh

yeah. IP are really shitty, right? Well, I wouldn't say

shitty because they're, I mean, they're gonna be good for

somebody, right? They're gonna be good for, you know, somebody

who's coming into the game initially and desperately needs

a break,

but, and granted, IPG, they're coming up against some really

stiff competition, so I would have assumed that they would

have come out with slightly better terms,

because they're coming up against the big five and

Workman, I mean, let's be honest,

workman is not one of the big five. It's, it's, it's been

holding its own for one of the few mid level publishers that

remain, and they're really good at what they do at being a mid

level, no one's talking about that. They do a good job. I, you

know, I love timber press books because I like gardening, and

there's lots of pretty pictures of them. This is true. Timber

does a really good job. Yeah, and Algonquin does a real job.

Oh, yeah. They've got, yeah, they do so, you know, not hating

on workman. They've got great books. All of these publishers

have amazing books, just a little concerned about some of

these terms.

For instance, I'm not entirely sure where or who wrote this

article from IPG. I'm pretty sure that these were, these are

all from Shelf Awareness, so I think they're press releases.

Okay, well, that's what I'm assuming, because the language

is very press release y, but it's like for all accounts new

and current on the order, there is an additional 5% discount on

an order of 10 units or more. Okay, so if you're giving

somebody a discount of what's a typical wholesale discount,

4040, yeah, 40. So you're giving somebody a 35% discount on an

order of 10 units or more, okay, oh, that's fine. But the coup de

grace, the coup de grace, qualifying orders placed by 11am

Central time, central time, well, no, what central time will

ship by end of day of the next business day? Wait, that's not a

bad deal. Then that's not a bad technicality. Qualifying orders

have to be placed. Stipulate whether or not it needs to be by

Central Time or by local time. You know what? I think that this

is just a punctuation and capitalization problem.

Probably. I think what it's supposed to say is free freight

for 10 or more units ordered, and qualifying orders placed by

11am Central time will ship by the end of the next business if

so, that's even worse, because whoever wrote this, it works in

publishing, and the fact that they couldn't get it approved by

somebody in their editorial department, you know what it is,

is they had the period after m and so it automatically

capitalizes Central. So it made it seem like okay, so IPG

doesn't only give you discounts.

I'm glad we could work that

seemed a little shady, very unreasonable, a

little confusing for a second. IBG, you might want to look into

whoever wrote this. I am really glad we figured this out. I

mean, it's almost like everyone. It's like, the the land grab,

and it's like, Oh, get it out as fast as possible by 11am

well, also like, the, oh, what is it? The Indie direct program

from IP, and this, IPG is not the only one who's doing this,

but, like, their special terms are for one order placed between

May and September.

That's IPG. That's so weird, yeah, but they're not the only

company that's doing that. I think Penguin Random House is

doing their, their, um, their deal ends in October. Oh, wow,

feeling real generous there. So the biggest publishing house in

the world. So what do they expect to happen between now and

then that's gonna change anything post September 1? Yeah,

I don't know. Maybe they're just hoping that these people will be

so enamored by their quick and speedy service that they'll

realize that they have no alternatives, and they'll keep

coming back. I mean, IPG distributes for vast majority of

the small and mid sized publishers across the country.

Yeah, I'm just wondering if there's some kind of like

exclusivity that has to happen for them to, like, make that

window the way to do that. Though, I don't either. It's

just strange. It's almost like, it's almost like the open

enrollment for health insurance, oh yeah, no joke, yeah. But no

weird. You can't stipulate that as a bookstore, they have to go

exclusively through you, because you're not going to offer all

the books, right? Of course, yeah, yeah. So it's like, this

is the this is only as long as we can afford.

It any longer, we'll make this one order as big as possible,

that there's a whole other season that we are coming.

Completely going to be missing out on only backlist. Well, no,

that'll be called backlist now only by workman. Yeah,

I am a little confused, though, why, and maybe they just don't

outright say it, but none of these other publishers that we

have here are doing what workman's doing, where they're

saying that they're going to give an extra discount for face

up quantities. Ah, surprising. That is really surprising. I

would assume that would be like shooting fish in a barrel. Yeah.

Well, maybe they're just taking it for granted because they can

afford it in in, like, well, and I mean, outside of a few because

they're doing it anyway, they're doing it anyway anyway. Yeah,

they're doing it anyway. They're paying for it anyway. And

outside of, what, a few rare titles. The vast majority of the

best selling list is going to come from the big five.

Absolutely. Yeah. So, hmm, so why bother? Yeah, I suppose.

Because we must fight. I don't even know. I don't like that.

If the

if the goal here was confusion, then it really works. Yeah, they

did a great job. Good job. Everyone. Yes, this, we asked

for competition, and this is what we got. Although, I mean,

like some, some people came to bat because, well, requires that

a new account set up with them must be done, and the first

order received by August 30, open enrollment. So any

bookstores out there who might be listening to the podcast, you

got until August 30 to order through Hachette, get on it. You

guys. Yeah, because like, they're, they're

my god includes Abrams Chronicle, Disney Book Group,

Hachette, UK kids can press, moleskin, octopus, Faden pi

kids, Quercus, Nicholas, Brealey, quattro and Yen Press,

among others. I'm sure you need those. You need

those pretentious people that

Disney isn't gonna come after you if you don't order through

their publishing distribution arm. What is

gonna happen with all the rick riordan books people? What the

Percy Jackson box. Oh, I didn't hear what you

said. I'm like

Atlas Shrugged.

All of these, all of these companies are just looking out

for their best interest. Sign, rant,

although did you guys take a look at the Penguin Random House

one? Yes, I did. What do you notice? Well, I actually had a

question. So the bullet point that says dedicated PRH sales

reps, slash community bookstore specialists to help you navigate

seasonal front list ordering and backless replenishment. When you

were a bookseller, exactly how much interaction did you have

with the sales reps from publishers? You know, honestly,

I think I spent most of my time just trolling anal vice

and and looking through the various catalogs my because I

was just a children's buyer, the store owner was the one that met

with the reps. There was like four of us, five of us in the

store, and only three of us gave a shit.

Yay, yay. Four of us gave a shit, yes. So with the reps,

though they only really met with the one one person, okay, but as

far as like the more specialty picks, it was nothing. Just

searching, okay, yeah, word of mouth, you know, the typical

thing that you rely on when you're a customer. You know, I

heard about this really cool book, right? Get it, right?

Yeah. I'm just wondering how much like in person

communication, you know, like sales reps actually have with

bookstores. And here's the thing, so to your point, right

below that bullet, there's special offer of the tree line

to help with inventory management.

Guys. I'm not sure if anybody who listens is aware of what

above the tree line is, but, but we're gonna tell you. We're

gonna tell ya. Anybody else want to chime in here? It's idle vice

Yeah, well above the tree line is, is the inventory management

and metadata aggregator, yep, that bookstores use to keep tabs

on all their books. It's literally inventory management.

It's literally inventory management. But what Edelweiss

is is Edelweiss is above the tree lines, kind of like catalog

arm. So they've worked with a lot of book publishers across

the country to accrue catalogs for past and upcoming seasons.

And what you can do if you are a buyer and you use above the tree

line, you go on Edelweiss, you dig through all the catalogs,

you select what books you're interested in, and then you send

a handy dandy little message to your sales rep.

Yep, through Edelweiss to let them know which books you're

interested in, help me,

dear sales person, dear sales person, I don't know what to do

with my inventory.

I mean, so really, I'm kind of interested to hear what these

dedicated sales reps and how much they're gonna really do if

they're relying on above the tree line for them. Yeah, yeah.

To begin with, it feels like they're saying you can talk to a

real person. Remember the good old days?

There's a lot out there that would prefer that. Oh, yeah,

there's something to be said for being hand sold a book? Yeah,

for sure. No. I mean, I'm only kind of being sarcastic. I had

someone today ask, like, if there was any Barnes and Noble

like person in like, the acquiring the books to sell. And

they were like, can you, like, refer me to anybody over there?

And I was like, if I could, I would be so happy. I literally

do everything through spreadsheets and only talk to it

people when I submit to Barnes and Noble but quite frank, you

know, I've got full respect for sales reps because they really

do not have an easy job. Yeah, yeah, that's true. They've got a

hard job, not even just like knowing all the upcoming the

front list, knowing your solid backlist, knowing any of the

imprints that you might have, also like the constant traveling

for what, 30 to 50 weeks out of the year. Nope, that's insane.

It's a tough job. It is. It's true. I'm not trying to poo poo

that. I'm just, you're welcome. I don't know why I'm talking. I

am talking like a grandma today.

Sorry, guys. What's gotten into me anyway? I'm just sitting here

and on the road again is playing in my head. Oh, no, you're

welcome.

Well, I think that we, I think we

had some good opinions there. Yeah, yeah. I am so yeah, Tara,

thank you for, like, helping us with that. Yeah. Do you want to

talk about what books we're reading real quick? Yeah, you

go first, because I know you're oh my god, like 10 probably Oh

my god. What? What book Am I reading right now? Oh, no, you

know what book I just finished? Actually, it

literally came out like a week, week and a half ago, and I

finished the sucker in a day, which, with my schedule has been

a little wonky lately. So you're not sleeping. Not who sleeps

anymore? Let's be honest. No, it's called red, white and royal

blue, okay? And it's a male, male rom romance book. Oh, yeah,

you tried to throw that at me last week, and I was like, you

already lent me a book. I can't have another. Did I did lend

you. I did try and lend you so many books. Let me look up the

author really quickly. Okay, I totally forget it. While you're

doing that, you I am reading the book you lent me. Yeah. Oh, is

it kiss quotient, or his quotient, something like that?

Yeah, that's putting quotient. What do you think I love it?

It's really

fun,

like, really hot romance, actually, yes, but it's a

neurodiverse romance. The main, one of the main characters, is

autistic. Oh, okay, she's on the spectrum, oh yeah, and the

author is too. So it's an

Own Voices book, well. And the funny thing is, I was kind of

like scanning Goodreads, and I think a lot of people on there

read it because, solely because it was an Own Voices book. And

they're like, Oh, why is there so much sex in this? Why do they

have to talk about sex in every chapter? Like, literally someone

was saying that, and I'm like, she literally hires romance

book, male prostitute. People, sex worker. Sex worker, yes,

male sex worker, thank you. Could not think, yes, she

literally hires a male sex worker. People, but her second

book just came out too, which I'm really excited to read that.

One is that also, it's romance, also romance, it's also

neurodiverse, okay, because the main character, one of the main

characters in this one, showed up initially in Kiss quotient,

hi,

yeah, yeah. Okay, don't tell me anymore. I don't know anymore.

Okay, good. So I can't tell you anymore, but no red, white and

royal blue is by Casey McQuiston. Okay, already on the

best seller list, people. So if you just look up,

you know, red, white and royal blue, red, white and royal blue.

I Yeah, no, it was really good. Yeah, fun book. Okay, yeah. How

about you? Karen, what are you reading? I am still reading the

same books that I was reading a week ago, but I am enjoying like

that. Jen Kirkman, one that I'm still reading, yes, it's called

I can barely take care of myself, Tales from a happy life

without kids.

So I'm enjoying reading about basically my life just through a

fun.

Your lens, because she is a comedian, and I'm not yet sure

you are,

but you know what I mean anyway, so, but yeah, I like her a lot,

so it's been fun and breezy. Anybody have anything else to

say? Um, no,

question or statement. I know I'm like, I don't think so. All

right, well, then you should follow us on Facebook, hybrid

pub Scout, Twitter, at hybrid pub Scout, and we have a new

Instagram,

and we're gonna become influencers. Oh, my God, Over my

dead body. I think I made some joke about that when I started

the account and Corinne was I was I was like, I'm going to be

an influencer. And Karen's like, and then I will sadly quit the

podcast.

Go to our website, sign up for our newsletter, because I'm

about to drop a couple more. JT Reed, smut, yeah,

yeah.

Anyway, do it. It's we have a good time.

Are you okay? I'm not. I'm not bragging.

Am I forgetting anything? Oh, please go and review and rate up

on iTunes, and if you missed it for whatever reason, because you

like to listen podcasts backwards, you can hear me

reading in our recent review from Jessica Clark in a German

accent. Also make sure, when you review that you let them know

which accent they need to use next. Yeah, it'll also help.

Like I was not prepared to do a New England accent, but just it

in the thing in my research practice, okay, I can find some

YouTube videos and I can practice No, spontaneity is

better. No, because what if I don't even know what it sounds

like? All the better

spontaneity.

All right, no,

well, as long as you're open to the idea,

well, thanks for listening and thanks for giving a rip up. You.

You.