Homage to the Sales Rep

In an earlier post I wrote about my first year in bookselling and casually mentioned that every publisher's sales rep' used to be called Brian or Keith. Naturally, this was a slight exaggeration. There was also one called Barry.

When I joined Waterstone's, over 20 years ago, I was told that one of my jobs would involve buying new titles from publishers. Surprisingly, there was no training, but in spite of this I was given a monthly budget of £5000 to spend in any way I pleased. Unsurprisingly, when the word got out that Waterstone's had delegated its new title buying to a load of chinless wonders, it was like a feeding frenzy.

One of the first things that impressed me was how many sales reps there were. HarperCollins alone had four, just for SW London (one for fiction, another for children's, one for general non-fiction, plus a dedicated rep for maps and reference), whilst most of the other major publishers had at least two.

If you only had one sales representative per region, you weren't a proper publisher.

As a result, I probably spent around 60% of my time buying new titles from sales reps, during meetings that were called 'subbing' sessions. Until I reached the dizzy heights of management, all new title buying had to take place on the shop floor, so we usually tucked ourselves away in a quiet corner where we wouldn't be bothered by customers.

Each representative turned up with at least one large suitcase containing huge files of blad (which stands for book layout and design), showing mock-ups of dustjackets, blurbs and details of how much publicity the book was going to get. My job was to decide whether the book would sell in Richmond and, if I thought it would, guess how many copies we'd need.

Initially, I had no idea what I was talking about and the whole buying process seemed farcical. Some reps saw a golden opportunity for a stitch-up, convincing me that an obscure £35 book on dolphins warranted a minimum order of five copies. The more experienced reps took a longer view, knowing that any duds would only come back as returns, which would have to be credited back to the bookseller.

The best reps effectively taught me how to do my job, gently nudging me in the right direction if I'd overestimated how many books we needed. I had the good sense to listen to them, but not everyone did. When one young bookseller stubbornly refused to accept that he needed five rather than 40 copies of a new poetry title, the rep slammed his folder shut and said "Look, I'm going to go away now. I'll come back when I can talk to a grown-up."

The second thing that impressed me about the reps was how few of them read books. You would imagine that if a publisher employed people to sell its titles, they would try to recruit bookish, literary types. However, the majority of the 'old school' reps had no interest in books and would have been just as happy selling exhaust pipes or photocopiers.

There seemed to be very strong class divisions in the traditional publishing world. The public school, university-educated types went into the editorial departments, whilst the vulgar business of actually selling the books was left to people who had mostly left school at 16.

At first it seemed absurd that publishers had a sales force made up of people who didn't know that George Eliot was a woman, but over time I came to realise that the best sales reps were frequently the Brians and Barrys, who didn't read, whilst the worst were often the bright young things who may have had English degrees, but didn't know how to sell a book.

In the early 1990s, the typical rep was a man in his mid 50s, with a bald head, moustache and a ruddy face that indicated an approaching heart attack. I lost count of the number of times I heard the phrase "Keith won't be in for a while - he's just had a heart attack" (I suppose it was all those 'Little Chef' meals). When he arrived, panting with the effort of dragging a suitcase from the car park, I never knew whether he'd make it to the end of the session.

Keith may not have been widely read, but he knew his market. He understood that X sold well in Windsor but not in Slough, whilst Y was unknown outside the M25. Sadly, the editorial departments rarely seemed to take of notice of their reps' sales reports and a large part of our buying session would be spent moaning about our respective head offices.

"Honestly Phil, you tell me, how am I going to sell this? They haven't got a clue."

It was a working-class, male-dominated world. Hours were spent on the road, so the car was king and each rep knew every service station and shortcut. If you wanted to get rid of a rep, giving them an Austin Montego was usually enough.

Some of the reps had little scams that made them feel that they were getting the upper hand over their unsympathetic employers. For example, when one rep went to get petrol, his wife followed him in her car and filled her tank during the same sesion (when someone challenged the rep about his fuel costs, he brazened it out: "It's a thirsty car mate").

Occasionally, a bright young thing at head office would try to get the reps more engaged with the titles they were representing:

"Phil, I got this fucking memo from some tosser at Head Office telling me I had to read this new novel and write a report about it! D'you know what I did? I phoned him up and said I haven't read a fucking book in 25 years and I'm not going to start now."

But not all of the reps were 'wide boys'. One was an ex-public school man in his 60s, who lived in an expensive London flat with his belligerent, alcoholic mother. In spite of his effete manner and Brian Sewell voice, he was at pains to let us know that he was heterosexual, constantly praising the feminine charms of detox guru Leslie Kenton:


When it came to Alan Hollinghurst, he was less enthusiastic:

"This is a book by a homosexual author that will only be of interest to other homosexuals".

He wasn't terribly keen on Irvine Welsh either:

"Here is another book for young people to waste their pocket money on".

It was all said with a faint twinkle in the eye, but I felt that he was a rather bitter, disappointed man, trapped in a world he despised. When he was forced to retire, he refused to accept the gold-plated fountain pen that his colleagues had bought for him.

But by the time I became a bookseller, the traditional reps' world was changing. The Keiths were increasingly being replaced, either by Sues (much to the relief of many female booksellers) or earnest young graduates and the subbing sessions - once a mixture of dirty jokes, gossip and moaning - became more businesslike in tone.

Overall I got on very well with the sales reps and came to regard some of them as friends. They were generally bright, funny people with a healthy cynicism about the publishing industry and, most important of all, a good sense of humour. When I left high-street bookselling, one of the things I really missed was having a good gossip with a rep.

I loved exchanging scurrilous anecdotes about colleagues. I learned that one Ottakar's manager regularly had pyjama-party sleepovers in her shop, whilst another had stolen enough money to buy a sports car (he ended up in prison). But my favourite gossip was about authors. I learned that Jilly Cooper was lovely but Jeffrey Archer was deeply unpleasant, whilst Terry Pratchett could be very grumpy, only turning on the charm for his fans.

If a sales rep had ever been treated badly by an author, we all knew about it. In a few cases, an author's career was effectively killed off by the rep, as we all conspired to make sure that their books were barely visible.

The rep's job has got a lot harder in recent years. Every year, redundancies and early retirement have trimmed the sales forces of publishers and the surviving reps have been expected to cover ever larger areas for little or no extra pay. The once ubiquitous HarperCollins rep is now as elusive as the natterjack toad.

With only one major book chain left, the age of the publisher's rep is almost over. I think that there should be a memorial coat of arms, depicting a full English breakfast, some blood pressure tablets and a large black suitcase on wheels. But sadly, I think their passing will be unnoticed by all but a few.

Light and Shade

During the last few days, our oven has exploded, the fridge has broken and my car's dashboard keeps flashing an orange light, warning of imminent doom. It feels as if we're in a Stephen King movie. As far as I know, there are no Native American burial grounds under our house, but we're near the site of the Battle of Lewes, so perhaps some tormented medieval souls are making their presence felt.

This morning I took the car to be serviced and walked home, cutting through some of the many twittens that are tucked away behind the main roads. Because it was so early, the sun was still low and I was struck by the contrast between the intense, golden light of the castle walls and the gloomy, muted colours of the narrow twittens.


I don't normally walk around thinking about light and shade, but last night I went to a fascinating talk about Eric Ravilious, given by author (and blogger) James Russell. Organised by the wonderful Much Ado Books, it was so successful that the venue had to be to changed to a larger place.

I'd say that there were at least 150 people at the talk - a number that any bookseller would be very happy with. Even the largest city centre stores struggle to achieve figures like that, so it's remarkable that an independent bookshop in a small Sussex village attracted such a good turnout.

It's a great tribute to both the growing popularity of Eric Ravilious and the marketing skills of Much Ado Books and James Russell.

I seemed to be the only person there under 50. I'm not quite sure why, although I know how difficult it is to do anything in the evening if you're in the tunnel of parenthood. Perhaps Banksy would have drawn a different crowd.

As for the talk itself, I think it would have been interesting even if I'd never heard of Eric Ravilious, thanks to James Russell's passion about his subject. Using a series of slides, he showed the contrast between Ravilious's paintings and the actual scenes. To a layman like me, it was a revelation.

For example, here is a lithograph that Ravilious made of Newhaven Harbour:

And here is the actual scene, which I've pinched from James Russell's blog:


I had no idea that Ravilous had excercised his artistic licence so liberally, compressing distances and altering the perspective to suit his purposes. That is one of the things that makes him a great artist, along with his ability to capture the spiritual quality of a place:

For example, compare this watercolour by Ravilious of the South Downs in winter:

With this traditional downland scene by a contemporary artist:


Perhaps my favourite Ravilious painting is 'Dangerous Work at Low Tide', which comes from the final years of his life when he was an official war artist. I bought a 420mm x 594mm print from the Ministry of Defence for the ridiculously cheap price of £18.

If this takes your fancy, you can buy it here.

Even if you only have a very casual interest in the art of the interwar years, I'd strongly recommend getting along to one of James Russell's talks. Recent venues have included London, Oxford and Bristol, so it's worth checking his blog to see where he's off to next.

Finally, a quick plug for Much Ado Books. The owners - Kate Olsen and Nash Robbins - ran a successful bookshop in Marblehead, Massachusetts for over 20 years before moving to Alfriston in Sussex. When 'Much Ado' first opened, I confidently predicted that they'd close within two years because Alfriston was too small to sustain a bookshop.

Instead, they went on to win the Independent Bookseller of the Year award and now have a thriving business which is an object lesson in how to run a bookshop in the age of Amazon and ebooks. It just shows how much I know.

In hindsight, they followed one of the golden rules of bookselling: open a shop where there are lots of posh people. Alfriston may be small, but it has a wonderful catchment area full of literary types who think that buying books at discounted prices from Amazon is insufferably vulgar. The owners have successfully exploited the area's Bloomsbury connection and both the stock and presentation are pitch perfect. It's hard to believe that they're relative newcomers to Sussex.

On April 22nd they're holding a book swap, hosted by Scott 'Me and My Big Mouth' Pack and Robert Husdon. The idea is that you bring a book that you love along and swap it for one you haven't read.

Frankly, if I love a book, I'm buggered if I'm going to let anyone else have it. I don't even lend books, so I'm not sure whether I'll go or not. Perhaps I could bring a book I'm not that keen on and pretend to like it, but I suppose that really isn't entering into the spirit of the occasion.

On the subject of books, I almost forgot to mention why James Russell was holding an event with Much Ado Books. He's written some books - beautiful, lavishly-illustrated hardbacks - that focus on different aspects of Ravilious's art. Here's one I bought earlier:

I wouldn't be tactless enough to include an Amazon link, but they are available from all good booksellers and, no doubt, some bad ones too.

This Evening

This evening I decided to take advantage of the extra hour of daylight and go for what the Victorians used to call a perambulation. It was a lovely evening - almost t-shirt weather - and the sound of birdsong and horses hooves made me feel as if I was in an episode of Midsomer Murders, without the murders.

It almost made up for an otherwise shitty day, during which my wife and I decided to pull our oldest son out of the school system.

It has taken me a while to realise what a difficult time we've had. I've known several people with autistic children and compared to them, our life was a breeze, so I think I turned a blind eye to the fact that my son struggled to cope with normal, everyday situations and I kept looking for easy answers.

It was confusing. My son doesn't neatly fit into any category, but exhibits symptoms of several syndromes. Sometimes I think he has something that hasn't been named yet. At others I'm more inclined to agree with R D Laing's view that mental illness is a social construct (I'm not denying the existence of full-blown nutters, but there is a general consensus that neurotic and psychotic illnesses are exacerbated by modern, urban life).

Would my son's behaviour be regarded as problematic if we lived in a traditional community? Judging by his skill at computer games, he'd be an excellent hunter-gatherer.

It does feel as if we're in a big sausage machine sometimes, where people are sucked into a system that squeezes them into the right shape so that they can function in a modern, urban, post-industrial society, and if you're a square peg in a round hole, then you're diagnosed with a syndrome.

I don't know; I feel more confused than ever. If I hadn't had a second child I might have gone to my grave thinking that I was one of the most useless fathers in existence, but my younger son is completely different. Indeed, if he'd been my only child I might have been unbearably conceited.

I've met those smug parents who seem to delight in telling you how Lily or Hector love visiting the Tate Modern (when they're not busy having viola lessons) and then go on to show you the Matisse-influenced drawings they did when they got home. It always gives me a huge sense of satisfaction when they have a second child who turns out to be a complete 'mentalist': welcome to my world,.

I'm not quite sure what's going to happen next. Obviously my son's education is important, but his mental health comes first. Getting him out of the front door is the first challenge (and I think that getting a dog may be the answer), after which I hope that my son will rediscover his curiosity about the world around him.

Meanwhile, his brother is downstairs doing maths games and designing a birthday card for his former childminder. His only worries seem to center around the number of people who want to be his friend. Also, the schoolwork isn't challenging enough.

Life is such a lottery.


PS - Feb 2013. Almost one year on, I can see that the decision to remove our son from school was the right one.  The last eleven months have been a struggle, but there has been a gradual, steady improvement that fills us with hope.

Somerset Maugham Talking About Novelists

"All novels are, every now and then, a great deal of a bore. You have to accept that. No novel is interesting all the way through unless it's a very, very short one."

You wouldn't expect to find a YouTube clip of an author born in 1874 talking about a book he'd published in 1915. But Somerset Maugham had the good fortune to live a long life, whilst writers like D H Lawrence (born 11 years after Maugham) seem as remote as Thomas Hardy.

Here's an interview that Maugham did with the wonderfully effete Malcolm Muggeridge. The sound is slightly out of synch with the video:



Somerset Maugham's longevity was probably a result of good genes and living in the south of France, but there may have been another factor too. According to Clement Freud, Maugham was "obsessed with staying alive and spent most of his later years averting death, which included the consumption of a range of pills including some made from the entrails of swan".

Freud also noted that Maugham had the worst halitosis he had ever encountered.

Fortunately YouTube is still several years away from providing odourama, so we can enoy this close-up encounter with Somerset Maugham without holding our breath.