Marketing Fiction

When I worked at the Tippecanoe County Public Library, one of the items that I thought was a good marketing tool for fiction was read-a-like lists in the form of book marks.  I think that many times we run the risk, at the library, of having so many different posters and pamphlets that everything just becomes white noise for our patrons.  What I liked about the reading lists we used was that they were long, thick bookmarks, and they would just kind of live in certain books. For example, there'd be a David Baldacci book with a read-a-like list put together from Novelist suggestions inside of it, and someone would check it out and return it with the same bookmark in it-- so, over time, they'd get worn out, but you knew that the bookmark was getting looked at repeatedly.

At the St. Joseph County Public Library, one of the big programming cycle events is called "One Book, One Michigan." I know a lot of libraries have events like this, where they encourage patrons to read a specific book-- often a classic-- and then have all kinds of different programming themed around it.  But I really think it's helpful, and you can really spotlight an excellent book and get your entire community behind it.  The book that we did that I thought went particularly well was "Killer Angels."  People eat up Civil War themed programming-- I don't know why.  I guess it's just about a common thread in American History.

Of course, displays are fun to do and I really think they help circulation in specific areas of your collection.  I always like to do science fiction and graphic novel displays because I like those genres of literature. I did a Hugo Award winner display not too long ago where we numbered a bunch of Hugo winners and put the numbers randomly in a little Bingo ball where people could crank it and get a random number, and then the idea was that they took the book with the corresponding number.  I think that sometimes, when people know that they like a specific genre, they're more willing to take a risk on an author in that genre they may not know-- and I think that helps interactive displays, like the one I described, succeed.

Week 14 Prompt Response

I find this to be a particularly difficult question to answer, quite honestly.  I think that how you organize your material is really dependent upon the readership of the library, what you circulate, and what you acquire.  If it makes sense to create a focused space for a particular library genre, you should do it. To some degree, signage costs money, so it’s nice to keep your genre schema fairly flexible, and I feel like sometimes people overvalue the need for extremely precise genre labels. As a former page/shelver, I think it’s a pain to constantly have to readjust shelve labels. 

I’m a fan of keeping the genre system relatively simple.

I work at a very small public library, and I find that one of the genres that checks out the most is Amish fiction—so it makes sense for us to have an Amish fiction section. Materials circulate so well that it should probably be expanded. However, we don’t have an LGBTQ section and we don’t have a Street Lit section.  We still provide access to titles in those genres, and people can still search for titles in those genres via our OPAC, but they don’t tend to circulate well enough to necessitate a designated browsing space. We have a generic “paperbacks” section where a lot of the pulp stuff goes. I also feel like these genres can be incorporated into other genres designations, like Romance, and the general Fiction section is always the catch-all.  It’s a logistical decision, to some degree—I don’t think we should regard genre labeling as philosophical or political.  If we isolated those genres at my library, they’d only probably fill up 2 or 3 shelves, so I think it’s the right call not to separate them out.  And again, this is why we have OPACs, to some degree. However, if the collection was bigger, and those titles circulated better, I’d have no problem pulling the trigger on creating a space for them.

The Readers' Advisory Matrix for "Under and Alone" by William Queen

Where is the book on the narrative continuum?

Highly Narrative

What is the subject of the book?

The story of a former ATF agent who infiltrated, and ultimately helped bring down, the Mongols Motorcycle Club in California’s San Fernando Valley in 1998.

What type of book is it?

A true-crime memoir.

Articulate appeal:

What is the pacing?  Quick paced thriller.

Characters: William Queen undercover under the moniker Billy St. John, Domingo, the terrifying Mongols’ President, and a revolving cast of colorful ex-convicts and criminal bikers of the 1% variety.

How does the story feeling: Thrilling and suspenseful.

What is the intent of the author: To entertain and educate the reader on organized crime.

What is the focus of the story? William Queen’s struggle to cope with and justify his behavior as he gets sucked deeper and deeper into the outlaw biker lifestyle.

Does the language matter? Yes.

Is the setting important and well-described? Yes—William Queen was one of the first federal agents to infiltrate an organization that could only exist, for a variety of reasons, at that specific point in time, in a part of the country where the weather permits year-round motorcycle activity.

Are there details and, if so, of what?  Vivid memories described from the first person perspective.

Are there sufficient charts and graphic materials, etc…? None.

Does the book stress moment of learning, understanding, or experience? Real-life experience and understanding of the criminal element from someone who lived it first hand.

Why would a reader enjoy this book (rank appeal)?

1. Action   2. Suspense   3. Experience