Giving books for the holidays? The Biblioracle advises: Buy now
Maybe you’re like me, and lately you’ve been hearing a lot about supply chain problems. I think of the supply chain like I think of my pancreas; I spend 99% of my time not thinking about it, but when something goes wrong, seemingly inexplicable stuff happens.
Supply chain problems have driven up the cost of cars — something about lack of circuit boards — lumber recently saw record highs, and an aluminum can shortage has even restricted the quantity of my favorite V8 morning juice drink.
And of course we all remember the early pandemic supply chain problem when it looked like we might have to shelter-inplace for an extended period of time and brawls would break out in stores over toilet paper.
According to a recent Shelf Awareness article, book wholesaler Ingram is sounding a warning over publishing industry supply chain issues that will impact the holiday book buying season. The problems are multifold: labor shortage, materials shortage, transportation issues, you name it. Even if books can get printed, there might not be enough trucks to get them to the warehouse. Once at the warehouse there might not be enough laborers to get them shipped to a store.
Ingram is suggesting that bookstores order early and go big, but this comes with its own set of consequences. As Anne Trubek, chief of Belt Publishing, pointed out in her Notes from a Small Press newsletter, over-ordering in anticipation of supply problems may result in larger returns than usual, which means we’ll only have more unbought books that get destroyed down the line, costing those toward the end of the chain (publishers, stores) money.
The good news for regular folks such as ourselves is that you can take action to prevent being negatively affected by any supply chain disruption in the publishing and bookselling industry.
If you are dead-set on giving a particular person a particular book, your best bet is to order it from your favorite independent bookstore the moment you finish reading this column. Don’t even think about going to the crossword. Pick up the phone or drop an email right now.
The store will gladly put in the order for the exact number of books you want, they will arrive well in advance of any holiday gift giving occasion, and all will be well. Even better, if you order early, you will see the books sitting around your house until the holidays, and each time they catch your attention you can remember what an amazing gift giver you are.
If you don’t know what book or books you may want to give, or you can’t stomach the thought of holiday shopping in September, it’s absolutely OK to wait, and when it comes time to secure those gifts, simply buy books that are in the store, rather than the books that aren’t in the store.
Because here’s the thing: Books are not like the hot toy of the season. They are not Cabbage Patch Dolls.
Books aren’t quite a universally interchangeable commodity, but neither is there a scarcity of any particular genre of book. Sure, if you went in looking for a new user guide to TikTok, “Windows 95 for Dummies” may not suffice, but by and large anyone who walks into a bookstore will find something that fits the bill. There are approximately eleventy-billion (unofficial estimate) great books out there that any friend, loved one, co-worker, dry cleaner, or any other category of gift recipient you can think of, will love.
Even better, the vast majority of books do not spoil with age, so if you can’t get a specific book for the holiday, it will be here eventually.
I promise.