The True Value of your Biography Section

1:17 PM, 22 February 2018

Biographies and memoirs are a mainstay in the bookselling world – they can connect with readers in a way unique from other genres, building a personal bond with the reader based on shared experience, personal interest (and/or obsession), historical fascination or any number of other connections. The pure variation of lives and experience committed to paper has the power to draw new and diverse people into a shop, offering new ways for booksellers to connect with a wider community.

This week The Read talks to Anna Hunt from Marsden Books, Carole Beu from The Women’s Bookshop, as well as Dylan Sherwood and Marcus Greville from Unity Books Wellington about biographies and their audiences, sales and customer base.

Birds of a feather
Biographies sell best when kept together as often a customer is looking for a theme rather than a specific title. ‘People often ask for ‘a bio’ without knowing what they want’, says Carole, pointing out that being able to peruse their interests at their leisure is key for their customers.

Unity Books groups by NZ, historical, literary, and contemporary, for exactly the same reasons notes Marcus Greville. But new or especially popular biographies get front of shop privileges, be it on Unity’s ‘pyramid’, The Women’s Bookshop’s famous ‘purple block’, or Marsden’s window.

When asked for examples of biographies that have done well for the shop and ideas of why those in particular stood out, an abundance of titles were offered up – more than half of them by NZers. Diana Wichtel’s Driving to Treblinka, Tom Scott’s Drawn Out, Adam Dudding’s My Father’s Island, and Emily Writes’ Rants in the Dark, to name but a few.

While none of the respondents named the same international titles as those that had done well for them, Anna Hunt goes to great lengths to search out titles that she can get behind for her customers: Plot 29 by Alan Jenkins, Lucky Lupin by Charlie Mortimer, and Citizen Clem by John Bew.

Carole points towards store favourites The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein, Life in the Garden by Penelope Lively, and Fight Like a Girl by Clementine Ford. And Dylan and Marcus mention Outsiders: Five Women Writers that Changed the World by Lyndall Gordon, Finding Gobi by Dion Leonard, The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis, and Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood, which Marcus states is ‘Symphonic in it’s smutty humour and linguistic beauty!’

These titles are incredibly diverse in subject matter, speaking to the importance of recognising the interests of your local community.

Launching a biography
Doing an in-store event for a biography can take things to a whole new level. ‘Launches introduce new people to the shop’ says Carole, ‘who often come back once they have discovered how good we are!’

Any launch brings in people that may never have set foot in your store before, but a biography or memoir seems to have an effect that reaches further yet. Dylan ascribes the effect to the personal nature of the genre,’When writing about their own life, or the lives of others, the writer touches so many – friends, family, community – so the crowd attending has a broad base, bringing really different people.’

Marcus agrees that the subject matter draws people in, ‘Emily Writes’ Rants in the Dark drew a huge crowd that was passionate and deeply engaged with Emily’s incredibly direct and funny discription of motherhood.’ Dylan further adds, in contrast subject-wise at least, ‘Out of the Woods, a deeply moving graphic novel about depression by Brent Williams, brought deeply devoted people to the launch.’

Promoting events
So how do people hear about the events? Each bookshop reaches out to their customer contact list to advertise the launch, also setting the information free on social media platforms, as well as conducting in-store promotion. But the very nature of biography means, as Anna succinctly puts it, ‘These events are driven by the authors own support group.’ Often meaning increased crowds and more passion.

What does this mean for average sales at biography launches? Dylan, after thinking for a moment, makes the point that ‘Sales vary wildly, I’m not sure an average would be meaningful. But I think biography launches outsell most others.’ Carole and Anna report that their sales could be anywhere from 15 to 60 and more for particularly significant books.

As with any good in-store event, the afterglow finds its way into conversations with customers over the following days and weeks, but the effect can be more pronounced when a book has a more personal impact on those that attended the launch (including the staff members who worked it).

Biographies have the potential to have that impact, to expand the conversation a store has with the community, so paying special attention to their curation, display, promotion and launches takes on increased importance.

The Women’s Bookshop is launching Peter Wells’ family biography Dear Oliver: Uncovering a Pakeha History on Wednesday 21 March, as well as holding the Auckland launch for After Alexander, by Jan Pryor on Thursday 1 March, a week after the launch at Unity Books Wellington this evening, Thursday 22 February.  

Harking back to our Read feature by Sarah Forster a month ago, biography is frequently a top-seller for publishers here, and there are dozens of new titles out in the coming few months – from celebrity biographies of the likes of Lorraine Downes and Parris Goebbel, to more literary fare like Feverish by Gigi Fenster and Pip Desmond’s Song for Rosaleen.

So whatever your core audience, there is certain to be a biography to help you lure new faces to your store with, whether or not you launch the book. 

ENDS