Comments on: GUEST OPINION: How Do Romances Get on the Shelves–Library Shelves by Sherry Thomas

By: Elaine Charton

Elaine Charton — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 13:32:42 +0000

One of the biggest thrills was to log on to the local library catalog one day and realize they had bought several copies of my first book, EZ Lovin’. I got as excited as I did seeing the book in a bookstore for the first time.

By: Linda

Linda — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:53:17 +0000

The public library I work for recognized the popularity of mass market paperbacks and set aside part of their book budget to purchase these books. I do the ordering and rely heavily on Romantic Times Book Review magazine. It is a wonderful source for all genres. All the books I buy are original publications with the bulk being romance. They fly off the shelves! The circulation numbers have soared by double digits for new mass market titles – versus new hardcovers which have had declining numbers. Our collection is fully cataloged and numbers over 5,000 titles. I pre-order the books so that they are on the shelf the same time as they hit the book stores. In many cases, our savy patrons have placed a hold on many of the new books. I enjoyed reading your post and all the comments!

By: do we get a gold star? « Collection Developments @ Sno-Isle

do we get a gold star? « Collection Developments @ Sno-Isle — Thu, 28 May 2009 17:33:27 +0000

[...] No Comments Sherry Thomas guest blogged on Dear Author last week describing the process of how romances get on the shelves at your local [...]

By: Ellen Hartman

Ellen Hartman — Wed, 20 May 2009 23:19:22 +0000

This post got me to check for my books in my hometown library. Nada. So then I emailed the librarian asking if she’d be interested in a donation for the collection.

Yes, please.

I’m delivering books to the library next week. Taking my kids along–it’s going to be cool. Thanks for the inspiration!

By: Susan Wilbanks

Susan Wilbanks — Wed, 20 May 2009 22:24:10 +0000

My local library system (Seattle Public Library) is reasonably romance-friendly and quite responsive to patron suggestions. I probably average 2-3 suggestions for purchase per month, in multiple genres, and they buy at least four copies of almost all of them, even if I’m the only patron who’s requested a particular title. (I can tell, because once they preorder the book, it goes up in my holds queue, and I can see how many other patrons are waiting for it.) Their rule is you can’t request a book more than three months before the publication date.

The one exception to SPL’s “Buy Anything That Susan Chick Requests” rule seems to be the obscure titles I use for research, but that’s what interlibrary loan is for…

By: SonomaLass

SonomaLass — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:13:57 +0000

My library doesn’t have The Spymaster’s Lady either. I just checked. They do have some MMP romance, though, including Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, and (newer to the field, I think) Elizabeth Hoyt (one of which is currently checked out to me). I expect a lot of the ones I can’t find in the library, I could find in the Friends of the Library store, or at one of their sales. I always buy too many books, though!

By: Mary M.

Mary M. — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:12:40 +0000

Very interesting insight into the American Public library system :). I wonder how the book selection process works in the libraries of my province, as to my knowledge, we don’t have an equivalent to Publishers Weekly or the NYT bestseller list. Pretty much all of the fiction in my language makes it to the libraries but romance ? There is little original romance in French (and it’s mostly historical, although chick lit is gaining somewhat) and that is considered mainstream; as for translations or English romance novels (some lines specialize in that), I’d say about 20% of them make it to one of the libraries in my sector, and a lot of English romances aren’t translated at all. As for buying original English version, these are much lower on their priority list as English-speakers are a minority, and romance is even lower. To give you an, the central library of the biggest town (a bit under 2 million people) has one single copy of an Elizabeth Hoyt book (Raven Prince, in French), 3 copies of Vision of White (none of them ready yet) and has only one J.R Ward book, Lover Eternal. They haven’t bought a copy of Lover Avenged yet and I’ll fall off my chair if they do. So I think most people who want to read English romance here do as I do: we buy them.

By: Sherry Thomas

Sherry Thomas — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:34:52 +0000

Jo,

Austin Public Library has 1 copy of TSL and 4 of MLAS. I believe the latter was reviewed in PW?

Anyway, you need to hit the folks at your library over the head about the Reading List win and tell them that TSL needs to be in every town lib’s core collection, even if it is small and snooty, uh, intellectual. :-)

By: jayn.

jayn. — Wed, 20 May 2009 18:11:41 +0000

I work for a large mid-western library system with 30 branches and 1 genealogy center. I’m at the large central branch, and I’ve been happy to note that our system is not shy about noting trends and what is being read by the public. As a result, we have a pretty constant parade of new romances pouring in with new book arrivals, and not just the standard top sellers. We are pretty well rounded in all fiction genres, and I think it makes a library more “public” oriented to be so. I know that the person who does the ordering here relies on RT, PW, and LJ to find new and interesting reads, and she is constantly asking those of us with specific and different tastes what we in particular read, who is writing what, etc, so she actually orders a lot of lesser known authors and we recommend them to our patrons.

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:28:02 +0000

I second/third the comments from other acquisitions librarians above. Just wanted to note that RT is THE most important romance mag/rag for me due to their grocery-checklist style list of series updates (never included in other trades and I otherwise have to rely on patron requests), reprints list (hey publisher jerks quit changing the titles!), pretty glossy ads (sorry self-published authors, no matter the $ spent on ads if your cover art is a pixelated flower on a mismatched color background I’m turned off…and so are the patrons), and the EROTICA REVIEWS (thank you thank you!!). I have many hats at my medium-size library so I don’t have time to read a review in RT, I rely on star ratings for those authors that I don’t already have in our collection (sorry!).