[Marketing] sell-in vs sell through

I'm really bad about forgetting what publishing jargon is either known or not known among my wider circle of acquaintances.  While on vacation visiting my parents last week, they asked for clarification on a pair of terms so it seemed like a good thing to post about today.

There are two phases in the life of a book in terms of marketing and publicity: sell-in, and sell-through.  I sometimes see them bandied about on publishing blogs or dropped into conversation without much by way of explanation or distinction, so here we go.

Sell-through

The ultimate goal is to sell through the available stock in the marketplace with enough reorders to warrant a reprint. But if you've been doing your research into the publishing industry, you should know already that this ultimate goal is the Cinderella story and not the norm for a lot of books. Most books do not achieve this velocity of sale and a lot of stock comes back in the form of returns.

Sell-through is all the marketing, advertising, or publicity begins near the pub date.  It is anything that aims to bring the consumer into a store or to an online retailer in order to the book or e-book.  This is any book or blog tour beginning on or closely linked to the on-sale date.  This is all advertising that runs at around that same time that's been designed and written as a call-to-action encouraging the consumer to purchase the book.  The advertising may also highlight a specific uniqueness about the product or the marketing campaign.

Now obviously the more digitized publishing becomes the less appropriate the term sell-through is.  With an e-book there is no stock to sell through so the word probably ought to be phased out.


Sell-in

Sell-in occurs prior to publication.  The ultimate goal here is to sell in as much stock as possible to retailers be they traditional bookstores such as Barnes & Nobles, Borders, Amazon, Books-A-Million, the independents etc. etc. or secondary sellers such as Walmart, Target, grocery chains and so forth.

At sell-through the title, specs, and covers of the books are already known. At sell-in this may not be the case.  A cover may still be under-development or a title or release date may need to change.  You've all seen the complaint that books these days get almost no marketing for them, but in addition to  a place in the catalog, Advanced Readers Copies or galleys, and several other things that are already the subject of many other blog posts around the web, all books get support from the marketing department at sell-in. At sell-in a publisher's marketing department is talking with the sales reps and getting their feedback on what they think is best for the book in matters such as positioning.  Sales materials such as the catalog are being developed along with any other special sales pieces that might be necessary to pitch special projects to accounts.  And there are meetings, lots and lots of meetings, but that seems to be true of many industries.

There may be advertising, but it'll be targeting booksellers and retailers rather than the consumer since sell-in occurs so long before publication.

The near and post publication plans are being made and presented to sales which can positively affect the buy.  So just a little something to keep in your head: if you are already planning some big, unique marketing campaign on your own for the publication of your book then it would be a good idea to make it known to your publisher in a brief e-mail well in advance so that they can include it in these materials.

"The Big Six" and why I hate that phrase

Buzz words are problematic.  While the phrases are easy to recite, they tend to also propagate misinformation in their simplicity.  Some processes and organizations are just too complex to be boil down to a handful of words or titles that will paint an accurate picture. 

Nothing drives me battier than the terminology "The Big Six", a phrase used often to refer to the six major trade houses in the USA: Random House, Macmillan, Penguin Group, Hachette, Simon & Schuster, and Harper Collins.  I've always felt that this misnomer leads readers to think of the publishing industry as smaller than it is. 

"The Big Six," it reduces a publisher like Random House to one of only six publishers.  It addresses none of the variety or diversity of Random House as a collected whole.  Here is the Wikipedia entry for Random House, listing all of it's domestic and international imprints: Wiki Divisions and Imprints. I stopped counting at a dozen, but there are many, many more.  Every imprint is different and unique in pursuing their own publishing goals and opinion of excellence.

Another thing that bothers me about the use of  "The Big Six" is how it undervalues the roll small presses play in the publishing field.  Why is it only ever the actions of "The Big Six" that appear to be shaping the industry?  Digital technologies are leveling the playing field through e-publishing and advancements in print production and efficiency.  Every day, small and independent presses are making decisions that will affect their markets, authors, contracts, accounts, and consumers.  These decisions in turn create ripples in the community, slowly fanning out to affect a larger surface area.

Finally, and this observation may only be the result of the blog posts that I have read, I see the phrase "The Big Six" used frequently enough to imply that there is some secret society among publishers.  And it boggles my mind every time.  There are anti-trust laws in this country to prevent collusion between corporate powers against any one industry, retailer, or consumer group.  I'm not naive, people in this industry do talk with one another, but there is no roundtable secret meeting between publishing execs at which they decide how as one, they're going to move and position themselves around one another. This is a highly competitive market, with low margins, and an abundance of goods.  It benefits the large corporations to be closed lipped with one another.

I doubt it bugs very many people, but there it is.  I've said my peace.

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