Waterstones and censoership

[MiladyBerserko]

I have been reading about concerns re Waterstones not displaying Helen Joyce's Trans book on Twitter, for example:
mobile.twitter.com/GreenFemsUK/status/1425764602722275337

I have been into three Waterstones in the last two weeks. It was not displayed in two shops and ther was one copy in the third. I asked about it in one of the no-display stores and apparently there was one in store but couldn't be found (!)

Has anyone else had this experience? If you are passing a Waterstones, have a quick check...

It's starting to sound like Monty Python's Cheeseshop:

"Not much call for it round here."

If anyone can’t afford to buy the book, or perhaps ends up giving their copy away, then I’d recommend reserving it from your library - the more people reserve it the more copies the library service buys.

Honestly, just getting a book from an Indy publisher in front of the Waterstones buyers can be a challenge. They really only focus on mass market books from the Big Five and barely any books from publishers outside of them get looked at, let alone stocked (certainly without a guarantees of confirmed publicity & marketing campaigns).

Also, it’ll only get bought in if the discount from the publisher is high enough.

They then scale out stock to the stores, and do so according to shop size, thus an indy published book is unlikely to appear at a smaller branch. For it to have even 1 copy in certain branches ain’t bad for an Indy publisher!

Trust me, the second you see the author do a favourable interview with Phillip & Holly or on The One Show, there will be copies in every branch!

@Sonarl

Any behaviour like this now just makes me laugh. It's massively into cutting your nose off to spite your face territory. Just like the companies that make sanitary products for people who menstruate and men. Imagine being a small company, starting out, competing with the likes of Amazon and the supermarkets, or a small publishing house competing with JK Rowling's publisher, and alienating and turning off a massive chunk of your target audience and demographic market to appear woke or to satisfy personal crusades of the owners or staff. You'd be laughed off any MBA or Business course if you described that.

All of it just makes me like and enjoy shopping at Amazon more, I have to say. Despite the tax issues they so far haven't inflicted any woke bollocks on me.

I work in a job related to marketing and find it funny when companies alienate the demographic who makes the vast majority of purchasing decisions in order to appease a very small number of activists. i.e Ocado pissing off scores of women who do the weekly shop. Perhaps the odd Twitter warrior will do a one off shop there because they like their Tweets, but it’s at the expense of losing hundreds of customers spending over £100 a week on a regular basis.

I am curious about the main demographic who shop at Waterstones. When I go to my local one, it mainly seems to be women over 40 shopping in there and the occasional older man. The crowd they’re trying so hard not to upset are surely more likely to be the ones shopping online or downloading books on their phones/tablets? Pandering to them is just bad business.

Let’s face it - would fly rather a picket of pissed off 40+ women or a haggle of blue hairs?

Who’d be screaming/wailing and issuing death threats and who would be singing/laughing and offer you cake?

Scardey cats.

I was actually thinking this when I went in yesterday! I go there a lot - I love books, daughters love books. They were displaying Material Girls prominently before Trans was released, but now neither are anywhere to be found. I checked the app and they have stock at my branch. Somewhere...

I've had a similar experience.

I popped into Waterstones for my copy and couldn't find it. I'm not brave enough to ask the staff, but I did look in pretty much every section before leaving.

I went home and ordered from Amazon. It arrived the next day

Whats blue hairs? Old people?

I thought Waterstones prided itself on bucking the trend of closing bookstores by letting the staff choose a lot of the stock? Daunt was always banging on about local staff knowing what sold best in their communities.

I can entirely believe that shop floor Waterstones is staffed by wokesters, however I would like to think senior management have slightly more nous.

TRA's and their allies seem to have a higher proportion of those who dye their hair colours such as blue or green than seen in the general population (going off profile photos on Twitter, photos published in the media etc). Hence the name 'blue hairs'. There also seems to be a higher proportion of fans of anime (again going off profile images).

Haven't the vaguest idea why but really is quite noticeable when you become aware of it.

Of you look at the (older anyway) manga comics and anime illustrations, the hair is often coloured in blue. anime characters used as profile images seem to indicate a ‘certain type’.

But not your granny’s pals Ida and Sengas blue rinse.

@Waitwhat23

TRA's and their allies seem to have a higher proportion of those who dye their hair colours such as blue or green than seen in the general population (going off profile photos on Twitter, photos published in the media etc). Hence the name 'blue hairs'. There also seems to be a higher proportion of fans of anime (again going off profile images).

Haven't the vaguest idea why but really is quite noticeable when you become aware of it.

Green and yellow seem to be popular among student bores these days.

I suppose @BrozTito was thinking of the Blue Rinse Brigade.

Funnily enough, I popped in to Crouch End today, and asked if they had it in store, they did have a copy, I almost expected them to say they didn't. I already have it, so was really just seeing if they did.

I wonder if they are finding women popping in to ask...

10+ copies at a waterstones in s.wales, according to the website!

Haven't been in my local branch since they did a trans bedtime story thing during Pride Month last year. Basically a guy in some cheapo Ann Summers crap reading a bedtime story to little kids.

They can fuck off with normalising that shit.

@DazzlePaintedBattlePants

I thought Waterstones prided itself on bucking the trend of closing bookstores by letting the staff choose a lot of the stock? Daunt was always banging on about local staff knowing what sold best in their communities.

I can entirely believe that shop floor Waterstones is staffed by wokesters, however I would like to think senior management have slightly more nous.

What Daunt says and what Waterstones does are entirely different. The vast majority of stock is ordered & assigned to branches by head office. A regional manager overseeing several branches may be able to order in the odd local or niche titles (beyond customer orders) but it's rare. Even the specialist department buyers at Foyles had buying powers rescinded when Waterstones bought it out. Most Waterstone's stock is the same, decided at HQ level before being distributed out to branches, and their primary considerations for buying in titles are discount & publicity.

Basically, beyond the odd case, it's not likely censorship going on at Waterstones. It's more about the vagaries of book buying processes at the UK's largest bookshop chain.

@Tabasco007

Funnily enough, I popped in to Crouch End today, and asked if they had it in store, they did have a copy, I almost expected them to say they didn't. I already have it, so was really just seeing if they did.

I did that at the Piccadilly flagship store. They did have it (4th floor - Politics) and I felt obliged to buy it. I've bought 4 copies now

The 'vagaries' of book buying seem to be the UKs largest bookshop chain not stocking or hiding a best selling book. Is there another word for that?

I'm not going to discount the possibility that some Waterstones staff might be actively hiding a book they're not keen on, but the issue where they show a copy in stock but can't find it has happened to me with children's books, teen fiction and a few non-fiction titles over the years.

It happens when customers take a book off the shelf and then put it down again but into whatever shelf they're near when they decide not to buy it.

except @MiladyBerserko that doesn’t seem to be the case. There are copies in stores, just not all of them, probably size & location related. There may not be piles of them, but when you know how many books are published in the UK that never make it into Waterstones at all, then you’ll realise some copies in some stores might be a win!

Hmmm, there seems to be quite a bit of evidence on this thread and on Twitter and Helen Joyce herself has expressed concern at the reports.

Do you work for Waterstones, Lemon ?

Or is this another case of spotting the squirrel?

Yep, was just thinking that if I wanted a hard copy I would check Blackwells first. Used to spend hours in the Newcastle store.