It’s officially December, and for most of the world that means at some point you’ll be stuck shopping. Surely I’m not the only one who considers a book store the fall-back gift solution. If I don’t have a better idea, surely I can find a suitable book for you.
When you walk into any retail bookstore you have to wander through all the display tables near the front before getting to the heavily packed shelves. Those tempting tables of bestsellers and “staff picks” are not stocked willy-nilly. No, that is precious retail real estate and the publishers pay to have their books there.
That prime spot, the big table right in front of the door, covered in a pyramid of Harry Potter could come with a rental cost of up to $50,000 in a prime store, during prime (christmas) time. The book publishing world lives and dies by the mega hits, so when a book is selling well publishers will do anything to continue that trend.
That may sound ridiculously expensive for borrowing a table, but compare it to over $200,000 dollars for a full page, full colour advertisement in the Wall Street Journal (huge Harry Potter fans, I suspect) and it becomes a reasonable cost of doing business.
Still, the real estate trade within bookstores is nothing compared to the aggressive “placement is everything” deals that go on inside your local grocery store.
Source: http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/adam-penenberg/penenberg-post/viral-loop-chronicles-part-6
