As live satellite feeds beamed Scholastic’s midnight Muggle-fest around the globe last month, the intricately choreographed release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was evidence of more than just the good fortune of Potter point-man Michael Jacobs. It was also proof that the one-day laydown — a luxury formerly reserved for embargoed bombshells and celebrity tell-alls — has become almost de rigueur for titles in all segments of the mediagenic book market.
How did the world get so loony for laydowns? Blame it all on Rick Hall, evp distribution and operations for Time Warner, who admits to creating a monster when the publisher launched Alexandra Ripley’s Scarlett in 1991 — the first ever one-day laydown. From there the beast evolved into a Frankenstein-ish creature goaded by (among other factors) agents’ demands for laydowns on every 3,000-copy novel. Then Random and especially Penguin Putnam stoked the one-day flames with on-sale dates for most everything. Penguin, in fact, has been rolling out laydowns for anything over a 100,000-copy first printing for the past five years, says Dick Heffernan, president of PP’s adult hardcover sales. They ship Thursday for a Monday on-sale date (though mass merchandisers hate this schedule and are likely to put books on sale early, he says). Warner, meanwhile, has now repented and refuses laydowns for first runs of less than 250,000 copies, up from 150,000 several years ago.
While the upside is obviously a kick for sales velocity and, particularly for returning authors, a higher debut on the bestseller list, laydowns can be tricky to execute. Wholesalers need extra time to ship to their accounts — AMS’s Kevan Lyon says the wholesaler stickers for all its warehouse club and mass merch retailers, but notes that compliance has been an issue. Clerks tend to jump the gun and rip open boxes without a thought to the on-sale date affidavits their superiors have dutifully signed, or else cartons languish under stockpiles of Teletubbies. Mass market outlets are rarely included in the one-day madness anyhow, because of the logistical problems, but others note that mass merch accounts have always had a de facto one-day laydown, since their books go on sale the same day every month. Then there’s the eternal question about who pays freight (Time Warner picks up all freight costs as long as they’re going to that much trouble, says Hall, but costs can be exorbitant when shipping a single title). And we all know about the Potter tempest over Amazon, sparked by the Internet retailer’s early ship date for FedEx arrival on HP-Day, a privilege that prompted endless recriminations from brick-and-mortar stores.
In any event, as Michael Wolff pointed out in a recent column, Harry’s one-day wonder was a marketing spectacle of a magnitude not seen in the book world for some time: “It’s movie marketing. Or it’s software marketing. Microsoft marketing, momentous-cultural-event marketing.” Indeed, while many agents insist that the benefits from laydowns are tangible, others are concerned that the on-sale date has become a marketing panacea for an attention-deficit culture.
Retailers, for their part, are by now resigned to the one-day rigmarole, and many even profess to like them. Bob Wietrak, vp merchandising for B&N, says approvingly that laydowns build in-store excitement and rile up readers with advance orders and other hoopla. Of course, the first printing has to be large enough to make it worthwhile, he notes. Laydowns typically only work for major authors, and would not affect midlist writers who rely on Cold Mountain–style word of mouth. On the other hand, a few booksellers said that all things considered, even well-orchestrated hype still looks a lot like hype. “Does it make for better bookselling?” asks A Clean Well Lighted Place’s Neal Sofman. “Frankly, I believe in selling the quality of the book, not the timing of the book.”
