Secrets of a Children’s Bookseller: What was HOT this Holiday Season?

Alas, as many of you have noticed, I’ve not been very active on the blog this past month. Despite my absence online, I swear it has all been for a good cause! For you see, I’ve just spent the last 6 weeks (of holiday shopping mania) selling children’s books! And I’ll tell you, there’s no better way to get a snippet of whats selling in the kidlit market than to work in the children’s department of a bookstore during the big holiday push.

Though I don’t have access to official book selling numbers, there are a number of ways to tell what books are selling like hot-cakes and which are floundering in the dust. For example:

  • Take a look around the store and you can get a great idea of what’s doing well. Such as — that pile of display books that was towering yesterday and is gone today…yup, it’s pretty safe to say that’s selling well!
  • Shelving books from receiving is another great way to see what needs re-stocking. Particularly with books we only have one or two copies of.
  • And of course actual requests from customers helps you to get a sense of what they’ve heard about and want to buy.
  • And lets not forget the hand selling. A book-sellers life is about lots and lots and lots of hand-selling!

I’ve decided to break down my observations from this holiday season into a few categories as to better organize what’s hot in which sections. I’ll be posting the following reports throughout the week:

I hope your holidays were spectacular and that the coming information helps inspire you for the New Year!

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4 responses to “Secrets of a Children’s Bookseller: What was HOT this Holiday Season?”

  1. Looing forward to your insight, although trends will be significantly different by the time anything that is being queried right now is concerned (with maybe the exception of “series” ) This is good information to chew on.

  2. Cathy Mealey says:

    Can’t wait to read more about it! Visited Barnes and Noble a few times during the holidays and was a little sad to see how tucked away the picture books were, and how choppy the layout was for middle grade and YA. Cheap paperback SpongeBob and Dora The Explorer books were prominently displayed.

  3. chris tugeau says:

    HAPPY NEW YEAR… and congrats on the book selling job! cool …and so ‘in the know.’ as a children’s book agent I can’t wait to read the INSIDERS view of what is selling…what the ADULTS and KIDS they are buying for WANT and LIKE to read. bring it on…we can all use ALL the help we can get~! enjoy…

  4. Laura C. says:

    Wishing you a wonderful 2012! I’m looking forward to reading the articles you’re going to post about trends. 🙂

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