Best of 2024: Nick Croydon - QBD Books

Music. In the spirit of reconciliation, I acknowledge the traditional custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community.

I pay my respects to the elders, past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island peoples today. Welcome to Totally Lit, the podcast celebrating reading, writing and creating literature. I'm your host, Kai Garvey. Thank you for listening. This episode, I have Nick Croydon joining me, the CEO of QBD Books. Nick joins me to share QBD's latest store openings and their goal to grow QBD Books to 100 stores across the nation.

And he's also sharing their new Local Author Spotlight program. I hope you enjoy our chat. Nick Croydon, welcome to Totally Lit. Thank you so much for joining me today. Okay. Now, I'll introduce you to my listeners. You are the CEO of QBD Books here in Australia, and you're joining me to share some exciting events that QBD is launching. Would you like to tell me about them? Yeah. So, as you may know, we've just recently opened our latest store, Watergardens, in Victoria.

So, this is our 87th store, which is very exciting and we're still on on route to get to 100 stores which is my plan and what we're what we're focusing on recently is most people would expect me to say things like AI right and the technology which of course we are embracing but we're we're embracing it to save time in operations okay to save my booksellers time because what we've discovered. Is we're not just spending enough time with our readers and our customers.

So we want to shrink the time they have to do to do their day job. And then that opens them up to being able to talk to customers and really find out why they've come into the store and what problems they have and what recommendations we can give them. And I think there's a really good business case for that. Whereas a lot of retailers would save time and then take the hours away from the store.

We're not looking to do that. And we've also introduced over the time lots of programs which are, I think, particularly exciting for book lovers, such as the Book of the Month program. Are you familiar with that? No, but please tell me more about it. Okay, so... Book of the month was not something I invented. It was here when we bought the business six years ago, but it was very low key.

So basically what happens is the publishers present titles to us, to my buyers, to include, let's say, fiction book of the month. My buyer will narrow that selection down to about half a dozen books, having read not the whole book, but probably the first hundred pages of each book. And then, in this case, she, the fiction buyer, Chelsea, would come in to see me. And I don't look at the books at all up until this stage. So I'm playing the customer. And then she basically sells the books to me.

And I'm going to have a discussion with her about which ones we like. And we generally narrow that down to like two books. And then we look at the marketing that's coming behind them. is the author Australian, is kind of the author tour around our bookstores, and then we pick our winner. And the other sort of important thing about it is in most cases, not exclusively because sometimes they just don't have enough books promoting, but most cases it's a debut author. So it's their first book.

And many people don't understand. They see all the big numbers. As they see bestseller and international bestseller. But in Australia, if you're a debut author, the publisher and yourself will probably be happy if you're selling 10,000 copies. In Australia. And is that like a novel style book? Yeah, that's a fiction novel. 10,000 copies is kind of like a middle of the road, pretty good title.

20,000 is very good, lots of them sell five, six, four, you know, and then that makes it hard for the author to get the second book away. Yeah. So what this program does for that particular chosen author is it gives them a real leg up because back in the day, seven years ago, Book of the Month and QBD would maybe sell 1,000 copies. Oh, okay. So that's a big difference. In one month. In one month. Whereas now, we're selling about 4,500, 5,000 in one month.

So we are very often 50%, 60% of the market share of that title. So it's a massive boost to the W author. And also what happens is because it's being sold in a short period of time, it will often chart in Bookscan, which then means other bookstores that may have missed the title, they see it in the chart and they go, oh, that's doing well. I ought to order that in. So it's really important for the author and the publisher and to the point where

it's really competitive now. So the publishers are just hounding us with, oh, you've got to have this book, you've got to have this book of the month, book of the month. It's kind of the biggest promotion in Australian publishing. And then we expanded that to kids. So we now have a kids book of the month and we have a nonfiction book of the month. So we have the three genres. And that's becoming a huge project. And then at Christmas, we have booklets a year.

Where we would sell 15,000 copies in the December month.

So again, that's a big deal. And then the other more recent program that we've been launching is, again, on the local side, the Australian author side, is local QBD. So it's a quarterly program. Again, publishers submit titles. They're all from, obviously, Australian authors. I've had a look at the range you've got coming up, but I'm lucky to have met a number of these authors. So it looks like that's a great opportunity for book buyers to come in and visit

your store and meet those authors face-to-face. Yes, that's right. Because obviously travelling around Australia is not cheap. The distances are so large.

So we thought we would put a spotlight on local school you know where we've got the stores and we've got the authors and we're like okay well they can they can drive in in most cases or get the bus and what we do is obviously we make sure we've got stock of their book you know on the counter right which is obviously the best selling space because my team then hand sell it they come in they chat to the team they sign they sign their copies they get to meet the

public something they would normally do on a on a book tour but you know not everyone gets taught, right? Because the public can't afford that. So this just allows local authors to get that exposure and to the public and also to educate the public that, hey, these guys might be living down your street. Yeah, it is quite interesting to discover who's in your own hometown. I'm based here in Brisbane and we've got a large range of brilliant authors based here in Brisbane.

Yeah. And you have a writing background yourself, don't you, Nick? Yeah, so I've been in publishing for a long time, over 25 years. I started working on publishing books with other authors and then I went into wholesale and then retail and during that, just because I didn't have quite a full diary. I wrote children's books, mostly on planes.

So I wrote a series called The High Park Squirrels, which was four books based in England when I was travelling and then got those illustrated and I sell those now in QBD. And then I'm just working on my first fiction novel. Oh, fantastic.

I've actually finished it. it's just it's currently with my agent in america about to be sold into the publishers so you've got experience on both sides of the publishing world that's right and i i'm a debut author i've just had a book out for 12 months which is a picture book and yeah the experience of learning how to market your book and build those relationships with booksellers can be challenging although my experience has

largely been with independent bookshops here in brisbane and they're all delightful. How did you define the writing process? So are you a writer and illustrator or just one? No, just a writer. So my picture book is called Easy Peasy through EK Books. So I wrote the manuscript and they've guided me through the process of publication and matched me with an illustrator.

But most of them, they did a lot of work connecting me with the book selling market at the beginning, but then you get to a point where it becomes your own role to figure out how to do that. So it's wonderful to hear that QBD is giving authors an opportunity to get their books out into the world with readers. Absolutely. And so with your own experience, so when did the book come out? A year ago? February last year. So it's just a little bit over 12 months old.

And it was lots of fun visiting all the bookshops and then connecting with local libraries. How did it get? We sold just over 1,500 books in the first order. So I was happy with that.

So in terms of sales, I was happy.

It's not in QBD books though. but it is in many other bookshops but that's also some of those relationships are bigger than you as well so that's something that I think a publisher level that some of those bigger bookstores and things like Big W and Kmart they're not things you can really negotiate at an author level but that's all the learning experience as well of knowing what you can control and what part you play in the marketing process and yeah it is a really interesting industry

to learn about especially when you're just at the writing process you don't really know that other side I think it's a lot harder than people think it is yes and then the expectation because everyone's like oh when's your next book out and that doesn't necessarily happen straight away and the market is quite small at the moment as well so yeah learning how to think about okay what am i going to write it does need to be marketable my publisher

needs to be able to sell it so trying to not really write a trend but who's your publisher ek books i don't know them yeah so they're quite small an australian publisher so they're under the arm of exile publishing which is more international. I can maybe introduce you guys, They don't sell it to me because I don't know them, But they could, yeah. I mean, as we've been introduced, send me a copy of your book. Well, thank you, Nick. I appreciate that.

I'll take a look at it. Yeah. It's about roller skating, so it's really just little me. Now, you've got a goal of having 100 bookstores in Australia. Do you have, like, a plan of attack to make that happen? Yeah, pretty much. We kind of know where most of them are. Some we're waiting for an incumbent bookstore to leave, right? It gets a bit tricky when you have too many bookstores in a centre. Others we're waiting for the landlord to build the site out, so they're expanding centres.

And so, yeah, we're locked into like next year. So there's a few of those.

And others just kind of people come and knock on my door and say, hey we've got it we've got a a space that's become available at this center and this center and i i just go and take a look we typically open about you know four to five stores a year and we also expand a couple at the same time and that can be just as rewarding when you take a small store make it into a big one you have a lot more space to to show show off the product

so we've just done that in MacArthur Square in New South Wales and in Epping in Victoria and in Mackay in Queensland. And are the stores like a franchisee arrangement or you just have a manager that runs the store for you? Yes, we're company-owned. So we own all our own stores. And then we have managers or team leaders as we call them. And then we have what you might call a cluster manager. So that's the one who looks after their own store.

But one day a week, they go and look at some satellite stores. So they have four stores to look after, and it kind of introduces them to management.

And then above them, they have a regional manager who would be looking after anything from 10 to 14 stores. And I think it's quite interesting. A good segue we could do here about careers in publishing and retail because I think often when people ask me what my occupation is I just put retailer. Okay but it is quite more than a reader.

And they go like oh you know which checkout do you work at right and I think that's what people think retail is but you know within this or you know my organization we we have you know our booksellers, our team leaders who are incredibly knowledgeable and have a passion for the product and are looking after a team of often eight to 10 people, including all the casuals. So quite a responsible job. Then you've got these cluster area managers above them and your regional managers above them.

We've got marketeers, we have techies who work in the support office, I've got educational reps, I've got educational managers, I've got marketing directors, sales directors, accountants, all the usual things you'd find in many companies is still applied to retail. So I just think sometimes it's overlooked as a place that you get a real career.

And I've got someone who I've just hired actually at director level who started her career literally serving in a store, not a QBD, it's a different store, and just worked her way up until she became a director. So there's certainly scope for people to look into retailing, I think, as a career. I might just move back to the authors that you will be having at your local stores.

Will they all be selected from authors that you stock within your store they will because they are it's a submission program so the publishers submit the authors that they want us to take a look at right okay so publishers that you already have relationships with through qbd can submit their authors to be part of the program yeah you have to you would have to be published by a QBD supplier, particularly.

Fantastic. So all the writers that are listening to this podcast, if they've got their book in QBD already, they could remind their publisher. Yeah. It doesn't have to be a new title.

Obviously, the publishers are savvy, so they're going to promote for the next quarter, authors that have got a new title coming out that quarter. I guess they want to promote the sales of that book in that quarter, but it doesn't have to be. So it can be if they haven't got one, they will look for one of their authors from that stable and suggest that. But you can't just write in and go, hey, I happen to be in Brisbane, can I be in your program? Because otherwise we would get inundated. Yes.

And when these showcases are being scheduled, will they be publicised through your socials and on your website? Yeah, by the publisher and ourselves. So you get in-store presents, say, on the calendar, which is HotSpace.

You've obviously got multiple copies in store. you're welcome you know you're welcome to come in and and do the signings and the chats and then we we support the whole program with edms email email marketing and on our social media and so and so do the publishers so they are therefore they will be published pushing that out because obviously that's something they want to support as well and with the growth of your stores as you're opening will that

also have the same sort of promotion yeah yeah so it will apply to So every store is involved in the program and it's just divided up into territories. So it's really a national program but we're splitting it up to match the right authors to the right stores for that quarter. Amazing. And when you launch new stores that are opening, what sort of plan of attack do you have there to communicate with the local communities? Yeah, so we just, as I said, just we opened water gardens.

Obviously, the first thing we do was we invite some local authors to come to the opening. So that's what we did and that's what happened and it was a fantastic opening. So we start them right at the beginning and get that association with the store. Because I often tell the authors, we don't mind them going back anytime.

You don't need to be invited to be an author. right to go as a book store yeah so it's like just you know come in right and you know if you find find your book right and yeah and talk you can talk to the the booksellers because you know that's what the community is about it's about sharing knowledge amazing so if the if an author has a book in qbd and they have a store that opens near them they can then come in and reach out and If you've got a book in a time. Yeah, you can come in anyway.

Yeah. So if you want to talk about your book, there's no problem doing a drop-in. Obviously, don't go on for hours. They've got their jobs to do.

We've got a national conference coming up in late July, which we call the Gritties, because we have a thing in QBD about grit because it's hard work. It's hard work being a retailer and it's constant. You get through one Christmas and we're starting talking about the next one. So you need to be able to have strong perseverance, which is what we say is grit. So we have this name for the awards and we celebrate authors. So I think the first day...

All we've got at the conference, so most people use conferences for training. We're doing that on another day. But we've got a whole day where we've just got author to author to author to author coming in because that's what my booksellers want to do, actually. They don't really want to listen to me harping on. They want to meet authors because that's their passion. So we celebrate that at the conference and kind of marry the two together,

the authors with the booksellers, and just let them run riot, which they do. Amazing. That sounds fun. I should be looking to work at QBD, I think. Now, what is QBD's policy on self-published books? Do you stock anyone's work if they've published themselves or do you mainly have relationships with publishers? We mainly, you know, 99% have relationships with publishers because it is complex, right?

You need to have the data on the book available digitally, you know, which we can put through our system. Now, if you've got that with Nielsen, great, or with Tidal Page, great, then we download those. You know, we need to have an account set up. We need a certain discount. Often self-published books, because they're not printing that many, are quite expensive to print. So then when I tell them how much discount I need, some self-published authors are shocked and say that it doesn't work.

And I say that's the question, there's no volume. It's always how much it costs to print, but then you need the distribution.

So if I print something myself, I don't have anywhere to sell it. Yeah, that's right. So just as a rule of thumb, typically, retailers are looking for at least 50% discount.

Off the rrp and then you've got to do your printing from that and see if you make any money right so it becomes quite hard but we do have a submission portal on our website so there is a place to write in okay so there is opportunities yeah yeah and they and i've got a team of buyers who do look at it yeah but it really works when once you've got some form of representation or you or you're getting or you've got some sort of success that you can point to.

And there was a brilliant story recently. Yeah. So this is Sarah A. Parker. Do you know who she is? Yeah. Yeah. So she's down at the Gold Coast, right? So she self-published this book, an enormous task, 176,000 words, I think she said it was. It's huge. And she, so it's in the fantasy or romantasy space, And she sold, I think, 20,000 copies, I think she told me, in the first four to six weeks of putting it on all the self-published platforms.

So, of course, the publishers went after her. Yeah, it's enough to turn people's heads, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And she's now, she got a mega contract, right? And now the book is effectively being relaunched very shortly. So, I always encourage authors to investigate the distribution channels that are available to self-publish authors because the publishers are looking.

Even if I'm not so much looking because I've got all the books coming my way, the publishers are looking for those little gems and those diamonds out there. And they've got people who are scanning those sites and looking for numbers.

So you should certainly try and get into those channels it's I think there's definitely room for self-publishing but for someone like myself I've been very grateful that there's been a publisher that's taken me on traditionally and done all of that, administration and distribution for me so i just don't think i would have the time to learn and that's always the issue right so sarah was lucky her husband who was a lawyer i

quit his job to be the primary carer so that she could concentrate on her writing it was just very great but for them it paid off so yeah time is always i think the huge issue it's also a bit chicken and egg you And it's like you can't give up your day job until you make some money out of your riding, and it's hard to make money out of your riding if you haven't got time. Yes. It's a wonder why we do this to ourselves, to be honest. Yes.

Although it is the first time you receive that offer of a contract, it's a wonderful feeling. And the first time you see a book in the bookshop. Yes, on the shelf. It's amazing.

With your name on it. And it's like, that's a pretty special moment. So there is definitely rewards in writing, but it sometimes just takes patience and perseverance. And it's not always. And, yeah, many times you're raising a family, doing your day job and all of the other things. But it's wonderful that there's bookshops that sell our books for us as well.

So, Nick, you're doing a wonderful job for all of us authors and creating opportunities for authors to meet the public as well so thank you yeah i think it's hard obviously there's the online channels out there but i think it's hard to beat a physical bookstore i you know to spend you know 20 minutes in when here when you're shopping i think it's quite a peaceful place to be and a nice communities that you can build within bookstores yeah lovely like um here in brisbane there's

some wonderful bookshops where. There's community and there's events and people make friends and that is what a bookstore can do for people. I mean, I live in Bulimba. I love Riverbend, which is kind of just going through a transition that gets rebuilt. But, you know, I knew Susie Wilson very well and, you know, it was a fantastic store and I used to go in there a lot and have a chat. So I think there's room for amazing independence, change, so there's room for everybody.

So and as you say it establishes a wonderful community yeah and i think yeah just that connection and the promotion of literacy as well like bookstores have a wonderful space within the community we're also fighting for everyone's time yeah not just money yeah right so that's why i always tell my teams here we're not competing with dimmups you know we're competing with Jogi Hi-Fi or we're competing with Telstra or Foxtel. We're competing with everyone because it's time and money.

What we've got to promote is the benefits of reading, which are huge. Especially for our young people. I think we're going through a terrible time at the moment, and now I am personally with my kids, you know, with social media, gaming and devices, you know, the addiction that they form with those mediums is changing the way they develop and the way their brains develop.

I went shopping on the weekend just to Ikea and there were so many people with prams where the babies were holding a device to keep them entertained as the parents were walking around shopping and it really opened my eyes a little bit to, how young children are now getting onto technology and it's being used as a way to keep them entertained.

Well, you go to any restaurant these days and the child gets put in a high chair and then he's got an iPad in front of them and that's the babysitter, right? So, yeah. And I have had struggles. My boys have just both turned 18, but through their teen years trying to control them being on devices and me saying, read a book. And it's a very hard fight, and lots of parents give in. And then of course the children say, oh, all my friends are doing it, why can't I?

And I stick a book in their hands, which of course is not as exciting as in their eyes, than a game controller, but we just have to fight the fight. Because I've seen plenty of studies where it's actually changing the development of their brain.

Yeah some of these games are as addictive as drugs you know because of the dopamine that gets released when they're playing so um it's just the cost of the physical book as well like because i have spent the last year sitting in bookstops with my book and some parents just dragging their kids away it's like you haven't read the last one we bought you or we've got to buy this this week we can't afford $25 on that book and that it's difficult to say to somebody

who has a limited budget please buy my book by the way we come in right because yeah we are we are we are a discumber and we do offer you know cheap books that are more affordable, yes yeah and that that's a real challenge the cost of the printing of the book because you You do still have to sell it at a price that makes money. Thank you so much for joining me today, Nick. It's been great to get an insight from a bookseller.

I speak to a lot of authors and publishers, but I haven't spoken to a bookseller before.

So I'm really pleased to share this with my listeners, especially those aspiring writers who are wanting to get more of an understanding about how the distribution works and how building a relationship with the bookshop is important as part of the process. Okay. My pleasure. I look forward to reading your book. Thank you, Nick. Which part, what's your local QBD? My local QBD would be Chermside. I'm a Northside girl. Thank you. All right. Well, I love this local.

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