Eoin Purcell
Why Easons is important
If you work in publishing in Ireland, you have to work with Easons. I say that, not to attack them or to slight them, it is simply fact. Easons stores are located in nearly every major urban centre from Athlone to Roscommon and nearly everywhere in between.
But it is not just their brand name stores you have to consider when you think about Easons. Equally important is their wholesale third party customers. These stores range from large independent bookstores to newsagents who sell mostly magazines.
They will mostly order new releases with little prompting (in ones and twos at first but more if they sell) but, especially for a company with a backlist like Mercier’s, it is important that these stores are supplied with your backlist titles and Easons are the key player in making that happen. The bible for those booksellers (and Easons Managers) is the monthly Booknews magazine. Getting your cover info and bookdata correct and into the Booknews on deadline is therefore pretty vital.
Some news of note . .
All of this is by way of bringing a nice end to a story I mentioned recently, that Eoin McHugh Eason Head Buyer. The Bookseller reports today that Easons have reorganized their buyers to take account of that:
Maria Dickenson, who has been with the Irish retailer for nine years, has been appointed head of buying. David O’Callaghan is now general book manager
alongside his existing role as children’s buyer. He will be responsible for bestseller stock management.Both O’Callaghan and Dickenson will report to Tom Owens, books director.
There is more but it gets complicated so I will leave it out. The point I want to make before I sign off though, is that it will entail a slight shift in the selection of books on Easons shelves. An often forgotten bias in publishing is the retail book buyers bias. I just hope it works our way.
Still even if it doesn’t it’ll be a fun challenge
Eoin
Eoin Purcell's Blog 
David O’Callaghan is as experienced a buyer as there can be, especially after being children’s buyer for many years.
Buying at any wholesaler can be daunting – your buying mistakes tend to be looking at you in the face from remainder stalls after christmas!
Remember how badly caught out Dorling Kindersley were a couple of years ago with their over enthusiastic print runs on the Star Wars books! The buying public can be notoriously fickle in taste- I’ve seen many a sure thing in an autumn catalogue become a dead duck later on.
Sadly true!
Though again, one can only hope on this side of things that their judgment is solid as quite they can often determine our final print runs!
Eoin
hi guys just trying to do some research on opening a store in an area in Dublin with no bookshops. I have no experience bar the “nose for an opportunity”. I am attempting to understand margins and all the other key information required, is there some data available or is there someone/company that can assist ?.
All assistance greatly appreciated.
Colin
Colin,
I responded by e-mail!
Eoin
“Easons stores are located in nearly every major urban centre from Athlone to Roscommon and nearly everywhere in between.”
Given that Athlone straddles the border of Roscommon and Westmeath and Athlone itself is about 30 miles from Roscommon Town, that’s hardly amounts to a whole lot of coverage!