Behind the scenes at Random House.

The Product Meeting is a highlight of Monday and a meeting that many people enjoy. It’s always full as it has representatives from the Sales, Product, Publicity and Marketing departments. The basic function of the meeting is to talk through the current major titles and make sure that we have enough stock on hand to cover orders. This sounds simple enough but is actually incredibly difficult. If a book is selling well this week does that mean it will continue to sell next week? Will it sell a lot more, just a little more or the same or less? It is the Product department’s job to make sure that we have enough, but not too much stock while sales don’t want to miss any potential sale.  

Often it is a tough decision and easy enough to make the wrong as much as it is to make the right one. This time of year is a real challenge as we are so close to Christmas deciding what sales will be like in January can be more about guessing than anything else.

Selling books isn’t like selling, say – ball bearings, each book is different and has to be judged as such.

A good example is Maurice Sendak’s classic picture book Where the Wild Things Are. This book was first published in 1963 but this year’s film adaptation has sent sales through the roof. Every meeting for the last six months we have discussed it and ordered massive quantities along the way – the demand has been bigger than even the most optimistic forecasts could have predicted but who could have known that? This week it had its biggest week ever, selling over 7,000 copies on Bookscan and it is now our 5^th bestselling title for the year.

So that’s the Product Meeting – a bunch of people wishing they had a crystal ball. You win some, you lose some - but that’s what keeps it interesting.