1991 - 12/1991 Meeting

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HOLIDAY PARTY / POT LUCK DINNER

DENISE LITTLE

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: December 7, 1991.

Meeting Site: Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 36.

Meeting Program: Pot Luck dinner. Talk by Barnes & Noble Corporate sf/romance buyer.

Notes:

Both the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center and the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church were booked on the second Saturday, so the meeting was pushed up one week.

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The December 7, 1991 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County was held in the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center, one week earlier than usual due to scheduling problems. A special note of thanks goes to Brian Keveney who was good enough to be the first to arrive and be in charge of set up. A similar appreciation goes to Douglas Finch, the new custodian and transporter of the club television and VCR.

The doors opened at 6:00 PM, with the bulk of the people arriving between 6:30 and 7:30 PM. We were heavy on desserts, short on side dishes, and had just enough food to go around.

Among the dishes present were Baked Ziti by Robert Yeager, Meatballs by Charles Garofalo, and a Chicken and Spinach Casserole by Philip De Parto. There was a Cheese Pizza--no redeeming nutritional value--and a Pepperoni Pizza--even less than no redeeming nutritional value--by an unidentified party. Someone with a neat handwriting brought a "Pumkin Oie" (S.I.C.) which may have been a strange and exotic dish, or simply a misspelling of pumpkin pie. Judy York and Charles Gehm brought the most unique offering (except for the Pumpkin Oie, that is): Turkey Ballottine. This is a dish that goes back at least to the time of Chaucer. The bird is deboned, stuffed, wrapped, seasoned, and cooked. For further details, you'll have to see Judy.

Among the sideshows were Roberta Rogow selling fanzines, John Upton displaying a scrapbook of photographs from club activities and conventions, Robert Yeager showing off an autograph scrapbook of media stars he has met, and Alan Zimmerman selling books.

The new dues proposal was debated. Discussion went on for about twenty minutes before the director said, "Enough!" This will be continued at the January meeting.

Denise Little, our evening's guest speaker was then introduced. Ms Little revealed that she had always read science fiction. She joined the Barnes & Noble organization at a young age and spent ten years as a bookstore manager who specialized in turning around failing bookstores. As B&N expanded and altered their home office operation, Ms Little applied for a transfer to the corporate HQ. Shortly after arriving on the scene, the buyer for SF and Romance quit. The job was soon hers.

Ms Little orders books for the four chains of the Barnes & Noble operation: Barnes & Noble, B Dalton Booksellers, Schribners, and Doubleday. Together they comprise 1100 bookstores. Based on the author's past sales, the book cover, the salesman's input, gut feeling, and (in some cases) actually reading the bound galleys, she decides how many copies to order and how to distribute them within the company.

Several statistics were mentioned which I found quite interesting. The first is that 60% of the buyers of science fiction books are women, compared to 70% for books overall. The average slot for a book on the racks turns over twice a year. Barnes & Noble gets a 65% sell through of her midlist books vs a 40% national average.

Genre (sf, mystery, romance, westerns) fiction sells poorly in the north east and very well in California. She suspects that part of the reason for the poor genre and good literary showings is that people read in public and for status in this section of the country. She seriously doubts that the average random selection of people in this area reads only Greek playwrights or German philosophers, a practice she finds widespread in laundromats in her Queens neighborhood. Of course, there is the other possibility which she mentioned, namely, that if you live in this region, you are probably here for a reason. Either that, or you can't get out.

In response to a question from the floor, Ms Little stated that whenever a new book in a series comes out, she tries to order earlier books in the series in a 1:2 ratio. Unfortunately, the publishers do not always cooperate in reissuing the previous titles.

Possibly the most unsettling thing our guest had to say was that the long term prospects for science fiction (as opposed to fantasy) are not particularly bright. Fantasy has in place a vibrant "farm system" in which readers first encounter fairie tales, then TSR gaming gooks, next Piers Anthony, and finally, Conan, Tolkien, etc. Although there are many good young people's science fiction books out there, there are far fewer of them than there used to be.

The discussion went on for a long time and would have continued even longer if Phil had not taken pity on our guest and wrapped things up. People were still talking over an hour after the meeting had closed. When the Center had been cleaned, almost a dozen of us went out to the Horizon Diner where we were joined by several tables of post-dance high schoolers in various states of inebriation and undress.