How does Australian YA appear (or not appear) on bookstore shelves?

Ask Alice is an online column written by our former Secretary, Dr Alice Boer-Endacott, who has published several young adult fantasy novels and a non-fiction mini, under ‘A B Endacott’.

When I was only focusing my creative career, I spent a lot of time contacting bookstores about stocking my books. Many stores were very generous and found space on their shelves. Several had an explicit policy to support Australian – and local – authors (shoutout to the sadly now-closed Dymocks Camberwell). 

In the years since, whenever I’m in a bookstore I meander over to the YA shelves and see how many Australian titles I can identify. I often think of discussions during my time on the LoveOzYA Committee about the merits of bookstores providing explicit signage to identify Aus YA titles, and a lack of any central resource noting the publication of Australian texts, YA or otherwise. 

This has led to me asking how Australian YA does (or doesn’t) appear on the shelves of bookstores. 

To help me answer it, I contacted Allan, the owner of Crow Books, New Edition Bookshop and Pigface Bookstore, LoveOzYA’s very own Comms Director, Josh, who works at a Dymocks, and Alana, who works in an independent bookstore with several individual stores. 

To start, I asked everyone for an overview of their shelves devoted to YA texts: 

• In Crow Books, out of 50 bays, 2 bays are devoted to ‘middle readers’ (10-13 years), and 2 bays are devoted to YA titles. Of those 2 YA bays, Allan estimated 20-30% were Australian titles. 
• At the Dymocks where Josh works: “children’s makes up about 20% of the floor space, and YA makes up about 8-10% of children’s, so somewhere around 2%. We’re a large store, so that still translates to about six bays of shelving,” with an estimate of 10-15% of the YA being Australian titles. 
• Alana estimated: “our children’s section takes up roughly 1/3 of the store’s floor space. Of that, the teen fiction area has 6 bookshelves in it.” Although she didn’t have an exact sense of how many of these titles are Australian, she noted that “when we’re being pitched the new releases each month, I’d like to say half of the key titles talked about/being highlighted are by Australian authors.” 
• In my local Cook and Young, I counted six or so YA bays in a relatively small store – I’d say slightly more than the fantasy/scifi section, and bigger than the biography section, without counting Aus titles. 

The reasons driving the amount of space devoted to YA titles can vary. However, they seem to be either the preferences of the person stocking the shelves, the need to meet commercial demands, and the interests of the customer base. 

Furthermore, when it comes to specific books selected (and whether they are Australian titles), there are a range of factors at play. 

Josh shared that the way titles are selected is “a combination of publisher rep and catalogue. A few lead titles get pitched to us by the publisher, and then we get sent a more extensive catalogue with additional new release titles that are available to order which we go through in search of stuff that we think might play well with our particular customer demographic.” He qualified, “authors do come in or cold email us with their titles from time to time, however, this rarely results in us stocking their book. […] nine times out of ten it’s because they’re independently published […], logistically it’s just not cost-effective to stock these titles most of the time.” One reason for this is because “They tend to be slightly more expensive, making them harder to sell. The exception here is if a pre-established author goes independent. A good example of this is Ellie Marney with the final installment of the ‘None Shall Sleep’ trilogy, ‘All Shall Mourn’. Because she was a proven commodity, with a following who show up for every book she releases, we felt like we could take a flyer and stock her books.” 

Alana explained, “titles are selected by our buying team, who meet with publishers and reps directly. As store manager, I can make suggestions and request particular things that we (the floor staff) feel strongly about. So, if there’s something we want to champion, we can get behind it and are backed up by our buyers. I am always asking staff what they’re currently reading – and loving – because I want to make sure that they have the opportunity to promote it.”

Let’s break that down a bit more. 

First, bookstores need to cater to what their customers want. As a bookseller speaking in this article points out, “I’ll often think of the actual customer’s face to whom I might hand-sell a book, and if I can think of such a person then I’ll stock the title.”

If a bookstore is filled with stock that nobody wants to buy, then the  business has lost out doubly: once on the non-sale, and once on the opportunity cost of selling another book. It’s thus really important to understand the preferences of a bookstore’s customer base. 

As this bookseller shares, publisher representative visits include “talking about the previous month, looking at sales figures and what worked or didn’t work. It’s a constant, ongoing process of fine-tuning the list so that the books the reps recommend to each store are going to be successful.” 

She goes on to emphasise: “good publishing reps know their individual shops well enough to know what will sell in their shop, and what won’t” (For those not in the know, publisher representatives (reps) are people whose job is literally to sell new releases to stores).

However, the bookseller’s individual preference and knowledge intersects with the interests of their clientele.

Erin, owner of The Kids Bookshop and a co-panellist of mine at a recent CBCA (Children’s Book Council of Australia) event on the state of Australian Children’s literature, noted during the panel that she chooses books she has read and likes. While reps play a part, it’s ultimately about texts which she can recommend and like. 

However, there’s an important point in here: the knowledge of the staff doing the selling and buying. Allan shared that his publisher reps “specify that the author is Australia (across all lists),” which is not only a selling point for him but for reps, too. If a text is selected from a catalogue though, the only way for the person doing the buying to know if the author is Australian is through their own knowledge.

The fact that there remains no central registry or database to record Australian titles means it is up to the individual bookseller’s knowledge. Mostly, booksellers are amazing at being aware of local authors. I still think something could be done to help them support Australian (YA) writers – especially debut authors who are less likely to be immediately recognised. A small example: the LoveOzYA monthly newsletter’s new releases section is compiled by hand. Almost certainly, there are Australian releases which fall through the cracks. However, as a volunteer organisation, there simply isn’t enough time for a protracted trawl to prevent this.

Alana said to me, “our knowledge of the different books on the shelves allows us as booksellers to offer up suggestions that you may not have heard of before but that are just as good, if not better.” Cultivating that knowledge, and keeping it up to date, is s not oft-discussed part of working in a bookstore, but it enables booksellers to support local authors. Considering how we can help make that easier and those Australian titles more visible in a context where algorithms can make that information more difficult to discover, is something I encourage us a community to do. 

Unsurprisingly (because independent bookstores are absolute legends), there seems to be a consensus on supporting Australian titles where possible. 

Allan stated unequivocally, “it is my policy to support Australian books and authors in all genres, but particularly in childrens and YA areas.”

Alana added an extra dimension by noting, “we’re huge supporters of [the] CBCA and love to do a display each year based on the books selected in the longlists and shortlists. We love what the CBCA do with their awards each year as the authors and illustrators are all Australian, so I make sure that my team is across these titles. We also have some really passionate staff (myself included!) who love to champion this. One of their awards is for older readers (YA). Schools in our area will always support the CBCA titles and will order in from these lists.”

Josh’s perspective, however, draws attention to the tension between intention of the bookseller and the priorities of other players within the literary ecosystem: “We make a concerted effort to stock a good range of Australian titles, and recommend them over international titles whenever possible. This can be difficult to do; Australian titles are rarely a priority with publishers, who usually focus on big name international authors and series.” 

Thus, the role of the individual bookseller comes into play. Josh continued: “in practical terms, this means reading as many Australian new release titles as possible, doing shelf-talkers for everything we liked and hand-sell, hand-sell, hand-selling. […] Ultimately, everything comes down to sales. We may really like a particular title, and hand-sell it as much as possible, but if it doesn’t do well elsewhere the publisher will phase it out of print, and then we can’t stock it even if we wanted to.”

So, with the above in mind, booksellers don’t just select Australian titles – they champion them.

Alana explained that handselling (the practice of a bookseller talking up a book to a customer) is vital because “you can really help boost certain authors with what you are pitching to customers. Whenever I’m handselling, I’m always pitching at least 1 to 2 Australian authors out of the 3 to 4 suggestions I’m giving a customer. Because I know the stock and authors from my own research, I tend to gravitate towards Australian authors a bit more.”

She generously ran me through her process: 

“Whenever I’m helping a customer […] I’m asking what they’ve liked before, and whether they are wanting fantasy or real world set stories (school setting). Once I can narrow this down a bit, I’ll start making suggestions. 

“You can definitely tell when they’ve engaged with TikTok, or when something is blowing up online, because they may only ask for that title. But this is where we (booksellers) come in and get to have some fun, because we can then comparison recommend them something – so, something that is similar to that big, popular, overseas thing – this is where we can suggest something Australian or not as well-known. 

“For example: if someone comes in asking for One of Us is Lying (Karen M. Mcmanus), I’ll say, yes, I’ve read it and enjoyed it and we’ve got it. But also: these are some other great books that also fit in that genre niche. I’ll recommend something like What’s Murder Between Friends (Meg Gatland-Vaness), Eleanor Jones Is Not a Murderer (Amy Doak), and Truly Devious (Maureen Johnson). Out of these three suggestions, two are Australian authors, one of which is local.” 

Interestingly, Josh pointed out this can sometimes be tricky when there isn’t a parallel. He said: “A lot of recommendation requests run along the lines of ‘my child likes x, what’s similar?’ and there simply aren’t Aussie comparative titles for all the biggest international ones (again, Hunger Games, there really isn’t an Aussie dystopia series that matches it).”

However, even with the best intent in the world, bookstores are a business. They need to stock what people want to buy. A lot of the time, that’s not necessarily Australian titles. 

Speaking with a former bookseller at the CBCA panel event, they noted that in their previous store, which was a chain store, the purchase of new ‘blockbuster’ releases were determined by the central/main office, and filling the remaining spaces was left to the discretion of the person doing the ordering. However, they noted that they mainly stocked current or relatively new releases, and could only afford some older titles (unless those titles were ‘big’ and thus likely to sell). As a result, one of the other pressures which might see less successful or well known Australian titles not stocked is their lack of ‘newness.’

Happily, this doesn’t mean that ‘blockbuster’ titles (like Twilight) are the only ones that sell. It’s variable. 

Allan observed, “Australian authors fare better the younger the readership. I think this due to a few factors: parents are careful about which books their kids are reading; kids often respond to content they recognise; as they are less exposed to overseas media, the book’s appeal is not being affected by other influences. The older the customer gets, the more exposed they are to other influences (and influencers!) I feel that at the YA level Australian authors still get a lot of traction.”

Here, it definitely depends on the customer, too. Alana reflected: “In the children’s section, it’s typically the parents or grandparents who are coming in to buy books. However, the third most popular group is teens, which is great to see.” This would explain Allan’s observation as to why Australian books for younger readerships seem to be quite popular, especially given Australian picture and childrens books have quite a proud tradition. Consider: anything by Mem Fox or Alison Lester are examples of books you immediately recognise, then think ‘oh a child would love this!’. From there, it’s a short step to then look for other books by Australian authors. 

Teens, by contrast, are buying from themselves, and are influenced by other factors, including (but not limited to) what they see on social media or in popular culture (eg book-to-film adaptations). While this doesn’t mean they won’t by Australian titles, it does mean Australian titles aren’t always their first choice. 

Alana concluded with a comment I love: “Obviously, this is something I’m very passionate about, and why I believe that independent bookstores are the important link between author and consumer. Word of mouth is still very important, and booksellers, along with librarians and teachers, are the ones directly putting books into YA readers’ hands. So, what are you going to do with that trust, that ‘power’? In my own experience, I’m going to actively promote Australian voices. They are an important part of our industry’s ecosystem, and also our local communities and identities. If we don’t help promote their work, then their stories might take up less space on the market, and *could* disappear.”

With that in mind, I encourage us to contemplate how we can support the fantastic work done by booksellers to support us Australian authors. Is that a central registry of Australian texts? Maybe. Is it giving greater prominence to the CBCA-listed titles? Perhaps. Regardless, I hope this is a conversation we start to have.

A huge thank you to Alana, Allan, and Josh for their generous and insightful contributions.