An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (http://awfullybigblogadventure.blogspot.com/) are running a series called Bookseller Sundays, where they let booksellers guest blog on Sundays. I used to be a children's bookseller for Waterstone's in Brussels, so I said I'd do a blog piece for them. Does anyone have any questions that they are burning to ask a bookseller (me)? If so, post them here and I will answer them (assuming I can) in the blog .

Don't know if this is the kind of thing you want for the blog, but I'd be interested to know anyway! Plus, I'm all for the public and the trade realising that bookselling isn't just being a shop assistant...

How well a book sells is largely to do with how much marketing budget and effort a publisher puts behind it. But booksellers seem to have a lot to do with creating "word of mouth" success for books which the publisher hasn't supported much.

Can you tell us something about what makes a bookseller think a book has that kind of potential? How do they then sell it? And how does their enthusiasm transmit through the chain and back to the publisher, to encourage the publisher to support it more?

yes, Emma, that's a great question. I will deal with that on the blog.
Essentially, it is just the same as you or anyone recommending a book to a friend. You read it, you love it, you think other people will love it too so you talk about it to them. your enthusiasm rubs off and they buy it. But the difference is that as a bookseller you are doing this with a professional weight behind you, you are talking to someone who wants to buy a book, and the till is right next to you. So you have a'captive audience'. This is called hand selling and I did a lot of it.

Leila, what about word-of-mouth going back up through the bookseller to head office? Is there a channel for feedback from y'all in the shop ever affect the Head Office's attitude, or the publishers towards promoting it, for example?

Yes - theoretically. Those channels changed in the time I was there, and it depends a bit on how enthusiastic the manager is, but certainly if we had a book do particularly well, then the local manager could bring that up at a meeting with regional managers. And there is also a staff intranet where people share recommendations of books that do well for them. So yes, is the short answer.

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Re feedback to publishers - I guess if HO take notice and order more, then so will the publishers if they have any sense. Otherwise you might feedback through reps (though they are a dying breed).
Absolutely everything depends on how enthusiastic and committed the staff and the manager of the shop are. And the manager is under big pressure to achieve sales targets. But hopefully the Daunt changes will make a big difference.