Shearer Audience Services To Hike Prices

"Bookstores, including some of the most prominent around the country, have begun selling tickets or requiring a book purchase of customers who attend author readings and signings." NYT, June 22, 2011

New York, New York (July 10, 2011) -- Brent Shearer, CEO of Shearer Audience Services (SAS, Nasdaq) said today that in response to the imminent imposition of fees for attending readings at New York City bookstores, SAS will be forced in September to increase its charge for having him or other staffers attend readings.

Over the past three years, SAS has established itself as the premire provider of professional audience members for New York City readings, book parties, book signings and other author events. By common consensus, and as noted in frequent media citations (New York Times, Publisher's Weekly, the Social Calendar), readers, event organizers and writers in New York have come together in support of the company's position that it isn't an "official" reading if there is no SAS presence.

Shearer said, "In light of statements by independent bookstores that they will start to charge fees for author events, and because my plan of going to a ton of readings and picking up women at them has not worked out, SAS must reluctantly increase its fee structure from its current level of just scarfing up whatever free food and drink is on offer, to a minimum "appearance" fee of $100 per reading or other author event." The increase will be effective September 15, 2011.

Shearer continued, "We have contacted a number of publishers who have said they will contribute to this charge in conjunction with a payment by the host bookstore or bar to ensure SAS's continued participation at author events. While we can provide some guidance and templates, currently SAS will leave negotiation of the exact percentages of the fee split between publishers and host venues to these entities."

In addition, Shearer said he will begin directly charging authors for SAS presence at their events. Authors can choose from the following options. Basic package, $50 from author, not to offset payments by publishers and host venues, consists of rapt attention, front row seating if needed to give the appearance of the event not being sparsely attended, and one "non-insulting" question during the question and answer period.

First class packages include the above with the "non-insulting" question upgraded to a flattering reference to positive reviews or other author-planted observations masquerading as a question.

Shearer said SAS and its consultants are also designing "bespoke" packages, which will allow authors, publishers and venue owners to request specific outfits, accents and multiple, open-ended questions for the author to respond to. SAS representatives, under the bespoke option, will show up with an armful of the author's older books and will speak publically, when appropriate, about his or her desire to get them all signed.

In early audience reaction tests, this example seems to inspire purchases of multiple volumes. As a result, authors, publishers and bookstores get more bang for their promotional buck since SAS presence helps sell more than the new book, which presumably is the one being read from. We encourage authors and publicists to suggest other approaches for our bespoke program.

Shearer, the eminence griese of the downtown readings scene, also addressed related topics such as the recently announced plan by Word Bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to pay all audience members to attend readings if they pass a "front-door literacy test." The readings company head sidestepped the controversy sparked by advocates for the illiterate who have protested that the Word bookstore plan is discriminatory.

"I don't object to plans by one of SAS's favorite client bookstores to pay a small fee to literate customers for attending readings. But I don't think you can compare the contribution of these amateur readings attendees with the service provided by myself and my staff members," Shearer said.

"For instance, SAS professional readings attendees never ask suck-up questions, unless an author has purchased at least the "basic" package, during the questions and answers session. Hence, the professional readings attendee never asks about what the authors' influences have been, when they write, or what direction they face in while writing. Unlike amateur readings attendees, SAS representatives never shy away from sitting in the front row. Hence, the title of Shearer's best-selling memoir of the formative years of SAS, "In the Front Row, On the Dole." (Shearer used unemployment payments to fund the company's early years.)

The SAS head continued, "With our objective take on the author and his or her work, we act as a much-needed counterweight to the sycophancy and ass-kissing that often characterize readings unless the author has paid for at least our basic package or we have been retained by the publisher and the host venue."

"In the case of there being no payment by any participant in an author event, you can be sure that if a SAS professional reading attendee asks a question after an author's presentation, it will be brief, to the point, and will challenge any authorial blow-hardedness such as the multiple mentions by an author who read at the McNally Jackson bookstore last month of the "six languages I speak."

Shearer also criticized nascent industry plans to base the amount of admission fees on how good-looking the author is.

"I know that Jonathan Lethem is cute, but SAS's heroic level of participation in his "Chronic City," reading tour, which resulted in, among other kudos, the presentation of Lethem's own reading copy of "Chronic City" to Shearer (see inthefrontrowonthedole.blogspot.com), was not based on the author's good looks, but on the literary merit and ease of bike access to the venues. Plans to take the author's appearance into account in admissions pricing can only lead to a undesirable "MTV-ization" of the author events segment of the book publishing industry.

Shearer commented on SAS's much reported exclusive deal with the KGB bar to be the official professional readings attendee at the bar's many author events. "The fee I negotiated with the KGB bar owner has been consistently mis-stated in press accounts. As NYC's leading literary bar, KGB management brought leverage to the deal-making process that no other venue could. But I still charged Denis much more than has been reported. Just as an example in the free drinks section of the contract between SAS and KGB , observers should note that the beverages that SAS personnel can drink free include those $18 double Kailuas, not just the bar's inexpensive Russian beers."

To sum up, Shearer promised the various stakeholders in the author event industry, readers, authors, publishers, bookstore owners and Lou, the KGB bartender, that they can rest assured that SAS will continue to lead in innovation and in nurturing the most profitable business models for the author event segment of the hard-copy publishing industry.

SAS in talks for pact w/ Amazon in internet bookselling industry first

New York, New York (July 22, 2011) Shearer Audience Services, (SAS, Nasdaq) said today it is in discussions with Amazon's bookselling division to provide professional audience members at the internet book sellers' author events. Author events, long the exclusive marketing tool of bricks and mortar book sellers, have become the latest flashpoint in the war between internet book sellers and book stores with a physical location.
SAS CEO Brent Shearer said the company will still serve chain and independent bookstores as source of professional readings attendees; denies charges that company pact with Amazon betrays former customer base.







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