SAS 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 (June 30, 2011) -- Brent Shearer, principal 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 premiere 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 at the event.

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 is reluctantly going to 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.

We have contacted a number of publishers who have said they will gladly 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 guidance and templates, currently SAS will leave negotiation of the exact percentages of the fee split between publishers and host venues to these entities.

Shearer, the eminence griese of the downtown readings scene, also addressed related topics such as the recently announced plans by Word Bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, to pay all audience members, upon their passing of a "front-door literacy test" to attend readings.

"I don't object to plans by one of SAS's favorite client bookstores to pay a small fee to customers for attending readings. In a way, they already are, as the store places galleys out front for readings attendees and other customers to pick up for free.

But I don't think you can compare the contribution of these amateur readings attendees with the service provided by myself and my colleagues at SAS. For instance, we never ask suck-up questions during the q and a session about what the authors' influences have been, when they write, or what direction they face in while writing. Unlike the amateur readings attendee, SAS representatives never shy away from sitting in the front row. Hence, the title of my best-selling memoir of the early years of SAS, "In the Front Row, On the Dole." (Shearer used unemployment payments to fund the company's early years.)

With our objective take on the author and his or her work, we act as a much-needed counterweight to the syncopancy and ass-kissing that often characterize readings. You can be sure that if a SAS professional reading attendee does ask a question after an author's recitation, it will be brief, to the point and often snarky or at least politely challenging to the author's repeated bragging about things like, as occurred last week at a McNally Jackson reading, the "six languages that I speak."

Shearer also spoke out against 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 recent "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 also 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 KGB bar owner Dennnis Last Name has been consistently mis-stated in press accounts. As NYC's leading literary bar, Dennnis brought leverage to the deal-making process that no other venue could. But I still charged him 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.”