When Marshall Smith and Brad Jonas decided to launch a bargain book trade show called CIROBE (Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exposition), they weren’t sure how the industry would respond. Today, the intrepid co-founders are preparing for the 13^th edition of what has become an annual “can’t miss” bargain book industry event. In a recent interview with Bargain Book News, Marshall Smith shared a few secrets from the CIROBE success story and explained why the Ohio State Buckeyes are a good bet to repeat as college football’s National Champions.
 
1.Tell us about Marshall Smith. Where are you from and where do you make your home now?
 
I grew up in Ohio. Now I live in Florida in the winter and have a little place up on Lake Erie where I spend as much time as I can during the summer. It’s just me and my little boat up there.
 
2.How and why did you get started in the book business?
 
I was managing some bookstores in Florida back in the mid-1970’s. Then I went on the road as a sales rep for Viking Press. I went from there to Mayflower Publishing, which was the precursor of Smithmark Publishing. I went from there to Crown Publishing/Outlet Book Company.
 
3. Have you always been in the bargain book end of the business? What attracted you to this aspect of the industry?
 
My second rep job was for Mayflower and they were what we would call now a “value publisher.” They were a bargain company, yet a little bit unclear on their direction at the time. Frankly, I don’t think I understood what they were trying to accomplish as clearly as I should have either. That was my first exposure on that side of the aisle, although I had bought a lot of remainders in my stores. I had always been a big fan of remainders from the retail perspective.
Also, at the time I went to work for Crown as a house rep for their publishing program, they also owned Outlet Book Company. That was the granddaddy of all of the bargain book companies. They owned a huge portion of the bargain book business for a very long time.
 
4.Tell us about your retail operation.
 
I own a small bookstore in Key West, Florida called Key West Island Books. It has been in operation for 27 years. I became partner about eight years ago. My partner at the time retired three years ago. Now I have another partner who is an investor, not a managing or active partner.
 
5.What kinds of books do you sell?
 
We do a little bit of everything. We sell some new books, some used books, a lot of regional books, and we carry a lot of remainders.
 
6. Please tell us about CIROBE. How and when did the show get started? Where is it located?
 
CIROBE stands for the Chicago International Remainder and Overstock Book Exposition. This is our 13^th year. It’s held at the Hilton Chicago & Towers, but the first one in 1990 was at the Congress Hotel. We started planning the show back in 1989.
 
7.How did you come up with the concept?
 
I can’t talk about CIROBE and not talk about my partner, Brad Jonas. He really came up with the idea and gave birth to this thing. This is something he wanted to do for a long time. He modeled it after various trade shows in Frankfurt and London and the BEA. He always wondered if the same concept would work if it were bargain specific.
When he came to me with the idea, I was calling on him as a sales rep. I knew a lot of people. He came to me and said, ‘What do you think.’ I told him I thought the idea sounded like a good one, although I had certain reservations.
 
8. Like What?
 
I think a lot of people had reservations. At the time, people tended to be secretive about their customers. Everybody wanted to get new customers, but nobody wanted to surrender their customers. I remember having that conversation with the Midwestern rep for one of the big remainder companies and he got all protective and territorial about that issue. I said, ‘Look. You think I don’t know you are selling a couple hundred thousand books to X, Y, Z each year? C’mon.’ But to be honest, I had the same reservations. At some level, this idea seemed counter-intuitive. But we decided to roll with it.
 
9. When you first started CIROBE, how big was the show? How many vendors and attendees were there?
 
I remember that first show almost as clearly as if it were yesterday. These numbers are rough, but they are close. My memory is that we had 450 total attendees and I think about 50 to 70 vendors. We had a lot less tables per vendor back then.
 
10.What about today? How big is CIROBE?
 
We are going to have a bigger show this year than we had last year, which was our biggest show to date. Obviously I am pleased, but frankly I am a little surprised given the consolidation in this industry, the economic climate, and given the maturity of the show.
After 13 years you figure that you can’t just keep growing. But I think we are going to have more tables this year and we will definitely have more retailers. The early number that I got last week showed that 25-percent of the retail attendees are from new firms, which is really great for a show this mature.
We measure the show by tables. This year, we are going to have about 475 tables. I think we are going to sellout this year and I also found out that we are in danger of selling out the hotel rooms at the Hilton. So anyone who hasn’t made their hotel reservations should do that immediately.
 
11.Do you expect you will have to move the show to a larger venue in the future or is the Hilton large enough to accommodate more growth?
 
We won’t outgrow the Hilton for a couple of reasons. The primary reason is we have, as part of our contract, another exhibit hall on the same floor. We could expand into that space and add another thirty-percent or so of floor space. We haven’t had to do that, although last year we were very close to being sold-out.
I think some people think we can just stick another table wherever we want, but we can’t. The fire marshal won’t let us. In Chicago, they are real strict about fire codes. It might have something to do with the fact that the whole city burned to the ground once. We can only get a certain number of tables in those two rooms.
 
12.Today the show always takes place at the end of October, beginning of November. Why do you schedule it then?
 
Brad will tell you that one of the things I brought to the show was the timing. It was always my idea to schedule it at the end of October. Here’s the thinking behind that strategy. If you take what traditionally is the time of year when people sell a lot of bargain books, you are looking at a Christmas marketplace. Well, theoretically, the really big firms are going to buy their Christmas stuff very early, March or June. The rest of us real people don’t start buying Christmas books until September and October. No one wants to carry that inventory.
The problem is, as a vendor, you are supposed to sell a lot of books in September. That is what you do. So we get people all the time that tell us that the show should be in September. But it shouldn’t be in September. You should be selling books in September anyway.
If you have a show in August and September, all you are doing is moving dollars around. I don’t mean to offend anyone here, but if you have a show in September then you don’t do any business in August or October. But if you have this great show at the end October—early November, all of a sudden you have created new business.
I think everyone will tell you that CIROBE is far and away the biggest sales event of their year. Ten years ago, everyone was twiddling their thumbs in November and now it is the biggest billing month in the year for them. That’s a good thing.
The other part of that which bears mentioning is that publishers in our business close out books in the fall. They aren’t thinking about closing out books in July and August. They are on vacation. Traditionally, they don’t start dealing with their excess inventory until September. So they send out bids, the bids get awarded, and low and behold every year, all these great books show up at CIROBE that weren’t there six weeks before. It’s not by accident that we are there to do that. It was part of the original plan when we developed the show. I have been a rep for a long time. We know how this thing works. CIROBE is there at exactly the right time.
Retailers who have a problem with the timing say, ‘I don’t want to have books left after Christmas.’ Well, traditionally, the week after Christmas and the first of January are some of the best for bargain books. The big retailers buy books specifically to come in for that after-Christmas period. But your regular retailer says, ‘I’ll just sell what’s left after Christmas.’ I’m not saying that’s a bad idea, but is that necessarily the smartest way to do it? Obviously, if you have more books in December than you need then you want to sell some down. But let’s not say that the week after Christmas is a bad time for books. The facts are exactly the opposite. Those who think the show would be better suited to September are fundamentally wrong.
 
13.What does your partner, Brad Jonas, do apart from CIROBE?
 
He runs three Powell’s Books stores in Chicago. They are basically used bookstores and he also owns Powell’s Books Wholesale, which is a remainder company that tends to the more scholarly. He is also on so many civic boards and community things in Chicago that it makes my head spin when I think about what he must do in the course of a week. Brad is this indefatigable guy.
Brad is the reason the show is in Chicago. CIROBE has always been about showcasing Chicago. We want people to come to Chicago and enjoy the experience. That is one of the reasons the hours are what they are at CIROBE. We want this to be a show that people like. For example, we don’t open the floor at 8 a.m. because that is not what you want to do when you are at the show.
 
14.What is Brad’s role in terms of CIROBE? Do you two have different roles?
 
We do have different roles but they are not specifically defined. I think one of the things we do well is we play against each other’s strengths and weaknesses. It is a laborious, painful process and we have had people leave staff meetings in tears because they can’t stand the way he and I argue. I’ve had lots of people say to me that we remind them of a long suffering, married couple. But we don’t bear any personal grudges about it because we both realize that we are trying to get to what is best for the show. And that is not always as easy as some people think it is.
One of the reasons the show works is because both Brad and I have spent a lot of time on both sides of the aisles. We are retailers and we are vendors. We try to look at the show from the perspective of every party involved.
For example, there are other shows in the world. We have tried for a long time to make sure that we don’t bump up, in a debilitating way, against the timing of, for instance, Frankfurt. I think we have made Frankfurt redundant in the bargain book business, but nonetheless, some of the vendors, especially the European contingent, exhibit at or attend the show. So if our show gets too close to Frankfurt, that’s a problem.
I think some people just say, ‘We’ll just have the show when we want to and I don’t care what happens to the rest of it.’ But that is not thinking organically in relation to the rest of the business. I think you have to look at where your place is in the bigger picture.
 
15.How many staff do you have working on the show? Are there any other key staffers you would like to name and comment on their contribution to CIROBE’s success?
 
Chelsea Nash, Exhibits Manager, is the integral key to this whole thing. That is not to take anything away from Brad, who is a fountain of energy. But Chelsea handles all the nuts and bolts. She does all the catalog and program stuff. She is our person on the spot and does a lot of really good work.
The other key person is our other CIROBE Vice-President, Gene Paquette. He’s the Operations Manager/Sales Manager for Powell’s Wholesale, but he is also a key member of our team.
 
16.The show is a tabletop show. Can you explain how this works? Have you ever thought of selling booth space instead of tabletops? Why or why not?
 
It’s all about revenue. We look at this room and say, ‘This is how many tables we can get in this room.’ We are up front about it and we enforce it. For example, if someone pays for one table and put displays, tables, and dumps behind that table, then we have to charge them for that. They have three or four tables’ worth of space and they are only paying for one table. Plus, we are going to have to configure the room differently.
People think we are being real picky when we tell them that they can’t have displays without paying for them. But the idea is that you’re supposed to pay for your table. We’ve actually taken these rooms and divided them into booths, but to replicate the revenue would bump up the starting cost for a booth to a level that we think is unacceptable for people who just come in and want one table.
One of the beauties of this show is that we have so many vendors with so many different things that you don’t see in other places. At many other shows, you see the same books. We have unusual vendors with books that are different, titles you will never see at another show and, by the nature of this business, won’t see again. Remainders are finite. You only get one shot at most of these books.
 
17.Speaking of unusual books, CIROBE seems to attract a significant number of foreign booksellers. Is that perception correct? If so, what is the percentage of foreign booksellers and why do you believe they want a presence at CIROBE?
 
We tried really hard from the beginning to get the foreign booksellers involved in the show. Brad goes to all the foreign shows every year, however, he has stopped going to Frankfurt because there isn’t much of a bargain book presence. So he knows a lot of these guys and has tried to get them involved. It hasn’t been that easy to do, but it has worked. The vendors and the retailers find it profitable, so they keep coming back.
You could make the same analogy with the religious vendors. The exact same thing happens with them. They come once, sell their books, and come back the next year.
 
18.The university presses and academic vendors also seem to have a large presence at the show. Is that because of Brad and the connection to Powell’s Bookstore?
 
That’s part of it. But the reason we have a lot of university presses at our show is because they come to our show and they sell all of their books. That sounds kind of simple, but if you go to a show and don’t sell your books, then you’re not going to go back.
In fact, most of these university presses only exhibit every other year or every third year because when they come to CIROBE they sell out of everything.
 
19.Do you think shows are becoming increasingly important to the industry?
 
What I am going to say was not my line to start with but I am going to use it. I think one of the reasons why the shows have become more important is that people have forgotten how to sell books other than at shows.
People are saying now, ‘I sell my books at shows.’ But I don’t think that is necessarily the best course of action. I think there are people who attend shows and write a couple of orders with a couple of big people. They spend a lot of money doing the show. Yet, if all they are really interested in is doing is seeing the big people, then it would make more sense for them to take all their samples, charter a plane, and go see that person. That would be more cost-effective. I personally think there are a lot of shows that are not beneficial to the vendors. The problem is that they don’t know how to sell or have forgotten how to sell books beyond shows.
So are shows getting more important to these people? Yes. Do I think that is necessarily a beneficial thing for the industry? No, not necessarily.
 
20.BEA (Book Expo America) seems to be developing a larger presence with bargain books. Do you agree with this observation? If so, why do you think this is occurring?
 
It appears that way because we, and I give most of the credit to Brad there, worked really hard with BEA to make sure that the bargain publishers get what they deserve. We’ve had a lot of success in doing that. People think that the placement of the bargain book booths are just some sort of random occurrence at BEA every year. But they haven’t been at the planning meetings where Brad, and sometimes myself, put pressure on them to pay attention to the bargain segment of this business.
The reason that the bargain section appears to be bigger and therefore more important is only because the bargain people are all together in a good place. Six or seven years ago, that wasn’t the case. Brad took that upon himself to try to change that and I think he has accomplished that.
We have always said that we are not competing with the BEA. We have a good relationship with them. People will ask, ‘Which show should we attend – BEA or CIROBE?’ We say, ‘Both of them.’
 
21.Was last year the biggest CIROBE in terms of attendance? If not, what year was the biggest?
 
Yes. It has gotten bigger with more vendor tables every year. One year we were almost flat for retailers and that number has grown much more slowly. We are lucky to get a ten-percent increase in retailers each year, but the table count has always grown from year to year.
  
22.What changes have you noticed in the business since CIROBE first started?
 
The biggest, most important change in the industry is the idea of one company getting all of the books from x number of publishers: For example, getting all of the books from Simon & Shuster or whatever. That development has completely changed this business.
It’s an issue. I am surprised that there is such a proliferation of smaller people because it seems like the supply of books would be getting choked off a little bit. But there are plenty of the smaller companies out there that are managing to find enough product.
Also, you cannot overlook the importance of the Internet. So many more books are being sold on the Internet every day. I’m not talking about from the bookstores to the end users, because that is obviously happening. What I am referring to are the sales from the vendors to the retailers. It may not be obvious on the surface how the Internet has changed this business, but it has and it will continue to do so.
 
23.How has CIROBE changed since your first show?
 
I think there is a direct relationship between how the industry has changed and how the show has changed. You have one guy who used to take four tables, for example. Now he is getting all of the books from some giant publisher and two or three other publishers, so all of a sudden he needs 12 or 18 tables. That has been significant.
 
24.This has been a difficult year of booksellers. Do you think that will adversely affect this year’s show?
 
Like I mentioned earlier, I am shocked by the number of new people we have coming this year. I think that is a really important number for our vendors. They are always looking for new customers.
 
25.How can our readers find out more about this year’s show?
 
The website at www.cirobe.com is the best source of information or they can always call us at 773-404-8357.
 
26.You probably don’t have a lot of free time for reading this time of year, but once the show is over, what kind of books do you enjoy reading? Who is your favorite author(s) or book(s)?
 
Reading is a major passion in my life. It has been that way since I was a child. I think that is actually how I got into the book business. I read a lot of books. You have to make time to read, just like you make time to do anything else that is important to you.
For years, I only read fiction, but in the last ten years I have really branched out. I still read the detective fiction because it is a no-brainer, something I can do before I go to sleep each night. But I also read serious fiction and a lot of books about fishing, which is one of my other true passions.
My two favorite books that I have ever read are Lonesome Dove and Killing Mr. Watson by Peter Matthiessen. I think Killing Mr. Watson is one of the greatest books of the twentieth century. I refer to it as the Moby Dick of the twentieth century. I haven’t seen the book on a remainder table for years. If there were a table of them at CIROBE, I’d buy them all myself.
 
27.Someone told us that you were an Ohio State Buckeye football fan? Do you think this year’s team has what it takes to repeat?
 
I have always been a Buckeye fan. I could probably talk about this team longer than anyone would want to read about. But I would like to say two things. First, they are the defending National Champions and have won 18 games in a row. Let’s give them a little respect.
The other thing I would say is, yes, at times their offense looks out of sync, but they are still winning. People underestimate how good this defense is. This is an awesome, stifling, brutal defense. In the first four games of the year, their opponents have gained a total of 92 yards on the ground. That’s less than 24 yards a game – total.
This team is so great and so deep. People have no idea about the talented kids who are standing on the sidelines just waiting for their chance to get in the game.
 
Maryellen Duckett is a Tennessee-based freelance writer for National Geographic Traveler, Family Fun, and On the Road with Hampton magazines. She and her husband, Randall, are co-authors of the family travel books 100 Secrets of the Smokies and 100 Secrets of the Carolina Coast (Rutledge Hill Press).