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Christmas: the time of year when people who don’t like music buy music, and people who don’t read books buy books.

If you’re a music buff (I mean the sort of person who has Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoyos on vinyl, or who thinks the Rolling Stones blew their credibility with the 1966 ‘Aftermath’ album) then you’ll watch the TV ads promoting the new Boyzone covers of Westlife (or vice versa) and weep into your cushions.

Well, here’s the truth. They’re not aimed at you.  The target is people who buy records twice a year – usually for Christmas and Mother’s Day.

Similarly with books: Despite the mind-boggling statistic that the UK publishing industry produces 4,000 new titles a week , book buying is a minority activity.

According to Nielsen Bookscan, 20% of all book sales happen in the run up to Christmas. While the literati may be out in giddy force looking for the new Herta Muller or Elizabeth Strout, the majority of sales that happen in the next six weeks will be to people who usually go into a bookshop for a coffee and to shelter from the rain.

THE LAST HURRAH?

Added to this, the book trade is going through the same radical shift that the music business has experienced over the past ten years. The arrival of Amazon changed the game (much as I try to support independents, for at least five years the majority of my book buying has been online), as did the entry of the supermarkets. So trying to complete with that shift in models has become increasingly difficult.

But, to misquote Bachman Turner Overdrive,  they ain’t seen nothing yet: the Amazon Kindle and Sony e-reader – plus other lesser-known platforms – are about to change the whole paradigm of the industry, in the same way as the MP3.

So the booksellers are having to work doubly hard to wring the most from their peripatetic customers at this time of year – because it might be their last oturn on the swings.

Deep discounting is common, best known as the 3-for-2 offer which has almost become the standard now in the sector (in the same way that furniture stores have an annual sale. Not once a year: ALL year.)

So hats off to my local Waterstone’s branch for this moment of genuine merchandising insight:

Not sure what to buy your husband / son / uncle / nephew / brother this year? But know that he likes watching all those BBC re-runs on that blokey channel.

Well, Waterstones have made it a straightforward purchase. Here, in one place,  are all the celebrity brands and TV tie-ins that you might have heard of, and you feel pretty sure that he’ll enjoy.

Don’t scoff; it may not be the high culture or specialist niche that interests you – but it is a triumph of customer understanding and sales promotion. Helping a customer base that isn’t quite sure about the market, doesn’t quite know what’s acceptable now to buy for a 17 year-old grandson (“they grow up so fast don’t they?”) but who recognise that nice young man off the telly.

It’s a superb example of Sales 101: Selling is making buying easy.

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