Dear Taylor,
You must be exhausted! It is tiring enough just going to one of your concerts, let alone having to perform every night. How do you do it? Maybe this is why you have just made a little mistake. Your decision to strike an exclusive deal with US discount giant Target for your forthcoming Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Book sits at odds with the warm inclusivity of your concerts; all those friendship bracelets being exchanged; all those Instagram stories and eulogies being recorded; all those audience friendships being made. Everyone was allowed to see you perform, so why can’t everyone sell your book? Free market? Sounds like a restricted one.
In the US, fans won’t be able to buy your book at Barnes & Noble (B&N) or, for that matter, Amazon. In the UK, Waterstones and W H Smith and indies won’t be able to sell your book, and neither will the V&A, which put on a summer exhibition of the Eras tour costumes. Surely if you want to spread a message of togetherness, then you do not put restrictions on where your books are sold.
True, Target has nearly 2000 stores across the US, but if you include B&N plus indies that number is doubled. And what about all your fans in other countries? I’m not sure you need reminding, but Target says: “The 256-page Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Book—available for $39.99—spotlights the Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour concert from start to finish. The hardcover book features over 500 images, including never-before-seen performance photos from every era as well as exclusive rehearsal photos and behind-the-scenes images of instruments, costumes, set pieces and designer sketches used throughout the tour.”
Cool. My daughter will love it. But there are no Targets in the UK.
Everyone was allowed to see you perform, so why can’t everyone sell your book? Free market? Sounds like a restricted one.
It’s good that your book includes the international concerts, but surely all your international fans would like to be able to buy the book too. This is a title that is crying out for a global publishing deal. HarperCollins must think what could have been.
Your deal includes “The Tortured Poets Department: The Anthology”—previously only available as a digital album—now to be made available on CD and vinyl for the first time, only at Target. The irony here is that many of the poets you reference in your songs—Robert Frost, Pablo Neruda for example—are unlikely to be found in Target.
Let me remind you of some more gush from the retailer, this time from Rick Gomez, executive vice president and chief commercial officer. “Shopping at Target is all about finding amazing products you can’t get anywhere else, which is why we’re so excited about this next chapter in our long relationship with Taylor Swift: the exclusive Black Friday release of her new tour book and vinyl album. Target is at our best when we’re creating access to joyful experiences and that’s exactly what this represents—a new way for everyone to immerse themselves in Taylor’s concert and music, right in time for the holiday season.”
Just because you have a history of Target selling exclusive versions of your albums does not mean you should then go exclusive with the retailer for this printed record of your historic tour. The Eras tour book and CD/vinyl of the “The Tortured Poets Department” are only available in Target stores on 29 November, and then on the Target app and Target.com from 30 November “while supplies last”. One imagines that international postage will be prohibitively expensive.
Booksellers will surely be asked for the book and have a right to feel aggrieved and a little disappointed. Of course, they will get over it, and your star will shine as brightly as ever.
But please, spread the word amongst your fellow entertainment professionals: booksellers really could do with some of your sparkle. If any of your high-profile mates contemplate releasing a book—or perhaps when you’re plotting your own future publications—you might want to go in the opposite direction, and consider releasing them exclusively through independent bookshops. Because that would draw new audiences into unfamiliar spaces where they have a chance to be further inspired, empowered and uplifted.
Which, frankly, isn’t something that’s going to happen in Target.
Yours, Roger
