Librarians on Street Lit

By Laura Hazard Owen
February 5, 2009
Comments Off on Librarians on Street Lit


Brooklyn and NYPL librarians recently ran a survey about street lit (what is it? here’s Wikipedia’s entry), and they’ve written up the results in the most recent issue of School Library Journal. Some findings:

  • 49% of the respondents worked in urban libraries, 43% in suburban libraries, and 8% in rural libraries. 92.5% offered street lit in their collections.
  • Of the 7.5% not offering street lit (and, no, they’re not all from rural areas!), 50% say it’s because there’s “no patron interest.”
  • A librarian from urban Ohio wrote, “Our library director does not allow us to buy it because he feels it is inappropriate for our town….I am going to try to sneak some in.”
  • Street lit is often stolen, possibly because some patrons feel embarrassed about checking it out. To help solve this problem, the authors say librarians should shelve street lit where it’s easy to find and be ready to answer questions about it openly and cheerfully.
  • An encouraging result, the authors write: “One thing we hoped our survey would show is that street lit is bringing nonreading teens into the public library—and that appears to true. Indeed, librarians are actively using street lit as a jumping-off point to create relationships with teens. As a librarian in an urban California library wrote, ‘Talking about urban fiction with teens is a great way to get to know them… Having read some of the titles and/or at least being familiar with them helps to start the relationship.'”

For the full article, and examples from the “street lit canon,” click here. And here are street lit resources for librarians–including lists of publishers and popular titles for teens.

Creative Commons image from satanslaundromat on Flickr.

Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , ,

Why Do You Go to the Library?

By Laura Hazard Owen
February 5, 2009
Comments (4)


In the most recent issue of Publishing Trends, we wrote about book rental companies BookSwim, Booksfree, and Paperspine. Read the article here.

The comment that leapt out at me during the interview process and has stuck in my head since I wrote the article was from Doug Ross, CEO of Booksfree, who said:

“When you go into a library, more than half the space is taken up with entertainment product. Mass market paperbacks and hardcovers are all over the place and there’s a little bit of room where kids can go in and do research and use computers.”

I found the phrase “entertainment product” totally jarring and assumed librarians would hate it, too. But when Ross posted similar comments in a response to a post entitled “Will Libraries Go the Way of Video Stores?” on Strollerderby, the librarians who responded in turn weren’t outraged at him. They seemed more irritated by the original post. One commenter, Matthew, wrote:

“Admittedly, I am annoyed by this reoccuring question: ‘Will libraries go the way of videostores?’ or, phrased another way, ‘Have libraries outlived their necessity?’. Both of these questions assume that libraries are primarily about books, and not about information & literacy. All of this assumes that all citizens have the same level of easy access to newer technologies, and that class doesn’t separate us as information consumers.“

It’s true that I, and most people reading this entry, don’t need to use computers at the library because they have their own computers at home and at work. And the realization that librarians themselves think libraries are much more than books is a good reminder that they are many different things to different people. So how ARE people using libraries? The results of a recent Pew survey “challenge the assumption that libraries are losing relevance in the internet age. Libraries drew visits by more than half of Americans (53%) in the past year for all kinds of purposes, not just the problems mentioned in this survey. And it was the young adults in tech-loving Generation Y (age 18-30) who led the pack. Compared to their elders, Gen Y members were the most likely to use libraries for problem-solving information and in general patronage for any purpose.”

We’ll delve into more of the results of the Pew report in the next post.

PT will still never refer books “entertainment product,” though.

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons, Here’s Kate, “The Library“

Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , ,

Book View, February 2009

By PT Editors
February 1, 2009
Comments Off on Book View, February 2009

PEOPLE

There are so many changes to report this month that we are highlighting only some of the moves and, where available, contact information. Rebecca (Becky) Saletan has been appointed Editorial Director of Riverhead, reporting to Publisher Geoff Kloske. She was most recently SVP and Publisher of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Her appointment is effective March 2; meanwhile, she is reachable at rebecca dot saletan at earthlink dot net.

Jon Anderson, President and Publisher of Running Press, has joined Simon & Schuster as EVP and Publisher of S&S Children’s Publishing, reporting to S&S CEO Carolyn Reidy.

There have been ongoing reorganizations at Random House, Knopf, and Crown. Janice Goldklang, Publisher of Pantheon, was let go after 30 years and may be reached at janicegoldklang at gmail dot com. Jack Perry was laid off from Random, where he was Director of Sales Marketing, and may be reached at jackperry38 at hotmail dot com. According to the New York Observer, four editors were also laid off: Random House’s Modern Library editor Judy Sternlight, Villard’s Bruce Tracy, Ballantine’s West Coast–based Anika Streitfeld, and Liz Scheier. Longtime Bantam Dell Business Manager John de Beaumont and Paul Kozlowski, former VP Director Sales Marketing Random Adult, have left and Paul may be reached at pekoz at mac dot com. Judy Pray has left Clarkson Potter after one year and can be reached at jpray24 at gmail dot com. She was previously with Black Dog & Leventhal. Meanwhile, Sharon Swados, who was VP Director of Sub Rights at Bantam Dell and was laid off in December, may be reached at szswados at yahoo dot com.

Joe Monti, former Director of Paperbacks at Hachette, has left the company. He may be reached at [e-mail info at publishingtrends dot com for number].

Steve Black has left Oxmoor House’s New York office, where he was Director of Sales. He joined Oxmoor in June 2008.

Editor-in-Chief Sara Nelson has been laid off from Publishers Weekly and may be reached at snwriter at aol dot com or [e-mail info at publishingtrends dot com for number]. Executive Editor Daisy Maryles has also left and may be reached at daisymaryles at yahoo dot com. Bookselling editor Kevin Howell and Director of Business Development Rachel Dicker are also departing. School Library Journal editor-in-chief Brian Kenney was named to the new position of Editorial Director for the group, comprising SLJ, Library Journal, and PW.

Nicole Dewey has been named Director of Publicity at Holt. She was Associate Director of Publicity at
Doubleday and replaces Claire McKinney, who left in December.

Karyn Gerhard has joined Penguin as Senior Acquisitions Editor for the Alpha imprint, formerly a division of Pearson Education. She was at Bulfinch. Meanwhile, Vanessa Mobley, Senior Editor at the Penguin Press, has left the company. She may be reached at vanessamobley at gmail dot com.

Barnes & Noble terminated about 100 people, including Steve Magnusson and Editorial Director of Union Square Press Philip Turner, who may be reached at philipsturner at gmail dot com or [e-mail info at publishingtrends dot com for number]. Meanwhile, BarnesandNoble.com, which has been operating without a CEO since Marie Toulantis left in August, has hired a President, Bill Lynch. From 2004 to 2008, he was CEO and co-founder of gifts.com.

At Chronicle, Debra Lande, Business Development Director, has been laid off. She may be reached at landedebra at gmail dot com.

At Workman, Glenn D’Agnes has been named Chief Administrative Officer. He was COO of HarperCollins. Melissa Possick has been named Marketing Director. Amy Corley has moved back to Artisan as Publicity Director.

Angus Killick, who was School and Library Marketing Director at Disney Publishing Worldwide, has joined Macmillan’s Kingfisher as Associate Publisher, a new position, reporting to UK Publishing Director Martina Challis. Killick takes control of all US publishing, marketing, and sales and is based in New York.

Vivian Chum has joined Prospect Agency as an agent.

Lonely Planet has appointed Matthew Goldberg as CEO as of March, reporting to BBC Worldwide Managing Director of Global Brands Marcus Arthur and based in Melbourne, Australia. He was SVP, Digital Strategy & Ops at Dow Jones, where he led business operations at the Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

Steven Sayre has resigned from Ingram. He has joined medical publisher IARS in San Francisco to run its print/online content programs.

Lindley Boegehold has joined Abrams as Director of Custom, Proprietary, and Calendar Publishing. She has been consulting at Abrams, following her departure from Random Media.

Shardul Kothari has left HMH Publishing, where he was VP, Sales in the International Division. He may be reached at shardul at netvigator dot com.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Wendy Sheanin has been promoted to Director of Marketing, Adult at S&S.

John R. Ingram, Chairman of the Ingram Content companies, announced that James Gray has been named Chief Strategy Officer for the Content Group. Gray was most recently the President and CEO of Ingram Digital. Mike Lovett, the former CEO of Ingram Book Group and most recently SVP of Ingram Digital, is the new CEO of Ingram Digital.

Sterling has promoted Sharmilla Sinanan to the newly created position of Senior Manager, Marketing Services (formerly the ad/promo department). Simone Gibbs was promoted to the position of Marketing Coordinator.

At Trident Media Group, Alanna Ramirez has been promoted to agent. She was audio rights agent and special assistant to Robert Gottlieb. Elizabeth Kellogg has been promoted to audio rights agent.

Cindy Eagan has been named Executive Editorial Director for the Poppy imprint at Little, Brown Children’s.

Christina Amini and Steve Mockus have both been named Senior Editor at Chronicle.

DULY NOTED

comScore reported that the total global Internet audience (age 15 and older, from home and work computers) surpassed one billion visitors in December 2008. The Asia-Pacific region accounted for the highest share of global Internet users, at 41%, followed by Europe (28% share), North America (18%), Latin America (7%), and the Middle East and Africa (5%). China represented the largest online audience from one country, with 180 million Internet users, representing nearly 18% of the total worldwide Internet audience.

Booksonline, parent company to over 20 of North America’s leading book clubs including Book-of-the-Month Club, Black Expressions, The Good Cook, and Mystery Guild, has dropped the controversial “Negative Option” method from its business practice. On January 7, all book clubs belonging to the Booksonline family switched to the new operational policy.

IN MEMORIAM

Arcade Publishing Founder and Publisher Dick Seaver’s memorial service will take place Thursday, February 12, at 5 PM at All Souls Unitarian Church (1157 Lexington Ave., between 79th and 80th Sts).

A memorial service for critic, editor, and novelist John Leonard will be held on Monday, March 2 at 6 PM at Landmark on the Park (160 Central Park West). Along with family members, Gloria Steinem, Toni Morrison, and Victor Navasky are among the participants.

Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Netflix for Books?

By Laura Hazard Owen
February 1, 2009
Comments (1)

It’s hard to remember a time when Netflix didn’t seem like a good idea. The company opened its first distribution center, in San Jose, CA, in 1998, and initially aimed to create the typical Blockbuster experience: Each rental was $4, plus $2 for postage, and there were late fees. In a 2002 interview with Wired magazine, the company’s founder and CEO, Reed Hastings, described the pre-2000 Netflix as “a typical Internet company…an ugly financial story, with not much hope of breaking even.” But when the company switched to its now-familiar subscription, no-late-fee model in 1999, it took off, delivering 100,000 DVDs by October of that year. It shipped its billionth DVD (Babel) in February 2007 and today has 8.7 million members and over 100,000 titles, with plans ranging from $4.99 to $47.99. The company’s Amazon.com-like recommendations feature is used by 60% of members to select their DVDs, and its revenue-sharing agreements means that film studios are invested in the company’s success. Netflix was named the Retail Innovator of the Year by the National Retail Federation in 2007.

If people like using Netflix for DVDs, they’ll love a similar service for books, right? Books take up space, and just because you want to read one doesn’t mean you want to own it. Book rental is not an entirely new concept—bookstores like Hastings and Vroman’s have attempted it in the past—but online book rental is. Companies like BookSwim, Booksfree, and Paperspine hope to be Netflix for books.

“Renting is trendy, affordable, and convenient,” says Georg Richter, CEO and Senior Adviser of BookSwim and formerly EVP and COO of Bookspan. The company’s VP Marketing, Eric Ginsberg, says, “If you want to get [a hot new] book from your local library, it can take six or twelve weeks to get to the front of the list. The average New York Times bestseller is $26 and that’s more money than people want to spend.”

But listen up, publishers: As studios have profited from working with Netflix, you can profit from book rentals. “Working with companies like Paperspine offers publishers a way to directly compete with the used book market,” says Dustin Hubbard, CEO of Paperspine. “We believe our service competes much more directly with the used book market and book-swapping sites on the Internet than with the new book market. The used book market is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry all by itself. Publishers should follow the lead that the DVD industry has already established [by] supporting both business types, buy and rent. [By working with companies like Netflix], the DVD industry essentially eliminated the used DVD market.” By supporting book rental companies, Hubbard says, publishers have a way to fight back “against the large and growing used book market that is currently costing them millions of dollars a year.” Along with revenue-sharing programs, he suggests co-marketing of new titles, promotion of author events, and paid search results on book rental sites. Paperspine has been working on these initiatives with several small publishers since last summer and is also negotiating with larger publishing houses.

None of the book rental companies Publishing Trends spoke with would reveal their membership numbers, but Ginsberg says BookSwim broke its first-year membership goal within six months and tripled that goal within a year, and Booksfree was recently named to Inc. Magazine’s list of the 5,000 fastest-growing privately held companies in America.

BookSwim, Booksfree, and Paperspine all operate similarly. Each company charges a monthly rate for a certain number of books, with free basic shipping both ways. In most cases, though not all, basic shipping means USPS Media Mail, which can be slow. “Books usually arrive within 3 to 9 days, but due to the unpredictable nature of…Media Mail, occasionally some shipments may take up to 4-14 days to arrive because of postal delays,” says BookSwim’s website. “Patience is a virtue!”

That’s a line you won’t find anywhere on Netflix’s website. While the company does ship its DVDs via the USPS, each of those red envelopes weighs less than an ounce, so shipping is inexpensive—and because of the company’s many distribution centers (10 by 2002, over 40 by 2007, over 50 today), almost 95% of customers receive their next DVD the day after it’s shipped. Nor does Netflix also have to answer the following question, which is found in some form on all the book rental companies’ websites: “Why not just go to the library?”

Oh yeah, libraries, those places where book rental is free. There are late fees, wait lists for popular titles, and limited selections, but library cards are free. Many libraries already offer books by mail to at least some patrons, and library systems that work with OverDrive can automatically purchase more copies of a title (subject to budget restrictions) if the wait list for it gets too long. So how do book rental companies solve the library problem?

“You have to be very careful when you talk about libraries,” says Doug Ross, President and CEO of Booksfree. “They’re so important and wonderful.” BookSwim’s site notes, “BookSwim is a terrific supplement for avid library users, as BookSwim encourages members to use the library if/when possible.” And Hubbard says, “Libraries have never responded poorly to the idea. We all have a common cause of love of literacy and helping people promote that.” BookSwim donated 13,000 books to the Newark Public Library when they moved their offices to the city, and they piloted a book club program with the North Texas Regional Library System. “We have a lot of different books that, for a time, are very popular, and then after a time are less popular,” says Ginsberg. “It makes sense for us to bundle those books together in a way that libraries can [loan] a bunch of them at a time.”

But another way book rental companies may regard libraries is as community centers that have been sidetracked from their original purposes. Ginsberg says a large part of his last job, in PR at a library in New Jersey, was “getting people to realize that the library is not just books.”

“Publishers have helped libraries focus away from [their] primary objective, which is education, research, and helping people, and [libraries] have gotten more into the entertainment business,” says Ross. “When you go into a library, more than half the space is taken up with entertainment product [books!]. Mass market paperbacks and hardcovers are all over the place and there’s a little bit of room where kids can go in and do research and use computers.” In December on a blog called Strollerderby, Miriam Axel-Lute wrote that what bothered her most about book rental services (besides that they were competing with free) was “the idea of abandoning the library,” adding, “I think with the right savvy, libraries are up to the task of competing with even an improved book rental service.” Ross commented on the post, identifying himself as Booksfree’s CEO, with a message that read, in part, “Encouraging members to use alternative cost effective services such as Booksfree would still save the consumer substantial $$$$ while freeing up libraries to better perform their essential services. One could reasonably ask if it is wise to use public money (taxpayer) and grants to provide free entertainment rather than services more beneficial to the general public.” A librarian wrote in response, “We are first and foremost institutions for the provision of the printed word in multiple formats.”

And libraries are forging ahead with those new formats. In January, the Cleveland Public Library (CPL) system worked with OverDrive to become the country’s first public library system to offer ebook downloads in the EPUB format. The books can be downloaded to the Sony Reader or read onscreen with Adobe Digital Editions. Patrons browse the digital library catalog for titles, check them out with their library cards, and download them to their home computers. The files expire automatically at the end of the lending period. The library also offers, through OverDrive, MP3 audiobooks that, like all MP3 files, can be downloaded to iPods. In total, there are 28,600 digital titles in CPL’s collection. Amy Pawlowski, CPL’s Web Applications Manager and formerly Partner Services Manager at OverDrive, says patrons are taking full advantage of the new digital offerings. “I think that’s because we launched this so early, and our patrons accepted it as so cool from the beginning,” she says. “As we added new formats and increased the collection size, they were already familiar with the technology to begin with, so learning one more step was not particularly difficult for them.” When CPL launched its MP3 program, she says, “We were prepared to get completely slammed with support questions. We got none. Within two days, the 200 titles were all circed out.” There are now 604 MP3 books available, and the library adds more weekly.

Pamela Turner Taylor, CEO of Total eSource and formerly Director of Audio Services at Ingram Digital and Director of Content Reserve at OverDrive, agrees that libraries are a great place for patrons to try ebooks because “they’re [not] investing money and buying a file, so it’s a good way for them to experiment and try it out.” And as library users become increasingly familiar with digital formats, that can “help support even the commercial enterprises. Publishers should be looking for incremental revenues from the books they’re already promoting, showing the authors that it may be modest at first but they’re going to be earning additional royalties from the digital versions.”

So will libraries eventually become people’s main source of digital reading material and audiobooks? Will book-rental sites eventually become their main source of old-fashioned reading material? “As a society we have reached the epoch of clutter, and we’re starting to shed it,” says Ginsberg. “As we move into the twenty-first century, people are a little more secure about who they are and much more interested in getting what they want out of life. As the cost of living goes up, the size of our living quarters goes down, and people are interested in not being completely crammed out of their own place.”

And if you fall in love with a book and want to read it more than once? “You can always rent it again later.”

Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Beyond the Bazaar

By Katie Lee Hull
February 1, 2009
Comments Off on Beyond the Bazaar

Despite its rich literary past, the Arab world today is more often thought of for its culture clashes and political discontent than its potential future as an international hub for book publishing. But with government cooperation and cash flow, it is easier for publishers to move past differences in societal standards and censorship battles to see the business opportunities available to them.

In Abu Dhabi, what began as more of a local bazaar has been transformed into a structured event designed to attract international publishers. Through a joint venture between the Frankfurt International Book Fair and the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage (KITAB), the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, which is open to the public, is seeing a continued interest from professional attendees since its reinvention two years ago. Between 2007 and 2008 there was a 16% rise in overall exhibitors and a 25% rise in overall space used, says Claudia Kaiser, General Manager of the ADIBF. The 2009 numbers won’t be verified until after the fair, but Kaiser says the number of publishers currently registered suggests another significant increase this year.

“The Arab world was a place where you could lose a lot of money and a lot of time,” says Kaiser. But with the growing interest from larger publishers and help from Frankfurt, Kaiser hopes that view will become one of the past.

Publishers from more than fifty countries, including Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, France, Italy, India, China, Singapore, Korea, India, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom, have registered to attend next month’s fair. Kaiser says that within the Arab world, the majority of exhibitors are local, coming from the United Arab Emirates, but Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan will have representation there as well. According to Helen Wharton of Colman Getty PR, which represents the fair, there is a mix of mix of educational and trade publishers, though the concentration is toward educational titles. Wharton also says that the stands have sold out earlier this year than in the past.

Hal Fessenden, U.S. Director of Subsidiary Rights at Penguin, who attended in 2008, says that despite the “lavishly built” facility that replaced the white tents of the pre-Frankfurt days, it is still in the early stages of growth. “They are still selling physical copies to the public, not rights.”

The fair attracts visitors by bringing in popular authors for signings and hosting workshops and year-round events relating to publishing and literature. Arab publishers who exhibit receive a 30% discount from the ADIBF, and a new program called Spotlight on Rights offers a $1,000 subsidy towards books translated into Arabic. The deal can be made before, after, or during, as long as both contracting partners are in attendance.

“I was surprised at the determination they have to build this thing,” says Fessenden. “They’re not kidding around. They are serious and they are spending a lot of money.”

Anne Eckert of the Frankfurt Book Fair says that the joint venture is hoping to address every aspect of book publishing, from writing and translating to publishing and distribution. “KITAB, the joint venture between Frankfurt and the Authority for Culture, organizes training programs for publishers and booksellers. It also works on reading-promotion activities like Book Crossing and reading competitions,” Eckert says. “It encourages the establishment of international publishing houses in Abu Dhabi, in this way developing a long-term networking opportunity between the Arabic and international publishing communities.”

Penguin is the latest publishing house to throw its hat into the Arab publishing ring and sign on to open offices in the Middle East. Joining HarperCollins and Bertelsmann, which will be based in Abu Dhabi, and Bloomsbury in neighboring Qatar, a fraction of the Penguin Group will soon be calling Dubai home. And with the Western involvement coupled with the growing international interest in the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair, those involved are hopeful that its literary eminence will resurface.

Random House and HarperCollins UK will be concentrating on their educational material. The two will be a part of a media conglomerate based in Abu Dhabi that will include CNN, the BBC, National Geographic Films, and Sky Pictures, among others. HarperCollins will be revamping its Collins Big Cat educational books for the Arab market and it will also be publishing a series of dictionaries. Random House plans to invest in local Arab authors and develop new material and adapt some of the old in both English and Arabic.

In a culture where contemporary reading is not a national pastime, the goal to increase the number of translations of books both in and out of Arabic is often met through money from educational grants. “People would rather watch television, go to the mall, or drive their fast cars,” Kaiser says. “On the other hand, education is very important and a lot of money is put into it.”

One of the main causes taken on by Sheikh Mohammed, Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, is the promotion of education and reading for both sexes. He has reportedly invested about $10 billion USD toward an education program called Dubai Cares, in hopes that the effort put toward education will match the effort toward the innovative buildings that have made Dubai so internationally recognizable.

Kalima, which means “word” in Arabic, is yet another large government-funded venture. Kalima works with authors, publishers, translators, and distributers, funding the majority of the costs involved. Its goal is to translate, publish, and distribute 100 foreign titles of its choosing into Arabic each year. 100 titles—encompassing classic, contemporary, and modern categories—have already been chosen for translation.

With so many government-backed cultural programs, the next step was, of course, an award to showcase the product. The International Prize for Arabic Fiction, often referred to as the “Arab Booker,” was established in 2007 as another way to bring attention to and encourage translation of books written by Arabic-speaking authors. So far, it has met with considerable success. Last year’s winner was Egyptian writer Baha Taher for his novel Sunset Oasis. It will be published in the UK by Sceptre, a division of Hachette Livre. The five other shortlisted authors were also offered translations. This year, there were 131 submissions. Six have been shortlisted for the prize. The winner will be announced on March 16, the day before the fair begins.

Of interest on this year’s short list is the Jordanian Ibrahim Nasrallah, whose book Time of White Horses has been banned in his home country. Nasrallah writes about three generations of Palestinians under the Ottoman rule; the British Mandate; and the Nakba, the term used to describe the so-called expulsion of the Palestinians after 1948.

As one of the more progressive countries in the region, the UAE has to maneuver around its more conservative neighbors like Saudi Arabia. “Sophisticated Saudis will get on a plane to come to the UAE and rip off their hijab and get their toenails painted,” says Fessenden, who reports that censorship with the Saudis is a “real problem,” though he couldn’t cite specific examples.

One female author is on the shortlist for the prize. The American Granddaughter, written by Inaam Kachachi and published by Al Jadid in Iraq, describes the American occupation of Iraq through the eyes of an American-Iraqi woman and her views when she returns to Iraq as an interpreter for the U.S. Army.

With plenty of government support and money to back any venture they can think up, the United Arab Emirates seems to be building up a literary center with the same ease that they build islands into the Persian Gulf. Despite the hurdles that come with working together with countries at various levels of modernity, a mission that began just over a year ago seems to be well on its way to making a serious dent in international book publishing.

Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Trendspotting 2009: David Rothman’s Predictions

By PT Editors
January 1, 2009
Comments Off on Trendspotting 2009: David Rothman’s Predictions

David Rothman

Founder, Teleread.org

Sure, Oprah loves the Kindle, Amazon’s gizmo for reading electronic books, even if it looks a bit like a Soviet-made adding machine. And a second model probably will be on the way—in fact, perhaps two. We just might see an econo-Kindle and a large-screened version for students. Forbes is so excited about the current Kindle, now sold out, that it’s even run an item headlined “Why Amazon doesn’t need Kindle 2.0.” Ugh, Jeff Bezos, you might want to avoid the smugness Forbes is encouraging. Here’s why:

• Sony plans to release a new model that will let people effortlessly download e-books without messing with a connection with a desktop or laptop. And Sony’s wireless will work with a bunch of bookstores, not just the house one. Sony’s current e-readers can already display books in the new ePub standard. And unlike the Kindle, they also let you read e-books in the PDF format even when they use Adobe’s digital rights management (DRM). Result? You can fire up a Sony Reader to enjoy books from many public libraries, which undoubtedly will be growing their e-book collections in ’09.

• Plastic Logic, started in the UK, intends to release a big-screen, drop-proof reader the size of 8.5”x11” paper. PL is said to be busy making deals with a number of content providers. And at least in the past, the scuttlebutt has been that the company will strive for a price close to the Kindle’s current $359.

• Just as I predicted at the Tools of Change conference in early 2008, cell phones are gaining traction as e-readers, and this should continue in ’09. Programs such as Stanza and eReader run on the iPhone, and these two can even display compatible DRMed e-books. If some industry observers are right, far more people are reading e-books on phones than on Kindles. Google has come out with its own operating system, Android, for cellphones. And these phones will be able to display e-books, including those using ePub, which the IDPF developed with major publishers involved.

• The Kindle is hobbled with Amazon’s proprietary DRM. Although Adobe and some other members of the IDPF want a DRM standard for e-books, future-minded publishers such as Pan Macmillan will probably continue moving in the other direction and try to avoid “protection.” DRM actually penalizes law-abiding consumers by making it more difficult to enjoy an e-book on all their devices. Technology may well change too quickly for an “interoperable” DRM standard to work out. Beyond that, DRM expenses jack up the price of e-books—already too high compared to paper. Ironically, Amazon itself has laudably started a store for DRM-less music. Here’s hoping that in ’09 it will do the same for the e-books for the Kindle and other machines. Won’t some Kindle owners also want to enjoy their e-books on iPhones and Android models?

• Yet another rival for book-lovers’ money will be econo-notebooks from Acer, Asus, and other vendors. Screens are larger than the Kindle’s. What’s more, the notebooks are full-fledged computers fit for many uses.

No, the Kindle isn’t going away—I hope not!—and I suspect that ’09 sales will dwarf the common estimates of 250,000+ unit sales in 2008. It’s just that 250,000 is a pittance by consumer tech standards, and technology and competitors will not be standing still for Amazon in 2009.

Rothman has been writing about e-books since the early 1990s. He is the author of seven books, most recently The Soloman Scandals.

Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Trendspotting 2009: Lisa Holton’s Predictions

By PT Editors
January 1, 2009
Comments Off on Trendspotting 2009: Lisa Holton’s Predictions

Lisa Holton

Founder and President, Fourth Story Media

Since there are enough dire predictions rolling in at a steady clip, here are some potential positives to be taken in context of a year we all acknowledge will be challenging.

• More wagons venturing further into the digital frontier: There is still a wide spectrum of opinion on how fast publishing will move toward digital, and what that word means exactly (or even generally). For some, it means digitizing the files, offering more e-books, figuring out the Google settlement, and perhaps doing a Twitter campaign or two.

For others, it means offering more content via the web, finding online distribution/affiliate partners, and experimenting with new revenue models (while trying to remember that our current ones often look rosier on an acquisition P&L than they do on the balance sheet, so perhaps experimenting isn’t as risky as it seems). For Fourth Story Media and our partners, it means believing that the word “publish” is not bound between two covers, but instead defined by the art and craft of connecting great writers with their audiences. We will continue to publish stories over multiple platforms, cultivate multiple revenue streams, and follow our audience—children and young adults, for whom “digital” is synonymous with breathing.

While most of these steps will be small and guarded, there will also be some bigger developments, as some publishers begin to see ways to create the distribution channel as well as the content.

• Small is the new big: Having taken the leap into small business ownership from the corporate world just over a year ago, small is seeming more and more attractive, especially in the wake of Black Wednesday, Gloomy Thursday, and Madoff Monday. Why? Because our size and focus allow us to spend most of our time immersed in the world of online media and digital creation. We’ve changed the business model for two of our projects based on shifts in the online revenue market with little cost, fuss, or very many meetings. Our marketing team spends very little time in meetings, which means more time to spent in the market—finding the hottest new sites for our audience, making great contacts in new media, coming up with brilliant new viral campaigns based on recent experience. We’ve discovered a rich pool of talent across all fields including editorial, design, programming, and business development. They are fast, flexible, and because they love what we’re doing, are committed to us and our projects to a degree that is increasingly rare in any field. And as word gets out about what we are doing, great talent—from emerging writers and illustrators to established veterans—are seeking us out, hungry for a new creative experience.

We are a small start-up, which means cost-cutting, efficiency and bootstrapping are not a brutal, painful shift but a daily way of life. We believe that by staying small and focused on what we do best, and then partnering with powerhouses like our friends at HarperCollins for their publishing, sales, marketing, and distribution muscle, we can bring new ideas, creativity, and innovation to our industry.

So perhaps there will be more small, independent “studios” in the near future, and perhaps some of us will become the electric cars of the digital publishing world.

Holton is the former president of Scholastic Trade Publishing and Bookfairs. (Full disclosure: MPI has a consulting relationship with Fourth Story Media.)

Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , ,

Book View, January 2009

By PT Editors
January 1, 2009
Comments (6)

PEOPLE

In the Random House reorganization, which moved Bantam to RHPG, Irwyn Applebaum has left, as has Bantam Dell Group SVP, Director of Creative Marketing, Betsy Hulsebosch. She may be reached at (914) 772-1022. Barb Burg, SVP Executive Director Publicity and PR, will also be leaving, after 24 years, on January 30. She may be reached at barbburg [at] gmail.com. Meanwhile, reportedly a total of over 40 (out of about 120) people have left Doubleday and Broadway, including Nicole Dewey in publicity and Becky Cole in editorial.

Claire Tisne, who was RH Sub Rights Director under Gina Centrello, is leaving, as is Sharon Swados from the Bantam Dell Sub Rights group; their duties will be taken over by Rebecca Gardner, who had been with Doubleday. Gardner, who reports to Sonny Mehta, heads the sub rights department that includes Lisa George from Bantam, Rachel Kind from Ballantine, and Joelle Dieu from Little Random.

A note of cheer comes from the announcement that Susan Kamil has accepted the position of SVP and EIC of the RH imprint of RHPG while continuing as Editorial Director of the Dial Press. She will be in charge of the Random House Editorial department and SVP Editorial Director Jennifer Hershey now reports to her. Kate Medina, EVP, Executive Editorial Director, and Associate Publisher of Random House, and Bob Loomis, EVP and Executive Editor, continue to report to Centrello.

Herb Schaffner has left McGraw-Hill Professional, where he was Publisher of Business and Finance, and may be reached at schaffnerh [at] gmail.com.

Many changes in children’s publishing: Rick Richter and Rubin Pfeffer have left S&S Children’s; earlier Ginny Seo had resigned from S&S Children’s. Meanwhile, Mary McGrath has joined as Director of DSRM, Children’s Sales, reporting to Mary Marotta. She had been at Random House for 17 years and was most recently Director of Sales, adult mass merchandise.

Bill Boedeker has left Chronicle, where he was Publishing Director, Children’s Books.

Kathy Dawson joined Penguin’s Dial BYR in the new position of Associate Publisher, reporting to Lauri Hornik. Dawson was formerly Editorial Director at Harcourt Children’s.

At Holt, President and Publisher Dan Farley will oversee the new Macmillan Children’s Group as well. Jean Feiwel and Simon Boughton have been both appointed SVP Publishing Directors of the group, with Feiwel running Feiwel and Friends, Square Fish, Priddy Books, and Holt BYR, and Boughton running FSG BYR, Roaring Brook Press, and First Second. Michael Eisenberg, co-publisher of FSG BYR, has left the company, as have Melanie Kroupas and her imprint.

FSG Sub Rights Director Michael Hathaway has left, as the rights department is being merged with Holt’s under Denise Cronin, and their production team will be integrated into a much larger central unit. Among those cut out of the editorial department are Associate Publisher Linda Rosenberg, who oversaw both the classics line and the paperback operation, and Senior Editor Denise Oswald, who started at the company as an assistant.

Selina Cicogna Meere has left Crown to become Associate Director of Publicity at Workman.

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt SVP and Publisher of Adult Trade Becky Saletan has resigned. There was no further comment beyond confirmation from the company.

Erin Canning has joined Quirk Packaging as Editor. She was previously senior sales analyst at Random House.

Craig Virden, a former President and Publisher of RH BYR, will officially join his wife at the Nancy Gallt Literary Agency as of January 1. Virden will spend most of his time in the “back office” business of contracts and royalties.

Melanie Donovan has been named Senior Acquisitions Editor at Recorded Books. She had been Executive Editor at HarperCollins Children’s Books.

Former Rodale Books President Tami Booth Corwin has joined SparkPeople.com (part of Steve Case’s Revolution Health Network) as EVP of Publishing and Content, just as the company has struck its first book deal with Hay House.

Agent Elise Proulx notes that her new job will be Marketing and Outreach Coordinator for the eScholarship Publishing Group at the California Digital Library, University of California.

Lori Burke has moved over from DK to Penguin YRG in the dual role of Director of Licensing for Grosset & Dunlap/PSS and US Brand Manager for Warne, managing the merchandise relationship with licensing agents Chorion and Wildflower. She had been Director of Marketing for DK Children’s Books and Licensing.

PROMOTIONS AND INTERNAL CHANGES

Dan Halpern announced that Rachel Bressler, Associate Publisher of Ecco, has been named Vice President.

At Tor, Phyllis Azar has moved up from ad/promo Director to Executive Director of Marketing; Patty Garcia from Associate Director of Publicity to Director of Publicity; Brian Vaughan from Marketing Manager to Director of Publishing Operations; Joseph Bendel from Assistant Sales/Marketing Manager to Manager of Publishing Operations; and Jennifer Kaufler from Marketing Coordinator to Marketing Manager.

At RH Audio, Rebecca Waugh has been promoted to senior acquisitions editor for Listening Library.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Two NBCC events in 2009: On January 24 at 7 p.m. at the Housing Works Bookstore Café, announcers Sam Anderson (winner of the 2007 Balakian Award), Bill Henderson of Pushcart Press, Mary Jo Bang (winner of the 2007 Poetry award), Harriet Washington (winner of the 2007 nonfiction award), Alex Ross (winner of the 2007 criticism award), and others will announce the NBCC Awards finalists. The event will be hosted by NBCC President Jane Ciabattari. The night before, also at Housing Works, there will be a Poetry in Translation panel, “Has the U.S. Lost Touch with World Literature?” For more information, go to www.bookcritics.org.

The 4th Annual San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Writers’ Conference & Literary Festival takes place from February 20 to 22, 2009. For more information, go to www.sanmiguelauthors.com and www.sanmiguelworkshops.com.

The American Book Producers Association BookBuilding 2.0 seminar has been rescheduled for March 10, 2009 from 9 a.m. 6 p.m. at The Players. The morning session will focus on the essentials of developing and producing books, and the afternoon will feature two panels: “The Internet and Electronic Publishing,” moderated by Carolyn Pittis of HarperCollins, and “What’s Next?: Trends in Publishing,” moderated by Barbara Marcus of Penguin Young Readers Group. For more information, e-mail office [at] abpaonline.org.

Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Trendspotting 2009: Liz Thomson and Nicholas Clee’s Predictions

By PT Editors
January 1, 2009
Comments Off on Trendspotting 2009: Liz Thomson and Nicholas Clee’s Predictions

Liz Thomson and Nicholas Clee

Founders, Bookbrunch.co.uk

Many trends become apparent in the US book market before finding their way to the UK, and, unfortunately, recession is one of them. At the Frankfurt Book Fair this October, publishers in the UK aisles were reasonably sanguine (about prospects for the coming season, at least), while their American counterparts were gloomy. It did not take long for the mood on this side of the Atlantic to darken. Sales, which had been holding up well, stuttered in November and early December. It appears that not even a late onslaught by customers will restore the Nielsen BookScan figures to the level they reached in recent years.

The industry shivers as it hears the news of US redundancies, pay freezes, and acquisition cutbacks. Every significant London publisher expects to have to make similar announcements in the new year. Redundancies have been announced at illustrated publishers Octopus and Anova, and the rigorous spending edict at Pearson caused the cancellation of at least one business contract.

All this is compounded by the sinking into administration of Woolworths and of its subsidiary EUK, which supplies books and other products to supermarkets. Along with the internet, supermarkets have been the only sales channel to offer growth in recent years. But supplying them is a specialist operation, involving very tight margins—margins that can get only tighter in a recession. If EUK does not survive this crisis, it may not be replaced by anyone else. With Tesco in particular accounting for 50% or more of the sales of some mass market titles, this would be a significant blow. As we write, the future of the wholesaler Bertrams, another Woolworths subsidiary—and one of the big two UK wholesalers, along with Gardners—is also unclear. Bertrams is not in administration, but it is for sale. The price appears likely to be in the region of £25 million, less than Woolworths paid for it in January 2007 and considerably less than the price at which it was sold by the Bertram family back in 1999. Monies from the sale of the essentially sound company would be used to pay off EUK, which owns Bertrams’ share capital.

The crisis resulting from the Woolworths debacle—and there seems little likelihood of the 99-year-old chain surviving to celebrate its centenary—is by far the worst the UK trade has had to grapple with in many years, and its timing in the busy Christmas season has added to industry woes and worries. Whatever happens, publishers will lose money—and that’s before the post-holiday returns start being counted. That there will be job losses is now sadly inevitable, but the extent of the cuts will depend to a large extent on what happens in the final shopping days before Christmas and over the New Year.

The book industry in the UK is undoubtedly leaner than it was during the last major economic downturn in the early nineties, but both publishing and bookselling still carry excess weight. The savings made by cutting lunches and launch parties are limited, and while only staff deemed absolutely essential will be recruited and work outsourced to save money (a trend educational and academic publishers think has already gone too far), there will nevertheless be a nasty red stain on P&Ls. Lists will be trimmed, and one hopes the six- and seven-figure advances paid to wannabes and has-beens for dubious memoirs cluttering up front tables in retailers across the UK will go out of fashion.

Surely a crisis the like of which no one in the industry can remember will force both publishers and retailers to work creatively and imaginatively toward the solution of age-old problems. There have been attempts, successfully rebuffed so far, to sell backlist titles firm sale. Now there’s talk in some quarters of ending the wasteful returns system altogether—a system that is anyway out of kilter with British publishing’s green agenda—by increasing discounts to around 70%. We’ll see whether the seemingly unthinkable is quite so unthinkable in 2009.

Thomson and Clee are the former editors of Publishing News and The Bookseller, respectively.

Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

If You Build It, They Won’t Come: A Guide to Author Websites

By Laura Hazard Owen
December 1, 2008
Comments (34)

To be on the Web or not to be on the Web—sorry, technophobic authors, that’s no longer the question. Rather, what should be on your website and how can you draw traffic to it? There’s no universal key to success. But with help from a recent groundbreaking report and four web designers who specialize in author sites, we’ve come up with some guidelines.

The Codex Group is described by its President, Peter Hildick-Smith, as a “pollster for publishers.” Last summer, Codex undertook a massive author website impact study that surveyed nearly 21,000 book shoppers. Its objective was to understand the relative effectiveness of author sites among shoppers and to determine the elements that will keep them coming back to the site. We spoke with Hildick-Smith and four book-loving Web marketers and designers—John Burke, Vice President of FSB Associates; Carol Fitzgerald, Founder and President of the Book Report Network; Jason Chin; and Jefferson Rabb (who also consulted on the Codex study, along with Columbia University’s Charlotte Blumenfeld)—to find out what makes an author site not only good-looking, but also successful.

“From an author’s perspective, if you are going to invest the time and energy in writing and getting a book published, it’s a big drawback if you can’t then be found online,” says Burke. Furthermore, the Codex report found that visiting an author’s website is the leading way that book readers support and get to know their favorite authors better. And this is true regardless of age. While those under 35 visited websites more often than those over 35, over-35-year-olds still used author websites as their main method of learning about the author. “This isn’t a generational thing,” says Hildick-Smith. Fans are also much more likely to visit the author’s website than the author’s page on the publisher’s website.

The survey found that 7.5% of book shoppers had visited their favorite author’s website in the past week. As a point of comparison, 7% had visited the Wall Street Journal’s site.

And any remaining skeptics out there, take note: Website visits translate directly to the number of books bought. Book shoppers who had visited an author website in the past week bought 38% more books, from a wider range of retailers, than those who had not visited an author site. “Is putting up a website going to make a book a bestseller? No,” says Chin. “Is the website going to help the author build an audience? I believe it can. What you don’t want is for someone to hear about your book, search for it with Google, and find nothing. That’s a potential lost sale.”

Web presence is especially essential in today’s economy. “Websites have become even more important as people are not in stores discovering books,” Fitzgerald says. “We need to get them jazzed about a title and their favorite author and give them reason not just to buy the book, but also to have a relationship with the author and his or her work so they become evangelists for them with fellow readers. These next months, author websites and communications with readers are going to be critical for engendering excitement in readers online, since something as crucial as in-store browsing is not happening.”

The point, of course, is not just to get readers to visit an author site once, but to keep them coming back. How do you make a website sticky?“The saying ‘build it and they will come,’ well, they won’t,” says Burke. He and the other designers we spoke with agreed that flashy design is not a key to success, and the Codex Group research bears that out, with Stephenie Meyer’s website as a case in point. It receives more traffic than any other fiction author site, yet its design is extremely basic, “probably a generic template where you plug in your header graphic,” says Hildick-Smith. “She may only be paying $15 a month for this site on some server system. It’s not elaborately designed at all. But she’s got a daily blog, and more than any other site in our study, she has links to fan sites. Fan site links appear to contribute to loyal audience traffic.”

“Something we’ve always stressed is original, unique content,” says Burke. “The first author site we did was the Sue Grafton site back in 1996. We loaded that up with content, not just info about all her books, but also features and materials that people can’t find anywhere else. Sue Grafton has pictures of her cats up there. You’d think that might be a little crazy, but people love them. You want to put up a lot of information that people can’t find at Amazon, or the publisher site, or any other site.”

“In the beginning, a website just needed basic information,” says Fitzgerald. “Now visiting a website needs to feel like an experience. We work more these days with authors on the voice, tone, and attitude of their sites. In fact, that is as important to me as design.”

“Whenever possible, I try to incorporate the author’s voice into the site,” says Rabb. “If the author is willing to write all of the copy for the site, suddenly the whole thing takes on a bit of their character, which can be great.”

Codex found that giving audiences the ability to engage with other readers is the factor that correlates most with high site engagement. Rabb supports this: “There’s a great deal of interest in using the web to create an active community of an author’s fans,” he says. “This allows the author to have a direct connection with their readers, which can be a very powerful thing. In many cases, [though], it doesn’t make sense to establish such a community from scratch when it can be done through Facebook or MySpace.”

“What I loathe is authors who need to have whatever the flavor of the month is, no matter whether it works for them or not,” says Fitzgerald. “Flavors of the month include trailers, videos, blogs, Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. These are tools. You need to see if they work for an author before they are adapted for the site. We often suggest that authors try out things like blogging before they commit to doing them on their websites. For the record, former journalists typically are great bloggers. They are used to pushing a story out on a deadline and typically can write on command. We also remind authors that they need to be, um, writing their books besides communicating on the web with readers. Those who chitchat well and love the experience of being with their readers can lose sight of that.”

Codex found that the main thing respondents want on fiction authors’ sites is exclusive, unpublished writing, with 43% saying they’d return for it regularly. “Exclusive content appears to be a missed opportunity on almost all sites,” says Hildick-Smith, and women find it especially appealing. Visitors will also return to authors’ sites regularly for schedules of author tours, book signings, and area appearances (36%); lists of the author’s favorite writers and recommended books; “explainers,” or inside information about the book (36%, with men finding these especially appealing); downloadable extras like icons and sample chapters (33%); and weekly e-mail news bulletins with updates on tours, reviews, and books in progress (33%). And fans under the age of 35 are especially interested in contests, puzzles, and games, with prizes like autographed copies of books. “Give them something fun to come back for,” says Hildick-Smith. Younger fans are also more interested in knowing about their favorite authors’ book, music, and movie recommendations.

Just don’t get too personal. “With Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, you need to think about how much you want readers to know,” says Fitzgerald. “I sometimes think a tad more discretion might be helpful. I have seen authors write on each other’s Facebook walls, pages that are linked from their sites, without realizing fans and author competitors are reading their personal ramblings. You need to think about how much of your personal world is applicable to folks who know you as an author.”

But do naked author Facebook photos lead to increased sales? Well, that’s a question for another survey.

Posted in Featured Articles • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Popular Posts

Tags

Abrams Amazon Atria audiobooks Barnes & Noble Basic Books Bloomsbury book sales Chronicle Books Crown DK Doubleday Dutton ebooks Frankfurt Book Fair Hachette Hachette Book Group Harlequin HarperCollins Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Hyperion Knopf Little Brown Macmillan Oxford University Press Penguin Penguin Random House Perseus Publishers Weekly Putnam Random House Random House Children's Rodale Running Press S&S Scholastic Scribner Simon & Schuster Sourcebooks St. Martin's St. Martin's Press Stephen King Wiley William Morrow Workman

Categories

Publishing Trends/Market Partners International
232 Madison Avenue, Suite 1400
New York, NY 10016
Phone (212) 447-0855
E-mail info@publishingtrends.com