Pockets of
Potential for Trade Sales
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (DECEMBER 2001)
By
now the rise of books about the Mideast and the fall
of just about everything else has been well documented
by The New York Times and Publishers Weekly.
Many reasons have been cited: the abrupt cancellation
of tours; the general lack of promotion and concurrent
lack of reader attention; the economy; and fear, any
which way you take it: of shopping, the future, malls,
and now, even mail. Earlier this month, the Times
claimed that certain categories such as fiction are
off by 25% to 40% from last year’s bestsellers. In a
memorable line, Carolyn Reidy told the paper,
“I have seen softness in the market for books, but always
the bigger books still sold — that is why the falloff
in name fiction is so horrifying.” To drive home the
point, in the press release welcoming her, Peter
Olson hailed Phyllis Grann as an “invaluable
addition to our company at anytime [sic], but never
more so than now as we must apply even greater ingenuity
to overcome the ongoing book marketplace downturn.”
Curious about the numbers behind the numbers, this month
Publishing Trends took a sharp look at sales
in a variety of categories, pricepoints, channels of
distribution, and geographic regions. Though we can’t
report that the news is any rosier when parsed, at least
the picture is certainly getting clearer.
Not surprisingly, almost every category has seen an
incremental rise in sales during the last several weeks.
Current title sales have increased 23% even in the last
two weeks (through November 24), and backlist is up
by 15%. Increased sales were evenly spread out over
the country, with the West Coast registering a slight
edge over other regions. Unfortunately, when compared
with last year’s sales, the landscape is looking bleak.
The current Wall Street Journal, which indexes
its bestseller list to sales of the top fiction title
in 2000 (which is indexed at 100), shows only one title
— John Grisham’s Skipping Christmas —
selling more than any title last year, and that’s in
part because, as the Journal itself noted in
an article this summer, fiction had been underselling
throughout much of the year. But the trend is reversing
itself once again, with several books, notably business
titles, indexing in the single digits.
Pity, then, the publisher of business books, or travel
books, or romances, whose numbers have fallen even since
September, and continued their nosedive over these last
weeks. On the other hand, sales of calendars and humor
books are skyrocketing as buyers turn their minds to
stocking stuffers. Meanwhile, children’s publishing
is looking up, helped by three major movie tie-ins (Harry
Potter, Monsters Inc. and Lord of the
Rings), each bolstering a different publisher. But
children’s picture books are also doing well, as are
certain series. It seems that, where current events
have dampened adult reading, they have had the converse
effect on children — or their parents. Certain other
areas such as spirituality, books on the Mideast, and
atlases saw a bump in sales in September and October,
but have receded in recent weeks. All’s well on the
home front, however, as cooking and crafts books continue
to show strength.
Direct mail publishers haven’t fared any better than
their trade counterparts. In fact, though they haven’t
been hurt by people shunning the mall, and their returns
problems are minimal (the clubs have returns primarily
on selections), direct response has been difficult for
many sectors this year — even before September — and
massive layoffs are already under way. Rodale
announced layoffs of 148 jobs (most of them in the direct
mail books division) in October, while Reader’s Digest
saw its revenues on both General Books and Select Editions
fall in 2001, even before September’s “disastrous” decline.
Bookspan has laid off editorial and marketing
personnel, though many of the latter were related to
the merging of Doubleday and BOMC operations.
Still, some companies, like International Masters Publishers
(IMP), which have been struggling for the past
several years, did surprisingly well in their fall solicitations
— which began mailing on September 11. Marketing execs
from the company chalk that up to the subject matter,
which includes cooking, crafts, and a religious program.
But even as the mails began to rebound, anthrax spores
made their way into many facilities, causing enormous
problems for many companies, especially those with return
addresses in some of the worst-hit areas, like New York
and DC. The mails haven’t recovered, and some marketers
are turning to the dread telemarketing to keep their
numbers up.
What
conclusions can be drawn from sales patterns over the
last several months? One factor intermittently mentioned
in reports has been pricing. In the Journal article
this summer, Geoffrey Fowler notes that some
of the bestselling nonfiction books were priced in the
modest $10 to $20 range. The Popular Group’s
first titles (also priced in this range) are reportedly
flying off Wal-Mart’s shelves, and IMP’s continuity
series cost as little as $4.95 a shipment. True, the
megaseller John Adams had a hefty $35 price tag
but it was, as Carl Lennertz was quoted as saying,
a book that could “keep you busy all summer long.” Initial
Bookscan figures suggest that there is a dearth of titles
with list prices in the $20 to $22.50 range — the price
bracket where discounted hardcovers could be bought
with a twenty dollar bill, even including tax. Is it
coincidence that Grisham’s new offering has taken off?
Can we still call ourselves an industry in which, as
the Times’ David Kirkpatrick put it, sales
of books were always considered to be “resilient during
hard times as an inexpensive source of hours of entertainment”?
If sales are no longer “resilient,” is it the subject
matter, the venue, or the price? Regardless of that
conundrum, it’s obvious that the loss of sales has proven
catastrophic for publishers and their authors.
Modestly
Proposed
Publishing
Trends has a modest proposal that might benefit
all: Were each publisher to delay the spring publication
of a handful of books, and instead each republish a
handful of those worthy fall books that never glimpsed
their potential, in early 2002 it might give readers
and authors the chance they deserve to read and be read.
When Harry Evans was at Random House, he republished
Jonathan Harr’s A Civil Action four months
after the first publication, because he was so disappointed
in its initial reception, despite tremendous review
attention. He got a second round of sales, and helped
pave the way for the paperback, too. What would happen
if the industry were to go it again, perhaps prevailing
upon the publicity-wise Pat Schroeder to fight
this good fight? Desperate measures for desperate times?
This
report was compiled from various sources, including
interviews with industry leaders, in addition to bestseller
lists and articles from PW, WSJ, and NYT. Special thanks
to Bookscan, which provided access to its category data.
©2001
Publishing Trends
