Micro
Marketing
Targeted
Sales to Enthusiasts Turn the Off-Beat Into Big Bucks
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (AUGUST 2002)
Looking
for the bestselling art books in America? Sniffing around
the Ansel Adams shelves, perhaps? Nope, not there.
Taking a peek at Taschen’s Fetish Girls?
Nice try. According to numbers from Nielsen BookScan,
you’d better swing by the cartoon section. Because the
top art titles in the nation are a duo of how-to cartooning
books called Anime Mania and Manga Mania,
followed closely (at #4) by Drawing Cutting-Edge
Comics. They’re all written by Christopher Hart.
And they’re all published by Watson-Guptill.
The story of how this relatively low-key publishing
house has cornered the art book market — indeed, grabbing
five of the current top-ten art titles — is perhaps
a tribute to the pop-culture prowess of Spider-Man.
But it can easily be read, along with similar tales
from many other mid-size houses, as a parable about
the power of niche publishing: keeping close tabs on
a targeted customer base; knowing how to reach those
raging enthusiasts through multiple sales channels;
and heaping up backlist titles that deliver till the
cows come home. Whether it’s hardworking how-to tomes
like Watson-Guptill’s Digital 3D Design, or Motorbooks’
must-have edition of Minneapolis-Moline Farm Tractors,
it seems that in this time of generalized trade publishing
anomie, one path to success is the blindingly obvious
one: you perceive a need and you fill it.
Granted, some in publishing will bristle at the N-word.
“The whole idea of niche publishers is one that doesn’t
serve the industry well,” says Harriet Pierce,
VP Marketing and Associate Publisher for Watson-Guptill,
arguing that the term merely relegates many successful
houses to the bottom of the book-review bin. Be that
as it may, Pierce and company illustrate the elementary
lesson of how focused editorial, delivered to a targeted
consumer segment, quickly becomes money in the bank.
On a recent week, for example, Manga Mania sold
just under 1,000 copies, and total sales for the year-old
volume have reached 100,000. Those numbers may underwhelm.
But Watson-Guptill tends a whole line of licensed titles
from DC Comics that have been “tremendously successful,”
especially since they fit well with what the publisher
informally calls its “how-to-make-a-buck books,” a genre
Pierce notes is “a great driving force for book expenditures
in any time.” Besides the cartooning line, a growth
spike has hit the graphic design category, as hordes
of college students brush up their web-design skills
or pick up a few typography tricks. “Students need it
as background for everything they’re doing these days,”
says Pierce. “It all starts with a visual sense that
needs to be trained.”
Can
You Say ‘Cocooning’?
You
don’t have to look far to find a number of other publishers
practicing similar tactics — and reaping the rewards.
“Lifestyle publishing right now is doing very, very
well,” says Rich Smeby, VP General Manager of
the Sunset Books Group, which has obviously been
buoyed along on the cocooning trend. But Sunset works
hard to keep close tabs on its hard-core customers,
who have become the bedrock source of wisdom for its
key publishing lines. Sunset makes the rounds at major
trade shows, such as the blowout Northwest Flower and
Garden Show, “which affords us the opportunity to press
the flesh of our readers,” Smeby says. Scoff if you
will, but all that flesh-pressing once turned up an
apparently unslakable interest in garden trellises,
and the resulting title, Trellises and Arbors,
has now sold over a quarter million units. Likewise
for Landscaping with Stone, another title inspired
by consumer heavy-breathing. And market research doesn’t
end there, as Sunset conducts surveys, deploys focus
groups, and studies other indicators to suss out potential
pockets of interest. Consequently, the publisher has
been able to “slice and dice” the larger gardening and
landscaping categories to open up vast and lucrative
tracts of enthusiast terrain. The landmark Western
Garden Book, for instance, is now being rolled out
in editions for the northeast, south, and midwest, while
a wildfire “exterior home decor” line has been built
around titles such as Garden Decor. “We’re constantly
in contact with our readers,” Smeby says. “If you’re
not out there listening to them, you’re missing a huge
opportunity.” At the same time, publishing into multiple
distribution channels — such as the Home Depots of
the world — offers a hedge against market volatility.
“We like to feel that we’re somewhat insulated,” Smeby
adds. “If the traditional book trade would be down,
the home and garden channel would be up.”
That’s a familiar philosophy to the special-market mavens
at Sterling, where Executive VP Charles Nurnberg
confirms that a third of the publisher’s business is
generated via special sales (mostly sold non-returnable)
at crafts shops, garden stores, and the like, and where
the unassuming wood-craft title New Router Handbook
has breached the two-million-copy mark. And those
sales are no fluke. Sterling takes a “cradle-to-grave”
approach to category publication, blanketing all levels
and all price points in any given subject. Then they
take their list and sell, for instance, retail garden
centers on the theory that these books essentially serve
as a catalogue for additional products. That is, a store
might not make as much money selling books as trowels,
but the book makes a dandy, 128-page ad for all those
implements of dire importance for the maintenance of
the back forty that are readily available right down
the aisle. Regarding other sales channels, Nurnberg
emphasizes that (despite reports elsewhere) Sterling
has little truck these days with the school and library
market, and has no direct mail division. Sales to direct
mail catalogues have increased, however, as niche retailers
of all stripes have logged impressive sales gains, now
that consumers have learned to hit up micro marketers
for all their impulse-purchase needs. Sterling’s robust
but targeted publishing lines, combined with its large
distribution business of 17 publishers, have helped
put it at the forefront of the lumber enthusiast and
crossword maniac market. And here’s a factoid to file
away under “Backlist”: 95% of Sterling titles are reprinted.
The
Joy of Horsemanship
Penetrating
those micro-niches can also prove fruitful for diversifying
a customer base, according to Lee Miller, VP
Sales for Globe Pequot. That lesson hit home
during the post-9/11 flying jitters, which shook up
Globe’s travel program and seemed to validate the publisher’s
recent acquisitions in categories such as fly-fishing
(Lyons Press) and outdoor recreation (Falcon).
Miller notes that Lyons, which Globe purchased last
year, has now been drilling down into the equestrian
market, cracking open a whole world of dressage enthusiasts
and saddle aficionados, and leading Globe to a distribution
deal with the venerable horse bible Western Horseman.
“We’re finding immediate credibility because of their
name, and it helps us with some of the books we had
already published in that field,” Miller says. For example,
a year ago Lyons had published Buck (“Horse Whisperer”)
Brannaman’s The Faraway Horses, and it was
selling steadily. But hitching up with Western Horseman
not only gave the publisher more standing in horsemanship
circles, it also opened the door to tack shops and other
horse venues. “As a medium-size publisher, it’s important
to diversify our customer base,” Miller says. “Bookstores
will always be our lead customers, but the more diversity
we can find, the better off we are.”
And if you’re talking micro-niches, check out Schiffer
Publishing, where the hot titles of the day are
United States Army Shoulder Patches and The
Collector’s Guide to Cloth Third Reich Military Headgear.
Tina Skinner, Schiffer’s VP Sales and Marketing,
notes that Internet sales have been something of a driver
for the publisher’s high-end illustrated military titles,
which are generally too off-the-wall for brick-and-mortar
stores to touch. Besides selling off of Schiffer’s own
site, the publisher has noticed a thriving after-market
of sorts. “We’ve had individuals become major accounts
for us simply by selling these titles on the Internet.
Ebay has become a major vehicle for that. Sometimes
they auction them off for more than retail value.”
Motorbooks also sells surprisingly well through BN.com,
according to VP Sales and Marketing Mike Hejny,
a feat that makes sense, given that arcane automotive
manuals can be found on the web in seconds. Actually,
however, one of Motorbooks’ all-time bestselling Internet
titles is A Twist of the Wrist, a guide to extreme-performance
motorcycle racing, which proves that you never know
what enthusiast nerve you might hit. (Chess turned out
to be a big online boon for Globe Pequot.) Motorbooks
has now broken its site into different communities for
tractors, cars, airplanes, and other earthly passions.
“Online sales have been strong year over year, and this
year’s no exception,” Hejny says. However, most publishers
seem less than bullish about the e-future. “The Internet
is certainly a factor in niche selling, but it is by
no means the dominant factor, or even a substantial
segment at the moment,” Charles Nurnberg says plainly.
“The enthusiasts shop wherever they can find the best
collection of books in their categories. In my estimation,
they use the Internet as a resource guide, but still
want to judge a book the old-fashioned way: by turning
the pages and feeling the heft.” But you still gotta
wonder. What does Dave Weich, Director of Content
and Marketing at Powells.com, consider his hottest-selling
category? “We have no trouble at all selling railroad
books,” he says.
©2002
Publishing Trends
