Sparkles for
SparkNotes
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (MARCH 2003)
You
gotta hand it to SparkNotes, the nervy and boldly
proliferating line of literature study guides created
by four Harvard seniors and acquired by Barnes &
Noble in March 2001. Variously described by the
media as “cheeky new book notes,” “kind of a CliffsNotes
wanna-be,” and “the last word in literary laziness,”
SparkNotes have managed to swathe the dullish, déclassé
category of study aids in something like sex appeal.
Their Harry Potter notes got them front-page
fanfare in the New York Times; their online message
boards are full of desperate, advertiser-attracting
students (seen on the Macbeth board: “I need
a thesis!!!”); and they’ve even seduced schoolmarms
— the SparkNotes team showed up at the National Council
of Teachers of English show expecting to have tomatoes
hurled at them, but teachers were just going gaga about
what great learning aids they were. And all that media
snickering? It’s been swell for business. “Two years
after the acquisition,” says Robert Riger, SparkNotes’
Associate Publisher, “we’re profitable.”
There are now more than 1.5 million SparkNotes guides
in print and at least 500,000 sold to date — sales no
doubt aided by the fact that B&N kicked CliffsNotes
out of its stores. The print side currently offers 200
titles in three product lines, but those lines are expanding
rapidly. In addition to 11 new study guide titles in
2003, new offerings include SparkCharts — which are
laminated review sheets in 48 subjects, ranging from
two to six pages and selling for $4.95 — and 10 new
course outlines, which will sell for $14.95 and compete
with Schaum’s, the McGraw-Hill line. Also
on tap is the No Fear Shakespeare series, which
offers facing-page translations into modern English
of the bard’s ten most frequently studied plays, going
head-to-head with Barron’s. (There are no plans
yet to boot any of these other competitors from B&N.)
Previously, SparkNotes have only been available at B&N
stores, but this June they will be distributed to all
markets via B&N-owned Sterling. It is not
clear how receptive competing bookstores will be to
carry the titles; Riger concedes that “the real growth
we expect will be in libraries and special markets.”
Where growth is concerned, however, SparkNotes has a
secret weapon: its hugely trafficked website.
“What’s unique about SparkNotes is that it’s a web company
that survived the dot-com crash by reinventing itself
as a print publisher,” says Editorial Director Justin
Kestler. “The website, with all its traffic and
growth, is driving the brand at retail.” The site has
more than 5 million registered users and has been touted
as “the world’s largest, most popular” educational website
for high-school and college users, with 80 million hits
per month and more than a 100% increase in page views
this year. Next month the site will be relaunched to
pump up advertising revenues (use of study guides and
a variety of other features on the site is free, but
you’ll be swatting away pop-up ads). You’re even encouraged
to download and print the guides as PDF files — for
$4.95 a pop, the same price as the book version. More
than half a million registered users come from outside
the US, and targeted sub-sites are now being built for
parents, teachers, and librarians.
But the best example of print-web synergy at SparkNotes
may be its venture into test prep materials, which will
reach 23 titles this year, covering SAT and ACT subjects
(graduate-level tests are expected in 2004). You can
download “a fully searchable, hyperlinked version of
the SparkNotes book we sell in Barnes & Noble stores,”
and you also get five interactive practice tests with
“instant diagnostic feedback,” a proprietary online
performance analysis that SparkNotes regards as its
main competitive advantage — besides price, that is.
It’s all yours for $14.95, and once you buy access to
one course, others are $9.95. By contrast, test prep
giant Kaplan’s basic online SAT course
costs $129.
Next stop: K-8 territory. “We want to become a very
important school-to-home publisher for kindergarten
to college that has both online and offline products
that integrate,” says Daniel Weiss, Publisher
and Managing Director of SparkNotes. “We’re looking
at these markets very closely using the school-to-home
model: the bridge between the education market and the
trade market.” The company is now seeking partners in
the educational market who have material suitable for
licensing, and Weiss is also looking for writers with
both curricula chops and trade skills. The juvenile
line (which won’t be sold under the SparkNotes brand)
is expected by early 2004. Beyond the kids’ stuff, the
sky’s the limit. Weiss has even been dreaming about
a stab at fiction publishing, leveraging his brainy
Harvard grads to perhaps serialize chapters of novels
on the Internet. “Our editors are highly credentialed
literary types,” Weiss says. “Possibly we can use the
reach of our website to figure out how to get new first
novels published.”
©2003
Publishing Trends
