O'er
the Hudson
Far-Flung
Regional Houses Hit the Heartland Bull's-Eye
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (FEBRUARY 2004)
Just
one word: scrapbooking. Yes, scrapbooking is the fastest-growing
hobby sector in the United States, with sales of related
supplies — presumably including books — quadrupling
in the past five years to an estimated $2 billion, as
the New York Times recently noted, and projected
to grow as much as 80% annually over the next five years.
Perhaps that’s why an entire continent of hell-bent
hobbyists is converging upon Dallas next week for the
Hobby Industry Association Convention and Trade
Show — you know something’s up, anyway, when Microsoft
is an exhibitor — where a phalanx of publishers
will be roving the aisles with eyes peeled for the next
big thing. Among them you’ll find folks from F+W
Publications (see article),
the how-to house which acquired Denver-based scrapbooking
publisher Memory Makers in 2001. Their flagship
magazine has 206,000 paid subscribers, and the company
has been revving up its book program — 15 titles are
expected this year — while membership of 41,000 in the
unit’s year-old ScrapBook Club has “exceeded
goals dramatically,” says Publisher Bob Kaslik.
Total revenues? Up 60% last year.
Scrapbooking, in fact, is just the tip of the iceberg
of a whole other publishing world out there on the nether
side of Hoboken. Whether it’s big-time crafts titles
from Meredith Books, or off-the-beaten-path picks
from Woodinville, WA (quilting titles from Martingale)
and Layton, UT (Gibbs Smith’s bestselling 101
Things to Do With a Cake Mix), savvy houses outside
the orbit of the New York publishing biz are finding
a bonanza in books that mainstream houses might never
have the foggiest idea of publishing. Latching onto
rip-roaring lifestyle trends and holding on tight, these
publishers are scoring via markets such as Jo-Ann,
Wal-Mart, and craft retailing giant Michaels
Stores. The latter reported that December sales
jumped 10%, and credited among the “strongest contributors”
to growth the scrapbooking, books, needlework and yarn,
and kids’ crafts categories.
Can
You Say, ‘Stitch ’n Bitch’?
“Most
Americans don’t live east of the Hudson,” says Linda
Cunningham, Editor-in-Chief of Des Moines–based
Meredith Books. “I think we really have our finger
on where middle America is and where most Americans
are.” The company just signed former Entertainment
Tonight anchor Leeza Gibbons for a scrapbook
line, but there are other categories of moment. Take
slow cookers. “Most New York publishers would say, ‘It’s
been done. There’s nothing more to say,’” Cunningham
says. “Well, there’s a lot to say. There was a lot of
money on the table in slow cooking books. Our titles
have all done very well.” And don’t even get Cunningham
started on the latest craft renaissance: knitting. Prescient
New York house Workman published Stitch ’n
Bitch last fall and is now up to 117,000 copies
in print, inspiring knitting clubs that are taking the
nation by storm (dozens are listed at www.stitchnbitch.org).
Indeed, the percentage of women under 45 who knit or
crochet has doubled since 1996, with 38 million knitters
nationwide (Newsweek’s take: “They May Have Blue
Hair, But They’re No Grannies”).
Scrapbooking and such is well known turf to Birmingham-based
Oxmoor House, which publishes a niche-focused
program going from branded books for Pottery Barn
all the way to Flea Market Finds and the
long-running Leisure Arts series Trash to
Treasure (17 volumes strong). “Those books just
fly off the shelves in their market,” says Gary Wright,
Director of Business Development for Oxmoor House. Executives
“fan out like missionaries” to every trade show imaginable;
once they lock on to something like scrapbooking, the
next step may be to find a “spokesbrand” as a partner.
Thus they stumbled upon scrapbook ’zine Creating
Keepsakes in a tiny trade show booth and embarked
on a book program that helped propel the magazine to
a subscriber base of 750,000 (it’s now owned by Primedia).
The big breakthrough for crocheting, meanwhile, came
when they discovered that celebrity Vanna White was
a crocheting addict. “We contacted Vanna and we have
about four books that were enormously successful at
retail,” Wright explains. Leisure Arts (which, with
Oxmoor and parent Southern Progress Corp., are
owned by Time Warner) has even been profiting
from the “plastic canvas” rage (it’s a variant on needlecrafting),
which has now given way to the scrapbooking bug. “It’s
rather infectious when you publish for what the market
requires,” Wright says. “But it’s also smart publishing.
Our returns are extremely low.”
And if you’re talking quilting, it certainly doesn’t
hurt Martingale to be smack in the unofficial quilting
capital of the world, which is how Publisher Jane
Hamada describes the Pacific Northwest. The company
boots out three new quilting titles per month, and although
Hamada says she’s always looking for new topics, “the
more general crafts are a little more difficult” due
to stiffer competition. Shoppers in the paper and floral
crafts are not as “faithful,” and tend to pick up titles
on a whim. The upshot? “It’s harder to hit the right
title at the right time.” So the company concentrates
on winners such as The Simple Joys of Quilting,
which has sold at least 50,000 copies and helped Martingale
lift overall sales last year, Hamada adds. While the
Northwest locale does have drawbacks — “Hiring is a
stumbling block,” as it can be tough drawing publishing
types outside New York — in the end the company could
be located anywhere. “We’re a niche publisher,” Hamada
says. “Authors come to us.”
Note
to Writers: Got Fleece?
Being
o’er the Hudson River has its down side for other publishers
as well. Susan Reich, President and COO of the
Avalon Group (with offices in Emeryville, CA,
Seattle, and New York, and distributed by PGW),
says getting the same attention from agents that the
big New York publishers do is hard. “We have to find
books other ways because agents often ignore us,” she
says. One solution for Avalon Travel Publishing (which
includes Foghorn, Moon, etc.) is advertising on its
website, www.travelmatters.com.
The pitch reads: “Do you wear a lot of fleece? Can you
identify poison oak? Do you hear the call of the wild?
Most importantly, can you write? If you answered
yes to the above questions, you could be the writer
we need.” According to Reich, there is a good network
of writers who respond. Though many Avalon imprints
are located in New York, some, like Seattle-based
Seal, depend on a local community of writers and
readers. That’s one reason Avalon is about to host the
first in a series of dinners for booksellers in Seattle
and San Francisco.
Like Seal, other houses turn adversity into cash by
mining local authors that large houses may overlook.
Brandon, MS–based Quail Ridge Press, for instance,
focuses on the Gulf Coast states, but founder and owner
Gwen McKee says once an author or series grabs
readers’ attention, she sticks with it. The house’s
popular Best of the Best state cookbook series
began locally, but now includes all but three states
in the union (the others are on the way). In order to
reach the right audience, Quail Ridge plies nontraditional
sales channels such as home parties, restaurants, and
QVC to promote its books. The publisher also
lets authors sell their books on personal websites.
“Our authors work very closely with us,” McKee says.
“I’m sure they do that in New York initially, but we
work closely with our authors throughout the process
and on future books.”
At Storey Publishing in North Adams, MA, the
non-Manhattan scenery is all part of the job. “Country
life is our corporate culture,” says Publisher Janet
Harris. “Most people on staff garden. Nearly everybody
hikes and cooks. Our knitting editor keeps Romney sheep.
Storey’s horse editor rides horses.” Storey, which is
distributed by majority-owner Workman, “also has a very
strong sense of our constituency,” Harris says. “To
chart our reader’s responses, we enclose a ‘We’d love
your thoughts’ card in each book. And it is astonishing
how many readers jot down their comments and mail them
back.” Such reader loyalty helped make 2003 the best
year in the publisher’s 20-year history, with sales
up significantly over 2002.
They take a different approach to regionality over at
Gibbs Smith. “We try pretty much at all times
to forget that we’re in Utah,” jokes Director of Marketing
and PR Alison Einerson. To succeed, she says,
it’s not where you are, but what you do, and Gibbs Smith
is doing well with the NYT-bestselling 101
Things To Do With a Cake Mix. Although such titles
seem targeted to heartland buyers, Einerson says: “We
have not seen lower numbers in major cities for those
titles. Really what it’s about is time-saving and ease,
and that appeals to everybody.”
Back on the left coast, Seattle-based Sasquatch Books
has also learned to relish its own quirky discoveries,
sans agents or agencies. One recent hit is librarian
and local NPR personality Nancy Pearl,
whose Book Lust now has 60,000 copies in print.
Sasquatch joined PGW in 2002, and since then
its degree of “regionality” has changed a bit, says
Susan Quinn, VP and Associate Publisher, Sales
and Marketing. “We were only regional, but now, when
we’re acquiring, we think of books that are rooted in
the West” but have broader appeal. The distance from
New York allows Sasquatch staffers the freedom to indulge
their wild hunches. “We have the opportunity to think
up who’s cool in the Northwest and then nurture it,”
Quinn says. “As a result, we act as a launching pad.
We’re really good at PR. Once New York publishers catch
a whiff, they come calling.”
©2004
Publishing Trends
