It's the Consumer,
Stupid!
FROM PUBLISHING
TRENDS (MAY 2004)
Considering
the contrasting audiences — one a collection of small
publishers and publishing students, and the other a
pride of publishing elite, the mantra at NYU’s
Center for Publishing Management Forum for Independent
Publishers and PW’s Summit was the same:
It’s the consumer, stupid. At NYU, this theme was picked
up by several speakers, including Ingram’s Phil
Ollila and Howard Fisher of the Fisher Company,
who praised niche publishers for creating product for
a target market and then educating retailers about that
market. At PW, Kosmo Kalliarekos, in a
reprise of his AAP presentation in February,
showed that, where publishing has a close relationship
with its end user, its margins are that much more attractive.
Even The NYTBR’s Sam Tanenhaus, in a refreshing
break from tradition, talked about understanding
the Book Review readers and what they want.
Both forums — which were back-to-back and drew some
of the same participants, either as speakers or as attendees
— started with the given that traditional trade publishing
is a no-growth business. Whether that means publishers
are stealing market share or actually expanding the
market depended on who was at the podium: the trade
sales and marketing folk tended to the zero sum outlook;
and nontraditionalists — special sales, online, niche
players and bright-eyed consultants — claimed a vast
expanse of untapped opportunity. It was notable that
in the NYU forum the small publishers (though that’s
a misleading term, given Workman’s presence in
the person of Bruce Harris) were uniformly enthusiastic,
committed to nontraditional sales, eager to embrace
customer research, and blissfully unaware of mega-author
advances — the writedowns on which, according to Mr.
Kalliarekos, are responsible for sucking virtually all
profit out of trade books.
©2004
Publishing Trends
