Today’s $50 Lifestyle Books Just Might Be Worth Every Penny
Early this year, the illustrated book market was declared dead, or at least mutilated (blame the blood-curdling discount battle between Könemann and Taschen), with high-end art houses such as Abrams, Abbeville, and Rizzoli said to be wallowing hip-deep in a glut of coffee-table books. Just as publishers hiked up their waders, however, this discount deluge joined still more masses of cheap proprietary volumes peddled by Barnes & Noble, and also coincided with mounting price pressures from all points in the industry — but especially from Len Riggio — that seemed poised to consign those lavish, $50 volumes to the dustbin of kinder, gentler coffee-table times.
But as margins bottomed out and price pressures peaked, a curious thing happened. Unable to compete in B&N’s profit-poor bargain bins, many illustrated publishers responded by ditching what one executive described as the “dumb blondes” of the business — the airy photo spreads that cost a bundle but didn’t demand too much of a reader’s IQ — and creating fact-packed, text-heavy illustrated titles pitched to carefully targeted consumer niches as a sort of “smart” coffee-table alternative. And they’re charging champagne prices for the privilege.
Behold today’s high-end lifestyle book, which has met with such success that even mainstream publishers seem to be hopping on the bandwagon. HarperCollins has named SVP and Creative Director Laurie Rippon to the new position of Director of Illustrated Book Publishing, suggesting heightened attention to the glossy-tome market. (As Rippon tells PT, however, “We will not necessarily be publishing more illustrated or packaged books, but we certainly consider them to be part of the mix of books we’re interested in bringing to market.”) Meanwhile, AOL TW’s Bulfinch Press reflects a big swing toward lifestyle territory in its new executive team, installed by VP and Publisher (and former QVC-er) Jill Cohen.
The Lifestyle Life Cycle
Ample evidence suggests that the lifestyle category is the go-to niche for the illustrated market. According to Bookscan figures, retail sales in the art, architecture, and photography category increased 8% for the first six months of this year, compared to the same period last year, and — charting the largest increase of all lifestyle categories — cooking and entertaining titles jumped 16%. Granted, the “home gardening” category was down 14%, but that’s the category perhaps most glutted at the low end by B&N (on a recent visit, 7 of 16 gardening titles prominently placed on a display table were B&N publications, priced from $12.98 to $19.98).
Those bargain bins may still be full to overflowing, but what you won’t find there are promotional editions of high-end lifestyle titles. Indeed, the life cycle of the high-end illustrated book, once robustly filled with reprints, repackagings, freshener-uppers, and bargain-bin editions, seems increasingly focused on one precisely aimed edition priced at up to $40 and in some cases as high as $60. That’s the philosophy, anyway, at Clarkson Potter, where Publisher Lauren Shakely says that, pace Riggio, there is absolutely a place for high-end, beautifully produced, and relatively expensive books. As publishers refine their ability to place books in exactly the retail outlets where the prospective audience will find them, and booksellers’ deploy ever more sophisticated inventory control systems, a level of cost efficiency has been attained in an area not previously known for frugality. Last year’s Tropical Houses, for instance, by Tim Street-Porter ($60), was ten years in preparation, and at an earlier time would probably never have found its way to market. But all those Florida retirees have gotta read something, and Potter is happily in its second printing. The book is expected to sell indefinitely, and a paperback edition is unlikely. In fact, it’s already considered a backlist staple and is — get this — making money.
Taking the high road to top dollar is also Steve Tager, Marketing Director for Abrams and Stewart Tabori & Chang. Tager agrees that a title given enough initial bounce will sell profitably for five or six years, as stores model the book and reorders kick in regularly. STC’s three-year-old title The New American Cheese, for example, has been selling steadily at $35, as has Rozanne Gold’s Healthy 1-2-3 cookbook at the same price. Neither title is slated for subsequent iterations (at most, a paperback five years down the line), and even a cheaper edition from Abrams’ promotional imprint, Abradale, is unlikely. (In fact, Abradale will only publish three titles this year.) Drifts to down-market territory do occasionally happen — Abrams’ Earth From Above, which sold for $65, went to Abradale at $35, and is slated for a “value” edition this fall, selling to the trade at $45.
You won’t find much moping around the bargain bin at Workman, either, where Bruce Harris has engineered the Artisan imprint to publish $60 to $70 books — and price them at $50. Their French Laundry Cookbook is going strong at over 200,000 copies in its third year, and Workman is hoping for a replay of this success with Le Bernardin gastronome Eric Ripert’s A Return To Cooking, to be published later this year at $50. And there’s not a promotional edition in sight.
Needless to say, not everyone’s blithely selling cartons of $50 books. Weldon Owen’s Terry Newell, for instance, takes a wider view of the marketplace. As a packager, Weldon Owen licenses all of its titles, currently at three price points: $39.95, $24.95, and $16.95. Newell says he’s enjoying success with the Williams Sonoma Savoring series, which is up to 11 titles at $39.95 list, almost five years into the program. As with Workman’s Artisan imprint, the aim of the series was to produce a $50 book priced at $40. However, when titles have run their course as high-priced elegant editions, the material may be repurposed and republished under the recently launched Fog City Press. These will then be sold in bulk, non-returnable quantities to customers, probably at $24.95, by Chain Sales Marketing. Chain Sales’ Harvey Markowitz says that these reformatted volumes can be bind-ups of sheets with a redesigned jacket, or he can also take multi-volume titles and bind them as one value-priced product.
Just Add Value
Make no mistake about it, value is the new mantra. “Price points are coming down,” says Christopher Capen, President and Publisher of Tehabi Books, which develops titles for the likes of DK, Simon & Schuster, and HarperCollins. “Over this past year, desired price points have gone from the $40-$50 range down to $25-$35 for new titles.” Capen points out that a similar drop occurred during the economic doldrums of the early ’90s, when retailers rode the roller-coaster from the $50, Day in the Life of America series right down to the bargain basement. Now, the key is pushing price-points down and “delivering as much content as absolutely possible.” Fulfilling that mandate, Tehabi has been ramping up the word counts in its titles, publishing illustrated works with 50,000 to 80,000 words. “Now you have a product sitting next to the $25 or $30 fiction, non-illustrated book, and you’re right in the mix,” says Capen. “The consumer is realizing they’re not paying $50 for a coffee-table book. They’re getting something in an illustrated format that is substantive and a good read. That’s where we’re seeing significant growth.” Another change in the illustrated marketplace, Capen points out, concerns the ever-escalating pressure on inventory turns. Whereas publishers used to buy a year’s worth of inventory, endemic belt-tightening has spurred publishers to order up only six months worth of a title. This drives up the cost per unit, which in turn puts more pressure upon the economies of the illustrated market. Ironically, Capen reports, some of his titles have sold quite well in the first six months, but because inventory was geared towards a year’s worth of sales, “the financial people don’t look on that as a success. They’re not getting inventory turn.”
Value is also the order of the day for Karen Kreiger, VP Custom Publishing at color reference publisher Creative Publishing. Creative’s bestselling book at the moment is The Complete Photo Guide to Home Repair, loaded with over 2,000 photos and selling for $34.95. Bargain-bin editions are pretty much verboten here, as the publisher specializes in branded books for the likes of Black & Decker and Singer, who are loath to find their titles in the promotional ghetto. However, content repurposing (they call it “creating”) has resulted in such titles as a 48-page, softcover “brochure” for Popular Mechanics, which was priced at $2.96 and sold at Wal-Mart (over 100,000 units went out the door). And co-branded titles can often be sold in multiple channels, such as Small Engine Care and Repair for Briggs & Stratton, of which the company sold 150,000 through its dealer network (they’re going for $15.95), while Creative sold 60,000 copies through trade channels.
Nothing’s forever, of course. Maybe not even value. Mel Shapiro of Book Sales, the US promotional imprint of UK packager/publisher Quarto, confirms that Borders has cut its promotional space, and the chain seems to be shifting its discount gondolas to the back of the store. Likewise, the ranks of $7 illustrated titles at B&N also seem to have thinned. Which leads one to the obvious conclusion. Now that the bargain market has been definitively glutted, those smart, $50 titles must be looking mighty attractive to Len and company, regardless of his right-sized-price rhetoric. Better get there while you can.
