Last year brought more change to an industry which is, with varying results, trying hard to embrace it. We asked some people who have recently undergone and embraced their own transitions, to look at what changes they see on the horizon. Herewith:
Larry Kirshbaum,
Former CEO, TWBG
President, LJK Literary Management
& PW’s Publisher of the Year
In moving from the publishing to the agenting side of the business, I have taken a lot of ribbing from my ex-colleagues about “going over to the dark side.” Behind this not-so-innocent joshing is a sad commentary on the state of our business today.
It seems that more than ever, the book business has taken on an adversarial tone among the various elements that should be much more harmonious. The authors feel frustrated that they’re not getting enough attention from their publishers; the retailers are drowning in the endless waves of titles with large printings, many of which come out in the last few months of the year; and the publishers feel crushed by a pincer movement of agents on one side and retailers on the other all demanding more, more, more. As for the agents, I won’t speak for them since I’m brand new, but let’s say I have come to have an entirely new perspective on their frustrations as well!
So what’s the answer? Perhaps I’m a bit naïve, but I have always believed that our “whole” as an industry is greater than the sum of our parts. We have created a business with over $20 billion in sales while the cultural role that we play is stronger than ever. And the quality of broadly-appealing titles is better than ever.
Perhaps each segment has to assume responsibility for its own issues. Authors have to become even more skilled at selling their own books through lectures, better media training and their own web sites. Retailers must become more creative using both bricks-and-mortar and on-line databases as a way of expanding their marketplace. And publishers have to be more aggressive with marketing dollars, especially for smaller books.
As for agents, they are very wise and should be listened to at all times….
Jeff Abraham,
Former Executive Director, BISG
President, Random House Distribution Services
Even in our industry, where change is the norm, 2005 was a year of remarkable transitions. Some of them created and sustained new collaborative models. Some focused on integrating the book business into retailing worldwide. And some involved technologies that will affect us increasingly in the future.
One big set of changes revolved around ISBN-13. In the process of transitioning to that new standard, publishers, wholesalers and retailers of all sizes and kinds found themselves working together toward consensus solutions. Because various sectors of the industry were and are collaborating, BISG was able to create the go-to site for ISBN-13 information and help. The site is especially significant in this context because of its ISBN-13 Readiness Directory, where publishers, booksellers and POS vendors continually post information about their readiness and then access information others have posted. This show-me-yours-and-I’ll-show-you-mine means of facilitating change may be new on such a broad scale. Certainly, it’s effective.
A second set of changes had to do with an increasingly obvious fact: being in the book business means interacting with companies in a wide variety of other businesses—including major retailers in the United States and around the world. To facilitate transactions in the international, multi-industry economy that surrounds and intersects with the conventional world of books, people from all sectors of our industry focused in on GDSN (aka, the Global Data Synchronization Network) during 2005. One goal, which BISG is pursuing, is to make sure that this network treats print and reference material in ways consistent with the systems we already use.
Another ongoing project involves the continued investigation of how the book industry will benefit from RFID (that’s Radio Frequency Identification, as with EZ passes). Widespread use of RFID in the book industry remains a reality still somewhat over the horizon, but 2005 saw progress as BISG representatives helped draft privacy guidelines and participated in major meetings.
In light of the variety and magnitude of current transitions and the prospects for ceaseless change going forward, 2005 also turned out to be a year of formal planning for tomorrow in the book business. For the first time in its history, BISG embarked on a formal strategic planning process. The resulting strategic plan is now in preparation and scheduled for release in 2006, a year that will include a transition of my own. To end on a personal note, I found it extremely rewarding to serve as the Book Industry Study Group’s executive director for the past three and a half years, and I’m looking forward to the challenges of change in my new position as President, Random House Distribution Services.
Jesse Kornbluth,
Head Editor & Founder,
HeadButler.com
The Internet is the greatest literacy project since Gutenberg. E-mail—now and forever, the Web’s killer app—makes everyone who uses it a better reader and writer. Amazon.com: could it possibly be easier to shop for books? And Google aspires to digitize every book, the better to serve up snippets—and inspire sales.
So I giggle when I hear that the Internet will be the death of books.
The question is: What is a book? If publishers insist that a book must take a traditional form (paper, binding, cover) and be marketed the traditional way (review copies, print/radio/TV ads), then the future of books is not bright. But if we redefine a book to mean simply a container for words, then the doors of technology swing wide open, and there are a number of new ways to get the stuff of books to consumers—and keep the book business from succeeding at what it seems to have been trying to do all my adult life: commit suicide.
Some books will be ideal for hand-held devices, either as audio or condensed text, and as we see what those are, there will be more of them. More publishers will follow the model Seth Godin sometimes favors: offer a book as a free download for a limited time, then put it on sale. And if Japan is any harbinger, 60-to-80-chapter novels delivered to cell phones, one short “chapter” at a time, could be a completely new business for publishers.
Back in the real world, there’s one other phenomenon emerging. I think of the 1.2 million unique visitors that my partner, Carol Fitzgerald, connects to writers at The Book Report Network. I consider HeadButler.com’s 16-to-18% conversion rate—the percentage of readers who are captivated enough by my daily recommendation to click the Amazon link and go on to buy the book. And I come to an obvious conclusion—compelling methods of digital handselling are critical to the marketing of books.
Andrea Chambers,
Director, MS Publishing Program, New York University
As the publishing industry becomes more global and multi-platform, educational institutions, too, need to adopt a more expansive mindset. At NYU, where our masters program trains students for management positions in both books and magazines, we closely monitor changes in publishing and tailor our curriculum to the complexities and needs of the industry. Students no longer simply learn the fundamentals of editorial, sales, marketing, and other basics. They will be taught to anticipate innovations at every step of the way, whether that means advances in digitized content or projecting the new retail and distribution landscape for books and magazines five years down the road.
To grasp the intricacies of this faster-paced publishing environment, students at every professional program will face a shifting educational process in the coming years. Research-based term papers will decrease in importance and empirical, hands-on projects that simulate actual workplace tasks will predominate. Case studies, business and marketing plans, magazine prototypes, and team projects that replicate those in publishing will take on increasing importance.
This intricate interconnection between the classroom and the workplace means that the old boundaries will gradually disappear. Teachers preparing students for careers in publishing should all be active professionals who share their daily workplace experiences and expertise with their students. Increasingly, they will mold their syllabi to reflect the life cycle of a book or a magazine publication schedule so that students learn to think like publishers. To augment the flow of information into the classroom, teachers will continue to invite their publishing colleagues to give guest presentations on what is cutting edge in the industry.
All in all, the classroom will move forward aggressively with its metamorphosis to active training ground, a creative yet rigorous laboratory for brewing future formulas for publishing success. We may also see a time when well-established book editors and publishers will go back to school for refresher courses, just as doctors and lawyers do. That once sleepy publishing industry is suddenly so fast-moving that even old pros may need a little help to stay as progressive as their industry.
