PT Examines the Non-Traditional Publishing Spectrum; Major Houses Ramp Up Custom
Forget public service announcements: The American Heart Association wants you to know that Jamie-Lynn Sigler’s first boyfriend had Wildberry Skittles breath. As part of their effort to get women “to band together to wipe out heart disease” the AHA and national sponsor Macy’s commissioned a book from Chronicle about celebrity first kisses (Kiss & Tell, Valentine’s Day 2007) which will be sold exclusively in Macy’s stores. It includes first kiss anecdotes from a number of celebs including Paris Hilton, Katie Couric, Kelly Ripa and Jane Seymour.
Welcome to the world of custom publishing.
While traditional efforts to create saleable products for the non- traditional market have historically come out of packagers (like Weldon Owen’s relationship with Williams-Sonoma and the Body Shop), and smaller book plus publisher/packagers (like Melcher Media and Running Press), today major publishers are reinvigorating their efforts and resources to expand non-traditional custom endeavors.
Random House has gone so far as to create a Custom Media Division headed by David Arcara which offers multi-platformed content including web components for exclusive client use.
“In large corporations, you need to show growth, and that growth isn’t coming from traditional markets,” says Stephen Weitzen, SVP Publisher of Simon Scribbles who manages Simon & Schuster CDP (Customer Driven Publishing) on the children’s side. “For us, CDP is always a non-returnable business…a way to sell a million books non-returnable.”
He explained that CDP could be anything – custom made for a retailer, a quick service restaurant, consumer packaged goods. “It could be shrinking down a Blue’s Clues book and packaging it with Blue’s Clues diapers. It could be making a book for a vitamin company, a cereal company, making something bigger, something smaller, personalizing it, extracting a chapter of a book for a charity organization,” he said. “That’s the thing about CDP, and premium, and promotional – in theory when I sit in my office and look out the window at all of the other office buildings, they’re all potential customers.”
In short, anything goes, and as publishers are forced to become increasingly inventive to compete in an ever hostile and dwindling retail environment, once strict lines in the marketplace have blurred.
Where the Client is King
Catherine Huchting, Director of Business Development Custom Publishing at Chronicle, says that since she joined the company two years ago custom clients and revenue have doubled in growth. Chronicle often creates custom content for clients (ranging from hotels to restaurants to wineries to packaged goods companies to cultural institutions) but repurposes material as well. Regardless of distribution differences and repurposed vs. original material, all of the projects fall under the custom publishing department (made up of six full time staffers and various freelancers). “The client drives the project,” Huchting said – noting that each project is tailored to fit their needs, and therefore variable.
Along the lines of HarperCollins’ Saks Fifth Avenue partnership (which produced the well-publicized branded custom children’s book Cashmere if You Can last holiday season and has plans for another this year), Chronicle produced a series of three GAP branded children’s books exclusively for the babyGAP stores.
In addition to creating branded material for exclusive retail, Chronicle went a step further in partnering with Williams-Sonoma to create “single subject” books for individual Williams-Sonoma products. When Williams-Sonoma came out with a new waffle iron, for example, Chronicle made the Waffle book to be sold alongside of it, eventually distributed into the general trade market.
Andrea Rosen, VP Special Markets at HC said, “Books often complement other products in specialty stores so we help them to complete the story in the stores.” HC, which is currently working on a book about the Rockettes in conjunction with Madison Square Garden Entertainment (to be sold at Radio City and to the trade) began their custom initiatives two years ago as part of their Publishing + push.
Frank Fochetta, President of Special Sales at S&S, described S&S’s Custom Publishing like a decision tree of sorts. At the top, there’s overall custom publishing – anything that sales does in concert with the customer that raises the opportunity to alter, or change a book. “The change emanates out of a discussion between sales and the customer rather than out of a list.” Then there’s proprietary, which Fochetta defines as any use of the backlist – reformatting existing content. For all of it, special sales is the driver, Fochetta said. “We’re often in the position to deal with companies and get into conversations with their agenda. We sit in conversation with the customer.”
Packagers, of course, are still in the game. Philip Lief, founder of The Philip Lief Group, a Custom Multimedia Developer and Book Producer, is teaming with Glaxo Smith Kline to produce a new weight loss book The Alli Diet Plan – for Glaxo’s Alli diet pill – to be published by Meredith next Spring. Lief, Meredith and Glaxo are currently in the process of planning the cross-promotion of the pill and the book which will be distributed to numerous chains, both traditional and non-traditional outlets, (book stores, drug stores, big box stores, etc.) which are buying in healthy numbers.
The recently Bonnier -acquired Weldon Owen has built a mini branded empire packaging proprietary and custom work for companies like Williams-Sonoma, The Body Shop and 3M’s Post-It Notes as well as special sales into B&N (repurposed books, especially reference books like Atlases, children’s books, etc.). In addition to their packaging business, Weldon Owen operates Fog City Press as well, a value publishing division that creates books (using repurposed Weldon Owen content) under its own imprint primarily for promotional channels.
Perseus’ Running Press, famous for its Miniature Books, and kits customizes its content frequently for companies, brands, products and individuals, although the customization rarely ventures beyond the “four covers.” “We do some completely custom projects,” J. McCrary, Senior Director of Special Markets at Perseus said, “but you need the time and the staff. It’s usually not cost-effective for us to make a whole new book for one client.” Even before a book is originally published, McCrary says that Special Markets is always looking for possible custom options in the future. “I’ll work with the designers to create a cover that will allow me to drop in logos later,” she said.
Technology has also allowed RP to offer a line of customizable miniature editions called Special Favors (in the process of becoming its own company) which offer personalizable mini editions (e.g. The Purpose Driven Life, to Girlfriends, to Little Book of Hannukah) for individual events (e.g. weddings, Batmitzvahs, etc.) the “Custom Miniature Editions” cost between $4.76 and $5.95 per guest, with a minimum of a 10 book purchase.
“It’s an extension of what certain aspects of special markets has been doing for years,” said Barbara O’Shea, President of Non-Traditional markets at Penguin (which is also ramping up custom initiatives). “It’s a terrific growth area, and there’s still the potential for much more.”
