The two-day Digital Book World conference got underway on January 17, with a keynote from Macmillan CEO John Sargent, who talked about the health of the industry (better than the hand wringers’ fears), the importance of data in all publishing sectors, and the need for industry newcomers to feel they have a place at the publisher’s table.
This year the conference was divided into four tracks, including data, content, marketing/sales and production/operations.
In the marketing track, OptiQly‘s Pete McCarthy kicked off the first session, giving a broad overview of digital marketing (“dig for data and adjust as you go”). He was followed by PRH‘s Kristen Fassler talking about the launch of the debut novel, Lilac Girls, who advised fellow marketers to “channel resources into directly engaging & encouraging targeted readers to spread the word”. Open Road Media‘s Mary McAveney warned that blurbs and media attention are not enough unless the marketing touchpoints link the likely market to the content. Knowing how to leverage and adjust pricing is key. ORM’s Early Bird Books, a BookBub-type newsletter, has been very successful at driving sales.
One of the highlights of the day was in the editorial track. Nielsen Books‘ Kristen McLean‘s presentation on ‘Separating the Trends from Fads’ was one of the most tweeted of the conference, particularly as she made many points that kept the audience’s attention. The most intriguing was that “Audio is going to be the digital platform for books,” noting that as ebook reading declines, audio (including podcasts and audiobooks) will surpass it. The question of how podcasting would be monetized was raised, but not answered.
McLean argued that fads and fashion can look like a trend, but only when a fad has sustained growth over two years, and is supported by corroborating data points, can it be considered a real trend. She cautioned attendees to beware of one movie or social media event that causes a momentary spike in sales.
In books, the rise of graphic novels for both children and adults, self-help, and Christian fiction and nonfiction are trends, as are children’s activity books. Coloring books, already on the wane, are not. McLean points to two readily available tools for researching trends – Google Trends and YouTube Rewind Trends, which is especially good for the children’s market.
In the data track, Syntopical‘s Cliff Guren talked about a range of AI platforms and services to help publishers analyze their own content, including Biblio, Intellogo, Alertsy, and Tekstum. Thad McIlroy did a similar list of tools, but started with authoring tools and took it through tools that publishers can use to combat plagiarism. Among the tools he mentioned are Stylewriter for writing/editing, PerfectIt for proofing, Textract and SKYIndex for indexing and Copyscape for plagiarism.
The day ended with the traditional first day cocktail party in the halls, and then back out to a rainy NYC.
On Day 2 of DBW the morning started with the yin and yang of a self-help author, Bill Burnett, talking about how to design a satisfying life, and the Data Guy, spewing stats about the industry (eg. 42% of fiction sales last year were from nontraditional or self-publishers). He talked also about Amazon’s dominance in both online sales of print and ebooks, and Kindle Unlimited’s success in ebooks (now 14% of total ebook sales).
Then the audience moved to their respective streams, which covered a broad range of topics, from what the book media wants (media-savvy authors), to new strategies in retail (think bars and coffee).
By the afternoon the crowds began to thin, but a talk by Gregg Sullivan on Social Commerce, which grew almost 50% in 2016, gave the assembled useful information on how to find the target market for any book, especially if the author already has a social media presence. He broke down the costs and expected benefits of advertising on social media, especially Facebook. An audiobook panel that followed drew standing room only crowds – no surprise given the number of times conference speakers had mentioned audio as the most exciting growth area in the industry. The increase in both sales and circulation are amazing: library lending is up 34% and sales are up almost fifty percent year over year. Many sectors of the industry were represented, including Amanda D’Acierno from PRH, Michelle Cobb at Audio Publishers Association, Overdrive’s Erica Lazzaro, Tantor Media’s Ron Formica and Findaway’s Ralph Lazaro.
Just when people began to think about leaving the conference, Julie Trelstad engaged authors Ann Garvin and Sarah Mylnowski in a lively conversation about being an entrepreneur. With 30 novels published, Mylnowski has figured out how to promote her books in as an efficient way as possible to ensure she has time to keep writing two or more books a year. Garvin and friends rely on Tall Poppy Writers, a group of fifty, formed to give each other support and editorial, marketing, financial and other kinds of feedback. As moderator Trelstad said of authors like them who are involved in all aspects of their careers, “here is the writer of the future.”
So another publishing conference ended on a surprising — and gratifyingly — high note.
