Publishing just can't win this week

From today's L.A. Times:

Sara Nelson, editor in chief of Publishers Weekly, believes that the reading public "feels stuff not worthy of them is being shoved down their throats." The difficult part, she says, is that the audience for "serious books . . . really doesn't want to be marketed to. But if you don't market to them, they don't know what to read."

As someone who has worked on a number of books that were considered "literary" but got less coverage than any celebrity memoir or Harlan Coben book, I feel that. The industry has become so focused on what will sell rather than what is good, that, at times, it feels as though we are destroying ourselves from within.

The article looks at reprints, with the basic argument seeming to be that people are becoming dissatisfied with the fiction being offered to them, so they are turning to older books that are now being reintroduced to the market. And that the big houses are in danger of losing the trust of readers by tainting their once respected name.

It's an interesting theory, but I would like to argue that there are plenty of good books still being published. The focus just isn't being given to them. And in order to publish the "good" books, it seems that publishers have to balance it out with the "commercial" ones that will bring in the money. Publishers hedge their bets on a couple sure blockbusters in order to keep them afloat so they can try out other books.

But doesn't it seem that maybe if we shrunk the scale, we could solve all the problems at once? Why do we have to have massive lists? Can't we throw all of our energy into books we believe in, rather than just try to market them in between fielding calls about Stephanie Meyer or Curtis Sittenfeld? And, it's not just publishers that are to blame. The media covering the industry doesn't seem to be interested in discovering a new writer...they seem to just want to talk about the author everyone else already is.

--Ladytron

What a depressing day for publishing

Ugh, publishing is doomed, and apparently, it's no longer fun.

First up, we have the hella long article in New York Magazine, which asserts that, basically, we're all screwed. Some choice quotes:
Yet in recent years, more accurate internal sales numbers have confirmed what publishers long suspected: Traditional marketing is useless.

“Media doesn’t matter, reviews don’t matter, blurbs don’t matter,” says one powerful agent. Nobody knows where the readers are, or how to connect with them....

Marketing a book these days is like playing a slot machine;
hitting one 7 won’t get you a dime. “There has to be this constellation of events,” says Daniel Menaker, whose departure was tied in the press to the low sales of Benjamin Kunkel’s much-ballyhooed debut novel, Indecision. “Not only a Times Book Review front cover but Don Imus talking about it and Ellen Pompeo actually reading the book on-camera. And Barack Obama has just bought it.”

Augh, so true! In fact, I think I have mentioned these points before in some of my rants. Not to mention, the book has to be in stores. The book can be reviewed everywhere, but if it's not sitting on a table at B&N, it's probably not going to sell giant numbers. Which brings us to point #2...

This matters because the following response from Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio is only technically true: “We buy every title published—our business is a long-tail business—less than 5 percent is from bestsellers.”

Editors insist that plenty of books get skipped. Richard Nash, head of indie publisher Soft Skull Press, estimates that one in twenty are passed over, though ten to fifteen copies are shipped into their warehouses in case there’s a special order. Many more are getting smaller initial orders than ever. That’s a very long, very skinny tail.

I'm gonna agree with Nash here. Also, sometimes they might buy 500 of a book. But 500 copies for all of the stores? Not helpful. It means that book is either sitting in a carton in the warehouse somewhere, or shoved on a back shelf. Moving on...

It’ll be rough going in the meantime; some publishers will transform, some will muddle through, some will die. And there will, no doubt, be a lot of editors for whom even this diminished era will look like the last great golden age, when some writers were paid in the millions,some of their books produced in the millions, and more than half of those books actually sold. Book publishing is still a big-league business, and that’s a hard thing to let go of. “There’s something terrible,” says an editor at a prestigious imprint, “about admitting that you’re not a mass medium.”

Oh, god. This was the golden age? Not according to Al Silverman. His new book, The Time of Our Lives: The Golden Age of Great American Book Publishers, Their Editors and Authors, defines the golden age as the period between 1946 and the early 1980s, the period "when 'books were most beloved by a reading public.' Soon afterward, the great 'bookmen' stepped aside and the bottom-liners of business took over."

(NY Mag also references the decline when publishing became about conglomerates rather than taste: "In its heyday, publishing was a vast array of mom-and-pop shops, in which the pops tended to be independently wealthy. Their competitive advantage was not efficiency or low costs but taste....By the nineties, five big conglomerates were divvying up the spoils and their lucrative backlists. Many of the smaller companies that had been struggling, like FSG, Ecco, and Crown, were flush with corporate resources. But in exchange, they gave up final say in how they’d publish their books—or even what books they’d publish. And suddenly an industry accustomed to 5 percent margins was being run by media moguls aiming for double digits.")

Crap. I guess I was about 20 years too late. I imagine the old days of publishing were a bit like an episode of Mad Men. As Gawker puts it, "It can be difficult to know you're in a golden age. You might be too busy working. You might be too caught up in the hum of everyday life. You might live in Omaha. But here's a hint: there are usually a lot of white guys in bow ties smoking indoors." Now, that would have been fun.

--Ladytron

Random tidbits that are upsetting me.

I forgot to eat breakfast, so I feel stabby.

Emily Gould is shopping a book.

John McCain's campaign has a facebook game - and I actually downloaded it.

Keith Gessen is being interviewed on "Bookworm."

The Old Hag got a book deal based off of Jezebel posts (actually, I really like those posts, but a book, really?? Although, I suppose it's no more ridiculous than this. Or this. Or this.)

Cody's is closing for good.

My authors who refuse to understand why an established indie bookstore wouldn't want a debut, non-local author for an event. (sorry, no link for this. it just is)

The existence of The Shack, and how it will encourage thousands of deluded "writers" that they too can become bestsellers with no publisher, no support, and no publicist.

U.S. News & World Report's list of ways to deal with an office of 20-somethings. And the comments that other old farts added. Seriously, just give us some money and some respect, and we'll all get along just fine.

It's Wednesday - scientifically proven to be the longest day of the week.

Blech,

The Editor

Monday meat market...or Publishing sausage fest

Gawker is holding the "Hottest Men of Book Publishing 2008". So far, MattHilliard of Penguin is kicking ass. None of my suggested nominees made the cut. Sad times. I am a bit partial to the guy holding a kitten though. Awww.

Get your votes in now, kids, or forever hold your peace...


--Paige Sexie

listen to the sound of my tiny violin

It’s Sunday and I’m at work. Again.

That, in and of itself, doesn’t warrant a gold star – I mean, this is New York after all, but this week I’ve got two authors on tour for which I’m pitching local and national media; I have to write (and re-write) three press releases for upcoming books; pull media lists for four books; send out two publicity galley mailings and one finished book mailing; and write an acquisition announcement about a new title. I also have to do follow-up on books that released last month; secure long-lead press on eight titles publishing between March and June; and this list doesn’t include all the meetings I have to attend. Even though I’m only assigned three books publishing this month, I’m working on twenty. To top it all off, I’ll probably be showing up to work tomorrow with a hangover. There’s a party I’m expected to attend tonight.

Publicists by nature are social creatures. They party, gossip, and keep that famous revolving door rotating by changing houses more than any other position in the publishing industry, acquiring an incredible network in a short period of time. Nepotism is the name of the game and while it’s not uncommon for an editorial assistant to stay at that level for three years, a hungry publicity assistant can work her way up to senior publicist in that time.

Although publicity is the keystone for any successful book marketing campaign most companies don’t empower their publicists with all the resources and time needed to accomplish their tasks. Because of the shear volume of books publicists work on, they’re forced to make a decision about which books have potential and will warrant their limited time to aggressively promote, and those that don’t and will get the bare minimum of attention.

Publicity is the keystone that supports the marketing, sales and ad/promo campaign, and has the ability to reach critical mass, which, in an ideal world, can “make” a book. As each placement (which can take weeks of phone calls, letters, and creative pitching to secure) catches the eye of another reviewer or booker, it will result in more hits and, ultimately, more books sold. But really, without that one big break – Fresh Air, The Daily Show, a feature in The New York Times or the holy grail of publicity (which every author believes to be within reach): Oprah – a book is basically treading water unless the elusive “Word of Mouth” grabs hold or it becomes the darling of independent booksellers.

If you think about it, for the price of a full page book ad in the New York Times (which I feel is nothing more than vanity placement for an author and a transparent marketing ploy to get stores to order more books) a publisher could cover the salary of an additional assistant and a publicist who could dedicate an entire year to pursuing every single possible outlet to promote the very same title.

Publicity is a thankless job. It requires handling rejection on a daily basis from reviewers, feature editors, bookers and producers. On top of that are the demanding agents, authors and bosses. Many a time I’ve been asked “What else?” when I already have several major print features, national television and radio interviews lined up. The thing about publicity is that you are never truly finished. There is always a review to secure, a feature to place, a show to book. Active publicity on a book doesn’t end; it just slowly dies out as time goes by.

Fortunately a few of my authors understand what I can do for their book and have seen fit to bestow upon me gifts. These tokens of gratitude make all the difference to a publicist bereft of appreciation, and ensure that they will put that author’s book at the top of his or her mile-long list. It’s Pavlovian really, nothing more than a bell and a tasty treat, but when the treat is a bottle of single malt scotch, it makes all the difference in the world.

-Publitron

Slunch- the publishing insiders blog launches!

Welcome to Slunch,

if you're unfamiliar with the term it harkens back to the last golden age of publishing, a time when you could still smoke in your office if you had a window that could open, a book on the bestseller list meant a champagne toast, hooking up with coworkers in the copy room was (well still is) the right of every underpaid, overworked, idealistic sop that got into this business in the first place. It was also a time when editorial assistants would get together once a week, order delivery for lunch and go through the piles of slush manuscripts and gossip about who made out in the copy room, and spread salacious rumours about coworkers, authors, and agents.

So, this, my dear reader, is a place to bring your juciest tid bits from our shared field and share them anonomously. All submissions are welcome and those deamed lascivious or genuine will be posted anonomously by me on your behalf (ie: no press releases) What did your author do today that pissed you off? What did you really think of that last book you read? Who is sleeping with whom? Why did the director really get that promotion? We all dish, and what better place than Slunch?

-Slunch Editor