New Book Biz Survey Reported

The Future of Publishing?

Blog Theory and Practice

Distribution Diary

Book distribution remains one of my favorite topics. When I was working as a book distributor, I spoke to literally hundreds, if not thousands of publishers, many of them new or relatively new to the business. Almost all of them had misconceptions or misunderstandings about how the distribution business works. Distribution and book distributors of all types continue to play a critical role for publishers, especially if they want to reach the core retail book marketplace. Certainly, specialty publishers, with very focused programs continue to find better alternatives for reaching their markets. And online direct to consumer and other alternative distribution channels continue to grow.

But the distribution function remains critical, and over the next few weeks and months I will do more posts here about this subject and working with Publishers Lunch and Publishers Marketplace, will try to lay out a pretty comprehensive dataset and description of all of the distribution options available to publishers (and authors who publish), along with a running commentary and some predictions about the future of book distribution and retailing.

Book Business and Environmental Economics: Belated Post #2

Right on target to one of the main points raised in my earlier post, Publishers Weekly featured an article this week entitled “Publishers Getting Serious About the Environment Can global warming help reduce returns?” (by Staff — Publishers Weekly, 7/16/2007). Here is an excerpt:

“Last week, Hachette announced that it will form an environmental board of senior executives to determine ways the company can reduce its environmental impact. An environmental committee will also be created that will include employees who want to be involved in making the company a greener workplace.

Random formed its green committee this spring; it’s chaired by company chairman Peter Olson, with Van Der Laan as deputy chair. The committee has already come up with some day-to-day ways it can contribute to a greener planet, like providing “techno trash” bins on each floor so employees can dispose of cell phones, discs and other digital refuse. Random is also conducting a carbon audit that should be completed by the fall, Van Der Laan said. The audit will help Random better understand the overall impact its business has on the environment and areas where improvements can be made quickly.

Pearson, parent company of Penguin, has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2009, while HarperCollins’s parent company, News Corp., has said it will be carbon neutral by 2010. Penguin chairman John Makinson said the publisher’s contribution to reaching carbon neutrality includes finding ways to lessen its paper consumption through the use of more recycled and other Forest Stewardship (FSC) certified paper and changing work practices by examining such areas as how, and how much, employees travel. To that end, HC, which has its own HarperGreen team, said it is transitioning its sales fleet to hybrid cars when leases expire.

Although the use of more recycled paper can make a significant improvement in the environment, Makinson said lowering returns would also make a huge impact on the planet. Makinson supports the idea of selling certain categories, particularly backlist, nonreturnable, and noted that Penguin has worked out discounting-on-site programs with Barnes & Noble as one way to cut returns. (Amazon already buys many of its titles nonreturnable.)

One company that has already developed an extensive nonreturnable option is Chelsea Green. Eighteen major independent booksellers have signed on to the Chelsea Green Partnership Program, introduced at BookExpo America this year, reports company president Margo Baldwin, and she hopes to interest the chains in the program as well. Under the program, retailers receive a base discount of 50% on all orders and an additional annual credit based upon the amount of business completed during the previous calendar year. Credits can be applied to open or future invoices and to co-op advertising. Baldwin said booksellers like the program not only because of the greater discount, but because they see it can make on impact on reducing waste.”

While there is no question that publishers can make relatively large contributions simply by printing on recycled paper, and adopting energy efficient and green office and warehouse programs (including switching over to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, turning off computers at the end of every workday, encouraging telecommuting, mass transit subsidies for employees, reducing paper waste, using recycled cartons, eliminating plastic tape, etc.)

But overall the largest change that can be implemented will be to change the book economy to reduce or eliminate the inefficiency and waste created by returns. Remember that 30% of all new books are printed, shipped to a warehouse, then shipped to a store, or to a wholesaler, and then returned to the publisher or distributor warehouse and finally shipped out again to a remainder wholesaler or retailer, or shipped to a recycler or landfill. Think of the amount of energy that has been wasted in this process. This does not even count the energy cost of forklifts and pallet jacks within the various warehouses in which returned books are moved around to no good end or purpose.

My next task is to calculate the energy value of returned books. But even without knowing the true energy cost of returns, everyone in the book business knows it is time for change. In the end this change will be driven not by publishers, but by retailers and wholesalers. As the article quoted above notes, nonreturnability is beginning to infiltrate publisher, retailer and wholesaler practices. And we do have successful models for how bookselling could become a nonreturnable business - calendars are currently sold under “shared markdown” terms with “remainder in place terms for liquidation at the end of their effective lives. Books could certainly be sold under similar terms.

The biggest concern in imagining a nonreturnable business for publishers, authors and retailers is how to make carrying new and unproven authors worth the risk for retailers of taking them into their stores in the first place. But this risk exists now in the returnable market. With nonreturnable terms including shared markdown and remainder in place, books that do not succeed will actually be less risky and less expensive to carry than they are now with returnability. The benefits of good data and reporting overwhelm the now obsolete returnable terms invented by Simon & Schuster during the Depression. Contrary to many, I do not think backlist is the place to start. We need to implement new business practices that are environmentally and socially responsible, that also increase the selection of titles that can be found on bookstore shelves. Nonreturnable programs, properly designed, will enable better distribution and more titles available to consumers.

Book Business and Environmental Economics: Change is Needed

Busy as we all are it is very difficult to pay attention to the many serious issues facing our world. The problems created by our industrialized economy are of such magnitude as to make it seem almost impossible to make significant changes quickly enough to make a difference. And what the Bush administration has done to block, undo or undermine longstanding laws and regulations to protect our natural environment is simply criminal.

Things have gotten bad enough that it’s just impossible for us to continue to go about our daily business without taking some meaningful action to make positive change.

Lately I have been thinking a great deal about the environmental impact of the book business. I read somewhere once that taken as a whole, the printing industry is one of the largest causes of industrial pollution in the United States, even with all the changes in monitoring and controlling environmental effects of industry. And of course books are made of paper, and paper is made from trees. We like to think that the trees used for manufacturing paper are all environmentally stewarded tree farms and managed forests, but that is, of course, not the case.

I would like to commend and recommend The Green Press Initiative (http://www.greenpressinitiative.org/) for their work in addressing issues relating to production and paper use in the book industry. What they are doing is hugely important and can and should have a truly significant impact on downstream environmental effects of the book industry. From their website:

The mission of the Green Press Initiative is to work with publishers, industry stakeholders and authors to create paper-use transformations that will conserve natural resources and preserve endangered forests.

Additionally, North American Publishing Company (NAPCO) has created a website devoted to environmental issues in the printing and book industries called Environmental Sustainability in Print and Publishing (http://www.sustainprint.com/), which is described as “a central source for information and resources for publishers and printers across all segments of the industry.”

What I have been thinking most about is the waste that is built into the publishing and distribution system. More books are printed annually than can possibly be absorbed by the retail stores that account for the bulk of trade book sales. And of the books that are “placed” in stores by publishers and distributors, at least 30% of them or more are returned unsold by retailers. What happens to them after they are returned? Some of the largest publishers do not bother sorting or putting any returned books back into new inventory; it’s less expensive for them to sell them as remainders into the secondary market, where they are redistributed at lower prices. For most smaller and medium sized publishers, and their distributors, systems have been developed to sort through returns. Some are discarded or sold as “hurts” because they have become too damaged or shopworn to be sold at retail as new. The rest are returned to new inventory to be re-sold and shipped to buyers unless or until demand subsides, at which point they will be sold off as remainders or recycled or dumped into landfills if, as often is the case, the secondary channel is too full and these books are deemed as completely unsalable.

For years, many in the book business have questioned whether this system is efficient or effective, and there have been endless discussions about how to limit returns, or eliminate them altogether. This is not something that publishers can initiate by themselves. Since retailers ultimately control the distribution channel, it will be up to them to determine whether the traditional returns system can and should be changed.

I would argue that reducing or even eliminating waste in the book business is not simply a matter of measuring the direct costs to the enterprise, although direct costs must be a primary element in any business decision, but that all of our actions and decisions must include a measurement of environmental and social costs. This is not a form of soft economics, but rather a correction in the way traditional economic analysis has been applied to business decision making. Environmental costs are not directly on the balance sheet, but they are always there indirectly and they are a real cost to any enterprise.

My next post will explore both direct and indirect costs and environmental impacts of book business practices, focusing on returns, and will explore simple systematic changes that can make a positive difference to publishers, distributors, retailers and the natural world we all inhabit.

In the meantime, I would welcome input, especially by those who have been actively trying to make environmental and ecological analysis a part of everyday business thinking, planning and decision making.

Writing, books and the future of writing, Part 5 of a long essay

Resources

Websites
http://www.futureofthebook.org/
http://b06.cgpublisher.com/
http://www.livewriters.com
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/peertopeer/
http://www.idealog.com/speeches/2006-02-11.html
http://futureofthebook.com/
http://www.themodernword.com
(Umberto Eco)
http://www.nytimes.com
http://www.firstmonday.org

Books
Jason Epstein: Book Business: Publishing Past, Present, and Future
Claudia Suzanne: This Business of Books: A Complete Overview of the Industry from Concept Through Sales
John B. Thompson: Books in the Digital Age: The Transformation of Academic and Higher Education Publishing in Britain and the United States
Chris Anderson: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More
James Surowiecki: The Wisdom of Crowds

end of essay

Writing, books and the future of reading - Part 4 of a long essay

(Parts One, Two and Three of this essay appear under the category of the same name to the left of this post or below this latest section of it)

A recent and important phenomenon is the proliferation of online game “worlds” that have grown to massive proportions over the past several years. In these worlds hundreds of thousands of “real” humans take on avatars or online identities and simulate economies that include all forms of human creation and interaction. Outside of the strictly gaming world, and attractive to many who would never play video games, “Second Life” has literally created a new virtual universe where “real” people inhabit and participate in a figurative universe.

These worlds are certainly “real” in an experienced sense, and are not lived in solely for entertainment, but for the experience of interaction that is so often not available in the daily experience of our fully alienated culture. Why should this not be a precursor of what is to come for art and culture? Why should art and culture not migrate to an online space for those people whose lives take place mostly online anyway?

This does not mean the death of the book. It may be part of “the end of the world as we know it” (as my favorite REM song reminds us.) Personally, I do not feel sadness about this, only curiosity. After all, these are all human endeavors created and experienced by human beings. Online art and culture is simply artifactual of another cultural language and cultural landscape. As any anthropologist knows, every culture creates its art forms from the landscape it inhabits. However influenced by the sensory input of these landscapes, cultural creativity is always human in shape and form.

So we will recognize this new world of art and culture even if we do not always understand its language.

The pace of technology and business change is so rapid that very few business managers, analysts, creative thinkers or other observers and participants with an interest in these matters are able to understand what is happening as it is happening. We are all now put in the position of surfing the world we live in, riding waves of change with as much finesse and grace as we can muster, knowing that like all surfers, we will eventually wipe out. Then we must go to shore, take a deep breath and paddle back into the ocean to ride again.

Even so, we are able to see the effects of changes that have already occurred and from what we know, make generalizations about what will happen to and through the cultural milieu of writing, ideas, knowledge, books and publishing.

The central fact of change driven by the distribution of ideas on the internet is the destruction of the authority model.

All we have known is a world in which knowledge and ideas are passed from one creative thinker, artist or writer to many consumers, as well as other artists and writers. This is how most modern cultures have worked for as long as we have known them. It is central to our (capitalist) production system as well.

In the new online world this is no longer the predominant model. A new paradigm has emerged, which is characterized by much more complicated lines of communication and creativity. In this model, that has developed most fully and powerfully in the community of computer programming and is called “open source,” a single creator may take an idea he or she has developed and make it public in such a way that many other creators or users can contribute to the ongoing developmental and creative process – this deconstructs the notion of a product, as there is never a final product, but rather a never ending product development process. As a model applied to literature, a novel might have multiple endings, or be rewritten endlessly by hundreds of editors and readers.

There are many famous examples of open source computer development, the most famous being the Linux operating system, as well as GNU, Basecamp, Joomla and a development platform called Ruby on Rails that has quickly attracted legions of programmers. And of course the now famous “Wikipedia” has more or less replaced the notion of an authority driven encyclopedia with one that is more accurate and up to date by harnessing the power and creativity of users.

The rules and social interaction systems of the “open source community” deserve careful study insofar as they can be used as models for many other forms of human social interaction, especially as humanity must face and conquer so many looming challenges.

In the world of literature we can imagine a future where writers might post an entire book, whose readers then create an intelligent index to it, enabling other readers to pick and choose to read only what they need or want from the experience of the work. Allowing others to filter the vast streams of knowledge and information that we are faced with in the modern world seems rational and completely in keeping with our current environment.

What this means is that there may never be another “great” writer or thinker as we have known them in the authority model of western culture. It has been almost 300 years since it was possible for an educated person to have read every meaningful book in print in the world. With such incredible amounts of art, culture, knowledge and ideas for us to choose from, and a growth in creativity that is expanding at geometric rates (seemingly growing faster than our population — though logically this cannot be true!), it is virtually impossible for any single human being to be able to synthesize a broad enough experience to create a message or medium that would appeal to enough people to gain one the stature of greatness equivalent to a Shakespeare or an Einstein or a Picasso or even a Joyce or a TS Eliot

While we may have lost the power of such authority figures to transfigure an entire cultural moment, we have gained the power of the many to create and propagate ideas in smaller channels within the culture. We may even have created a new diversity of culture – ironically returning us to a form of tribalism that Western culture diligently attempted to expunge from the planet for the past several hundred years. That may indeed be the greatest triumph of the new digital era – perhaps arriving at just the right moment, a time when we are faced with the critical need to harness all human energy and attention to the critical matters in the natural world, and to the disparities of human wealth and opportunity that mark our current environment of mass globalization.

Individuals and small groups may now emerge as the new units of culture as humankind returns to its tribal cultural roots in the vast cycle of change we both engender and experience within our worlds - the physical, spiritual and now the virtual spaces that we inhabit and that make us who we are.

Writing, books and the future of reading - Part 3 of a long essay

(Parts One and Two of this essay appear under the category of the same name to the left of this post)

For those interested in the actual technologies on the near horizon, and who are willing to experience science fiction first hand, a little research will turn up much that portends the future of the book. We will soon see digital paper with miniaturized power and memory enabling a single electronic sheet to carry hundreds or thousands of pages of information and all the navigational tools needed for readers to carry weightlessly in their pockets. Holographic projection technology enables the invention of a holographic book, where we could be “holding” a virtual book and turning virtual pages anywhere and anytime we wish to see them – or share them with a room full of colleagues (pocket projectors are on the market already and can do the presentation element quite well).

Computer memory growth is so rapid that it will be possible to store and rapidly access an entire personalized library with almost all the world’s knowledge in every home, homes that will be thoroughly networked so that written information, untethered from the physical container of the traditional book, will be available to every one of us at home or at work (and we shall see completely new tools to enable us to read and absorb this information as well). How our brains and psyches will adapt to these changes remains to be seen. But the technology that will enable such changes is no longer science fiction or futurist fancy.

Books, or more properly the book business, while slower to experience the disruption of digital technology than for example the music business, must face a myriad of challenges to the way business has been done in the 20th century. Now in the 21st century, we are seeing only the very beginnings of the many major disruptions to come.  These are based on ownership of rights, availability of information, the new technology of book creation and reading which will be followed by inevitable changes in distribution models derived from the new digital models.

Business is also faced with the inevitable effects of energy and natural resource costs and changes in patterns of human living. Printed books are heavily energy intensive to create as well as to ship. The current inefficiencies in the distribution system are simply unsustainable. And the interesting rise of the used book market demonstrates that readers desire to de-commoditize book, to treat them as cultural artifacts to be shared and traded socially in a new model of consumption.  Online social networking has already created new economies of trading in CDs, with books doubtless to follow, as resourceful human beings realize the power of shared goods as well as shared knowledge and creativity.

This will be a continuing trend that no modern publisher has yet to recognize constructively in its business model.

(There is both beauty and danger in removing all the rules!)

In addition, the World Wide Web has significantly altered the way ideas ebb and flow, as well as how they are consumed. This is true of all cultural activities insofar as electronic technology applies to them (music, television, film and writing, more so than plastic arts). Younger readers and consumers of digital information are commonly observed to be voracious multi-taskers. They can be talking on the telephone, instant messaging to and from large groups online, playing video games and watching cartoons on game consoles, all simultaneously. Whether this is good or bad is irrelevant, as it is so pervasive.

Children and now many younger adults have grown up consuming and interacting with culture in an online environment. They read and write constantly, but never in a quiet environment and almost never without interruption.

Their thought patterns and processes are being programmed in ways human cultures have never experienced before the present period, and we simply have no way to predict the ways, hows and whats they are learning will be applied once they become mature adults acting economically within the cultural marketplace. But we do know for certain that they have learned to consume and act upon knowledge and ideas differently from anyone’s experience before today, that when they read or write books, it will be done differently than any previous cultural experience, and it is also more likely that the containerized form of the book will be seen as obsolete by many if not most of the children and young adults living today.

The “virtual” world is the “real” world for those who live in it.

Writing, books and the future of reading - Part 2 of a long essay

Report from New York Comicon

I wrote about the show, primarily focusing on what it meant for book publishers; the piece below appeard in Publishers Lunch, March 5, 2007:

By all accounts Reed’s second New York Comicon was a big success. While they have not yet provided official statistics, the rough numbers indicate three-day attendance of approximately 40,000 people. That total includes about 4,000 registered trade visitors and exhibitors–among them 600 comic book retailers, 500 booksellers, andmore than 500 librarians.

Of course Comicon is primarily a consumer show (the floor was trade only on the first day, Friday until 4 pm)–something traditional comics players know well, but is relatively uncharted territory for book publishers. The aisles were packed with fans of all types and ages, wandering the show floor and participating in all the related and decidedly non-book activities (signings with comic artists and writers, video game demonstrations, and Dungeons and Dragons style board gaming, for example).

Book publishers exhibiting included Scholastic, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin, Roaring Brook’s .01 Second, Hachette (trade books as well as their new Yen imprint), various imprints of Random House [Ballantine, Pantheon, Del Rey and others], Continuum, Simon & Schuster, Watson Guptill and Abrams. Which means that there were some notable publishers not in attendance, and certainly no book distributors other than Diamond were to be seen.

All the publishers I interviewed were enthusiastic about the show, and seemed ready and able to interact with the throngs of people that crowded the aisles. We saw lots of books being handled, some being given away and quite a few being sold. But not every book publisher seemed to understand the difference between a trade show and a consumer show, and they will need to rethink their approach to the show in light of the energy demonstrated by so many of the comics and graphic novel publishers.

Most publisher booths did not seem designed with the kinds of fans that come to Comicon in mind. One booth we visited had no publisher representative for a considerable amount of time, leaving only a lonely but talkative author to draw people out of the crowds. Too many booths that felt like BEA, not Comicon.

It was clear that the comics publishers themselves, with much deeper roots in this market, appear to be more comfortable with their consumer base and know far better how to handle themselves at a consumer show. Many of the large and small comics publisher spaces were packed continuously, most notably Tokyopop, Viz, Dark Horse, Oni, Marvel and Vertigo.

Still, the presence of traditional book publishers and their growing commitment to comics publishing, graphic novels and pop culture was evident and clearly made an impact. The audience for comics and video games is a broad pop culture universe that book publishers need to understand and actively engage. Interacting with the people who make up this market as individuals is a remarkable opportunity for publishers of all kinds. The continuing growth of NY Comicon makes a great testing ground right in the backyard of many publishers to meet this enthusiastic consumer base and gain new consumer marketing skills to further engage with this lively (and crucial) market.

Booktrix creates Simplified Author Website Program

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Our feature list includes everything an author will need to create and maintain a powerful presence on the web.  Our sites work for web novices and experienced users.  Your individual author or book site will be designed to fit the nature of your work, and will reflect your values and design input.  And you will find it easy to maintain and add to your site over time – so you can truly own your own “home” page on the Internet.

We take a streamlined, smart approach to every project and believe that the best work is done efficiently and economically – stay simple, and deploy quickly.

Our pricing reflects our dedication to simplicity without sacrificing quality, flair and intelligence.  And every site comes with valuable support: a simple to use administrative interface, technical assistance for non-technical people, even free hosting for the first year of service.

If you are interested in learning more contact us right away. We’ll send you a brochure, show you some of our work, and make it easy for you to make your presence felt on the web.

Distribution Basics

The latest news regarding the PGW component of the larger AMS bankruptcy is promising, at least for the PGW clients. Perseus will purchase Avalon, the largest PGW client, and has enlisted Charlie Winton, Avalon’s principal (and also the founder of PGW), to come on board. Perseus then reportedly made a very favorable offer to the remaining PGW client publishers - proposing to take over their contracts and in a relatively short period of time, make good on something like 70% of the money owed to them by the bankrupt PGW.

This is a far better outcome than any of the publishers could possibly expect from PGW either in liquidation or any reorganized version of it, so it would seem likely that most, if not all of the PGW publishers will make the move to what will now be a powerhouse distributor in Perseus (which already had absorbed CDS and Consortium).

****

This seems as good a time as any to talk about book distribution, how how it works, and will work in the future, and what publishers and even authors should know about the dynamics of working their way through the supply chain to market and sell their books to readers.

Over the past several years, the overall landscape of the book business has changed considerably. There are still many, many places to buy books in the United States and buying books online has become big business (Amazon alone now represents as much as 10% of total books sold), the number of entities buying books for resale has declined. Something like 90% of all books sold by an average book publisher will go to fewer than 10 customers - including wholesalers!

Faced with hundreds or even thousands of book publishers, retailers and wholesalers rely on distributors to help them rationalize their supply chain. It’s more or less impossible to sell books to Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-a-Million or Costco without a distributor, and while anyone can sell to Amazon, it’s alot easier utilizing the services of a professional book distributor.

And while there are still a fair number of distributors in business today, along with larger publishers and university presses that offer distribution services to smaller client publishers, recent bankruptcies and purchases have clearly narrowed the field.

With a more concentrated retail marketplace, distributors are rationalizing their business models, some are specializing in certain types of books or publishers, while others are setting more stringent size requirements for publishers they will work with. Since it has become relatively cheap and easy to publish books, distribution is now much more of a buyer’s market, as there are simply so many books and so many new publishers. It has clearly become more difficult for a new publisher to find a distributor, even as distributors compete amongst themselves to sign up the relatively few publishers whose sales volume or sales profiles makes them highly attractive as clients.

Publishers of different sizes and profiles have very different choices available to them. Generally, the size of the publisher dictates the distribution models available - smaller publishers have fewer options, the largest publishers have the greatest array of models to choose from.

***

In our next post, we will cover the different distribution options available to publishers of varying sizes. One note for all publishers who currently are distributed by another company - no matter the size of the distributor, you should file a UCC-1 form memorializing your ownership of inventory consigned to your distributor with the Secretary of the State within which your books are warehoused. If you have not done this yet, do it immediately! If you need specific advice about distribution contact Booktrix - we can help.

E-commerce and Selling Direct to Consumers

If you are a publisher or author, the web enables you to have a direct relationship with your readers.  We can help you learn how to take advantage of this opportunity.  Do not delay!  Start now.  The sooner you begin, the faster you will learn, and the more books you will sell.
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