Publishing Trends Blog

Publishing Trends Blog Has Moved

2009-05-27T15:51:00.003-04:00

We have integrated the Publishing Trends blog into our new website. Check it out here.
Blog posts are denoted with a mouse symbol and "Exclusive Online Content."
Hope you will enjoy having everything in one place! We will be taking this blog down soon.

IDPF Digital Book 2009: Forget DRM

2009-05-12T16:10:00.010-04:00

The afternoon panels and presentations at yesterday's International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF) Digital Book 2009 were filled with promises of impending hardware and software innovations. Sony Director of Business Development Bob Nell talked about the number of outlets that will be selling the Sony Reader next Christmas--6,000, which is double last year's number--and hinted that wireless and Mac-compatible readers are on the horizon. Adobe's Nick Bogaty demonstrated how the latest version of CS4 allows direct (and reflowable) ePub export from InDesign. Lexcycle's Neelan Choksi showed Stanza's true range--the iPhone app comes in 12 languages, 21 fonts, and a stunning 135 font colors, plus background textures--and its 1.8 million users come from 60 countries.

But the major theme of all the talks was--ultimately, and appropriately--the consumer. As Smart Bitches, Trashy Books blogger Sarah Wendell put it, what all readers want is a device that is "durable, flexible, accessible, affordable....[Readers] can help you grow the digital book market if you stop creating obstacles for them."

One current obstacle, said panelists at "Emerging eBook Business Models...and the Role of DRM," is DRM. Here's what Andrew Savikas, VP of Digital Initiatives at O'Reilly, had to say.

Direct book sales through O'Reilly's website make up 10% of its business, and most of those sales are digital books. When customers buy eBooks directly through the site, they receive free lifetime updates--and the books are DRM-free. Meanwhile, because of those benefits, O'Reilly has been able to sustain an eBook price that is 80% of the print book price.

Best of all, eBook sales have impacted print sales positively. For example, O'Reilly offers its book iPhone: The Missing Manual by David Pogue as an iPhone app, a printed book, and an eBook. When O'Reilly raised the app's price, fewer people bought the app AND sales of the printed book on Amazon fell. When O'Reilly lowered the app's price, people bought more copies of both the app and the printed book.

Our New Website!

2009-05-01T15:38:00.001-04:00

Our new website is up...and lovely, if we do say so ourselves.

The address is the same. Check it out at http://www.publishingtrends.com.

Hands Across the Ocean

2009-04-23T18:03:00.001-04:00

On Shakespeare’s birthday, it seems only fitting to talk about the London Book Fair and what it suggests re book publishing’s future. It was, as others have said a smaller fair than in recent years, and there were noticeably fewer Americans, with some publishers (viz Random, Scholastic) represented only by their sub rights people.

A focus of the fair became – whether by design or default – the US/UK continuum. There were panels on what, how much and how Americans read vis-à-vis their British brethren (who are slightly likelier to be so, rather than sistren). London’s mayor, Boris Johnson, noted that London has twice the numbers of bookstores as New York, and made fun of Americans for being poor practitioners of the English language.

Meanwhile, on the floor of the exhibit hall and in the International Rights Center, the tug of war between the UK and their US counterparts continued apace and as the traditional channels shrink, the debate will only intensify. It was easy when a publisher bought a book, and if it owned them, sold rights around the world, and territories were recognized – and recognizable. Nowadays, if the UK and US publisher belong to the same corporation, one edition comes out in the UK, and finds its way to Europe. If not, then increasingly two editions vie for shelfspace. Publisherslunch refers to an article in Deutsche Welle about English language books, noting “One reason US and UK publishers are fighting over export rights is the fast rise in sales of English-language books in Germany, where the Booksellers' Association says market share has doubled to 3 percent over the past five years.”

In a digital world, all bets are off. Who – the publisher(s), the etailer(s), the ebook reader(s) platform -- controls which territory? Who controls the online marketing of a p- or ebook? What about the publisher’s niche sites, created to attract teens or science fiction fans, or romance readers? When does its oversite reside with the local publisher, and when does it become part of the corporate strategy? It’s one more thing for US publishers to fight with their UK colleagues over – and vice versa. Ironically, though US publishers often have (or had, in an era before draconian cuts) larger biz dev budgets for online initiatives, the UK is ahead of the US in certain key areas, like mobile usage.

Retro though it is in the digital realm, perhaps it’s still important for publishers working on all aspects of the business to remember that besides Shakespeare, this is also World Book & Copyright Day.

The Ultimate Publishing Blogroll

2009-04-17T10:26:00.002-04:00

We are compiling a giant list of publishing blogs for the May issue of Publishing Trends. We'll also be posting it online and constantly updating it on our BRAND NEW WEBSITE (coming very soon, stay tuned!) What are your favorite publishing blogs? Whether they are about books, design, or writing or are from publishing houses or literary agencies, e-mail them to me or list them in the comments.

Cuba is (not) book country

2009-04-07T10:47:00.003-04:00

Last week a group of publishing folk, moonlighting as humanitarian aid workers, invaded Cuba. We spent the week in Havana and its environs and – because it was the 10th Havana Art Biennial – found ourselves immersed in a vibrant city-wide exhibition that focused on third world and Latino artists.

Havana is a mass of contradictions – beautiful colonial architecture backing on to dusty, crumbling buildings; state run bookstores that are almost empty of books and people, down the street from a thriving Mondadori store geared to tourists; eager and articulate locals who admit they are cut off from the “real world,” while continuing to refer un(self)consciously to 1959 as the “triumph of the revolution.”

Though we were interested in meeting with Cuban writers and understanding the contemporary literary scene, writing is, as it happens, the least developed of Cuba’s remarkably sophisticated cultural cache. The visual arts – paintings, photography, sculpture, graphic arts – are well represented, even in non-biennial years, and subversive political content seems “allowed,” if within limits. Music is everywhere, and Cuban dance companies – modern, classical and Spanish flamenco – are world-renowned, in part because dancers get to perform outside of Cuba. (Six dancers had recently defected while performing in Mexico, though we were told this would not have an effect on the group’s future touring.)

But books and writing in general suffer from the gatekeeper syndrome: how can you find an audience unless your efforts are correct enough to be acceptable to the retailers who – with the single exception of the tourist store on the Plaza de Armas, which is stocked with Stephen King, Isabel Allende and Dostoevsky, among others – are state-owned? Though some publishers, like that run by the Union of Cuban Artists and Writers (UNEAC), are “non-governmental” and have an independent editorial board consisting of union members, the distinction is moot when books are sold through sanctioned retailers and all media are also controlled by the state. And in a world where the internet is closely regulated (there is a state-wide “intranet” system, but computers are prohibitively expensive for most Cubans), modern options like POD or ebooks are of course nonexistent. As a result, books published in Cuba are of decreasing interest to its inhabitants, with the typical printing running between 1,000 and (occasionally) 5,000. Nor can people go to libraries to find something to read, as these too are government-run, and seem to have few contemporary books or indeed books of any vintage. (A school library we visited had mostly yellowing textbooks, dictionaries, and propaganda – and nine dog-eared copies of Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, in Scribner paperbacks vintage 1965.)

Indeed, a union member explained that books are not published simply to provide entertainment, but rather (as one of our guides put it) to promote “real values.” But commercial fare is nevertheless available: at an artist’s kiosk in the Capitol Building, a Spanish language copy of Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons was spied and in the state-run bookstore we visited, there were, in addition to Che and Fidel speeches, a lot of books by Danielle Steel, Nicholas Sparks, Elizabeth George and Michael Crichton, as well as a (fairly recent) biography of Sigourney Weaver!

Still, there is an annual International Festival of Poetry in Havana, and the Cuba International Book Festival draws publishers from Latin America and elsewhere. Initially also a Havana fair, it was, apparently, Fidel’s idea to make the event a national celebration so that all Cubans could meet authors – and pitch their books to publishers. His suggestion that fairs be held simultaneously across the island was impractical – it was difficult for authors who might want to visit their home towns, but still participate in the hubbub of the Havana fair – and now the festival travels throughout the country on successive days, thereby allowing authors to travel around the country, courtesy of the state. Rights to some books are sold abroad at this fair, and some publishers attend other fairs as well. Authors receive a portion of the royalties -- small, according to UNEAC representatives, though they’re lobbying the government to increase it. To access UNEAC’s site, go to http://www.uneac.org.cu/

Above: Hemingway’s typewriter at his estate, Finca Vigia. No books are available in any language at the gift shop. T-shirts, random CDs and postcards, however, are.

This is Lorraine Shanley’s second – but not last – trip to Cuba. Thanks to fellow travelers Bill Goldstein for suggesting the title and for editing this posting, and to Harold Weinberg for the photograph of Hemingway’s Corona.

Publishing Trends, April 2009

2009-04-01T15:01:00.002-04:00

Just posted on the Publishing Trends website, new content from our April 2009 issue:

April Book View

Book Clubs: They're Alive.
Depending on whom you ask, liberal and conservative readers are both underserved audiences, and the Progressive Book Club and Conservative Book Club seek to fill the respective gaps. David Rosen, editor of PBC, and Elizabeth Kantor, editor of CBC, say their book clubs are necessary because they are reaching out to readers who can't find the books they want to read anywhere else.

What's the Story with Bookspan?
Despite its sale by the Bertelsmann Group to Najafi Companies last year, Bookspan's 21 book clubs (including Book-of-the-Month Club, Doubleday Book Club, Quality Paperback Club, and Literary Guild) still exist. Given the company's tumultuous past few years, how has it held up?

Book Publishers Are Scarce at SXSW

2009-03-16T11:57:00.004-04:00

Book publishers--and agents--are scarce at SXSW’s Interactive Festival, and when they do show up, they’re not always treated with love and respect (see Booksquare's "New Think? Not So Much"), but at worst it’s a love-hate relationship between the digital crowd and the page turners. At best--and there is a bright side--it’s because this crowd (about 9,000 of them) loves books and wants publishers to do with them what digital creatives have been able to do to movies, music, comics, art, games, and many other aspects of life--enhance it in ways that makes it smarter, more intuitive, faster, more responsive.

The few publishers at SXSW include several from Penguin, which hosted an inadvertently raucous panel that pitted a group of publishers against an angry crowd of bloggers, authors, and digerati. The panel included Clay Shirky and Bloomsbury’s Peter Miller as well as the two Penguins, Ivan Held and John Fagan, who--to give them credit--chose to come to Austin because they knew they should engage with this group. In the audience were a few others, including Taunton’s Don Linn. Several more are also at SXSW, but given the amount of book talk here, it's amazing what a disconnect there is between the book talk and the book publishers present. Nate Silver, in his interview with Stephen Baker (The Numerati), mentioned Irrational Exuberance and Nixonland. Silver is also writing (okay, he admitted, still outlining) a book for, ironically, Penguin Press. A panel of teenagers assembled by Anastasia of Ypulse revealed that, despite being obsessed with iPhones, Xboxes, and MySpace/Facebook, they are readers too--Stephen King, J. D. Salinger, Watchmen, Joe Haldeman--all read as p- or e-books, depending on where they can get them fast and free.

There are also dozens of author signings, right in the middle of the trade show, where B&N has set up a ministore. Oh, and lots of authors, including Jeff Howe, Chris Rettstatt, Guy Kawasaki, Sloane Crosley--in a range of categories, from fantasy, business, marketing, to futurist, and humor books--have long lines of fans.

But the point is not just that there are books are readers here in Austin; the point is that there are creative people who are blogging, tweeting, composing, developing, and conceptualizing in a remarkable variety of areas that could both inform publishing and out of which brilliant and marketable books could emerge. Why isn’t the book world in this glorious playpen?

If you are a book publisher who's at SXSW this year, let us know in the comments.

From Production to Interaction

2009-03-13T13:25:00.002-04:00

For those of us who are in the business of keeping abreast of industry trends, this week will rank as one of the busiest, filled with all manner of diverting events.

It started tamely enough with the American Book Producers Association's annual conference, which had actually been moved from the end of last year to March 10 in hopes of attracting a larger crowd (it did). As usual, the morning sessions were devoted to walking members through the nuts and bolts of the business, but in the afternoon, two panels brought a group of publishers and consulting types on to the stage to opine. In the first panel HarperCollins' Carolyn Pittis got a discussion on "The Internet and Electronic Publishing" going. Everyone had a story to share, including Seth Radwell, recently of Scholastic, who talked about a survey he's been involved with on converting readers to ebook buyers. It shows that the barriers to ebook purchase are cost (61%) and lack of experience with the product (57%), followed by two lesser issues personal preferences (40%) and convenience (37%), resulting in only 1% of the 55% of those aware of ebooks actually completing a purchase. However, 'Try it, you'll like it' is true -- more than a third of those who tried, bought. The digital panel was followed by a "Trends in Publishing" panel, where Bob Miller, David Steinberger, Doug Pocock and Don Weisberg shared their insights about dealing with the changing landscape (stressing focus/niche/quality) after Google's Roland Lange had attempted to turn the panel into yet another informercial for Google Book Search.

That subject was front and center on March 11 at the annual AAP meeting, which included a demo of the new Google Books Registry (www.googlebooksettlement.com) along with an interview with Google's Chief Legal Officer, David Drummond. But with Bill Clinton as the surprise speaker, it was hard to concentrate on much else. Still, John Sargent said a fond farewell to AAP CEO Pat Schroeder, but not before ribbing her for signing her name at the bottom of letters, accompanied by a smiley face. (Is it a surprise that she's retiring to Celebration, Florida?)

Now comes the interactive side of the week -- South By Southwest, where developers, social networkers, and the occasional publisher will mingle in between panels on "Online Comic Books," "Remixing the Museum Exhibition" and "SEO for Startups." Penguin is throwing a party for Clay Shirkey right after a panel on "New Think for Old Publishers," and Sourcebooks' Dominique Raccah will undoubtedly be hanging out with Taunton's Don Linn, Cookstr's Will Schwalbe and Fourth Story Media's Lisa Holton -- all old (or ex-) publishers who think very, very new.

Twitter Trends on Trend Central

2009-03-11T11:12:00.003-04:00

Trend Central is a great site that covers up and coming people and trends in music, lifestyle, entertainment, and media. Today their topic is what's new with Twitter, including:

Twitter Branding: Want to check out how the competition is using Twitter? A new directory of tweeting brands, Twitter Tracker, compiles real-time updates from companies using the service, such as Whole Foods, JetBlue, and Starbucks.

Check out the full list here. You can also sign up to have their short trend newsletters e-mailed to you daily.

How TSTC Publishing Uses Twitter

2009-03-06T11:31:00.005-05:00

Since our article on how book publishers should be using Twitter, some other publishers have chimed in with their own experiences. Here's Mark Long, publisher of TSTC Publishing in Texas, on how Twitter can help small companies track larger trends:

"For me, I think the best part of Twitter is being able to engage in the ongoing 'conversation' about the publishing industry . . . something I wouldn't be able to do face to face as we're based in Waco, Texas. We follow bookstores, bookstore buyers, sales reps, freelance consultants, and, of course, other publishers. It's a great way to stay in the loop of what's happening in the industry all over the country (and beyond) and not just working in a vacuum in our own office. And, it's nice to be able to drop these folks a line periodically to ask (and answer on our own end as well) questions that crop up that are pretty specific that nobody we know around here could address.

"Plus, given that I was really interested in publishing long before I began working in it, I think Twitter is a good way to get a sense of the day-to-day realities of the industry. (It's certainly not long martini lunches . . . although we do eat at On The Border pretty regularly with folks.) I was a college English teacher for about 10 years and I like Twittering in the sense that it gives our graphics and editorial interns an idea of what goes on outside of the specific work they do for us as well so there is that teaching/informing aspect to it."

Follow TSTC Publishing on Twitter at @tstcpublishing and read the company's blog here.

Twitter article posted!

2009-03-04T10:08:00.002-05:00

Thanks to all who helped us with our Twitter article. The March issue is now out, and you can read it here:
http://www.publishingtrends.com/copy/09/0903/0903Twitter.html

Plus, check out Chelsea Green's amazing Twitter story here--they're a great model for how a publishing company can use Twitter successfully.
http://www.publishingtrends.com/copy/09/0903/0903ChelseaGreen.html

We'll be continuing the Twitter discussion here on the blog--stay tuned!

Publishers and Twitter

2009-02-19T10:13:00.002-05:00

The feature article in our March issue will be about how book publishers can use Twitter--which, as Chris Brogan says, is an increasingly important business tool. We would love to include input from blog readers in the article. Let us know your thoughts in the comments, via e-mail, or, of course, on Twitter.

Do you and/or your company use Twitter?
If you do, what has your experience been like?
If you don't use Twitter, why not?
How do you think book publishers should be using Twitter? Do you follow any book publishers on Twitter? Whose Tweets do you like, and why?
Any great Twitter business stories to share?

5 Things We Learned About Teens at TOC

2009-02-12T13:18:00.006-05:00

At TOC on Wednesday afternoon, we attended "Youth and Creativity: Emerging Trends in Self-expression and Publishing," a session by Evangeline Haughney (Adobe) and Bill Westerman (Create with Context). They hung out with real teenagers in their homes to get a look at their creative processes. When choosing which teens to follow, they looked for those who were creative, but not necessarily planning to go into art or design after high school. They picked those who were involved in interesting self-expression activities and who were creating digital media to share with others outside their immediate circles of friends. Here are five not-so-obvious takeaways (beyond the fairly apparent "Teens want to create identities for themselves online" and "In general, teens are pretty tech-savvy"). (The panel didn't focus much on book publishing, but it provides useful background to YA publishers who want a better look at what their target audiences are doing online.)

Teens don't see buying a software program (like Adobe Photoshop) as a major "life event." Whereas people in their twenties and thirties may sign up for classes and buy instruction manuals after purchasing a program, teens churn through many different technologies quickly, using programs only for what they need and then moving on.
At the same time, teens feel as if they have mastered these programs. Westerman pointed out that when he asks an adult, professional Photoshop user if she knows everything there is to know about Photoshop, that adult will usually answer, "No, I haven't even scratched the surface." Teens, on the other hand, will answer, "Yeah, I know Photoshop." Nor are they concerned that they haven't learned all the "right" ways of doing things with a program--they're concentrated on the outcome, not the tool. They don't ask, "How do I use the masking tool?" They ask, "How can I create a cool rain effect?"
That's not to say that teens aren't asking for help. They are! But they're going to their peers online or typing queries into Google. There's a return of the "apprenticeship"--teens learning skills from their more knowledgable peers, actively seeking critiques of their work, and really adopting a craft mentality. Learning is a process of watching and doing on the fly. "There's no more learning curve," Westerman said.
Any niche site can become a social hub--teens aren't just using Facebook for social networking. One subject in the study, "David," spent most of his time on the "Silverfish Longboarding" discussion boards. (A longboard is a type of skateboard.) These microcommunities give teens, who tend to define themselves through 2 or 3 major interests when creating online personas, a sense of belonging.
Teens aren't using the fanciest, newest technology. Most of those surveyed had fairly old computers and older versions of software. They were making do with what they had. And they were not pirating software. One teen, "Gina," bought a copy of Adobe Photoshop with her friend at Costco, and the girls took turns using it at home, since they only had one license.

Haughney said that future studies will target teens who DO plan to enter the design field after graduation, since the ways they are using technology now may have a major effect on the field--and on how software is designed.

TOC: The Narrative Is Changing

2009-02-12T09:45:00.003-05:00

On the final day of TOC, Tim O’Reilly gave his keynote, following on the heels of the inventive Nick Bilton from the NYT’s R&D labs. (Bilton created the interactive website for David Carr’s book.) Much of what he discussed was focused on the topic that was subsequently addressed at the next session, where a group assembled to address the big issue: The Changing Role of the Publisher. Not surprisingly, given TOC’s pursuit of the future, the only traditional publishers were Michael Hyatt from Thomas Nelson and O’Reilly himself. And even these two would hardly be considered traditional in any other setting.

All the participants argued for greater interplay between author, reader, and publisher. Eileen Gittins of Blurb.com claimed that the company doesn’t publish, but rather goes after “folks who’ve got stuff” that they want to share. With triple digit growth since its founding, “we’ve tacked to that part of the slipstreams and found a goldmine,” she announced. There is also an ongoing effort to get the community of folks all over the world who have money but don’t know how to publish together with those who have skills but no money: BlurbNation. Ultimately, this cross-promotion “amplifies word of mouth.” In an ambitious demonstration of that idea, Blurb worked with flickr and the Tate Modern to create a participatory show of street photography. Tate curated the work that came out of it into a book, which Blurb sold. To celebrate the participatory event, the Tate threw a party for 5,000 people.

Lulu.com’s Bob Young basically said he planned to follow Blurb’s lead, but meanwhile he also is seeing an uptick in revenues and titles published--5,000 a week. He surmised that there has been a huge increase in people who meant to write a book and are now unemployed, so have the time. Clint Greenleaf of the Greenleaf Book Group argued that to break out of the pack, the author must create a platform, but that the credibility of work is what counts.

Like all the participants, Thomas Nelson’s Michael Hyatt Twitters, because it draws attention to what is going on at the company, and creates specialist blogs that often highlight books. A recent innovation is a book review bloggers site that allows serious reviewers to get review book

Tim O’Reilly, who published his wife’s play on Lulu, talked of the Lulu and Blurb models as publishing as a social act--a chance to share an experience. These publishers offer a combination of social networking and the creation/curation/production of books. The book is, in the Lulu sense of publishing, “a souvenir of that shared activity.” But there is much traditional publishers can learn from it. Earlier he had talked about O’Reilly’s “Rough Cut” initiative, a peer review program whose books are getting 2.5 times the revenue of books that weren’t in the program. As he said earlier, but could have reiterated to sum up the discussion, “Participation drives revenue.”

Factoid from Nick Bilton: The number of links on the Huffington Post alone in one day is 657. Multiplied by the average media consumer’s grazing, that’s 162,000 possible links in a day. “Our social networks are becoming paths to social aggregation--swarm intelligence to disseminate content flow.”

10 Things We Learned from Chris Brogan at TOC

2009-02-10T10:30:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, PT attended Chris Brogan's "Blogging and Social Media" tutorial at Tools of Change for Publishing 2009. Brogan is a social media/community-building super blogger--check him out here. His panel wasn't a lecture or traditional speech; rather, it was a conversation with the audience. He jumped from topic to topic; showed us his Facebook, Google Reader, and Twitter pages; played his friends' YouTube clips and book trailers; and took questions throughout. Here are ten takeaways:

Focus on grabbing your customers' attention and keeping it. Don't get too upset over the fact that people's attention spans are short. "We don't have time for Moby Dick," says Brogan. "It's at once depressing and a reality."
Twitter is THE social media tool publishers should learn how to use. (If you keep hearing about Twitter but have no idea what it is, don't worry--it will be the topic of the feature article in the March issue of PT!) Many people in the audience were Tweeting throughout the panel, and when someone asked a question about book social networking sites, Brogan Tweeted the question to his followers and got many answers within a few seconds.
Twitter is a better marketing tool than MySpace or Facebook because it allows users to develop genuine relationships with each other. Brogan described most MySpace and Facebook marketing as being much too pushy and impersonal: "If I'm using my hand to shake your hand, don't put your tongue in my mouth."
How should publishers (and others) decide which social networking sites to use? Brogan recommends they find out where their customers are, and go there. And it's better to be very involved with them on one site than to do a lackluster job of being everywhere: "If you're going to be everywhere," Brogan said, "you have to answer the phone and you have to offer customer service everywhere."
Try putting your slush pile online! What a great way to find out what readers would be interested in before you publish it.
Want to try something new? Don't look to other book publishers for ideas, Brogan says. Instead, "Why not rip off people in other verticals? Can you adapt it to what you're doing?" Take a look at Viddler, for instance--it's like YouTube, but lets users comment on and tag specific parts of a video.
Segregate your list! Forget the "Here's everything we're publishing" e-mail blast. If you're a publisher, nobody is interested in ALL your books. You can use technology to splice your lists and target specific people with only the ones they'll be interested in. To help you do this, check out BatchBook.
It's all about the fans. "It is always awesome when the would-be famous person celebrates the audience, rather than the other way around," says Brogan. "That never goes out of style."
A quality blog is always trying to interact, rather than just delivering or pushing content. "You are hoping to inspire some level of two-way," Brogan says, even if it's not on the blog. Seth Godin, for example, doesn't allow comments on his blog. He'd rather have readers write their own ideas on their own blogs and link back to him.
Books are a distribution problem. "Think of solutions that are not so DRM-ful," he says to publishers--i.e., don't focus on protecting your content from people who would want to read it. "You will not lose all money," he says. "You will lose some money. But you lose money every time you release a book. It's called marketing."

Librarians on Street Lit

2009-02-05T17:04:00.005-05:00

Brooklyn and NYPL librarians recently ran a survey about street lit (what is it? here's Wikipedia's entry), and they've written up the results in the most recent issue of School Library Journal. Some findings:

49% of the respondents worked in urban libraries, 43% in suburban libraries, and 8% in rural libraries. 92.5% offered street lit in their collections.
Of the 7.5% not offering street lit (and, no, they're not all from rural areas!), 50% say it's because there's "no patron interest."
A librarian from urban Ohio wrote, "Our library director does not allow us to buy it because he feels it is inappropriate for our town....I am going to try to sneak some in.”
Street lit is often stolen, possibly because some patrons feel embarrassed about checking it out. To help solve this problem, the authors say librarians should shelve street lit where it's easy to find and be ready to answer questions about it openly and cheerfully.
An encouraging result, the authors write: "One thing we hoped our survey would show is that street lit is bringing nonreading teens into the public library—and that appears to true. Indeed, librarians are actively using street lit as a jumping-off point to create relationships with teens. As a librarian in an urban California library wrote, 'Talking about urban fiction with teens is a great way to get to know them… Having read some of the titles and/or at least being familiar with them helps to start the relationship.'"

For the full article, and examples from the "street lit canon," click here. And here are street lit resources for librarians--including lists of publishers and popular titles for teens.

Creative Commons image from satanslaundromat on Flickr.

Why Do You Go to the Library?

2009-02-05T10:11:00.007-05:00

In the most recent issue of Publishing Trends, we wrote about book rental companies BookSwim, Booksfree, and Paperspine. Read the article here.

The comment that leapt out at me during the interview process and has stuck in my head since I wrote the article was from Doug Ross, CEO of Booksfree, who said:

"When you go into a library, more than half the space is taken up with entertainment product. Mass market paperbacks and hardcovers are all over the place and there's a little bit of room where kids can go in and do research and use computers."

I found the phrase "entertainment product" totally jarring and assumed librarians would hate it, too. But when Ross posted similar comments in a response to a post entitled "Will Libraries Go the Way of Video Stores?" on Strollerderby, the librarians who responded in turn weren't outraged at him. They seemed more irritated by the original post. One commenter, Matthew, wrote:

"Admittedly, I am annoyed by this reoccuring question: 'Will libraries go the way of videostores?' or, phrased another way, 'Have libraries outlived their necessity?'. Both of these questions assume that libraries are primarily about books, and not about information & literacy. All of this assumes that all citizens have the same level of easy access to newer technologies, and that class doesn’t separate us as information consumers."

It's true that I, and most people reading this entry, don't need to use computers at the library because they have their own computers at home and at work. And the realization that librarians themselves think libraries are much more than books is a good reminder that they are many different things to different people. So how ARE people using libraries? The results of a recent Pew survey "challenge the assumption that libraries are losing relevance in the internet age. Libraries drew visits by more than half of Americans (53%) in the past year for all kinds of purposes, not just the problems mentioned in this survey. And it was the young adults in tech-loving Generation Y (age 18-30) who led the pack. Compared to their elders, Gen Y members were the most likely to use libraries for problem-solving information and in general patronage for any purpose."

We'll delve into more of the results of the Pew report in the next post.

PT will still never refer books "entertainment product," though.

Photo: Flickr Creative Commons, Here's Kate, "The Library"

Mike Shatzkin and StartwithXML

2008-11-14T11:29:00.005-05:00

This morning, I attended the beginning of BISG's BISAC meeting, so that I could see Mike Shatzkin of the Idea Logical Company present selected results from his recent "StartwithXML" Survey. For more info, go here: http://toc.oreilly.com/startwithxml/, or if you're not sure what XML is, go to Tools of Change's "XML" explanation.

Also, learn more at the upcoming StartwithXML (Why and How) one-day forum. It will be held in the McGraw-Hill Auditorium on January 13, 2009. Details and registration here, and friends of Publishing Trends get an special discount for a limited time:

$100 off the full-day conference; register between 11/21 and 1/1/09; use code pubtrends
$50 off the half-day conference; register between 11/21 and 1/1; use code pubtrends_halfday

On to the preliminary survey results:

About 100 people completed the survey.
54% of respondents were from all or partly trade publishers; 36% non-trade.
Most were from big houses. 77% were not IT professionals--Shatzkin pointed out that it was good to get a response from people who aren't directly involved with XML. BUT there was a light response from editorial (13%), marketing (7%), and sales (5%)--XML is still the purview of "the hard side of the publishing house."

The survey supported the idea that publishers still aren't so sure about all this digital stuff:

In response to the statement, "Digital is very important and informs everything we do": 40% of NON-TRADE publishers agree, but only 18% of trade publishers agree.
43% of trade publishers say they are "trying to understand" the importance of digital.

I learned the term "downstream re-use": use of a book's content beyond the print edition. When publishers acquire a book, are they thinking about using its content for something after that first print edition? Not really:

19% of trade publishers say they ignore downstream use when they acquire a book, as compared to 9% of non-trade publishers.
34% of trade publishers say they basically ignore chunking and re-combining opportunities--what Shatkin calls the "sexiest parts" of XML.

Shatzkin says that expanded editions of books are an untapped opportunity--only 8% of trade publishers are actively offering them, but they "should become automatic," and second printings of books should always have something in them that the first printing didn't have.

Since two-thirds of those surveyed agreed that digital is "important" or "very important," they might do well to attend the conference and learn more about XML.

Survey Results: The Last Non-Work-Related Book You Read

2008-10-16T10:40:00.005-04:00

What are publishing people reading outside of work?* A sampling:

LITERARY-LEANING BESTSELLERS

Lots of you just finished or are reading The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, which is Oprah's most recent Book Club pick (as predicted by GalleyCat readers!) and #2 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction bestseller list.
David Sedaris's When You Are Engulfed in Flames was also a popular choice, as was
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz, newly released in paperback.

AWFUL BESTSELLERS

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

? BESTSELLERS

That Potato Peel book
Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler. (Also referred to as "Is That You, Vodka?")

POLITICAL FOODY BOOKS

The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan
The United States of Arugula by David Kamp
The Fortune Cookie Chronicles by Jennifer 8. Lee

*"All books are work related."--Editor at a large house

Our New E-Reader Survey

2008-10-14T17:08:00.003-04:00

Do you work at a publishing house that supplies e-readers to some or all of its employees? We'd love it if you'd take our new survey, here:

Publishing Trends E-Reader Survey

Thanks!

Survey Results: Non-Work-Related Reading

2008-10-10T15:09:00.005-04:00

As we noted in our original article, a lot of publishing people don't have as much time as they'd like to read for fun because they're too busy reading for work. "The work day never ends--'so much to read' is a blessing and a curse," wrote one agent, while an editor described her heavy reading load as "too much of a good thing."

Still, 34.3% of respondents find the time to read one or two non-work-related books a month. Here's the rest of the breakdown:
0-1 non-work-related books: 17.4%
2-3: 22.4%
3-4: 13.1%
4-5: 3.2%
5+: 9.6%

Who are these champs who read at least 4 non-work-related books a month? Perhaps not surprisingly, 34.1% are agents and 25% are editors. They'd surely win a library summer-reading contest, if there were such a thing for adults.

Survey Results: When Is Happy Hour?

2008-10-10T10:41:00.007-04:00

It's Friday, and it's been a hard week. If you're going to happy hour with a publishing crowd after work today, expect lots of people to order red wine--the drink of choice for 35.8% of respondents. 16.7% prefer white. One respondent just loves "good delicious wine." 5.3% go for vodka tonics, and 3.5% like Bud Light.

But many more do NOT like Bud Light. We're sorry we didn't give beer lovers more choices, and they called us out on it:

"Beer that isn't Bud Light. Yeesh."
"Any beer but Bud Light"
"Come on folks, a publishing survey without craft beers? We're not all girls."

Sorry. We'll add microbrews to the list next year.

For now, what's your favorite happy hour spot? Let us know in the comments.

Survey Results: Salary

2008-10-08T14:23:00.008-04:00

How much money do you make? It's a personal question, but we asked it, and most respondents answered. Here's the salary breakdown:

3.2% of respondents make less than $30,000.
24.8% make $30,000-$50,000.
13.9% make $50,000-$60,000.
7.7% make $60,000-$70,000.
8.3% make $70,000-$80,000.
11.8% make $80,000-$100,000.
14.7% make $100,000-$150,000.
8.3% make $150,000-$200,000.
7.4% make more than $250,000.

Publishers Weekly conducts its own salary survey every year; here are their 2008 results. hey found that the average man working in publishing made $103,822 in 2007, while the average woman made $64,742. PW notes that the highest jobs are in management, where more men work.

However, in our survey, 35.9% of the people making over $100,000 a year work in editorial.

When we asked the over $100,000 group what they should be making, 25% thought that their salary was about right. "Money is always tight, but my compensation seems fair," wrote one respondent who makes $150,000-$200,000. "It's a loaded question, but I'm well compensated by publishing standards," wrote another respondent. And an editor making between $150,000 and $200,000 thought an "aggravation bonus" was in order.

At sites like Glassdoor.com, employees can anonymously report their salaries, as well as review their companies. Here are the results for Random House, McGraw-Hill, Scholastic, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Rodale, HarperCollins, and Wiley. The site is free, but to see the reviews or numbers, you have to (anonymously) post.

Give Me More

2008-10-08T09:44:00.002-04:00

I've posted an expanded version of Rich Kelley's article from the October issue, "Battling the Online Tyranny of 'More,'" on our Web site. Check it out here:
http://www.publishingtrends.com/copy/08/0810/0810tyranny.html

Survey Results: How Did You Get Your Job?

2008-10-07T17:21:00.005-04:00

Want to get into publishing? A lot of people say it's all about who you know--and the results of our survey support that belief. 35.5% of respondents heard about their current job via word of mouth. 9.6% found their position on the job board of a Web site like Publishers Marketplace, and 6% were recruited.

How did respondents hear about their first publishing job? Again, the main way is word of mouth, for 33.4%. But 18.1% of respondents got their first job through a newspaper listing. (When was the last time you saw a publishing job listed in the New York Times?)

"I sent out many letters, and a few publishers responded," an editor at a large house told us. "This was 30+ years ago!"

Several respondents also told us that they got their first publishing positions through employment agencies, like the Lynne Palmer Agency and "Career Blazers Agency." We know that the Lynne Palmer Agency still exists and are curious about whether it still works with those seeking entry-level jobs. Publishing newbies out there, did you consider a career agency when you were looking for your job And publishing vets, do you work with any career agencies or have you ever used one? Let us know in the comments.

Publishing Trends Announces Results of Second Annual Industry Survey

2008-10-07T16:40:00.004-04:00

Wondering how much your publishing coworkers make, or how they take their coffee? We got tons of interesting answers in our second annual publishing industry survey, and couldn't fit them all into our feature article in the October issue of Publishing Trends. So we'll be posting additional results throughout this month. Stay tuned!

No Time to Read? No Problem!

2008-08-05T16:07:00.018-04:00

Would you read them on the ferry? Would you read them on a Blackberry? As silly as it sounds, these are the types of questions that the folks behind DailyLit, Bit o’ Lit and Random House Audio’s “Make Your Commute More...” campaign have started taking very seriously. Each contender has respectively come up with some clever ways to help publishers squeeze books back into the quotidian grind. Below we save you (even more!) time by giving you the lowdown on each of their strategies...

The Practical Approach:

The Gimmick: Daily bite-sized installments of books served up straight to your virtual inbox via e-mail or RSS feed.
The Selection: Over 1000 classic and contemporary books (Titles in the public domain,plus various publishers including Berlitz, Harlequin and Chronicle Books)
Who Pays What: Public domain books are free. Copyrighted books require a small fee(on average around $5). CEO Susan Danziger told Publishing Trends that they
were exploring sponsorship as a way to defray that fee.
Extras: Reader rating system; public reading groups on Twitter; Wikipedia tours

The HyperLocal Approach:

The Gimmick: Washington, DC-based campaign to promote new books by handing out booklets of excerpts to commuters each week
The Selection: Primarily local authors, authors on tour (book events are advertised) and titles tailored to the D.C. market
Who Pays What: Free for commuters. Publishers pay advertising costs. Print and online advertising also available.
Extras: Excerpts also available online; events, feature articles and word searches featured in the back

The Marketing 101 Approach:

The Gimmick: Summertime campaign to promote audiobook listening by highlighting new titles and bestsellers that fall under one of a series of adjectives (ie thrilling,profitable, magical, entertaining, etc.). Bookstores, libraries and warehouse stores will feature posters, displays and branded (apparently pungent) air fresheners
The Selection: 64 designated Random House Audio titles (i.e. Stephanie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn as “entertaining”; Sebastian Faulks’ Devil May Care as “adventurous”)
Who Pays What: RH will focus on print media, radio sponsorship and online presence. Available at all the usual retailers
Extras: Free audio samples on www.MakeYourCommuteMore.com; the aforementioned air fresheners

UPDATE: DailyLit announced today that it launched its corporate sponsorship program by collaborating with GalleryCollection.com to make College Knowledge: 101 Tips, a college guide book, available for free.

Licensing Expo 08: What We Liked

2008-06-17T16:25:00.000-04:00

Licensing Expo came to a close last week. Here are some things we liked:

This fall, the Jim Henson Company will air its new show, "Sid the Science Kid," on PBS. The science show, which uses proprietary digital puppetry technology, is aimed at 3- to 6-year-olds, has a sketch comedy format, and covers topics like temperature, estimating, and measuring. In each episode, Sid asks a question like "Why do bananas go bad?" and he and his team set out to find the answer.
Peter Rabbit . . . Naturally Better: "Socially Responsible Licensing Inspired by THE Classic 'Natural' Brand." As part of the initiative, Penguin Young Readers Group will release a new line of books, including a baby record book and board books, printed on recycled paper with vegetable-based inks. (Look also for organic Peter Rabbit toys and toiletries for babies.)
Scholasti c's massive new Goosebumps initiative. We remember buying the original Goosebumps series from Scholastic's "Book Orders" in the 1990s. Things are a little different in 2008: The new 12-book Goosebumps HorrorLand series, launched this spring, is accompanied by a show on the Cartoon Network, multi-platform video games, DVDs, Halloween costumes, and, of course, Web sites (www.scholastic.com/goosebumps and www.enterhorrorland.com) with over 1.5 million unique visitors a month
At Nickelodeon's orange-carpeted booth, the SpongeBob SquarePants Hour of Happiness on Tuesday, featuring square cupcakes with bright SpongeBob yellow frosting. Sweet, showy, not a lot of substance--a bit like Licensing Expo itself, you might say.

Licensing Expo 08: The New Consumer

2008-06-11T15:22:00.004-04:00

Licensing International Expo 2008 landed June 10 at the Javits Center just in time for the summer’s first heat wave. Outside, temperatures hit nearly a hundred degrees. Inside, brands like Clifford, Goosebumps, and SpongeBob SquarePants were hot hot hot.

In a cooling economy, though, how can retailers make sure consumers choose their brands? In his panel “The New Consumer, the New Retail, and Licensing in the New World,” Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst of the NPD Group, offered some insight:

For the first time, five generations of a family—a 5-year-old, 25-year-old, 45-year-old, 65-year-old, and 85-year-old—may influence one another’s purchasing decisions. There’s lots of growth in the teen market, and parents and kids share choices in entertainment of all types (you’ll see lots of overlap between the top 10 list of CDs that adults buy from stores and the top 10 list of artists kids download from P2P networks).
The number one reason consumers buy a product is a recommendation from a friend or family member. Therefore, since friends and family members are such big influencers, retailers should find ways to market to them even if they are not the intended audience for a given product. “Find a second message for another audience,” Cohen says, citing anti-aging creams as an example: Young women “who say, ‘Mom, I love you, but I don’t want to look like you’” are a secondary, and strong, market for the products.
Sell a lifestyle, not just a product. Customization and personalization are key, since the consumer thinks the ability to customize is the norm—think Nike iD sneakers, engraved iPods, and build-your-own Sony VAIOs with customizable colors and textures. “It’s not big dollars, but it’s a big connection point,” says Cohen.

Finally, Cohen showed an image of JFK. “Ask not if you should license product,” he said, “but who you should license with. . . . A picture is worth a thousand words, but licensing is worth 10,000.”

Déjà View? BookVideos.tv Relaunches

2008-05-08T12:39:00.011-04:00

Hoping to shake up the world of online book marketing, today TurnHere unveils a new, expanded version of its BookVideos.tv site. And yet, while the promotional video platform has undergone many changes to presumably improve its functionality and overall consumer experience, only time will tell whether the bond forged between authors and readers through studio-quality shorts will actually result in higher book sales.

In the meantime, efforts have been made to maximize the site's networking component. With a range of newly available social media tools, visitors will now be able to embed videos on their own blogs, email them to a friend, Digg them, or tag them in del.icious. Substantiating this "organic distribution," TurnHere CEO Brad Inman says these features work particularly well with books because readers are such a passionate and verbal (duh!) bunch. And with book lover social sites such as goodreads and Library Thing (two of Bookvideos.tv distribution partners) ranking up to a hundred thousand registered users it's a hard point to argue. Coupling these tactics with other strategic moves such as adding a Facebook page for the site's fans and posting videos on TurnHere's branded YouTube channel, the company has made a hard drive towards online ubiquity.

Making their goal that much easier, currently there's only has a handful of contenders (ie Authorviews.com, bookwrap.com) vying to be readers' one-stop shop for behind-the-book footage on the web. And with unique visitor numbers dwindling in the hundreds per month, according to compete.com , and only a few if any publisher partnerships (Authorviews has a deal with Gibbs Smith and a couple other small houses) it seems the time is right for TurnHere to make the most of a niche market. And with a line up of big wig partners, there's a chance that they just may come out on top. While previously TurnHere partnered exclusively with Simon & Schuster, this time around the online video production company will showcase videos featuring authors from multiple publishers including Bantam Dell, Chronicle, Penguin Group (USA), Doubleday Broadway, Hachette Book Group, Loyola Press, Macmillan, Thomas Nelson and WW Norton.

BlogAds: What's Good, What's Bad

2008-04-28T16:24:00.005-04:00

On April 22, we went to the Publishers Advertising and Marketing Association (PAMA) April Luncheon, which featured Henry Copeland, founder and president of BlogAds. Copeland talked about how publishers can better advertise on blogs—how they can, as he put it, "thrive in the kingdom of blog." Here's what Copeland says "smart ads" have in common:

Multiple links. For book ads, even links to negative reviews interest people and and inspire thinking and conversation. "Sometimes the best friends you can have are dumb enemies," says Copeland.
Cool images that attract the eyes and pique curiosity
Faux video
Hand-made feel
Puzzle or something else to invite a click and promote curiosity

Conversely, bad ads have:

No links
Dull, text-heavy images—that includes book covers!
A "designed" feel. "Overdesigned ads are less effective," says Copeland. "Blog readers are skeptical. These are fish that have seen a lot of hooks."
Nothing to promote a click—the ad's the full story

If you're looking to improve your own book ads, monitor your clickthru rate and be ready to change course fast if something's not attracting enough clicks. And to see some examples of good and bad ads, click here.

A Whole New World? Try 50.

2008-04-10T11:03:00.003-04:00

The land of make-believe is now charging admission. Okay, not exactly. But judging from what was discussed at this year's Virtual Worlds conference, which took place April 3-4 at the Javits Center in New York, this isn't too far off. Many would agree it was only a matter of time before someone thought to fuse kids' imaginations with a tangible prefab online universe. And now that they have, it seems no one can stop.

Over the next two years kids' worlds are expected to dominate growth in this booming space with over 50 virtual worlds set to launch. The keynotes from insiders at current virtual overlords Mattel, MTV, Whyville and Neopets reflected the collective anticipation at what's to come. Expressing both excitement and caution, Jack Myers, President, Myers Publishing, LLC, made the point, "Virtual worlds are the media of the future, and we need to build with new models, platforms and metrics."

Metrics continue to be a hot topic, as advertisers and marketers try to figure out how to both count up and capitalize on the millions of engaged eyeballs. At the moment, the easiest (and most widely used) audience metric is registered users, and as a general rule about 25% of registered users are frequent participants. Meyers added the caveat, however, that measuring users' emotional connections, focusing on the quality of their engagement -- not just size -- and measuring "in world" perception are all still important factors. Size-wise Neopets, the oldest virtual world of the bunch, currently reigns supreme with 45 million registered users. Stardoll has 15.7 million registered users with 30-35k new users/day (44% in the US, 46% in the EU, and a growing Asian market). Barbie Girls (introduced only last year) has already jumped to 10 million registered users, quickly gaining on Club Penguin (purchased by Disney last year) with over 12 million registered users and 700,000 paid subscribers. And Webkinz, the Ganz owned property that has sold over 2.5 million plush dolls, has converted those sales into an audience of over 1 million highly active registered users.

Publishers are starting to take notice - both looking to partner with existing worlds, and create worlds of their own based on new and established properties. Now with a toe in this space via '39 Clues' and their recent online/offline Goosebumps re-launch, Scholastic, for one, had numerous staffers floating around. And, Wendy Louie, New Media Marketing Manager at Random House Children's, sat on a panel about reaching teens in virtual hangouts. "I see publishing houses investing more of their marketing dollars into new innovative outlets and less so in traditional vehicles," Louie said. "With companies’ interest in the eyeball and stickiness factor, I expect sites to really ramp up their content to stay ahead of the game."

Some other key take-aways:

Nickelodeon's online world Nicktropolis has 7 millions registered users, and 86% of Nick audiences say gaming is the key experience.

There are 350 million avatars worldwide

In South Korea, 90% of kids are in virtual worlds

There is a huge growth in branded virtual worlds creating a "curated experience" for users- vMTV (MTV's network of virtual worlds including Virtual Hills, Virtual Laguna Beach, Virtual VMAs) has 1.25 M regular users, with 4,500 new users/daily, and 15,000 viewer clubs with as many as 2,000 members a piece

Kids are constantly jumping around and between virtual worlds – an incredible amount (up to 60%) of vMTV traffic is coming from Gaia, for example

*Image from KZero

The Sweet Sound of SXSWi

2008-03-19T17:20:00.005-04:00

It’s been one week since SXSW Interactive came to a close, and there are still two types of publishing people in the world:

1) Those who are counting the days until they can return next year
2) Those who think SXSWi is some kind of contagious eye disease

For those of you still stuck in the latter half, we’ve put together a few links to bring you up to speed. (And for those few type ones out there, a mini refresher course.)

What you need to know:

SXSWi began in 1994 as part of a film and multimedia conference (it’s been it’s own interactive thing since 1999, and in 2006 they added Screen Burn – a subset focusing on the gaming industry)

The festival covers everything from web development to on and offline marketing to internet theory to business management to design to social media to…

If you use a feed reader, you can subscribe to receive podcasts of the panels as they are posted here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SXSWpodcasts, or, if you don’t use a feed reader (another lecture, another time) check out the main site http://2008.sxsw.com/interactive/ for updates as they appear.

Save for a few SXSWi stalwarts in attendance (Will Schwalbe, ex-Hyperion and author of SEND, was back for the second year in a row, Little Brown’s New Media Marketing Manager, Scott diPerna clocked in his fourth year), the publishing community was notably absent

The only publisher with a booth at the trade show was McSweeney’s

B&N hosted the book signings at the SXSW bookstore

For more, check out the April issue of Publishing Trends on March 25th…
For PT’s coverage of SXSWi 2007, click here

Toy Fair 08: Inspiring Growth, Dangerous Book for Boys Spinoffs

2008-02-21T10:43:00.020-05:00

On Tuesday, Publishing Trends visited Toy Fair 2008, held from February 17-28 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York. Though Toy Fair reported a 30% increase in buyers since last year and three times as many reporters on opening day, we thought the halls seemed pretty empty.

Not surprisingly, most of the buzz centered around tech-y toys like Hasbro Playskool's $300 Kota the Triceratops Dinosaur ("comes complete with leafy greens that the dinosaur will 'munch' when 'fed'") and Fisher-Price's Kid Tough Digital Camera, or revamped versions of old faves, including Ty's Beanie Babies 2.0 and Fisher-Price's Elmo Live. But in the old-fashioned world of books, we noticed a few new things:

Dangerous Book for Boys-branded "Illusions," "Card Tricks," "Sleight of Hand," and "Magic Kit" sets, packaged in retro metal tins, from University Games. (Sorry for the blurry picture--a University Games rep chased us away from the company's booth when she saw our digital camera; the games aren't being released until Christmas.)

Also from University Games: New additions to their line of Eric Carle games for 3- to 8-year olds.

From Harcourt Children's Books, recently acquired by Houghton-Mifflin: More of their popular 9 x 10.5" "lap-sized" board books, priced at $10.95 and aimed at preschool teachers and destructive three-year-olds.

Not for kids but prominently displayed at Playmore Inc.'s booth: The never-dying Chicken Soup for the Soul franchise (now including, um, pet food) expands with a new line of word search puzzle books. The books below are dummies, but the rep told us that the hidden words in the finished books will be based on the true stories in the books and "very inspirational."

Finally, the obligatory shot of adult reps self-consciously riding children's toy cars, at the PlasmaCar booth.

On Kindle: A Non-Publishing Perspective

2008-01-02T15:38:00.001-05:00

Since its release last November, the Kindle has kicked up debates about everything from the future of reading to Jeff Bezos' quest for world dominance.

More than anything, though, it seems that people just can't get over how darned clunky-ugly-retro the thing was.

Core-77, a networking site frequented by industrial designers, responded to the Kindle design debate by opening up a one-hour design challenge/forum, asking readers to show the world their vision of the perfect Digital eBook."

The results ranged from classic (aka Sony Reader-esque) to innovative (the winning " eScroll") to irreverent (Walkbook Sports). Designers focused on functionality and form, and explored the notion of what a digital book should do. Some features from proposed designs:

Tri-screen with touch screens - To turn the pages, users just simply touch the screen diagonally.

Users can select the book they want to read from the cover and highlight and take notes by using the stylus.

Pocket-sized or smaller so that it fits in the palm of your hand

Customization options that allow users to distinguish the book as their own.

One designer noted that a current problem with ebooks is not being able to write notes on them, his design included a pen that allows users to write notes on pull-out wipe-away "paper" which is then recognized by the ebook and saved as a note on the page.

Integrated speakers that allow users to hear books in audio

Book spine printout - printable sticker spines for the sleeve of the cover that can be stuck on your e-book shelf when you've finished reading.

Subscription based readers that automatically download monthly collections for a low annual fee (think the Oprah book club, or New York Times best seller list, or Phillip K. Dick award winners).

Check out all of the designs on the Core 77 forum: http://boards.core77.com/viewtopic.php?p=87713#87713

Manga Matures

2007-12-11T11:21:00.008-05:00

With three words—“

Japan

is over”—Al Kahn, CEO of 4Kids Entertainment (responsible for bringing Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh! and Cabbage Patch Kids to the mainstream in the

U.S.

), sparked a bit of controversy at ICv2’s pre-Anime Festival Conference on Anime and Manga: Inside the Otaku* Generation last week. “Nothing new has come from Japan in ten years. Kids there are tired of manga. They don’t want to carry around a three pound book anymore. They’re more interested in devices. Pretty soon, there won’t be any physical media, just digital,” Kahn said. Rich Johnson, Co-Publishing Director of the new Yen Press (manga/graphic novel imprint of Hachette), begged to differ, saying that, like the U.S. comic book market that was proclaimed dead ten years ago and which has made a comeback, manga is cyclical.

Of course, Kahn and Johnson come from two very different manga worlds, the world of Pokemon (mega-properties, mainstream penetration, household names) versus the manga niche (growing manga/graphic novel shelf space, establishing a category in the U.S.) and both are right. Of the current top 100 licenses in the U.S., only two come from anime/manga (Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh), but, on the niche front, the learning curve for manga buyers at big retailers is pretty much over.

More tidbits from the panel (which included reps from VIZ, FUNimation, Anime News Network, Pokemon, BN, Tokyopop, Del Rey Manga):

Manga shelf space at major retailers is not growing as fast as it did at the beginning of the boom 6-7 years ago, but buyers understand now that graphic novels and manga are not only for kids. Liza Coppola (SVP, VIZ) said they send about 3000 spinner racks to key accounts, creating their own shelf space.

Manga/graphic novel titles published in the U.S.:
2005: 1088
2006: 1208
2007: 1468 (projected)
2008: 1731 (projected)

Yen Press published With the Light, manga about raising a child with autism, in September and according to Rich Johnson, it’s done well. Considered a little “off-beat” in the U.S., a manga title about a serious or mature issue is standard in Japan.

Panelists credited Sailor Moon (released as a manga title by Tokyopop in 1997) for the boom in girl readers of manga, not only because of its strong female protagonists, but because it was one of the first manga titles of any kind to be sold in mainstream bookstores and not just the dark, exclusionary, female-unfriendly comic bookstore realm. Girls read shojo (girl manga" such as Fruits Basket, Sailor Moon, etc.) and they also make up about half (and sometimes more than half) of the readership of the boy-focused, violent, or gruesome manga.

Also, the panel on marketing manga to girls expressed cautious hope for the future of shojo on tv as the tween girl demographic is more more likely to be found texting or on MySpace than in front of the TV.

All anticipate a boom in OEL (original English language) anime/manga in the next few years as the U.S. kids who’ve grown up with it graduate from art school and/or start writing their own.

Even though the collector quotient of the anime/manga fanbase is still going strong (Liza Coppola mentioned the enthusiastic response to a 5000 copy limited edition series of Naruto last year) like most digital media illegal downloads are posing a considerable threat to the anime industry.

*Otaku: obsessive fans, particularly of anime/manga.

Content Gets Respect

2007-11-28T12:29:00.001-05:00

Whether the topic was social networking, user-generated videos, blogging or podcasting, publishers among the record-breaking 10,276 marketers attending November’s ad:tech conference heard renewed respect for content from the panelists reporting on the latest developments in online marketing. Pam Horan, President of the Online Pubishers Association, kicked off her panel on “Publishing in the Digital Age” with a chart showing that consumers now spend almost half their time online with content, up 35% from four years ago (see graph). Horan credited much of the increase to the surge in popularity of social networking, which OPA includes in its content category. Of course, users prefer their content free—and that isn’t always a bad thing for publishers. Vivian Schiller, SVP and GM of NYTimes.com, reported that search referrals increased 133% after the Times abandoned TimesSelect, its paid subscription model in September. When Times management found that most of its monthly 13 million visitors were coming from search engines—and not getting access to what they sought—they calculated that advertising could deliver more than the $10 million they’ve been getting annually from their 227,000 paying subscribers. What users want was the theme for almost every panel. “Marketing strategy is no longer about getting people to come to your site. It’s about configuring your content so that people can get it wherever they want,” was how Nada Stirratt, EVP, Digital Advertising at MTV Networks Digital, described the new paradigm. MTV now makes it easy for people to embed its content on Facebook pages, for instance. . . .

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PT thanks guest blogger and New York-based marketing consultant, Rich Kelley.

Someone's Using the Sony Reader

2007-11-19T17:27:00.002-05:00

While eagerly awaiting Kindle, netGalley, and all the other cool launches in 2008, some publishers are working with what we have in the here-and-now: the Sony Reader. Simon & Schuster started giving it (officially, The Reader Digital Book) to sales reps, so that they could download manuscripts at will, and carry the Reader on their travels. It saves time and money (the cost of copying and mailing the paper version), not to mention the hassle of lugging all those pages around, notes Adam Rothberg, VP, Corporate Communications at S&S. Reps plug their Reader into their computer and log onto a dedicated site to choose what they'd like to download. Other MS Word documents can also be offloaded directly from the computer.

The experiment has been so successful that editorial departments are also trying it out. Free Press was the first, with proposals and manuscripts being read on the Reader. Though bookmarking is possible, editing and note taking are not. And, the Reader has no backlight, making middle-of-the-night reading (which in the early days of ebook devices was always a selling point) a nonstarter. "It's definitely a mindset adjustment," says EVP and Publisher Martha Levin, but well worth making for the efficiences it offers.

The proof, as they say, is in the imprint pudding, with Touchstone/Fireside and Pocket Books editorial now on board. It's too early to say how widespread this adoption will be, but the anticipated savings of close to six figures is a good incentive.

BuzzFeed: More about the Reader's homelier sister

Media & Money, Kings & Castles

2007-11-08T13:40:00.001-05:00

Nielsen and DowJones sponsored a conference focused on, well Media and Money, though with few exceptions, they forgot that books are part of the Media landscape. Jeff Berg, Chairman and CEO of ICM, mentioned that movies were the only medium that has used the same method -- a projector in a theater -- to disseminate its content for the last hundred years, presumably forgetting momentarily about the bound book.

Still, Michael Eisner mentioned Remembrance of Things Past not once, but twice in his talk; and Sumner Redstone had some great, albeit nonspecific, references to what writers do: Speaking of media in general he said, "this is an industry that thrives on good old-fashioned storytelling." And later he announced: "If content is king, copyright is its castle." Quick, print up the t-shirts and take to the streets.

The Art of the Media Launch

2007-11-08T12:52:00.001-05:00

If you went to the NYU Center for Publishing’s “Art of the Media Launch” looking only for practical tips from media gurus Arianna Huffington (Huffingtonpost.com), Susan Lyne (CEO, Martha Stewart Omnimedia), Craig Newmark (Founder, craigslist.org), and Laurel Touby (Founder, mediabistro.com), you might have come away disappointed. The inimitable moderator, David Carr, teased his all-star panelists quite a bit, getting them to talk about their new favorite gadgets, how they deal with naysayers, and what keeps them focused on their vision, but most of the nitty gritty advice (i.e. how do you fund a new site anyway? What about Google? Getting traffic?) came during the brief audience Q and A.

Carr asked about obstacles and getting over them: On the day The Huffington Post launched, the LA Times panned it saying the site was “the web version of Gigli.” Huffington has since memorized it, channeling the negativity into more verve and “fearlessness” (which she talks about in her oft-plugged book, On Becoming Fearless). About the “Gawker chick” who ragged on the notorious boa she’s worn to media parties since 1994, Touby said focusing on the hundreds of thousands of media people who “voted [for her] with their dollars” at mediabistro.com kept her going. Lyne talked about being very publicly fired from ABC and bouncing back to head Martha Stewart's empire.

When Carr asked the group their thoughts on Facebook, “social advertising,” and behavioral ads, saying he felt like “[advertisers'] hands are a little too far up my skirt,” Newmark emphasized the need for transparency through opt-ins and full disclosure from advertisers. Huffington handled the issue in an equally straitforward manner. When Toyota signed on as an advertiser, she asked readers to take pictures of themselves with their Priuses and posted them on her site. All agreed there’s never been a better time to start a media business. It’s less expensive (Huffington started with $1 million, Touby and Newmark with “nothing,” and Martha Stewart was the exception of course). Touby pointed out the importance of good market research, understanding your audience, and figuring out what people will (and won’t) pay for.

Do you do good?

2007-11-08T12:26:00.001-05:00

For our December issue, Publishing Trends is looking for any publishing people who contribute a significant amount of effort to charities, from building medical centers in Africa to organizing grassroots political action at home (and because we know we all love books, we're continuing to focus on non-literacy endeavors). Donation information for the charities we highlight will be prominently featured.

If anyone comes to mind (including yourself), please comment here, email meredith@publishingtrends.com, or call us at (212) 447-0855. We look forward to hearing your stories and telling others about them.