erin!balser

Publisher and blogger Ted Savas recently wrote about the keys to building book success. His advice is so simple and true–and it works.

Savas writes:

The fundamentals for selling any book are essentially the same. Here is the secret: talk about your book as often as you can, with as many people as you can, for as long as you can, wherever you can, even if you don’t sell a single copy when you do. Oh, and there is a follow up: REPEAT–REPEAT–REPEAT.

Nothing about mediums, about budgets, about having a well-known author or a movie deal. Nothing about “doing what you know” or “doing what works” or “reinventing the wheel.”

It’s promising advice for the future of books. The more places you talk about it, the more places people will come across it.

It’s that simple.

PS. Ted Savas’s blog is absolutely great. I’m only sad I didn’t find it earlier!

Image by awrose. Licensed via Creative Commons.

I was excited and proud when I read this article in the Toronto Star that said that Canada is leading the book industry in terms of eco-friendliness.

Vit Wagner writes:

115 Canadian publishers, accounting for between 60 and 75 per cent of the market here, have implemented ecologically improved paper-purchasing policies, according to a 2008 report by Markets Initiative, a Canadian environmental non-governmental organization that lobbies the publishing and printing sectors to increase their use of recycled paper stock.

While this is excellent news, we still have a ways to go. I’m constantly hearing in school that recycled paper isn’t high quality enough and lots of things currently being published aren’t recyclable.

But it’s a start! Yay Canada! Read the full article here.

The following is an interesting interview with the editor-in-chief of Wired, Chris Anderson. In it he talks about the print/web dynamic and the role of choices for readers of magazines. It’s about twenty-two minutes long, but it’s worth it!

He does an excellent job differentiating between the two mediums and highlighting the value of print magazines (and books!). I can’t help but to agree with nearly everything he says.

I found this comment about book publishing particularly interesting:

“A book is a superior product to reading the same material as text on a screen…I think a book has a place in the 21st century…”

Even the biggest tech-heads see value in the traditional book. The book is here to stay. However, the book industry need to become less scared of new technologies and embrace them.

I was reading the latest issue of Elle magazine while on vacation. It told me, that smart consumers “buy 70% from preseasons and 30% from the runways.”

That is, fashion is moving from a two-season industry to a 4,5,6 season industry–spreading out the products over the year. This ensures that the consumer is purchasing more steadily and more frequently and that the designers are receiving a more reliable and regular income.

This lead me to think about the book industry. Book publishers produce two lists–spring and fall. All titles must correspond to a single list season. Titles are then ranked on this list according to the title’s expectations and titles are selected to be showcased in the traditional media outlets. Quill & Quire even produces issues around the release of these lists.

This results in very few books getting lots dollars behind it and lots of media attention, and lots of books getting ignored and supplied with shoddy marketing tactics.

What if the publishers’ seasons were scratched? Why can’t publishers have four seasons? Or release books monthly? Or–even better–line up with other cultural (comic books, DVDs, video games, CDs) products and release products every Tuesday? (I need to point out that it was Matt who told me about this Tuesday thing. I’m not that pop culture savvy.)

The only argument against this that I can see is that catalogues are expensive to produce and this will make the catalogue production more complicated. I don’t see the downside of having two big catalogues a year and a weekly e-newsletter or blog update citing this week’s latest titles. This way, more books can get more attention from more people will have greater access to a publisher’s titles. Why should a book be number 37 on a spring list when it can be number 2 on the March list?

Open up this newsletter to consumers directly–as opposed to booksellers only–and readers will not only be more aware of what is happening in the publishing world, they’ll be more engaged. Publishers would have more time-and, more importantly, more space–to sell books.

Digital media essentially creates limitless space through which books can be marketed and sold. We no longer have to be bound by time constraints and marketing budgets. All we need is some innovation. Putting lists and catalgoues online isn’t enough. More than the medium needs to change–the entire approach to marketing and selling books needs to change.

And isn’t this what it all comes down to? Selling books?

Are there any reasons to stick to the old two-season model?

Image by Joe Gratz. Licenced via Creative Commons.