erin!balser

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.

In my Book Sales and Marketing class recently we had to analyze a publishing houses website for its success in terms of marketing. What really struck me was how passive these sites were. Sure, they give the necessary information–upcoming titles and events and information about the author. There wasn’t any sense of community or any sense of identity with these sites.

What if publishing houses attempted to build an online brand around themselves and built a web community on this? What if the publishing houses interacted directly with readers? Supplied RSS feeds for news and events? Gave the editors behind titles a face with their own blogs? Allowed readers to interact with them through comments on books, on authors, on events, on anything? What if readers followed these houses on Twitter? What if the houses themselves supplied readers with materials and ideas of interest and not just rely on their authors to do this? What is publishing houses–even the big ones!–had personality?

I recently had a teacher tell me that if the old methods work, we don’t need to go outside the box when it comes to book marketing. This type of thinking is just plain wrong. In a world where publishing industry is changing–and changing dynamically–where fewer people are reading books than ever before, publishers need to get better at reaching their readers, and connecting with them in ways the reader wants. Why is everyone so afraid of failure?

I’m sure the average reader doesn’t know who publishes their favorite author–and doesn’t care. I bet we could change this. I’ve seen some change. Coach House has an RSS feed for their news and events and almost every Canadian publisher has a Facebook group. But publishers need to be better engaged and capitalize on these new opportunities being presented to them.

Sure, their website is a great place to buy a book. But it might be a great place to talk about it too.

Does anyone have any great examples of this? I’d love to see one.

Image by inju. Lisenced via Creative Commons.