13 April 2009
Bookseller and Statesman
Whilst these fine individuals are all leaders in their chosen industry it does appear from this Blue Plaque, which I pass frequently on my commute, that the Bookselling industry used to be lead by real Statesmen.
It seems that as well as expanding the WHSmith retail chain from the modest position the founding H.W. Smith left it in, W.H. Smith rose to great heights in politics. He didn’t quite reach the pinnacle in politics and is distinguished by being the last person to hold the title of First Lord of the Treasury without being or becoming Prime Minister – still I imagine he had other things on his mind:
– supply issues (probably not – he owned the distributor)
– Net book Agreement (not yet in place)
– returns (again no it was all firm sale then)
– innovations (at the time paperbacks were at about the same stage ebooks are today)
Simple times then which explains how he had time to become a statesman as well as a very successful bookseller.
BTW if you want to see the Blue Plaque in situ there is the new wonder of Google’s StreeetView to help.
01 March 2009
How (not) to Market Books
I basically agree with Emma, though with some reservations. Emma is talking about 'trade' books and in particular ones that are available to retailer promotions. Not all books are like this. I see Snowbooks publish on martial arts and cycling as well as fiction and would expect that advertising these books in the specialist press and on specialist websites would show more sales than any retail promotion - if one were available.
Some publishers don't have the option of retailer promotions or indeed mainstream press coverage generally because their books are more specialist or technical. In these cases reviews and advertisments can be the only way to alert your readership of the existence of your books.
What I think is interesting about Emma's post though is her business-like approach to this question. She tries new things and crucially gathers evidence as to their effectivness. I don't think enough publishers try this. A few years ago when I was working for one of the country's largest publishers, one of the marketing managers decided to mark the publication of a major book by producing baseball caps and temporary rub-on tattoos featuring the title and a device from the cover. I don't know how many baseball caps were made, I'd guess 100, but I do know thousands of the tattoos were printed. When I left the company a year later nearly all the caps and tattoos were still in boxes on the top of the cupboard in the marketing manager's office (though I've still got a couple of the tattoos someowhere). No one had thought how they were going to distribute these marketing pieces and to whom. What I couldn't understand was why they were allowed to do this and why no one asked 'how many extra sales do you think these caps and tattoos will make us?'.
As a result I generally ask our marketing manager how many sales they expect to make from any advertising they do even though I know this is an unfair question and they hate it. However it is good to focus the mind and at the very least I think they should know how many additional sales will need to be made just to pay for the advertisment.
17 February 2009
Strictly Me
I think this confirms my suspicions that the whole art of blurb (and blog) writing should be about including as many popular keywords as possible.
Look out for future posts on Barack Obama and Paris Hilton and the effect of their books on the publishing industry.
10 February 2009
Click
The back cover blurb starts with what would normally be 3 bullet points (except there are no bullets.) They are as follows:
British teenagers furiously search for "prom dresses" and "limousines" in advance of their end-of-year school balls.
I've lots of sympathy though for the poor marketing junior who probably did write this. I used to have write blurbs in the past (and occasionally still do if we're really desperate) and I am rubbish at it. However I don't think I ever produced anything as bad as this. It is a real skill and an underestimated one.
The Estate We're In
Goodness knows what it cost - but I hope it was paid for out of the publicity budget rather than the marketing one as I'm sure it will get lots of publicity but will it sell any books? I doubt it. Oh to have this sort of budget to waste on a celebration.
* Somewhat late it occurs to me that if The Press is the 4th Estate then is the blogosphere the 5th Estate? I've not heard anyone suggest that but presume it is the reason for this blog's title - in which case it is quite clever IMHO.
Crime and Detection
What I do know is that I want CCTV cameras to be used for 'crime detection' not 'crime and detection'.
03 February 2009
The Overlook
First of all I have to say that I am a big fan of Michael Connelly and in particular his Harry Bosch books. However I was sorely disappointed when I read The Overlook. The story itself was OK. Not one of Connelly's best but an adequate read and a must for any Harry Bosch fan. However it is short. The story itself is 290 odd pages which may seem a reasonable length but, according to my in-house design expert, it is set 10/14, basically line spacing of 1.5, thus stretching out the story over many more pages than necessary. The rest of the 337 pages are taken up with a 14 page 'interview' of Harry Bosch the protagonist by Connelly the author, and 30 odd pages of the next Bosch novel. i.e an advert.
I have since discovered that the book was written as a serial for the New York Times. This explains why it is so short and perhaps why it isn't up to Michael Connelly's usual standard. It doesn't though excuse what I think is a terrible bit of book publishing. I don't blame Connelly – he was commissioned to write the serial and did so and presumably got paid for both serial and book. However I really don't think any book publisher should have just taken the serial and published it as a book. Connelly should have been commissioned to re-write and expand the book to turn it into a proper novel. He may well have felt this unnecessary but I believe his agent and publisher should have persuaded him that it was necessary to protect his reputation.
p.s I see from Michael Connelly's website that he has 'interviewed' Harry Bosch on 2 other occasions. This is perhaps beyond self-indulgent bordering on the weird.
28 January 2009
Make or Break
In fact David Kohn appears to have talked a little about this at the recent Galley Club meeting – I wish I had been there. At least the Atlantic Books blogger has put David Kohn’s absurd statistic about more ebook sales on Christmas day than real books sales in its place. I think this meaningless stat was there to distract from the reality that actually sales of ebooks aren’t that great.
Waterstone’s claim to have sold 30,000 Sony Readers and 75,000 ebooks. That’s two and a half books per reader. If you assume, as I do, that ebook readers are bought for or by avid readers then this doesn’t seem like very high sales to me. I’d love to know how many paper books these Sony Reader owners have bought in the same period but we’ll never know. I’ve certainly bought lots more books than this in the time that the Sony Reader has been out.
One of my authors has just bought a reader and I look forward to hearing what they think about it. I might need to consider producing their book as an ebook but am yet to be convinced there is a market out there.
This blog is in danger of being dominated by discussions of ebooks – so will rest my case there for a bit though 2009 looks to be shaping into the make or break year for ebooks, so I am sure I’ll revisit the subject.
23 January 2009
Vanity Fair
So already my insignificant statistics have been proven worthless. It seems that it isn't just men indulging their stereotypical love of gadgets who have Sony Readers.
However the woman on the train was reading Vanity Fair which almost certainly is one of the free texts on the Sony Reader and this I believe strengthens my supposition that Sony Readers are being used as the best and cheapest way for avid readers to get their hands on 100 classics that they would otherwise not buy or read. After all, 100 classics from Wordsworth would cost you £250 - £25 more than the Sony Reader and they'd take up a whole lot of space. If you just want to tick off the classics on your read list – this must be the way to do it.
So will these Reader owners ever get through these 100 titles and the 26,000 available at Project Gutenberg and actually buy an ebook? I'm beginning to have my doubts.
Perhaps for the publishing world, Waterstone's announcement that they've sold 30,000 Readers isn't as significant as I thought. What we really need are some figures on their sales of ebooks.
22 January 2009
Vanity Fare
Vanity Publishing has been around a long time but modern technology has really enabled it to take off. Print on demand and ecommerce have meant companies like Lulu.com have been able to publish many books that commercial publishers wouldn't consider. Unfortunately some Vanity Publishers (not Lulu) have a terrible reputation for quality and service and many have been accused of misrepresenting the service they provide to authors.
Now colour digital printing technology has developed to such an extent that Vanity Presses like Bob Books have appeared. These aren't really publishers – they don't make your books generally available to the book buying public – but they do allow people to produce 'books' of their photographs.
I saw this advertisement for Bob Books yesterday on the station platform.
Now on their website they claim 'The thing is, we love books and we're more than a little obsessive about quality. Our books are made in Switzerland – home of really well made things™ – combining traditional book-binding craftsmanship with state-of-the-art technology.'
However, I think I'd be wary of any publisher who could design, print, distribute and display this 6 foot poster featuring this terrible typo.
What were they thinking of? This?
P.S. Apologies for the quality of the photos taken with my mobile phone in very challenging lighting conditions.