Libraries and Publishers

Speaking of libraries, I've been wanting to comment on this for a while. It's an article from the Library Journal about book editors and librarians--how their relationships with books and their goals for them meet and diverge. Predictably, perhaps, since it's from Library Journal, I ended up rooting for the librarian. Why can't publishers make digital borrowing (not to mention buying) easier? Why do they flood the market with mediocre titles that are half-assedly (pardon) marketed? Why don't they compile the sort of sales data that could help both them and libraries identify those present and future books most likely to appeal to certain audiences? Those poor librarians, toiling away without even the hope of profit, bringing the books to the masses, spreading the reading word.... And I envy them, also, because where they work people want to read. That's why the come. (Okay, some of them are lured by Wii tournaments and DVD rentals, but whatever.) Wouldn't it be nice to live in that world--where one's problems arise from readers wanting more and better, not from the desperate need to find readers in the first place? Still, we have roughly parallel goals. So here's an idea: let's work together.

There are already plenty of outlets for publishers to communicate to libraries--things like the Junior Library Guild, and of course review publications like Booklist. But I think it would be helpful for communication to go both ways, in more than just the buying practices of libraries. I assume this is once again part of publishing's reluctance to engage in market research. But librarians are out there, doing it already--they know what their patrons are asking for, or what they're checking out again and again. I think it's safe to assume that high library demand, in general, correlates to high retail demand--the most checked out library books have probably also been on the best-seller lists as well. So if there were some way, ranging from librarian consultants to elaborate reporting mechanisms a la Nielsen's BookScan that could report how much certain books were checked out, to take this already-existing market data into account, well that would be just swell.

Idea: Imprint Brands

The upheaval at Random House prompted this reaction from a Maud Newton amie: in addition to all the Big, Serious implications, the change "also means that SONNY MEHTA is now publishing DAN BROWN. How in the hell does that make any sense?" This reminds me of an Idea that's been quietly boiling for a while. I agree that it is crazy for Dan Brown to be under the Knopf umbrella, and I hope that that imprint won't really lose its literary identity. But I think most people wouldn't recognize the problem or care much at all. I will pick up a book just because I see the Knopf colophon on it. As a pretentious teen I was obsessed with Penguin Classics. Most imprint names mean nothing to me, though, and I'm sure that the majority of readers don't even register them. They don't serve much purpose, and honestly, it seems a little disingenuous to keep up the pretense of having many independent publishers when in fact they are all owned by a very few large companies, regardless of whatever editorial independence they have or supposedly had at Random House and elsewhere. So many of them might as well be jettisoned. Others, though, could be used in a new way. Right now books are branded in the sense that different genres have different design standards--it's easy to tell a chick lit novel from a sci fi one from a historical biography based on font, colors used, graphics style, etc. I think it might be useful to have actual brand labels, though, in the form of imprint colophons. It seems to me that one of the most obvious and effective ways to increase readership is to get those who are already reading to read more, and this means helping them find things they want to read. This was a constant problem for me as a child and teen: I would get really obsessed with one kind of book, say, retold fairy tales, and have to search through the haystack to find another one. I don't think imprint brands should be this specififc necessarily, but it would certainly be nice to have an easily visible indication of whether a certain book was a drama, or a humorous novel, or a literary mystery, etc. It would make browsing easier for those who don't read enough to have highly developed scanning abilities, and could help people find a book to fit their mood. An awareness of what the colophons meant would of course have to be cultivated. This would happen naturally to a certian extent, if people kept reading a certain kind of book and noticed the same logo over and over again. Charts at bookstores is another idea.

Half an Idea: Nook Books

I watch a lot of home improvement T.V. A lot. HGTV is probably my favorite channel. Perhaps this doesn't seem to jive with the "young" descriptor in this blog's sub-heading, but I have always been a domesticated fuddy-duddy. Anyway, I have noticed one phrase being repeated over and over on these shows, which inspires a glow in me unrelated to the satisfaction of a bedazzled kitchen or an elegant floorplan. This phrase is "curl up with a good book," and it is brought out every time someone manages to squeeze an arm chair into a bedroom, or in the face of window seats and cozy nooks and fireplaces. It's almost as common as the "this can be my closet, but where will your clothes go, honey?!" chesnut. Somehow I doubt that most of these people spend as much time as they seem to intend actually curled up and reading, but this idea is heartwarming nonetheless. At the very least it indicates a positive association with books, an ideal concerning them. People want that feeling, that moment. It fulfills some platonic ideal of homelife in their heads. Surely there is someway of piggybacking on this feeling to actually get them to read more. Maybe it is a line of books--easy reading novels, most likely--marketed as "cozy reads" or something like that, maybe it is an HGTV book club, I don't know. It's lovely to have this sort of opening, though. And so encouraging and touching to see reading venerated in such a way.

Idea: Product Placement

Let me start out with a couple of disclaimers in this the second of my Idea posts. First, most of the time when I have an idea about publishing--a book that should get made, a marketing tactic--I find out that it has already been thought of, possibly long long before. So I can only say that, at the point that I post my Ideas, I have yet to discover any similar, already-in-use practice. Second, many of my ideas involve spending, which I understand is hard to stomach for such a hard-pressed industry. But hey, when do you NOT have to spend money to make money? Anyway, here goes: Idea No. 2, Product Placement

Very occasionally I see a T.V. ad for a book--usually a thriller by someone like James Patterson--and without fail these ads make me cringe. There is just something so unnatural-seeming about it. Partly, I'm sure, because it's so rare, but also because books tend to be separated from the rest of the entertainment world, from the rest of the commercial world. They are older, certainly, than most of it. They are perhaps a little bitter towards their more prosperous companions. And T.V. is so often blamed for the demise of reading that I suppose it is natural that the two should seem like odd bedfellows. I don't propose changing this exactly; books are special, they are. Having ads for books like there are ads for movies would just be weird no matter what. Still, no matter what else they are, books are also a product, so I see nothing wrong with using T.V. and other media to get them out there. The direction that advertising is taking now, with internal product placement as opposed to separate ads, would lend itself well, I think, to advertising books and promoting reading in general. Imagine a character seen carrying a book around, or reading it, or even mentioning it briefly. Whether it is a fictional housewife reading the latest Oprah's bookclub-type book, or a snarky Showtime/HBO character referring to the latest piece of hip lit fiction, a little nod could go a long way. Has anyone checked the sales of Frank O'Hara's Meditations in an Emergency since Mad Men started harping on it? By tailoring the advertising this kind of product placement could avoid the stiltedness that some has--"What's that honey?! You're in labor! Let me just text your mom on the new iPhone! It has 674 apps! Look how shiney it is!" [close up of iPhone]. I think marketing folks would have to arrange a sort of barage of placements in various places so people really get the impression that this book is a trendy must read. T.V. and movie spots could be supplemented by covert celebrity endorsements, as with Jennifer Aniston's Smart Water deal, so that society's celebrity obsession would include a literary element. Then, not only will certain books get a boost, but people might get more used to seeing others reading and might come to consider it as a normal or fashionable thing to do in general. It would take finesse to pick the right placement for books, and perhaps to suggest ways that they might be integrated. Certainly this is not someting to do with every book that comes out. But, I think it could work. And maybe publishers could get some sort of discount, what with their products contributing to the greater good of society, and to the substance of many movies and T.V. shows in Hollywood.

Image via perezhilton.com Not sure if Paris is being paid for her endorsement.

A Terrible Confession

Once again an Editorial Ass post strikes fear in me. This time, however, I am worried that the publishing industry will heed her usually spot-on rallying cry, not ignore it. She lists a few ideas for making publishing profitable and thus not, as a commenter had suggested, worthy of dying a justifiable death. Her second suggestion (raise prices), however, got my hackles up, and leads now to a terrible confession and the first of what I intend to be a string of Ideas for Saving (or Improving in Some Small Way) the Industry We Call Publishing. Here goes: I was planning on keeping this private and certainly never telling anyone who might care about books, but in the interest of making a point, I feel I must. Plus, Dingbat isn't my real name, so I don't feel any real danger. I buy used books. I buy on sale remainders. I shop at discount book stores. Constantly filled with worry though I am about the plight of publishers, I, a book person, seek in my book-buying practices to deprive them of every possible ounce of profit. Same goes with book stores. Just this weekend I bought pounds and pounds of books at a library sale for about a dollar a piece. I believe the last time I bought a full price book in a full price store was in May (Etgar Keret's The Girl on the Fridge), just because I was out of sorts and wanted something right then. So there it is. Why do I do this? Because it is not unusual for a trade paperback to cost $18. More often it is around $15. If I want to buy four books, which doesn't seem like many, I am up to $60, plus tax. That's serious money. And Editorial Ass thinks it should be more. My Idea, on the contrary, is a very simple one: lower prices. I am not sure how practicable this is. $15 for a lot of paper seems a little much, but I know there is a lot involved in making a book. And maybe the problem is less critical than it seems to me, consuming books as I do at a much higher rate than the average book store customer. Maybe I'm like that family with 18 kids who has to make their own soap because $2 a bar becomes a lot when you have that many showers to take. Still, I think the current price is dangerously close to the absolute cap for what people consider reasonable for a paperback book, and if there's any way to lower the price without catastrophic effects on profits, it needs to be done. This seems like an obvious move so I assume there are roadblocks at present. I would hate to see my pretty paperbacks suffer design-wise, but maybe there's a happy medium between those pulpy, yellowing mass market versions and their upright, smooth trade brethren. Or maybe it's a matter of fixing other policies that lower profits and lead to the need for higher prices on what does get sold. I don't know. But I would love to shop in a legit bookstore and support publishers with pride, so I hope something changes.