The Bookseller.com

7th January 2009

GAYLE FELDMAN

Gayle Feldman is The Bookseller's US correspondent.

American histories

19.11.08

“Obama will be good for books,” Bloomsbury US’s George Gibson assured attendees at the AAP’s tenth annual meeting for smaller and independent presses.

The election has wrought a remarkable change in the collective head and heart: America stood up to reclaim itself. The fact that a man whose life has been transformed by books has soared to the highest office in the land on wings of eloquent words will provide the publishing industry with a potent symbol the likes of which it has not had for a very long time. In the long term, Obama should indeed be good for books. Certainly, his own books are moving; my local B&N sold out of his memoir.  And the post-election books are coming – far too many, of course.

But Len Riggio’s internal memo to B&N employees preparing them for an awful Christmas – “never in all my years as a bookseller have I seen a retail climate as poor as the one we are in”- was a reminder of current economic reality. So were the pre-emptive firings at Doubleday, and there doesn’t seem to be anyone in New York who thinks more are not coming at Random House Inc and elsewhere.

For the biggest companies, the litmus tests will come with the roll-out of Ted Turner, Malcolm Gladwell, James Patterson et al in the next few weeks. If one or two big books do not hit the target for each major imprint, that publisher is in big trouble. So many “smaller” titles are not getting any attention, and are not moving at all. The very worrying marked slowness in formerly dependable backlist only ups the ante even higher.

In the circumstances, it was not surprising that attendance was thin at the AAP meeting: it was simply too expensive for many independents to come this year. But Gibson, Grove Atlantic’s Morgan Entrekin, the AAP’s own Pat Schroeder and others offered some words-to-survive-by. Schroeder talked up the Google settlement: “Only the Iraq war has gone on longer than that suit. I can’t tell you how much blood was left on the floor. Two days before the announcement we thought it would all blow up.”

Most publishers are still in the process of trying to digest it all. But meanwhile, Entrekin, who has had an uncanny knack for bringing out Booker finalists, gave a case study explaining how he came to publish The Inheritance of Loss. “When I published Kirin Desai’s first book, Hullaballoo in the Guava Orchard, to rave reviews, I called [agent] Nicole Aragi and told her that I was willing to spend $100,000 on advertising – although I think advertising is the least effective way to sell books – if she’d sell me the second book at my price. Otherwise, I said that I would take out one ad for $15,000. God forbid that an independent publisher makes a writer a success – they pay through the nose and get the author stolen.

“I went to the Times and the New Yorker and got $150,000 worth of advertising for $100,000, and did 27 ads in four weeks. At the end, it didn’t sell the book - we put out 24,000 and netted 14,000 – but the great news was that I owned the second book.”

In general, Entrekin advised smaller publishers: “Always face reality sooner rather than later; never publish more books than you can read yourself; keep overheads down; be very, very careful how you use your credibility – it’s far more important than cash; and be careful handling success.”

Or, as Gibson put it, “publishing history is littered with smaller publishers who were done in by success. The trick is to really understand how to manage cash.”

Of his UK subsidiary, Entrekin said, “I put far more capital into London than I wanted to and ended up winning the Booker. My main job now is to make sure they don’t screw up!”

Entrekin is not frightened by the digital future. “It’s a delivery system. My business is words. I don’t think the music business will happen here.” However, Gibson and Entrekin agree that one of the biggest sticking points in contract negotiations occurs over electronic rights and the concept of reversion. They “only reluctantly” agree to inserting a sales minimum into a contract.

While publishers digest the Google details, digital fears for the moment seem to be coalescing around Amazon. As Counterpoint’s Charlie Winton said, “Amazon will continue to get stronger, but as to how they use that strength - I’m not sure how much they understand publishing.”

Finally, Softskull’s Richard Nash said that it’s time to “abandon trying to distinguish between print and online reviews.” Online is no longer second best; the point is “to develop an authentic brand” and it will work for both.

Nash recounted a story by way of illustration: “On a Guardian blog the question was asked, ‘What books get you laid?’ An answer was posted: ‘Anything from Soft Skull.’ That was a happy day.”   

International US Gayle Feldman