In Depth
Manhattan transfer
27.03.08 Gayle Feldman
In 2005 David Young left UK publishing to take the top job at Time Warner, now Hachette Book Group USA. He's bringing his customary attention to detail—and adapting to New York ways, he tells The Bookseller.
David Young sits in a light-filled Manhattan corner office a few blocks from Grand Central Station, his daily view the upper stories of serried skyscrapers and roof-top gardens. This is the place he would like to retire from—eventually. Having arrived in November 2005 to take the helm at what was Time Warner and is today Hachette Book Group USA, he is “in no hurry to go back” to the UK.
A sculpture of a wild turkey (a North American native) stands on wooden surfaces, as do photos of Young’s wife, novelist Elizabeth Noble, their daughters, Tallulah and Ottalie, and his son Will. Chief executive status is signalled by a Patek Philippe clock.
Within two months of taking over from Larry Kirshbaum, Young was navigating the company’s sale to Lagardère; an office move; and renaming (its Warner Books division is now Grand Central). His staff have had to get used to a new style and drier wit after years under the glad-handing, exuberant Kirshbaum.
Young has learned that “New York landlords make the most voracious literary agents look like Pollyanna”. He has had to master the mysteries of American pensions, and discover the “nightmare” of getting children into Manhattan private schools. And he has found that “we’re living in a 9/11 world” in which foreigners, lacking an American credit record, have trouble getting a mobile phone account or American Express card.
"That sort of thing was infuriating beyond measure,” he says, tight-lipped. On the other hand, he loves living on the Upper West Side, in a “much more child-friendly” city than he imagined, whose “service culture” is a revelation. His wife is working on her fifth novel, about—what else—an Englishwoman in New York.
Another thing to impress him is the passion for books at the likes of Barnes & Noble, Borders and Costco. It’s borne out of the long service of their buyers, he observes, which “by and large is not the case in the UK”.
With 350 people in Manhattan and 550 more across Boston, Nashville and Indiana, Young “cannot be as hands-on” as he was wont. Geography also has an effect in America’s “less efficient” supply chain. He has learned the necessity of enduring two days’ travel for a two-hour meeting in a place such as Amarillo, Texas.
Staff have welcomed the initiatives he has put in place. PubTracker, a cross-company programme to capture all book data “from conception to birth”, went live in 2006. Internationally he speaks of back office “process advantages” with sister companies, but adds that “we cannot and must not impose publishing philosophies”.
The exception to that rule is science fiction; Tim Holman was brought to New York to direct Orbit for the US, Britain and Australia. As for individual titles, “Tim Hely Hutchinson [Hachette UK c.e.o.] and I are trying to make sure we are in play if we think a project can travel well”. A US/UK “summit” was recently convened in New York “to make sure Editor A here talks to Editor Y in London and realises what people are most likely to be interested in”.
The decision to sell UK editions exclusively into Europe, Young insists, hasn’t created problems, and there are “early indications” that as a company, “we will sell more books”. For the first time, it is touring Anita Shreve in Europe.
On a role
Hachette is fifth in the US marketplace, but “although not the biggest, we can be the best”, Young says in a tone that will accept no less. Last year saw “our best run: 82 New York Times bestsellers, 20 at number one, and 11 of the top 50 BookScan US titles, more than any larger rival”. There were three National Book Award finalists plus one winner, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian. Little, Brown produced both B&N Discover winners: Kate Braestrup, for Here if You Need Me, and Joshua Ferris for Then We Came to the End.
Then there’s the YA (young adult) phenomenon known as Stephenie Meyer. “The day following the publication of Eclipse last August was one of the most exciting of my career,” Young says. It had shifted 150,000 copies in a single day. “At 9:05 a.m. [B&N c.e.o.] Steve Riggio rang. He thanked for lifting us out of the dog days of August.”
Young is keen to emphasise that a force for good has come with the new ownership. “It’s a darned sight better reporting to an owner who understands the book business. The response from Paris is much faster than the response that used to come from up the elevator bank at Time Warner.” There has been more money to invest in books, whether for Little, Brown, Grand Central, or Jonathan Karp’s new boutique, Twelve.
Signing Tom Wolfe, Keith Richards and Ted Kennedy are the obvious results. Manga has also been added to the mix. Grand Central’s Jamie Raab is broadening her programme into the African–American and Hispanic markets.
Young is a sworn convert to Hachette’s federal approach. “Grand Central is as fiercely competitive and independent here as Hodder is [in the UK].” As for the competition, “I admire what Jane [Friedman, HarperCollins c.e.o.] has done on a number of technology fronts. She’s made a lot of investments.”
Hachette was the first trade house to adopt the International Digital Publishing Forum e-book standard. “One has to look very carefully, use short licenses for some rights; it’s so fast evolving,” Young admits. He dismisses differences between e-book royalties here and in the UK: “The method is different, but the amount remitted to the author is similar.”
Although these have been good years, the American economy is rapidly darkening, and publishers are concerned. “I’ve been through recessions in the UK,” Young muses, “And my experience is that books do as well as any product. But that doesn’t mean we’ll have an easy time.”
New York has one natural advantage, however. “The thing I enjoy the most here is the greater frequency of blue-sky days.” So all he has to do is “be very careful” running the business, “making the underlying efficiencies and profit as good as we know how” and look out of those big windows to catch a bit of blue.
RSS
Subscriber Content