"Two things have always been true. Those in publishing love to complain about it. Always someone who wants to get into publishing." ~ Michael Korda
"I've been in publishing for nearly 40 years, and in that time people have always behaved as if the sky were about to fall. The sky was about to fall because of television."........... ~ Thomas McCormack
"In 1975, I was told by a well meaning mass market executive that I should get out of hardcover fiction because in five years there wasn't going to be any more."
"We lack skepticism, and we embrace pessimism."
"What is the nature of success in publishing? There has to be a sensor tuned to more signals than the immediate graph of sales and profits. The ultimate criterion is the impact of the ideas that are books on the minds of men and women, girls and boys. A good publisher knows what impact he or she wants to make, and, also important, not to make with these books. Measuring the true impact is more difficult, often not possible in one or two years, or perhaps even in ten."
"It's the first duty of a publisher to stay in business, and to earn the right to publish talented but not necessarily commercial authors by doing enough moneymaking books."
"Publishing has yet to find a satisfactory affirmation of its identity, both as a catalyst and promoter of literature, scholarship, education or entertainment and as a business enterprise, a private risk-taking venture guided by the principles of profit and loss and return on investment."
"Books are not and never will be products like other things in our mercantile society."
"A publishing house is not a book producing machine; it is an organized group of create and often highly individualistic people who have rational and irrational characteristics, engaged in an activity that influences and reflects rationalities, irrationalities, enthusiasms, problems, desires, fads, institutions and purposes of society."
"We sell books, other people sell shoes. What's the difference? Publishing isn't the highest art."
"Trade book publishing is by nature a cottage industry, decentralized, improvisational, person; best performed by small groups of like-minded people, devoted to their craft, jealous of their autonomy, sensitive to the needs of writers and to the diverse interests of readers." ~ Jason Epstein
"...For book publishing is not a conventional business. It more closely resembles a vocation or an amateur sport in which the primary goal is the activity itself, not its financial outcome." Jason Epstein
"I'm a businessman, not a book publisher." ~ John Kilcullen (Chairman of IDG books)
"Such name-brand best-selling authors as Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and John Grisham, whose faithful readers are addicted to their formulaic melodramas, no more need publishers to edit and publicize their books than Nabisco needs Julia Child to improve and publicize Oreos." Jason Epstein
"Publishing is the art of making something known. It is an art form, and it is a very precise one." ~ Beau Friedlander
"Book publishing, if you look at it as a profit-driven business, is not an enormously profitable business to start with. And it has an awful lot of risk. Size is what gets you by, in that if you have enough bets placed, the curve evens out. Therefore, the larger you are, the more even the curve." ~ John Sargent
"So what you really have to do, at least in a house like ours, is to operate on a sort of 'home run or strikeout' principle, which is get up there, swing as hard as you can, and hope that you hit enough home runs to cover your strikeouts." ~ Larry Kirshbaum
"For much of the history of publishing, newly released books were elite cultural items, their ownership a mark of privilege. They were sold through boutique shops, which cultivated a well-heeled clientele and colluded to keep prices high by prohibiting discounting. The historian Reinhard Wittmann has noted that, in Britain and Germany during the late 18th Century, the cost of an average novel was enough to feed a household for two weeks." ~ Jenny Lee
"In a world awash with text, people read extensively: they read many books once rather than one book many times; they read for a wide range of purposes; and they have access to many sources of information other than books. This makes for a less predictable, more volatile market." ~ Jenny Lee
"The rise to dominance of the big book selling chains is the single more important development of the last fifteen years in the book business. The chains have put a price on every aspect of book selling and charged it to publishers. Big publishers, obliged to pay up, have to divide their lists internally into a few books in which they invest and a lot in which they don't." David D. Kirkpatrick"The 'anything, anytime, anywhere' paradigm is really going to shift the world of media. There will be a tough, grinding transition for an awful lot of businesses." ~ John C. Malone
"Our industry is facing a profound challenge from home-created content.... If we create the right crossroads, provide the consumers with the appropriate tools ... we can harness what otherwise from the outside would look like a punk revolution. ... If the user wants to be both author and editor, and technology is increasingly enabling this, what will be the role of the media company?" Tom Glocer
"Thinking that the more books you can produce will make more money for a publisher is neither bad nor good -- it's stupid." ~ Rudy Shur
"The key trend is that the publishing business is evolving from a push to a pull industry." ~ Jim Chandler
"The pie isn't any bigger, but it's getting cut into more slices so some players will lose a little and some will lose a lot." ~ Roxanne Coady
"...The greater concerns are the dwindling number of book readers, the shrinking number of hours those readers spend with books, and the alarming absence of kids in the bookstore." ~ Russ Lawrence
"A changing marketplace that rewards speed and flexibility; experimentation with new business models; an increase in the number of platforms for innovative publishing and marketing; and a decline in the cost of entry into publishing are the major trends providing independent publishers, as well as publishing as a whole, with challenges and opportunities in 2007. ~ Dominique Raccah
The Department of Commerce lists 17 industries under this heading. It is curious that publishing, which does not involve manufacturing, a creative business, is included in this class. Four of these industries are directly related to print book publishing.
Although large newspapers such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times have largely left book publishing, at one time both had book publishing subsidiaries. The substantial amount of content that a newspaper accumulates lends itself to a variety of book publishing endeavors, especially for books relating to current events. Today, newspapers sell that content to external publishers. Opportunities remain.
Many periodical publishers also publish books. Rodale Press with its Prevention and Organic Gardening or Kalmbach with its Trains and Model Railroader are good examples of how periodical publishers can use their reputation and their collection of content to publish books. Usually, anthologies or collections of previously published material are the easiest way to begin. Subscription lists and advertisements in the periodicals can be used to reach a targeted audience. Brand name reputation makes it easier to promote and sell books.
This class is generally restricted to those larger publishers that sell books via the trade or established retail book stores. "Publishing is about customers acquiring content--some of which will be books...." The Book Industry Study Group is a membership organization that studies and discusses major issues for the field. The Book Standard, by VNU Business Media, provides a free digital newsletter with news and sales information.
Traditionally, book publishing has been a top-down industry, but information technology is moving to a bottom up industry. The "long tail" visible at Amazon where many books sell a few copies but on a regular basis supports the notion that niche publishing is likely to have a dramatic impact by allowing more publishers to do reasonably well by focusing on a smaller, well-defined more easily reached audience.
It is important to distinguish between publishing and printing. Few U.S. publishers do their own printing. There is also a notable trend away from printing toward an integrated book manufacturing operation that includes composition, printing, binding and distribution. Bertlesmann, especially its Doubleday subsidiary, has a substantial book manufacturing operation. However, most publishers cannot afford the technology and the specialized labor. To be cost-efficient, book manufacturers need to run at least two shifts each day and most publishers lack that volume. Without substantial economies of scale, it is less expensive to allow book manufacturers or printers to compete for your business. Books may be manufactured abroad for less. Kingsport Press in nearby Kingsport Tennessee has been a major book manufacturer, but is being down-sized by its Canadian owner.
Other industries in this group include:
As publishers become content providers for a variety of formats such as the ebook, the abook, and the graphic novel, a key question, as Jenny Lee says, is "what can books do that other media or formats do not do as well?" Attributes mentioned in the literature include:
Book publishers may be classified by a variety of schemes. One of the most common approaches is to classify by audience. Thus, we have publishing for children, teens, adults, students, and professionals. Each of these categories may be subdivided by age, type, and the like.
We also classify by format so we have publishers who issue mass market paper editions, trade paper editions, and trade cloth editions. Going beyond the traditional physical book, format includes audio and digital books of various flavors.
Distribution may also be used. Trade publishers distribute books via the retail bookseller. The book club distributes directly to the buyer via mail. The mass market publisher originally distributed via periodical vendors who placed books in wire racks in a wide variety of retail (but not trade) locations. Text books are distributed directly to schools or school districts who then distribute them to students. College text books are usually sold at college stores.
Some publishers are classified by how their books are used. For example, reference books are not usually designed to be read from cover to cover and are often sold to institutions such as libraries rather than to individual users. Text books are used to learn particular subject content.
Publishers are also categorized by subject so that we have science fiction publishers or public administration publishers or religious publishers.
Contemporary U.S. book publishing is usually divided into a few standard categories:
We do not know how many book publishers exist in the U.S. We could count the number of publishers listed in Literary Market Place or the number of publishers who have received International Standard Book Numbers. However, both of these sources do not include some smaller, specialized publishers and firms publishing books who are not book publishers. Even Books In Printdoes not include many specialized publishers. Standard sources focus on those publishers likely to sell books via the trade. Today, many books are sold via the Internet or direct mail. Still, Bowker estimates that there are about 7000 new publishers each year. Others suspect that the numbers are largely than that, especially if the POD publishers are included.
It is easier today than ever before to become a new publisher. Inexpensive computers, quick copy shops, publication on demand, book doctors, and the Internet have reduced the costs of entering the field and made it easier to create, sell, and distribute books. Some estimates suggest that the number of publishers grows at about ten percent per year. Many of these publishers will issue only one or two books. Most will be in business for a short time.
In the last few years, the number of new books has increased dramatically. In 2005 and 2006, the number declined somewhat. Flat or modest growth is predicted for the next few years. Many are issued by established trade houses. Others are from new, small, and independent publishers.
There are many "unseen" book publishers in the U.S. These are organizations, agencies, and businesses that issue books for external or internal use. For example, consider the print documentation produced by software firms or all the books issued by a wide variety of religious organizations. Since 1980, the number of corporate publications has probably increased by 30 to 40 percent. With improving and less expensive technology, there are at least 100,000 U.S. companies with in-house publication units capable of issuing book length content.
While this course and much of the available literature focuses on trade book publishers, there is no reason why companies in other categories cannot publish and sell books with success. Here is one older example.
California Standard Oil Company (Chevron) was one of the largest oil companies in the world. In 1973, Chevron Chemical (Ortho is its best known brand name) conducted a market survey to identify new products that might be sold in garden centers with its chemical products. A need for more and better garden books to be sold in gardening centers, hardware stores, and nurseries was quickly identified. Ortho's Information Services created All About Vegetables and printed 300,000 copies in the first printing. Note that the content was created by in-house staff (work for hire) rather than the typical individual author. The work soon became a best seller. Publisher brand name recognition was an important asset. There were about 35,000 retail outlets where gardening supplies were sold available for book sales. There was little competition in this non-traditional, non-trade distribution. Today, the Ortho product line is owned by the Scotts Company and has more than 80 titles in print on a wide variety of indoor and outdoor topics including gardening and home improvement.
More recently, COSTCO created a cooking and informal entertainment book to be sold exclusively at its stores. Barnes and Noble has created its own editions, often of public domain titles, for several years. Border is about to publish its first new fiction title.
Each year Fortune magazine ranks the 500 largest firms by several different measures including growth in revenues. The Fortune "Five Hundred" lists publishing and printing as 25th (out of 41 industries) in growth in revenues.
Twenty publishing and printing firms are listed on the Fortune 500. Here are the first eleven:
Book publishing is a relatively small part of the U.S. economy. In some years, sales of print books are less than that of pet foods. Note that many books sold are not counted here because they were created and sold by firms which are not classified as book publishers.
Because publishing is a creative activity without a manufacturing component, most publishing houses employ relatively few people. While they work well in book manufacturing, economies of scale do not seem to work well with book publishing. Large publishing houses are not necessarily more efficient or more effective than small ones. In fact, small ones may be more effective because they are more flexible and decisions can be made more quickly. Fulfillment and distribution may be exceptions to this since generalization since economy of scale does seem to apply to these functions. Large publishers do better with advertising, promotion, and distribution because they have greater resources and that means more clout and visibility.
Although estimates vary, the Book Industry Study Group recently said that U.S. book publishing [2005] is a $35 billion industry [net revenues] up from about $29 billion in 2004. The AAP's 2005 estimate was $ 25.1 billion.
"With glamorous, well-established publishing giants already courting good writers and book reviewers and bookstore operators, nobody's going to pay much attention to you until you really get started. The landscape of publishing is littered with the skeletons of hundreds of failures, and the gasping remnants of several struggling enterprises whose survival is a day to day affair. There's plenty of room for newcomers, but little sympathy for the incompetent and the unprepared." ~ Huenefeld
Book publishing has minimal equipment requirements. You need something to write on and with. You need access to the telephone. It would be good to have access to a computer, but that is not required.
Capital requirements are minimal, especially if you issue digital books. Even hard copy books do not require much capital if you have a small number produced at the local quick copy shop. Some money is required to help with promotion and visibility initiatives.
New firms that survive and succeed are usually created by those with considerable experience in a larger, established firm or subject specialists who have identified a gap in the literature and know what is needed and what will be bought. These subject specialists also have visibility within their community and are part of a network of subject specialists.
The subject specialist path is more common. The thoughtful subject specialist knows:
Those with publishing house experience, usually as editors, know the business, especially what sells and how to market. Knowledge of the trade and contacts make a substantial difference. These veterans are most likely to have realistic expectations. An example is an editor of mystery and suspense books who created her own firm to create and package these books.
With the telecommunications revolution, a new publishing house may be located anywhere. There is no need to be near a major metropolitan area. There has been a notable trend toward decentralization, especially by small and medium sized firms. The South (including Tennessee) and West (especially California and Texas), in particular, have gained publishing firms. Still, the Middle Atlantic region, especially New York, dominates the field. There are about 18 times as many book publishers in New York as in Tennessee. New York City is still the capital of contemporary U.S. book publishing. However, in 2005, the BIP database listed 81,000 publishers in the U.S. and only 3,417 of those were located in New York City.
Most new firms publish but one or two books. The failure rate for new publishers is probably about 70 percent. Those new firms that are successful normally die within 20 years or with the death of the founder. Many of these publishers are more labors of love than true businesses.
The market for adult trade books is expected to remain about the same or decline in the next five years. Unit sales may increase by one or two percent, but there seems to be agreement that the market for new books is not expanding. Experts call this a "mature" market. In 2004, 93 percent of ISBNs sold fewer than 1,000 units so most books sell only a few copies. About seven percent of ISBNs sold more than 1,000 units and constituted nearly 87 percent of books sales.
"Chains, superstores, and Internet booksellers have made an enormous range of mid-list titles available, but without heavy marketing support, these books get lost [David Kirkpatrick]." Limited marketing support is a liability for most front list and many back list books, limiting the market.
Most costs are fixed and up front. Editorial, design, and manufacturing costs normally require prompt payment. Many new books do not sell well and those that do sell may bring in money slowly. Most profit comes from a tiny number of new titles. The best sellers pay for the flops. Book publishing is like drilling for oil. There are many "dry holes," but few "gushers."
"Nobody knows anything" is a continuing problem. It is difficult to know what will find favor with the public. Popular taste and creative talent are such that there is no certain way to make money. The same is true for music and film.
Until recently, most book publishers made modest profits in the six to eight percent range. Today, the large publicly owned super firms expect profits at least of twelve to fifteen percent. It is not clear that this is a reasonable expectation. In fact, there are at least a few who argue that book publishing is not really a business in the traditional sense. Most agree that too many books are published and many receive inadequate attention from editing to marketing.
Books are published for two reasons. The first is to share something, to spread the word or have some impact on society. For these publishers, profit is of little importance, although they may need to break even or avoid substantial loss. Religious and university publishers are good examples of this type of publisher.
Many small publishers publish as a labor of love, to preserve and share knowledge. Dissemination and visibility is far more important than profit. Publishing what you believe in means than publishing is much more than a business.
The second reason to publish is to make money, although not necessarily at any cost. It may be possible to publish high quality material and make a good profit. Risk is minimized by selecting materials for publication that are likely to be popular. If publishing is a business, it ought to be a rational activity. To what degree can publishing be a rational activity? Authors, editors, and buyers are often irrational. How rational is it to sell ideas and experiences? In the past few years, more librarians have criticized publishers for being too rational and not publishing works of quality that appeal to small audiences. Allowing well received books to go OP may be another indication of unwanted rationality. Larger publishers increasingly publish brand name authors and media tie-ins. Is that business-like?
Can a book publisher be both a business and a cultural institution like the opera or the symphony which should be subsidized and nurtured? Consider the difference between the university press and the porno publisher as being at different ends of this business profit oriented spectrum.
Publishing houses that issue stock must pay attention to what investors want and think. There is considerable pressure to be "rationale," increase profits, and increase the price of the stock. This may reduce flexibility and innovation. Here is a list of some firms in the publishing industry whose stock is widely traded:
There is general agreement that too many books are being issued. The number of new books has increased dramatically in the past few years:
The front list consists of those books soon to be issued, just issued, and recently issued. These are the new books. The back list consists of books that are no longer current, but remain available for sale. A publishing house with a substantial back list will sell many books for year after year with minimal effort. Backlist books are less likely to be returned and can be especially profitable when they sell year after year. The back list of a publishing house can be a substantial resource and often means the difference between long term success and failure.These steady sellers are essential for the long term health of the publishing house. In the last few years, many large firms have placed more emphasis on their front list.
Whittle Communications, based in Knoxville [now out of business], in 1989 published 34 topical nonfiction books with profit based on advertising using the controlled circulation model. Authors received a flat rate ($60,000). Books were sent free to 150,000 leaders in the U.S. Later, books were to be sold by bookstores. This did not work well. Each book was sponsored by one firm and that firm had about 20 pages of color ads. Federal Express was an early sponsor. Books were hard cover, but short with about 100 pages. While Whittle is no more, the notion of using the periodical model to add income sources to book publishing is still alive.
Traditionally, the cloth book was printed first and then a paper edition appeared about one year later. The right to issue a reprint edition is called a subsidiary right (right to publish the original was the primary right). It is a curious business that tells customers to wait a year and get an equivalent product for much less. In the case of a few enormously popular authors [Dickens, for example] fiction was first published in the newspaper and second in a cloth edition. Today, because of the popularity of paper books, especially the mass market paperback, a popular book may be published first in paper and then reprinted in cloth for the collector and the institutional market. There is a trend in genre fiction for more popular authors to move from mass paper to trade paper and then to cloth for their new work. Hard cover books receive more reviewer attention and this helps to get better rights sales.
As the number of subsidiary rights has increased, the potential for rights income has become very important to larger publishing houses. Books with limited subsidiary rights potential are less likely to be published. Authors and publishers fight over how to share this additional income. At one time, it was 50 - 50 but popular authors will receive more than that.
There are a large number of subsidiary rights. Here are a few examples:
Synergy is the notion that content can be recycled in many profitable ways. The publisher that can handle many rights in-house may have an advantage. The multi-media firm can use the same content on TV, film, periodicals, and books. Two web sites that provide some sense of the rights business are the subrights site of Bantam Dell and that for Rightscenter.com.
There are many publishing firms and with ease of entry there is little likelihood of monopoly or oligopoly for most types of books. The Concentration Ratio is low when all books sold are considered. Still, Random House is the major publishing conglomerate and a few large publishers do account for a large share of total trade book sales. As Jason Epstein says, "General book publishing in the United States is currently dominated by five empires. Two are based in Germany--Bertelsmann, which owns the Random House group, and Holtzbrinck, which owns Henry Holt, St. Martin's and Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. Longmans, Pearson, based in London, owns the Viking, Penguin, Putnam, Dutton group, and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporations owns HarperCollins and William Morrow. Simon and Schuster, Scribner, and Pocket Books belong to Viacom." Eight firms account for about 80 percent of the U.S. hardcover best sellers and ten account for more than 90 percent of the paper best sellers. Book publishing is relatively decentralized. There are a large number of sellers. Most firms selling books are book publishers so that the Specialty Ratio is high [most of those selling books specialize in book publishing rather than something else].
There is notable variation by publisher type. For example, there are only four major atlas publishers and six publishers of standardized tests. Four publishers dominate educational publishing. Four companies dominate professional publishing. In particular subject areas, there are a few dominant publishers. Because of the enormous costs involved in creating new textbook series, textbook publishing represents a special case where ease of entry is difficult. Here there are a small number of sellers and a smaller number of buyers. Outside of remainder books, there is virtually no price competition by publishers.
For most books, there are a large number of individual buyers so that a particular buyer has little influence. In text book publishing, two states [Texas and California] have substantial influence on book content because they buy so many books. The national chain book stores have a few buyers who order for hundreds of stores so their preferences have growing influence on publisher's decisions. This and the need for higher profit to balance higher operating costs creates a demand for best sellers from brand name authors These chains account for slightly more than 50% of all trade books sold in the U.S. Note however, that a large number of books are sold outside book stores. For example, warehouse clubs and discount stores sell a relatively large number of books (but few titles).
Most publishers lack hard data about virtually every aspect of book publishing. The one exception is the Book Industry Study Group (BISG) which publishes an expensive annual review of trends. Nearly all books are sold to wholesale or retail outlets so the publisher rarely contacts the end user. This may change as more books are sold directly via websites and mail order catalogs. Most publishing houses have websites that allow them to reach buyers and learn more about their interests. Thus, market research possibilities are increasing.
The national book store chains have detailed data about virtually every aspect of book sales and this data is increasingly used to influence publisher decisions.
Given the lack of research, publishers often use the success or failure of previously published books to identify what is popular and what is not. This leads to a follow the leader, jump on the band wagon phenomenon which can be characterized as "copy cat" publishing.
Brand loyalty is a crucial attribute for most consumer products. Books represent a substantial branding problem since most buyers think of the author rather than the publisher as the brand. You might ask to see Sony televisions at Best Buy, but you are unlikely to go to Borders and ask to see the Little, Brown books. Few readers have a publisher brand preference. Issuing books in series helps to link a publisher to an easily recalled series brand name. Ideally, book buyers should look for and buy works published by a particular publisher. Brand loyalty would make sales of new books much easier. Some specialty publishers have been successful in creating a desirable brand. Harlequin Romances has done the best job. Disney launched an adult trade publishing operation which builds on Disney's name recognition. I suspect that this will not be as successful as its earlier children's trade book imprint with all those licensed characters.
With the increasing ease of creating a publishing house and selling books, having a trustworthy brand will be a key asset and should give some traditional publishing houses an advantage in a crowded marketplace.
Still, the brands in publishing typically belong to authors and not to publishers.
Licensing can provide publishers with a well known brand name. For example, Creative Publishing International issues Black & Decker (home repair) and Singer (sewing) series books. Wiley is issuing a series of books marketed under the CNBC brand. Simon and Schuster publishes Wall Street Journal Books. Sometimes, licensing does not work. Dorling -Kindersley had the license for a series of Star Wars Phantom Menace books. Too many were printed and the company lost more than $41 million [and eventually went under and was purchased by another]. Most licensing involves children's and teen's books, but it is growing in popularity for adult non-fiction.
Licensing its own content can also be quite profitable for the publisher (an important right). For example, Harry Potter licensing resulted in a wide variety of products. Scholastic's Clifford, the Big Red Dog, has been most successful.
Many books, especially mass market paper ones, are purchased on impulse so that cover design is more important than the publisher name or the author. Most covers do not show a reasonably large, distinct brand name.
For most buyers, the book is a discretionary good. This means that sales go up when the economy does well and go down when the economy does poorly.
For most buyers, the book is a consumable rather than a permanent good. The paper book is discarded or given away when it is completed. Most other forms of entertainment are also transitory. If a book is read but once or twice, it need not be so sturdy. If most books are read but once, this opens the way for lease or rental arrangements since books do not need to be kept.
With the exception of some reference and children's books, the library represents such a small market segment that its requirements are not likely to receive much publisher attention.
Given copyright, each new book is a unique product. In a typical year, between 100,000 and 200,000 "unique" new books are issued in the U.S. The number of books "in print" is more than three million. Can there be competition between books if each is unique? Does not each publisher have a monopoly on the new books published?
Book covers need to be visibly different while their category or type must be clearly identifiable. For example, the SF book must clearly identify its category and appeal while being different enough to attract interest. This is a difficult challenge.
A large number of new products without substantial numbers of new buyers means that publishers are slicing the pie into ever smaller slices. Birth control for new books has been advocated for many years. Most publishers have reduced their lists at some time. Still, many would prefer that another publisher make the more substantial cuts. There are too many new books. Many never receive the review or buyer attention that they deserve. Some new books are declared OP without having a reasonable opportunity to become visible to the public. There are too many choices for most buyers.
One of the dramatic changes in the last few years has been the substantial growth in distribution outlets for books. Not only are there the "big box" bookstores with their large stock, but discount stores, mass merchandisers, supermarkets, drugstores, specialty stores and others now sell highly popular mass market titles. Books, both new and used, are also easily found and purchased on the web. Expansion of distribution outlets represents a quite an opportunity for those who sell and buy books. However, it also provides challenges to the conventional book trade as well as to authors and publishers, especially with the dramatic increase in used book sales. The new Harry Potter book will be sold as a loss leader in some retail outlets at a price that is less than independent bookstores would pay for it.
Virtually all books sold to retail outlets are returnable to the publisher if in good condition within some time limits. This began during the depression to encourage retail stores to stock more books than they could afford to buy. Book sellers order books that they do not have to sell. This encourages ordering inappropriate items. In the last few years, substantial numbers of returns have been a problem for nearly all publishers.
Focusing on the big book can lead to substantial errors in print runs. For example, HarperCollins paid more than $4 million for Jay Leno's Leading with My Chin, printed 600,000 copies and had 400,000 returned. Barnes and Noble has returns of about 30 percent, but as much as 35 percent of all cloth trade books are returned. Returns are much higher for mass market paper editions. In 2001, some trade publishers reported that they received one returned book for every two books shipped. The national chains with their super stores have added to the problem by ordering too many books and then returning a relatively large number. Discount stores also have a high return rate.
There is a trade-off between returns and discounts. Non-returnable books receive much greater discounts.
Until recently, U.S. publishers gave little thought to the export market. This is a notable contrast with British publishers. Lack of interest is curious since the U.S. is the leader in many academic disciplines and professions. American English has become the most popular world language. U.S. books have not sold well abroad because of minimal promotion and high prices. Sales improve when the value of the dollar declines. Canada and the United Kingdom are the two largest export markets. The United Kingdom and China are the two largest exporters of books to the United States.
The large foreign-owned U.S. publishers have lengthened their reach. For example, Random House is launching a new division based in India and is moving forward in China
U.S. libraries purchase several billion dollars worth of books each year and may account for about ten percent of trade book sales. Libraries may account for 30 percent of university press books and 25 percent of professional books. Library book budgets have shrunk in the past few years so that the library market is less important than before.
Justin Branch [2006] collected a list of twenty interesting statistics about contemporary U.S. book publishing. Each could generate a thoughtful discussion question or two. Here are a few examples from his list.
Publishing is notable for its ease of entry. As a new small publisher, identify and discuss the barriers to becoming a publisher and then a successful one.
Increasingly, a few large firms dominate the book trade. To what degree is this a matter of concern?
If you were a small publisher, what might you do to establish a brand name that would make a difference?
To what degree is a new book truly unique with no competition?
Create an imaginary adult or children's book. How many different potential subsidiary rights can you identify?
Last major revision: June 2007.
