Blogger: Janet Kobobel Grant
Part 2 of 3: The Brave New Publishing World
Yesterday I gave you a glimpse into how the role of the agent is morphing, as publishing’s changes are coming at all of us faster than we can keep track of them. But what about publishers? How are they staying on top of the changes?
If you’re like me, some days it seems as though they’re not. After all, a traditional publisher is steeped in the way things used to work–and has the warehouse and systems to prove it. Turning even a smaller-sized publishing boat around is a big job that requires lots of imagination, energy and vision.
But this past week I had a conversation with a traditional publisher that was heartening. He explained that they had torn down the invisible walls that created departments–marketing, editorial and publicity–and instead created teams to…drumroll, please…look for product specific readers needed/wanted. The idea is to turn publishing on its head. Instead of trying to convince a reader that he or she has a certain need, the idea is to start out with the reader’s needs and then find projects that fit the bill. The publishing house is organized by reader-types rather than by functions employees perform.
It seems so reasonable, yet it’s easy for a publisher to take on the sole role of tastemaker rather than taste satisfier. (And there certainly are dangers in trying to be a responder-only to readers, including abdicating a role publishing has always played in our culture of pushing society’s envelope, forcing readers to think about a subject differently.)
In this new-style publishing, the publisher connects directly with the reader to determine what he/she wants; creates that product; announces directly to the reader the product is available; and then asks the reader for feedback. Did this title satisfy the reader? (The place of the bookstore in all this is another question to be dealt with.)
I know other publishers have done away with their departments to form editorial/marketing/publicity teams to reach specific readers. But this publisher has taken that trend one step further and decided that the reader should set the trends.
Will this plan work? No one knows. But this is an era in which, if we don’t try something new, we’re stuck in old-style publishing, and that boat is motoring toward an iceberg.
As a reader, how do you respond to a publishing house being structured this way?
As a writer, how do you respond to this idea?
What else do you think publishers need to do to stay afloat in the fast-changing publishing world?
Here’s the problem I see–as both reader and writer.
How will they know what the reader wants to read? How do they connect and with whom? What will they ask them?
The Madison Avenue focus group isn’t the answer, but this is their culture. Will they be able to steer clear of it?
The “fan hordes” will offer one idea, but what about the ideas that nobody’s tried yet? How can a reader know that they’d want to read something — in the words of Monty Python — “completely different?”
Where will that inspiration come from?
It can’t come from the agents. The mainstream has trained agents for a couple of decades to look for what’s salable. How will this process change what agents are screening out and allow those projects to come through the pipeline?
This *sounds* like a “duh” moment, but as a writer who talks to readers every day, I can tell you it’s not really like you can just put up a survey or take a poll of your biggest fans to govern what your next work will be. The real challenge to striking a chord is not in giving them what they say they want, but in giving them what they didn’t know they could have.
We’ve already got a process that gives them more of what they’ve already bought. The problem is in finding out what they might have bought instead but couldn’t.
As a writer, I wish them luck.
As far as what I think they need to do to stay afloat, pay attention to the changes in the market and respond to them in meaningful ways.
Pricing based on the “cannibalization model” needs to stop. The market has become stratified to an amazing degree. Releasing all formats at once — at market level prices — is really where the smart money would be playing. It would capitalize on promotional dollars and effort spent by amortizing that investment over more units. It would take advantage of any social media buzz by riding that first wave of interest into all the available formats, instead of squandering the momentum on the first (usually hardcover) release. From a marketing perspective, it only makes sense.
So far, none of the larger houses have given any indication that they understand that.
Add to that:
The ebook marketplace is at least twice as large as they think it is, and it’s growing much faster than their industry numbers are showing. I’m not talking about the few outliers whose names you all know. I’m talking about the hundreds of indies who are outselling mainstream press every single day. Those people are building market presence, chewing into the margins, and doing it completely under the radar of mainstream because *nobody* believes the numbers they’re pulling.
By propping up paper sales by inflating ebook prices, they’re not so much preventing cannibalization as they are cutting off their own legs and serving them up with ranch dressing on the side. The longer it continues, the less relevant they’ll become in the marketplace.
Actually I hope they stay the course for about three more years. I can use that time to solidify my own position. 🙂
JMO. YMMV.
Nathan, you’ve hit the nail precisely on the head. I think it’s great that a publisher is venturing out to ask what readers want–it’s about time. But who they ask and what will they ask are the next big questions. I know this publisher has encouraged its staff to be very connected via social media. But how do you pull in new readers? And you’re so right to ask about the unexpected title that sells like crazy. Is this publishing leaving room for its staff to use their own imaginations? I don’t know the answers to these questions.
What I do know is that the publisher had excitement in his voice when he told me about their plans. He was energized, and if he’s energized, I would suspect his staff is as well.
I applaud them for *moving* because once you start to move in new directions, you can make changes along the way.
Thanks for all your insights, Nathan. They’re good food for thought.
Yeah.
It’s sorta like driving from Des Moines to Honolulu. You get in the car and charge down route 80 heading west, things go great for a couple thousand miles and then you discover that there’s a basic flaw in the plan.
The good news is that you now have more information upon which to make a decision.
The bad news is you coulda flown from Denver.
It’s good that they’re beginning to question. More questions are always better than fewer because you stand a better chance of asking one that’s relevant.
Goodness, Nathan. If you think Publishers have us trained, you don’t know agents. Yes we know what publishers are looking for and yes we do our best to keep that pipeline filled but when we come across a brilliant book we use us all the leverage we’ve earned with publishers to push that out-of-box gem.
Forgive me, Wendy.
I’m just going by what I’ve seen and through my (admittedly limited) interactions with agents.
I *don’t* know agents. I’ve never had an agent. My books were all rejected as “not sufficiently commercial.” That was actually a *good* thing because it forced me to find my own audience and by-pass the gate keepers.
I suspect that those agents were correct. For mainstream press, the books were not sufficiently commercial. As long as I can keep selling 50,000 units a year at $5 a pop, I’m okay with not being sufficiently commercial.
It was, however, wrong of me to tar all agents with the same brush.
My apologies.
Apologies not necessary, Nathan. I said all the above with a quirked eyebrow and a big smile.
You were right to call me on it.
My perception of the situation isn’t necessarily a statement of fact. I think there’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to support the idea, but that still leaves the question in the realm of hypothesis — not theory, and certainly not fact. I need to be more precise with my comments.
Your comment, while accompanied with smile and eyebrow, was spot on. Thank you for reminding me of that.
Learning and delivering what the customer wants seems like good business sense to me. Publishing can learn from other industries – Amazon, Netflix, Zappos, and of course the king of them all – Apple. Publishing can learn from them and a long list of others how to discern what customers want beforeBEFORE the customers even knows they want it.
Good examples to point us to, Carol. Thanks.
From my perspective I am asking “what value does the publisher offer?” It used to be impossible to sell a book without the publisher as a middle-man to the book stores.
Now, it’s easier and easier to self-publish, especially online. Authors have to market themselves anyway and increasingly the shopping (and thus marketing) is done on the internet instead of inside the store.
Self-publishing will gradually disrupt the publishing industry and push them into a niche until they lose the game.
I think the survival strategy for publishers in the old model would be to get into self-publishing themselves; open a separate wing of the company that does self-publishing. It can provide a variety of services for the author to purchase – editing, artwork, marketing advice, market research data, SEO and social media education and services, and so on.
Once YouTube videos reach a level of quality that’s “good enough” to replace TV (it has a ways to go but that’s where it is headed) then the old TV networks are very quickly going to lose their market.
When self-published e-books (like YouTube) reach the level where they are “good enough” to replace the paper book and the bookstore, the bookstores and printers are going to very quickly lose their market.
Right now these area are filled with low quality junk and there’s little money to be made. But when the “critical quality” in terms of content and usability is reached then the switch will be very fast and whoever wasn’t already a leader when the threshold was crossed will be left far, far behind.
However, it’s just the companies that fail. Keep in mind that companies don’t truly deserve immortality, they are an instrument we can discard when their usefulness is ended. The people in those companies will still have networks, skills, and so on. Ideally they have been honing skills that are useful in the new economy or are networking in nearby industries that are not facing quite as immanent a disruption…
The one part of my conversation with the publisher I didn’t mention in my post is that he told me, “We understand that our competition isn’t other publishers; it’s self-publishing, and we know we have to offer more to authors than self-publishing can.” I’ve never heard a publisher admit that before, so it was pretty invigorating to me. And this won’t be the last publisher to figure it out and, hopefully, make significant adjustments in how they relate to authors so the publishing house can stay in the game.
A number of my clients have done some self-publishing, and most of them had moderately successful sales. But each of them had to take on the mantle of publisher, and the vast majority just want…to be a writer. I’m seeing that some writers are willing to be the publisher, but most long for someone else to do all that other stuff.
And we haven’t even begun to look at the problem of no quality controls on self-published material. While some strong craftsmen are out there self-publishing, most of the work is, at minimum, published prematurely. The work didn’t go through the refiner’s fire because it was too easy to rush it to press.
Also, tomorrow I’m providing a link to a very interesting slide show in which a study found that those who haven’t bought an e-reader are solidifying in their opinion they want nothing to do with one. I think that will affect the success of self-published books, which aren’t carried by major distributors.
It seems true that as-is the self-published ebook market isn’t ready for the mass market, and probably won’t overtake printed books for some years to come.
Wow, very interesting. As a writer, it makes me a little nervous: how do I know what the reader wants (so I in turn can get it to a publisher who will publish it)? Doesn’t this change? Often? I may think readers want vampires, so I write a book to satisfy that, but by the time I’m done writing, they want zombies. (I don’t write paranormal; this is just an example.) I think staying on top of the latest trend may be difficult. Just because one book succeeds in a category doesn’t mean all books on that topic or in that genre will necessarily succeed. There is that unique combination of topic, genre, and author that makes a book successful.
It should be very interesting to see how this plays out. Thanks for keeping us abreast of the latest in the industry!
Lindsay, another side to this is the writer’s passion. We all know that the best books generally aren’t written because I publisher asked for something on a topic or in a genre. The best books are the ones the author has passionately and eagerly created. I’ve always said that an author should listen to the market with one ear and listen to his/her heart with the other. We need to consider both sides of that equation.
I completely agree. If I write a book simply because I know it will be popular, a certain amount of “heart” will be missing…and I think readers will be able to tell.
Unfortunately as a writer I think you basically just gotta write what you want to write. If people don’t like it, get a day job!
There’s a subtle difference, I think, between discerning a market niche and chasing trends. I believe Lindsay’s correct about the danger of jumping on a topical bandwagon, but those trends are an indication of broader interests. Sure vampire stories eventually burned out, but the interest in paranormal and dystopian stories in other forms remains high. The appeal of Amish stories is still strong, but perhaps the broader appeal is wholesomeness, faith, and caring for one another in community. Perhaps it’s a little like a physical craving for, say, broccoli that masks my body’s deeper need for the nutrients IN the broccoli.
Nathan commented on “giving them what they say they want” vs “giving them what they didn’t know they could have.” Maybe the secret is to discern what the market hungers for and then give it to them in a way they didn’t expect–something more deeply satisfying than they could have imagined. If we can feed the need with something that approaches a gourmet writing level, we’ll have a targeted appeal within our genre.
Good insights, Lynn. Thanks!
It seems like there needs to be a balance between the two. The publisher should be asking the readers what they want, because that’s really who makes them successful.
But on the other hand, they need to be looking for the next big thing, an undiscovered great author–just like they always have. Because that undiscovered author could be what the readers want to read.
I don’t think you can do one and not the other. Then it’s swinging to the other extreme.
On a side note, I’m an avid Christian fiction reader with tastes a little outside what tends to be popular. I’m from a major northern city (not NY), and I love fiction in that setting. It’s what I know so it’s also what I write. I just hope publishers ask me to see what I’d like to read. 😀
We’ll have to see if the publisher’s pendulum swings too far into just responding to readers. It’s hard to hit that happy middle and to stay there.
What a great discussion! I’m really excited that a publishing house is willing to go in this direction. I do think it will have to be less about supplying books about single mothers who love the color blue and more about general trends and directions. The funny thing about people (I’ve learned from years of marketing) is that they often don’t know what they want. No matter who quick they are to tell you exactly what it is.
Sarah, I think several other commenters are saying much the same thing you are: That just listening to what readers say isn’t the best way to understand what they want. Lynn analogy about the broccoli is a great way to express it, too. I’ll be sure to let the publisher know he should read today’s blog and comments. We’ll help to steer him in the right direction!
Interesting post and follow up conversations. I don’t think I can state much more that will add to it. I’ve known a publisher to go out and say, we are looking for a writer to address this topic. In that case, it was successful, but what if you end up with a bunch of queries that don’t fit your vision?
Cheryl, I suspect the team that has a specific idea in mind will spell out that vision and then contact agents to put them on the alert to find the right writers. Then the writers will be in a kind of audition. The one creating a product closest to the publisher’s vision gets the contract.
I’m excited that publishers are looking to the future and devising ways to stay in the game. But as a writer, I don’t know that we can think in those same ways. It’s kind of a chicken-and-the-egg idea. Do readers become interested in books because of their quality? Or does quality writing respond to reader interest?
A few years ago, if a production company asked their viewers, “What are you interested in watching on television,” would they have answered–“early 20th century period drama?” (That sentence is a punctuation nightmare…sorry). And yet, today we have Downton Abbey. I could be wrong, but I think that’s a case of high quality writing and production creating interest among viewers rather than responding to it.
Sure, we can keep an eye on trends and “reader interests,” but our main focus must be quality.
That said, I’m selfishly hoping the Downton craze will create more interest in this time period, because I’ve already been churning out manuscripts based in the early 1900s. 🙂
Karen, I think your wish for publishers and readers to want more of the Downton Abbey-era stories will come true.
Some writers can and will write what the publishers are looking for. Those writers need the money to keep their writing careers afloat and/or have a real heart for what the publisher is looking for. After all, if the publisher really does have its hand on the reader’s pulse, the writer might well be thinking along the same lines.
I have actually taken part in some of the surveys Christian publishers have sent out to find what readers want. However, I felt very limited by it at points. It had questions, and the reader was asked to choose from a list of answers. Too often, I did not find my real answer among the choices. This concerns me because I’ve spoken to many potential Christian Fiction readers who are looking for something to relate to and can’t find it yet. Is it that there are no readers within a particular group or are we just ignoring them? I don’t have the answer, but I sure would like someone to ask the question.
And I would hope the publisher I’ve written about will let readers get out of the “choose one of the options below” routine.
Another fascinating discussion. My head hurts because I’m forced to think! 🙂 The quest to find what the reader wants vs. needs vs. will purchase is daunting. I didn’t pick up “The Help” because I wanted to read about that subject. But I needed to read it. I just didn’t know it. I bought and read the book because it was a great story written from a unique perspective by a skilled storyteller. Because some of us have a tendency to retreat into our very comfortable writing corners and live in the world of imagination, we writers may be in danger of imagining the hearts, needs, drives, passions, interests, longings, character arcs of our readers rather than connecting with people. Even on deadline, I attend our small group on Wednesday nights. Real life happens there. I pay attention to discussions that don’t particularly interest me…because they’re important to someone else. I don’t just observe the way an oak leaf relinquishes its hold on a dusty brown branch and floats on invisible currents of October air, I also observe the person who walks that path and crunches the leaf underfoot, swiping at a tear from an unspoken pain. As a writer, if I count how many books sold at my speaking event and miss how many women needed to tell their story after the event, I’ve lost both the point and my next project.
I wonder how long it took the guy who invented the wheel to convince his friends it was a great idea. And how long was it before someone said, “You know, if we put spokes on that thing, it won’t be nearly as heavy”? And how long before someone discovered that rubber tires made a major difference? And the brilliant mind that thought of shock absorbers!
Won’t it be a “ride” watching the innovations that improve on the publishing wheel? And won’t it be fun for us who are always searching for new ways to clothespin playing cards to the spokes?
Cynthia, thanks for reminding us of the readers’ hearts, and how much they long for the author to connect with those hearts.
I have loved eavesdropping on this conversation. In our local writers group, our hostess has been trying to get a couple of authors to visit. Not because they are great (or even good) writers, but because they are superb marketers. I’m not sure a market-driven publishing model will be an improvement.
I fear the people who design the surveys are not sufficiently astute to design something that lets the survey-ee truly get the point across.
If there is going to be a “point and click choice” type of survey, it should at the very least include “none of the above” on every question. But the ones I have seen do not – and sometimes they will not even let you move forward until you make a forced choice of the lesser of evils.
New publishing must take into consideration literary values and quality as well as taste.
But I’m appalled at the number of times I have found errata in traditionally published books. I would seem that our schools have failed, in some instances, to turn out competent editors.
I recognize not everyone was in love with sentence diagramming, but it served a useful purpose in demonstrating function and syntax. (Thank you, Miss Bebermeyer.)
Judith, I don’t know that the publisher I’m writing about will use surveys to figure out what readers need/want. I think they plan to engage readers with specific interests via social media so it’s an actual conversation rather than multiple choice. Wouldn’t that be wonderful!? Then you could tell them you care about the quality of the writing *and* of the editing. (I loved to diagram sentences, by the way. Thank you, Miss Stein.)
Thank goodness for the social media venues, then. Real conversation would be wonderful. Re-reading my original post, I didn’t mean to sound so curmudgeonly. I hope you will forgive me.
Okay, the librarian in me can’t resist this one. 🙂
I hope publishers will consider asking librarians what readers say they need/want. We are attuned to the reading interests of our communities. Our patrons are vocal about revealing their reading needs and preferences to us and it’s our job to purchase materials to meet these needs. Patron requests rank high when making purchasing decisions.
Good point, Judy. I’m not sure librarians are on publishers’ radar in this way, but every community voices its opinion to librarians, I’m sure.
Both the writer and the reader in me sees the thinking behind this idea and the benefits of it. The reader in me, though, is wary of it because I *like* publishing houses challenging my wants and giving me something a little different – something I may not have liked at first or never have picked for myself. Instances when this happened in my life usually ended up with my enjoying a whole new genre I would have simply overlooked before.
The writer in me, on the other hand, feels that this *could* make life so much easier. There are times when I want to go with my own stories and ideas, and then there are times when I wish somebody else would tell me exactly what storyline or characters to use so I wouldn’t have to figure it out myself.
It’s a two-edged sword, isn’t it, Emily? I’m choosing to view this publisher in a positive light because it’s trying something out of the box. Hooray for out-of-the-box thinking! It’s what we all need to do now more than ever.
Great post, truly fascinating. I think it’s terrific this publisher is considering market testing. Not only does it speak to the market, but it will begin to raise brand consciousness for their brand.
Good for them for innovating! Whether it works, or needs tweaking I’m sure they’ll discover as they go along. But it’s exciting seeing publishers respond and try to adapt to the changing landscape.
I’ve bought too many books because of a publisher’s marketing plan only to be disappointed. Sometimes I felt duped and other times, merely foolish.
However, I’ve always fared better following the recommendations of friends. If my friends — and others like them — begin directing the projects that publishers pursue, I think the overall results will be far better. This seems like a good move — and I hope it works out.