Publishing SIG
SPECIAL SESSION
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Publishing SIG
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Mark Ouimet
The first presenter was Mark Ouimet, Marketing Director of Publishers Group West, a distributor for small publishers. PGW is the largest book distributor and eighth largest vendor of books in the country. Ouimet said his firm offers its 120 clients what they need in the bookstore marketplace clout. With his company, small publishers and authors have a much better chance of receiving regular payments for their products. Following is a summary of his remarks.
A book needs a marketplace, a customer, and a way to connect with the customer.
The marketplace is changing rapidly. Growth of superstores has hurt small, independent book stores. There are now about 1,000 superstores in operation Barnes and Noble, Bookstop, Borders, etc. The most exciting change is the advent of online book stores such as Amazon.com and Borders.com. They have successfully created an online retail environment. Amazon.com will be the model for the future. They carry ALL books published. Barnes and Nobel, on the other hand, has both the online and physical superstores. Small publishers can become affiliates of these companies. They will link to your site, and you get a commission for everything they sell from it. Online sellers require a scan of the book cover and a content blurb.
ACE members can also take advantage of the fact that books are now sold in other retail environments such as hardware stores, cookware stores, supermarkets, garden stores and others. Examples are Home Depot, Lowe's and WalMart.
Print on demand may change the business in the future. This gives you the flexibility to print very small runs (as few as 10 copies or so). It is very costly, but may catch on for small publishers. Out-of-print books are now being sold this way.
Regional books can have strong appeal, and are pretty much guaranteed a spot in the regional section of a bookstore. Calendars are expensive to print and usually are deeply discounted. Regional calendars are more marketable than national calendars.
Ouimet stressed the importance of zeroing in on the customer and on the marketplace. The industry is very competitive, with thousands of books published every year. We should try to identify our customer and create an attractive package for that person.
Packaging is very important. To be a book, a publication must have a spine. A bookstore customer must be able to read the title on the spine. Shelf space is dear, so most books are displayed spine out.
ACE members may have the opportunity to add value to some of the manuscripts we have by expanding them and making them into marketable products. This may also give the editor a more important role as the compiler/marketer. An attractive cover design is a must. Authors often don't know what will work in the commercial world. The first step for us in making a product more commercially viable may be to take more editorial control over authors. In moving into the marketplace we need to compile our information in a way to make it new and coherent, tailoring it to the needs of the customer.
The price of a book should be dictated by the format (hardcover, paperback) and the competition what the market will bear. In retail sales, 50 percent of the sale price goes to the bookstore, 25 percent goes to the distributor, and 25 percent to the publisher. Book retailing is a totally returnable business. Most publishers have a 30 to 40 percent return, and lots of returned books are pulped. The good thing about non-bookstore outlets is that there are no returns.
Kurt Byers
Kurt Byers is Communications Manager of the Sea Grant Program in Alaska. He has a successful track record of marketing select products in a variety of ways. Their goal is to produce products that promote a marine-literate public.
According to Kurt, to be successful in the marketplace you must have a retail/commercial mentality. There's no easy way to sell to retailers. To get your books and other items into stores nothing works as well as knocking on people's doors. Make the direct, in-person contact and then follow up. The success rate will be low, but you have to keep at it. Just walking into a little store, showing your merchandise and chatting with the owner could result in the same size sale as three days of exhibiting at a trade show.
Because of budget and time constraints, Kurt doesn't make special trips just to visit retailers in an area; rather, he carves out time from trips he's already planned. He looks in the yellow pages to find stores that might carry his publications. He also picks up brochures from charter boats, ecological tour companies, etc. Each possible retail outlet is added to a database which is used to generate lists for direct marketing. He also got names of stores for the database from the state department of commerce. Direct mail is a very effective marketing technique with the right promotional pieces and good timing.
One of their most popular products is a place mat. They've produce both laminated and unlaminated versions, but only the laminated ones sell. The place mat has drawings of Alaska fish. On the back are instructions for making fish prints and a sober message about shellfish poisoning. It sells for $2.75. Sea Grant pays shipping and offers stores a 40 percent discount off the retail price. They're priced to recover printing costs by the time all copies are sold.
Another product, "Field Guide to Marine Mammals of Alaska," is in its fourth printing and has sold 20,000 copies at about $15 per copy. It is 80 pages printed on water-resistant paper. The first audience for this book was fisheries observer training classes. Byers was successful in getting Pacific Pipeline, a Seattle distributor, to put the book into the big chains such as Waldenbooks. His advice for getting into the chains: get the branch manager on your side.
Alaska Sea Grant also has a Web catalog of 100+ publications where they display pictures of book covers, descriptions and ordering information.
He suggested asking bookstores what they want and then trying to fill the need.
Sea Grant isn't making a profit, but is slowing its depletion rate. Marketing is very labor-intensive. In fact, they now have a sales manager. Their success rate is about 20 percent.
Debbie Weitzel
Debbie is Publications Program Coordinator at Colorado State University. Marketing is now a component of her job. She does pre-publication marketing (taking orders before printing) and tracks sales.
Colorado has a cost-recovery program, with a formula for setting the price of a book. The formula they use on most publications is to double the printing cost, add 11 to 17 percent for overhead, and then add 20 percent for marketing. This cost does not include shipping and handling. Very few CSU publications are free only those for which the author has a grant.
Each publication has a marketing budget. A recent promotional flier describes several publications and cost $900 to produce. Each publications shared in the cost.
They pay 5 percent royalties, and release funds only after they recover the print costs.
CSU has been successful selling books by participating in book expositions, building mailing lists, and publishing a 2-color catalog. At first a catalog was mailed to every CSU employee. Now they send out postcards with which people can request a free catalog, and receive about 100 requests per day. They also send a special card to people who ordered from the previous catalog, telling them they can return the card for a free (new) catalog. They also send a thank-you card with orders, giving customers a 20 percent discount on future orders of more than $15. CSU does not ship orders unless the money has been sent. Catalog orders total about $9,000. They print more than 20,000 catalogs, and take them to the state fair and other events.
Part of their promotional effort is to publicize their store, called The Other Bookstore. Magnets, postcards, catalogs, plastic bags, etc. have been created with The Other Bookstore logo.
Customers can place orders on the CSU Web site and by using an 800 number, which Debbie says doesn't cost as much as you might think. They also do some integrated marketing by hooking up with other groups to promote each other's products. At CSU they track sales, test their promotional campaigns, and advertise in periodicals.
Debbie believes that joining Publishers Marketing Association was one of the most effective moves she has made for getting ideas on selling books, and she encourages others to join the group's Listserv.
CSU's publication sales totals about $200,000 per year.
General Topics (These comments were made during group discussion.)
Legalities
Some universities have had their materials copied and sold for profit. To prevent that, the copyright symbol should be printed on the book. Not everyone who prints the copyright symbol actually registers the copyright. Most universities freely give permission to reprint material if permission is requested in writing and credit is given.
Pricing Strategies
You should figure out what you're trying to accomplish and what your market is. No one includes labor in the price of a product, except when free-lancers or outside contractors are paid extra. (When contracting with these people you should put in writing whose property the work is yours or the free-lancer's.)
None of us comes close to making a profit on publications; income accounts are simply sustaining funds. Prices should be similar to those in bookstores. Some retail stores charge different prices for your products than the suggested retail price (some more, some less). You have no control over this.
There's been a change in attitudes in the past three years on selling publications. Before, there was reluctance to enter the marketplace. Now there's not. Some do foresee problems having to do with competition with the private sector. One solution is to offer your product to a private company and get a cut from what it sells. They publish it, you bring the expertise. But you should write into the contract that you retain quality control.
Designing for Marketing
Ouimet said to spend as much time as possible on marketing. You can make extra print runs of the cover to use in marketing. Covers absolutely sell. You have about 1 second to grab someone's attention with a cover. Design a cover that speaks to the person you want to buy the product. Amazon.com sells 50 percent more books when the cover is shown online. Covers need big text, short titles, and if you're using a photo, only 4-color will do.
New Roles for Communicators
Supervisors have to be committed to marketing and willing to support your efforts. To convince administrators of the importance of creating marketing and sales positions, emphasize that the income is vital.
A key is to make your production/distribution center part of the process so that if you go all out in marketing and run out of product, they will promise to reprint.
Other ideas: Use business administration students as interns, create a marketing committee, and get advice on marketing from your business college.
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