The World of Publishing

L 3

Ing. Jiří Šnajdar 2015

The World of Publishing

Publishing is a complicated business.

It takes years to learn with guidance and far longer without.

Publishing is ultimately a business of decisions.

Publishing is an extremely tough business.

Average profits are, at best, small unless one happens to have the luxury of a major bestseller in a particular year.

Unlike most other industries, publishing allows unlimited returns from its retail and wholesale customers. In essence, every book sold is on consignment—and, depending on the book and the year, publishers’ bottom lines can be dramatically affected.

What looks like a profitable sale today can turn into a disaster tomorrow.

One of the great strides that took place within the publishing industry occurred during the early 1970s, when the “gentlemanly profession” began to realize that its survival required more attention be paid to the mathematics and business of publishing.

Its survival required more than just the editorial acquisition and output of books that might or might not have a market.

If companies were to be profitable and continue to carry out, and even expand, their mission to disseminate ideas and promote literacy, then the only way to do that was to sell books profitably and stay in business.

Commitment Consistency Credibility

Commitment

Before beginning any publishing venture, you must be committed. You must initially be committed to:• funding the enterprise yourself or through loans• developing your editorial concept and niche or fulfilling your organizational mission

Commitment….

• progressing on a regular scheduleYou must initially be committed to• funding the enterprise yourself or through loans• developing your editorial concept and niche or fulfilling your organizational mission• progressing on a regular schedule• producing quality products that your target audience wants at a price it can afford

Commitment….

• marketing your product and getting the word out about it

• excellent fulfillment and customer service.

Commitment applies to many factors you will face. And many will probably think you should be committed as well!

Consistency

Whether you plan on being a trade, professional, direct response, academic, or religious publisher, whether for profit or not-for-profit, consistency is critical.

Each type of publishing runs on a seasonal basis, which you as a publisher must recognize and adhere to if you want to be a successful member of that community.

It does no good to try to bring out books at a time when they are not needed or when they are least likely to succeed.

Consistency…..

Whatever your market, you must make sure your program runs on a consistent schedule so everyone involved knows what is coming and when it is coming.

Your company must acquire books consistently, and they must be produced on a regular schedule that meets the needs of your vendors and your customers. Without consistency, chaos results too easily.

Consistency…..

Many publishers ask how many books are necessary to ensure their success in the marketplace. The answer to this question is simple.

It’s not the number of new books you publish that’s important, but the quality and consistency with which they are published. That’s the key!

That way your reps, distributors, wholesale buyers, and retail buyers begin to know you and begin to understand your publishing programme.

Credibility

Credibility is the necessary ingredient large and small publishers strive for, but it is highly elusive. It can be defined concisely as doing what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it. It implies being honest, open, and just in your dealings with people.

One reason credibility is so elusive in the publishing process is because events always seem to conspire to prevent completing projects on time.

Credibility….

You may, if you are under-capitalized (i.e., if you haven’t made a great enough financial commitment), be unable to produce your book because the printer wants money up front.  You may have an interview or autographing party set up and the author’s plane may be delayed.

Credibility….

You may well find that your printer puts you on press last, because you are a new account, and a small one at that.

Credibility is a fragile trait that is built over time but it is one you ultimately must have to be successful. To be credible, you must focus on commitment and consistency. 

The Publishing Environment Author, Publisher, Distributor, Wholesaler, Retail Accounts/Libraries/Book Clubs/Online Accounts/ Warehouse Clubs/Nontraditional Accounts, Consumer.

The flow may be direct or it may get highly circuitous. For instance books may flow:

• directly from the publisher to the consumer via direct response means (including internet sales)• from the publisher to the retailer and then to the consumer 

• from the publisher through the distributor, to the wholesaler, to the retail account, and then on to the consumer

Each of the organizations in the delivery chain has its own needs and its own timing demands. You may think that the quicker you can edit and produce a book, the quicker you will generate cash and profitability. Unfortunately, this is not true most of the time.  

Why?

Because each of the other organizations in the route to the consumer has its own time constraints and organizational needs that you must adhere to if your book is to make its way down the road in an orderly fashion.

The major organizations within the publishing environment are commonly defined by their functions: 

AUTHOR:

The person who creates the original concept of the book and whose name usually, but not always, appears on the book.

It may, for instance, be ghostwritten, or it may be a work-for-hire, in which case the author’s name may not appear.

Remember: every norm has an exception to it. 

PUBLISHER:

The company that acquires or creates an informational product (book, audiotape, video, digital output, etc.) from the author or creator and sells that product through a variety of means (direct response, sales representatives, distributor, wholesaler, or some other way) to a customer (whether wholesaler, retailer, or consumer).

The Publisher can add value to the author´s work by editing, designing, produsing, and selling the work. 

DISTRIBUTOR:

An organization that takes books from a Publisher, warehouses those books, and sells them to wholesalers, retailers, libraries and cosumers.

Distributor also accept and proces returns from their accounts and forward those returns back to the publisher.

Distributors perform other tasks for publishers- publicity, telemarketing and special sales.

DISTRIBUTOR:

Distributors contract with publishers and chargé them a fee for providing services to the Publisher.

Distributors are different from wholesalers in that distributors do not purchase inventory from their publishers but hold it on consignment or as an agent to the publisher.

WHOLESALERS:

These accounts purchase books from publishers and distributors for sale to other accounts, retailers, librraries, businesses, internet bookstores and others.

Wholesalers provide service to publishers and distributors because the wholesale actually buys books and fulfills its own orders. For many accounts, the wholesale provides a one stop shop from which the retailer can buy the books from many publishers at once.

RETAIL ACCOUNTS:

These stores purchase books from publishers and distributors and wholesalers. Their ultimate purpose is to sell books to the general public. Retail accounts can be very small bookstores to huge superstore chains, mammoth internet stores such as Amazon.

LIBRARIES, BOOK CLUBS, WAREHOUSE CLUBS,

DISCOUNTERS, MASS MERCHANTS,

NONTRADITIONAL ACCOUNTS .

Book Sales by Channel

Retail Bookstores 38% Discount Stores 3% Warehouse Clubs 7% Food/Drug Stores 3% Book Clubs/Fairs/Mail 23% Mass Merchants 69% Used Bookstores 3% Internet 8% Other 9%

Today´s bookselling enviroment is undergoing rapid change and the Publisher must understand; change to which must respond.

Like most indutries, bookstores, book clubs and other organizations that cater to the needs of the consuming public exist in a seasonal enviroment.

Seasons directly impact the public´s buying patterns. Bookstores are constantly looking for ways to tie books to various promotional events and sell more books because of their marketing efforts.

If publishers are going to ensure that sales efforts reach their greatest potential, then publishers must fully understand, and work within, the retail cycle.

This means that to get books to wholesalers and retailers on time, the publisher must work far enough in advance to be certain that a book’s publication coincides with the needs of the marketplace, whether wholesale or retail—hopefully both.

How do publishers do this?

How far in advance is it necessary to start?

Keep in mind that the key bookstore chains purchase books seven months in advance—so you need selling materials at that point or you’ll lose those sales.

The publisher must complete its editorial-production-sale-fulfillment cycle in advance of the wholesaler’s or retailer’s promotional date. And this means the publisher should optimally start the initial planning process three years in advance:

• The first 12 months of this 36-month lead time should be taken up with the earliest planning for the list.

• The second 12 months should be spent having the book written and ensuring its timely delivery to you, the publisher.

• The final 12 months of this cycle should be spent editing the book, pre-selling subsidiary rights, selling to the final market, producing, warehousing, and shipping the completed book.

Given this optimal time frame, the Publisher should be able to integrate title into whatever promotional selling season is the best for the book and the market.

Why does it take 12 months to put book once it´s inhouse? Because you must allow enough time for:

• editing• transmitting the book’s key information and specifications (metadata) to the major databases• editorial development and responses from your author

• production and design• manufacturing• getting out advance review copies and normal publicity and marketing materials• pre-selling and then selling to the direct market• shipment from the manufacturer to your warehouse• entering the inventory into your inventory system• invoicing• picking, packing, and shipping from your warehouse to the wholesale or retail account• unpacking those books and entering them into the account’s system

• putting those books onto the shelves from which they’ll hopefully be sold.

This is Publishing Time Line.

Can a book be published faster than this optimal schedule? Absolutely. Sometimes it’s important to get to the market as quickly as possible, especially if the information in the book is timely.

With proper planning and lead time, you will be able to take advantage of the market’s seasonality and promotional efforts.

With proper planning and lead time, you will be able to take advantage of the market’s seasonality and promotional efforts. You’ll be able to work with the accounts to generate the greatest possible sales for your book. And in the process, you’ll generate something that will accrue to your company’s benefit throughout its life: credibility—that crucial attribute that takes so long to attain. However early or late you begin the process, the ultimate goal must be to establish credibility, so you must be certain to deliver your book on time.

When is that?

Whenever you say you will do it.

Commitment, Consistency, and Credibility should be the goal of every publisher. They are tenets that are absolutely crucial to ensure growth in today’s highly competitive publishing environment.

Managerial Organization: Strategy and Techniques

Define Your Niche

The expectation for success, not just in one book but in every book launched, is every publisher’s goal.

The Author’s Guild some years ago defined a successful book of fiction as selling 5,000 copies; of non-fiction as selling 7,500 copies or more. That definition probably still holds today. Larger publishers have turned more and more to authors with celebrity status. Publishers can print hundreds of thousands of copies of a celebrity’s books.

Research, Research, Research— Look Before You Leap

Every publisher intuitively believes that the books it wants to publish are those it should publish and are those the public wants. How do you go about this task of market research?

There are a number of ways, including having a consultant do it for you.

What Do You Want to Be?

The first key to establishing and running a successful publishing company is to define your editorial niche.

If you are a not-for-profit organization you have an advantage here because, to a very large extent, your mission defines the niche.

Ask yourself the following questions—and be sure to answer them truthfully:

• In what subjects will your company specialize? • Why?• What makes your books unique within the market?• Do you have particular expertise within this market?• Do you know who the expert authors are? Can you reach them?• Who are your competitors within this subject category?• What stores carry the kind(s) of books you’ll publish?

• Where in the store is the category placed?• What are the attributes of competitive books?

Size Price points Hardcover or paperback Number of pages Use of color

• What is the average number of copies sold within this category?

• If you sell that many, will your profitability goals be met?• If not, what variables must change to achieve profitability?• If not, how many new books will you have to sell to be profitable?• How many new titles within the category are published seasonally?• Are sales in the category expanding or are they contracting?• How will you distinguish those titles you plan to publish?

Editorial content

Size or format Price Color Author

If you can’t answer most of these questions clearly and completely, then you should think about them again.Furthermore, if you can’t state clearly and concisely what your niche is, how will your staff be able to do so when acquiring new books and talking with your buyers? You must be able to articulate your niche clearly with a short sentence or two.

Every publisher goes into business to create books for the reading public—most to sell those books profitably to that audience.

Each publisher, because of the subjectivity of the editorial process, defines that audience in a different way and therefore creates books for the audience with a somewhat unique strategy or focus.

Publishing differs to some extent from other consumer products because the products created are for the most part not brand-sensitive.

If you go into a bookstore and browse the shelves, most books stand out as individual titles, not as a part of a series that’s identified by a particular image or brand name. The greatest brand identification—whether by publisher’s brand name or by product brand name—exists in two categories: travel books, where many series are identified by the publisher’s name (Frommer’s, Michelin, Baedeker, Passport) and children’s books, where many series are identified by the author’s name, which itself has become a brand name (Dr. Seuss, Beverly Cleary, Stephenie Meyer).

By focusing on an editorial niche and strategically and consistently building that niche with every new book published, the list becomes identified with that category in the mind of buyers at all levels, from the wholesale buyer to the retail bookstore buyer to the consumer.

Who Is Your Market and Who Is the Competition?

Once you’ve defined your own editorial niche and determined what you think it should be, or what you’d like it to be, take nothing for granted.

Research your market and your competitors completely. How does one begin the research that will prove or disprove the hypothesis that you have a product the public wants?

First, talk to those already established in the publishing business: publishers, editors, sales managers of publishing companies.

Talk to retail book buyers, librarians (your local library is an excellent place to get firsthand information), and others.

• What terms are competitive?

Invoice terms Returns Discounts

Second, research book trends: Is one category of books declining in popularity and another ascending? Are some books too seasonal to support a year-round program?

For instance, can books relating to Christmas crafts and holiday cooking be sold year-round and provide enough margin for your program?

Look at demographic trends: What are people doing with their time?

What activities do they participate in?

Gardening, for instance, is the country’s number one leisure-time activity and thus accounts for the surge in publishing in this category. What do demographics tell us about future publishing potential in various categories?

• Other publishers’ catalogs• Various bestseller lists• Ingram Book Company’s i-page.As you do your research, don’t wear blinders.

There is a vast amount of information waiting for you online through many government-sponsored websites. Not only is the information easily accessible, but it will provide you with numerous additional resources. Here are a few popular—and valuable—sites.

In addition, large publishers’ websites can provide a wealth of competitive information, especially in relation to subjects, price points, and titles. In effect, the entire publishing world is literally at your fingertips.

At these sites you can conduct searches by topic, author, and other criteria. They offer a vast amount of excellent source material and information.

Develop a Clear Vision: The Mission Statement

Once you’ve researched your hypothesis and determined that it’s sound and worth pursuing, the next step is to summarize your concept in a mission statement to guide you and your staff (if you have staff) in your everyday decision-making process.

While many smaller publishers feel it is not worth the time or effort to create a mission statement, I strongly urge them to take the time to do so.

Why? Simply because the mission statement is the first tangible, concrete step in precisely defining and articulating your publishing niche and your goals.

The mission statement consists of at least four parts:

• a clear statement of your organization’s editorial goals• a definition of your niche within the competitive marketplace• your definition of the market• a commitment to your goals

Organization Chart

Now that you know what you’re supposed to be doing, you must know who will perform each task and who is responsible to whom.

It’s time to formalize your organizational structure. Most publishing houses have several key functional areas: editorial, production and manufacturing, sales and marketing, and back-office (including accounting, fulfillment, and information technology).