Publishers

Ten Things Readers Would Like Publishers to Know

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Photo by Stephen Phillips – Hostreviews.co.uk on Unsplash

I suspect most of us take publishers for granted. We may not even be aware of who published the book we are reading. For most of us, unless we are writers or are in the book trade, publishing is a “black box.” That doesn’t mean we don’t have opinions about publishing. That’s true of my reader friends on Facebook who recently shared what feedback they would give publishers. Here are ten of their suggestions:

  1. The biggest beef they shared was poor proof-reading. Some of the errors reflect the use of spell-check or autocorrect, sometimes resulting in a correctly spelled wrong word. If you were raised to pay attention to grammar, punctuation, and spelling, these kinds of errors are huge distractions. Also keep the convention of quotes around dialogue.
  2. Maps were a big deal for some reason. One person requested maps at the back easily folded out for reference at any time. Maps are always appreciated when there are geographic references and territory changes. Some of us like pictures as well.
  3. Covers are a big deal. People really don’t like it when you change graphic style in the middle of a series. Also, don’t make all the covers in a genre look alike.
  4. Romance covers came in for criticism for racy covers. This is particularly objectionable if you are not heterosexual.
  5. People like “soft” soft back covers that don’t crack.
  6. People do want options of both physical and e-books. Don’t release books in only one of these.
  7. Print size. Make it so that people don’t need magnifiers to read the page.
  8. One person asked for the abolition of endnotes–footnotes only. I understand. Flipping back and forth can be frustrating.
  9. Release books at the same time in different countries. It can be aggravating when friends in another country have a book months before you do.
  10. Finally, some people would love to see publishers open to new blood, to give a chance to new writers, whatever their age.

This last reminds me of what a challenge publishing is, sometimes because of the sheer number of manuscripts to evaluate and the challenge to calculate what books will do well, going through multiple printing, and which will go to the remainder sales. One person responded, “None. I believe it is hard enough to be a publisher without any additional advice and I would not like to see the end of this essential species.” There’s something to that. They take the risks, make the calls, and we get to read the finished products. We may not always like the books and have probably wondered how some made the cut. Then there are those wondrous books, sometimes from a new voice, that make you grateful that they took the risk.

Why I Don’t Use Amazon Links in Reviews

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Edit Post ‹ Bob on Books — WordPress com

Screenshot of editing page for my most recent review, showing weblink to publisher.

If you’ve clicked on a book title in one of my reviews, you will discover that in nearly all cases, it will take you to a publisher’s web page for the book. Some may wonder, why don’t I use an Amazon link?

I did at one time until a bookseller friend whose work I value greatly challenged me that I was helping to dig the grave of his business. Since I want to see him, and other brick and mortar booksellers stay in business, I paid attention. He pointed out that I was essentially endorsing Amazon as “my bookseller of choice” by directing traffic to their website.

I hadn’t thought about that. Amazon links to books almost always come up at the top of a search for a book, even when you enter a publisher name. I was using those links as a matter of convenience. It is more challenging to find publisher links to a book, particularly for backlist books. And there are books I review sometimes that are out of print. In this case, I use a link to ABE Books, which provides connections to a number of booksellers who have the book.

So here are the reasons I don’t link to Amazon:

  • Do you want one bookseller “to rule them all and in the darkness bind them?”
  • I want to leave the choice of where you buy your books, and the format in which you buy them, to you.
  • I want to support publishers, who often sell the books online, adding to their revenues at a time where they face great pressure.
  • Publishers often have helpful marketing information about their books–video trailers, readers guides, author information, and more.
  • I want to support local booksellers whose presence enriches our community. Most also have an online presence, allowing you to order books and have them shipped to you, or available to pick up at the store.
  • Some of you may want to get it at your local library. I don’t want Amazon to replace libraries, which provide so many services, particularly for those who are financially strapped.

Finally, because I write about books and bookselling, I do not want to have a financial relationship with Amazon as an Amazon Associate. Yes, I actually could make some pocket change if someone uses a link on my page to buy a book from Amazon. But I don’t want to for all the reasons above.

I’ve concluded that for all the convenience Amazon offers, we are sacrificing a rich, local culture, as well as the subtler delights of relationships with librarians, publishers, and booksellers, as well as the serendipitous delight of finding what you weren’t, as well as were, looking for on the shelves of a local book store. That is not something I want to lose.

 

Interview: Robert A Fryling, Publisher, InterVarsity Press: Part One

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Robert Fryling IVP

Robert A. Fryling, Publisher, InterVarsity Press

Recently, Robert (Bob) Fryling announced he will be retiring as publisher of InterVarsity Press (IVP) in June 2016. Bob Fryling also serves as a Vice President of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Out of his leadership experiences, he published The Leadership Ellipse in 2009. Recently we sat down via Skype for an interview in which we discussed his career, his tenure at InterVarsity Press, how IVP relates to its parent organization, changes he has seen in publishing, and what publishing accomplishments he thought most significant during his time at InterVarsity Press.

This interview has a bit of a flavor of an “inside conversation” due to the fact that Bob Fryling and I are both employed with InterVarsity/USA and have had a long association, Bob Fryling in the publishing division and I in Collegiate Ministries. I have inserted clarifications in a few places where a reference might be particularly unclear to an outsider. Otherwise, this is a very lightly edited transcript of the conversation. I should also mention that Bob on Books is a private endeavor, and not an official social media outlet of InterVarsity Press or InterVarsity/USA. With that, here is the first part of the interview:

You’ve had a pretty interesting career before you came to the publishing world. Could you recap for us your career before you came to InterVarsity Press?

I started off as a Campus Staff Worker in New England responsible for thirteen campuses in New Hampshire and Maine. I spent a lot of time driving on the turnpike. That was a great experience. I had large state schools like the University of Maine and the University of New Hampshire and smaller schools like Colby and Bates. It was a great way to learn about ministry and to be involved with InterVarsity. I became a team leader and then Area Director in New England and then Regional Director for the Northeast.  In 1980 I moved to Madison and was national Director of Campus Ministries. I lived in Madison for seventeen years with two stints as Director of Campus Ministries and with a stint as Director of Human Resources in between. I started our NISET [National Institute of Staff Education and Training] program and led a lot of our management training. I came back to Campus Ministries when asked by Gordon MacDonald when he became President. I served in that role for a total of 14 years. I moved to the Press in 1997. It will be nineteen years by the end of June of 2016 as IVP publisher.

What was the biggest change or transition in moving from the collegiate ministry world to the publishing world?

A number of interesting things. I wasn’t asked to speak as much! As Director of Campus Ministries I spoke often at student and regional staff conferences. Somehow the publisher’s role was not seen as a ministerial role in the same sense. I had a lot to learn about the publishing industry. The publisher role was more of a CEO role. I was able to be in more of a leadership role without having to process things through three or four levels of people spread across the country. We have a lot of process at IVP but having most of the people in the building makes the process easier and the pace of decision-making was much, much faster because we have to get books out on time and sign authors. It was figuring out how to marry a ministry and a business. With Collegiate Ministries you don’t have the sense of the business aspect in the sense of time or urgency or money, although there is fund-raising, but it is not the same thing as making financial decisions every day as to how your business is going to turn out. I’ve enjoyed the challenge of bringing together both parts and that business is a ministry, too.

One of the things I’ve heard about InterVarsity Press is that you’ve won some awards for being a great place to work. I wonder if you could talk about that and what makes it such a good place to work?

I can answer the second part first. We have a lot of great people here. People come because they appreciate the books that we publish. We have been recognized by the Best Christian Workplaces Survey, I believe it is six straight times, and one of the questions that is asked is, “what do you most appreciate about IVP?” Usually the top answer to that across the whole company are the books that we publish. People are attracted to that. People are affected by the books. You can’t edit books and mark up books that don’t affect you as to its content. So that’s a big piece.

We have a strong leadership working team. Five of us have been together for eighteen years and so we’ve been able to benefit from each other’s gifts. We are fairly transparent in our leadership. We have a daily sales record so everyone in the company knows where we are on our sales on a day to day basis. We give quarterly financial reports and we share everything about what’s going on. I think people feel a high sense of ownership for IVP, a great deal of loyalty, great communication, and fine people. It sort of all comes together.

One of the things that may be indicative of this is that we have office meetings on a regular basis but we only have them when we need them. So we try to avoid perfunctory meetings but when we get together, everyone is expected to be there, so there is this sense of real community. We celebrate anniversaries, we share announcements, there may be times when we have authors that visit and usually those meetings are a morale boosting time and celebration time when we are together.  We have special Christmas parties, we honor people when they leave, when people get married, when they have children. We try to celebrate each other, we try to celebrate our authors and our books and that creates a very positive environment.

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In Part Two of the interview, which will appear tomorrow, we will discuss how InterVarsity Press has responded to trends in reading and publishing, how IVP continues to support the collegiate ministry of InterVarsity, what Bob Fryling sees as IVP’s most significant accomplishments under his tenure, and his plans for retirement.

Why Publishers Need Libraries

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BookPage

BookPage

I was over at my neighborhood library yesterday. I had to do some planning for a conference talk and the library can be a good place to get away. And because there were books there, I spent some time browsing, particularly the new books section. I did not borrow any books on this trip, but I got some ideas. And a few of these might end up as book purchases. I also found a free publication with lots of book reviews called BookPage. Among other things, it had reviews of David McCullough’s new book on the Wright Brothers, and a review of H.W. Brands biography of Ronald Reagan–and a back page ad from Penguin Random House.

In short, that is why publishers need libraries, as a recent Publisher’s Weekly article observed. Fewer and fewer people are finding books at a bookstore. In the last five years, the numbers have dropped from just under a third to a mere 17 percent. Furthermore, the best-seller lists, another source of purchasing ideas are dominated by a relatively small number of authors. Think about how many times you see David Baldacci or Bill O’Reilly on one of these lists. It is hard for lesser known works to get much notice unless someone like Oprah or Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates talks about them. In light of all this, libraries may be among the best book show rooms around. While online retailers like Amazon have just about anything on their website, it doesn’t all fit on your computer screen and you may not find a new author unless you are already looking for that author or a book title.

One of the most interesting ideas in the article was that libraries don’t cannibalize book sales. For one thing, they buy books! In addition one third of the people who borrow a book in a given month also buy one. Libraries are also a great way to try out a new author you are not sure you like. Sixty percent of frequent library users buy a book by an author they first read at the library.

Staff picks

Staff picks from Worthington Libraries

Librarians know books and work hard to help their patrons know books. Most libraries these days publicize staff picks and staff book reviews as in the screen shot from the website for our local library. Good booksellers often do the same thing. And it occurs to me that sometimes a recommended book ends up wait-listed. That can turn into a book purchase if it is something the individual wants right away.

The article proposes that publishers work more closely with libraries, particularly in highlighting the work of new authors. Libraries could fall victim to the same forces that are pressing the publishers themselves. Free e-books and the growth in the number of titles are making it harder for libraries to bring in patrons and curate new authors. It is easy to just promote the best-sellers. Yet some of the most dedicated readers use libraries and are looking for new authors to read; and teamwork between libraries and publishers could be a win for both.

Reader question: have you purchased books because you learned about a book, or an author at your library?

It’s a Bird, It’s a Plane, It’s the Bookternet!

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Seriously.

Recently, Publishers Weekly convened a panel at Penguin Random House offices in Manhattan to talk about the phenomenon that this blog is a part of–the internet of books, or bookternet. I am not usually a big fan of neologisms but this one was interesting, as is the phenomenon that it represents.

What publishers are talking about is the realization that there is an online book culture that exists in a number of places around the ‘net where people are talking about books. One of the most interesting statements in this article is this one by Rebecca Schinsky of Book Riot:

“Online book fans aren’t looking for reviews or longform essays about books. ‘No one is interested in reviews on Book Riot,’ Schinsky said. ‘They want conversation. People want to talk about what they’re reading and what book they’ll read next.’ ”

That’s an interesting statement for reviewers as well as publishers. Publishers can learn a good deal, it was suggested, by listening in on these conversations and offering content that connects with the interests in these book communities. It also means that the “buzz” about a book is not something that can simply be generated by Madison Avenue. To some degree, it is in the hands of people who are talking about books, and there is a serendipitous element about that. Here’s a book publicist who has figured how this works, and coined the word, bookternet:

What about us reviewers and book bloggers? I think what this suggests is the idea that for a review to really become a conversation, it needs to be something other than a seemingly definitive description and opinion of the book. A conversation that is not a conversation stopper is open-ended–with questions, provocations, and laughter. And maybe sometimes, it is just sharing what we are wondering about as we read a book and whether this meshes with the experience of others who are reading it. It’s cool sometimes just to find out what the Book Riot folk are reading and why.

One of the most interesting challenges in this online world is finding those interested in talking about the books you are reading. Some groups where I’ve posted are mostly just self-published authors promoting books. Hardly anyone engages what others post. Sometimes the interested people find you if you’ve tagged your post well and it comes up on searches–still learning about that one.

I have found that if you can point to a body of work, some level of viewership, and turn around reviews and other material on books, publishers will work with you, at least some of the time. Actually you are exchanging your work of reading and writing for a free copy of their book. The trick I’m learning is to do that for books I’m really interested in reading.

If you are a book blogger or otherwise involved in online conversations about books, what are you learning about the bookternet?