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| National Arts Journalism Program
300 Queen Anne Ave. N., #618 Seattle, WA 98109  tel: 206.322.2938 email: najpeditor@najp.org |
| BEST AND WORST
OF TIMES Best Books vs Bestsellers in a Changing Business |
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| Summary Findings During the past quarter century, change in the American book business
has been driven primarily by three factors: consolidation (in publishing,
retail, distribution, and library purchasing); new technology; and
a general cultural shift in favor of celebrity and mass entertainment.
Some of the challenges and difficulties we see in the business today
were already predicted more than a half-century ago. Some of what
we regard as "change" is not change at all. 1. The number of new books being published each year increased more than 300 percent, from 39,000 in 1975 to 122,000 in 2000. 2. The number of copies the top annual fiction title on the bestseller list sold increased more than 1,000 percent, from 230,000 for E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime in 1975, to 2,875,000 for John Grisham's The Brethren in 2000. 3. Compare the sales of a 1975 "literary" novel, E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, with a 2001 "literary" novel, Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections. The former sold 230,000 hardcover copies in its publication year; the latter 720,000 copies in its publication year, an increase of more than 300 percent. 4. Prior to 1985, only two novels (and no nonfiction book) had ever sold more than 1 million copies during its publication year; in 1985, three novels and two nonfiction titles did so. Today, million-copy sellers the first year out are taken as a given. 5. Beginning in the 1970s, the marketing function, as opposed to the editorial function, became the driving force in book publishing as the potential for mass sales grew. 6. The huge increase in the number of books being published has created a cacophony that makes it more difficult for most books to receive attention. A stagnating market cannot adequately support the number of books being published each year. 7. Books with a limited potential readership (5,000-7,000 copies and under) have increasingly been dwarfed and ghettoized in a market that can sell huge quantities of select titles. Books with a potential readership of less than 5,000 to 7,000 copies are increasingly being abandoned by the conglomerate houses and published instead by university and independent literary presses. 8. Books with print runs of 5,000 to 15,000 copies continue to be published by conglomerate houses, but they often are not published well. In the past, almost every book on a publisher's list received some sort of publicity or marketing effort; now, most of the marketing budget is reserved for relatively few titles. A dichotomy exists between the haves and the have-nots in terms of money spent to publish a book well. 9. Book prices have risen during the past 25 years in every format. In some cases the price rises in hardcovers have been offset by discounting practices. The price differential between mass market paperbacks and trade paperbacks has eroded, to the detriment of the former. Mass market prices have quadrupled since 1975. 10. Book publishing has increasingly become part of the entertainment business, with a concomitant change in the role of the author, who has had to learn to cultivate celebrity. 11. The influence of the entertainment business is also seen in the building of "brand-name" franchises and in the practice of the "one-day laydown," akin to a major Hollywood movie release. 12. Consolidation has occurred in every sector or role of the book business: retail, wholesale, distribution, publishing and libraries (e.g. the budgetary emphasis on aggregated databases as opposed to individual book purchases). The only exception is in the role of the author. 13. Consolidation in the publishing function is visible in the bestseller list. In 2000, 83.5 percent of the best-selling titles on the weekly lists of Publishers Weekly were from only five companies. 14. Within the publishing conglomerates, there is a disconnect between the desire to operate divisions independently and the desire to take advantage of the size of the corporation. 15. Publishing entities that are part of multimedia corporations have come under extraordinary pressure to increase their profit margins, given the higher margins that normally characterize the music, movie and television entities within those corporations. The comparison is between a return of 10 to 12 percent for the typical book publisher and 20 percent for the other sectors. 16. As publishers have become part of conglomerates that place an increasing emphasis on the bottom line, the method of calculating profit-and-loss estimates has changed. Now far more overhead costs are being put on to each book than was the case in the past. It is therefore increasingly difficult for one house to allow authors the time to grow over three or four books if those books do not make money. 17. During the past 25 years, mass market paperbacks have become far less profitable as trade paperbacks have become more profitable. Trade paperback divisions are often the most profitable divisions in publishing companies. 18. The sales techniques associated with mass market paperbacks in 1975 are now associated with hardcover books. 19. Starting in the early 1980s, mass market paperback houses expanded to create their own hardcover publishing operations. Today, publishers often attempt to control publication of the book in every format. 20. In 1975, trade paperback was mainly a nonfiction format. In 2000, it is the most successful backlist format for literary fiction. 21. Technological innovation has created a blurring of boundaries between sectors (i.e. retail, publishing, distribution) and between roles (i.e. author, publisher, retailer). 22. Technological innovation has made it possible to do more things, but has created time pressure to an extent that was previously unknown in the book business. 23. The rise of chain booksellers, beginning in the 1970s, enabled more copies of particular titles to be sold than ever before, and brought books to large areas of the country that had been underserved or totally neglected in the past. 24. Beginning in the early 1980s, pressure exerted by chain booksellers on book publishers caused publishing schedules to be shortened. By the beginning of the 1990s, many publishers had moved from two seasons to three seasons per year. Books are scheduled to comply with the chains' timeframe, which is not always the best timeframe for the books themselves. 25. Real estate has become increasingly important in the bookselling business, in terms both of targeting sites for chain superstores and dividing up the internal space of a bookstore to obtain fees from publishers for promotional purposes. 26. The bestseller, as a self-conscious phenomenon, has existed only for about 100 years. 27. There is no single bestseller public. 28. Bestseller types, particularly in nonfiction, remain constant over the years, although subject to trends and fads in the culture at large. Any list will typically contain: self-help in the widest sense; history; pop culture, including celebrity biographies or memoirs; and religion or spirituality. In the past 25 years, religion has increasingly been mainstreamed. 29. Large cumulative sales of a classic do not make for a bestseller. Bestsellers measure sales rapidity, not sales longevity. 30. The overwhelming majority of spaces on the annual fiction bestseller list are taken up by brand names. The phenomenon has become much more pronounced during the last two decades. 31. In 1975, novels had long stays on the bestseller list; in 2000, more novels make the list but generally enjoy far shorter stays, with a few exceptions. 32. Nonfiction bestsellers today have much longer stays than was the case in 1975. 33. In 1975, publishers chose to "anoint" certain titles to be "made"; the same pertains today. 34. Publishers began to put a much more sustained marketing effort into serious narrative nonfiction in the early 1990s, with a concomitant result: far more of these books now make the weekly bestseller list. 35. Most nonfiction bestsellers do not stand the test of time. Ideas on health, fitness, beauty, diet and money change very quickly and do not make for longevity in print. 36. In general, best-selling fiction remains in print longer than best-selling nonfiction. 37. Self-publishing success, contrary to popular belief, is not a new phenomenon. In 1975 and 1980 there were huge bestsellers that were self-published. However, in the past, self-published successes were nonfiction; today, they tend to be fiction or niche publications. 38. Reading clubs, the Oprah phenomenon and other television book clubs, and attendance at readings are some of the manifestations of an upward spiral of aspiration in terms of reading matter among a substantial segment of the reading public. That aspiration, however, often exceeds readers' grasp of the material. 39. The Harry Potter phenomenon is a throwback to an earlier era, of Dickens and Walter Scott and the family reading book. 40. There is surprisingly little intersection between best-books choices on different lists, and when it does occur, it usually involves fiction titles. 41. A surprising number of books of real literary merit appear on the weekly bestseller lists throughout the year. This was the case in 1975 and remains the case today. 42. Winning a prize in the U.S. generally does not convey the same sales boost as in the U.K., although prizes have been increasingly effective in helping sales for many books during the last 25 years. They are more effective for unknown authors. 43. Most prize-winning books come from commercial publishers. 44. Biographies, even prize-winning biographies, tend not to last.
Readers seem to want 45. Unanimity is extremely rare among best books lists, and when it does occur, it often has no correlation with sales. NAJP : Events : Panel Discussions : Best and Worst of Times : Summary |
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