86% of publishing industry plans to vote for Obama

A survey of professionals in the publishing industry reveals that a whopping 86% of respondents intend to vote for Barack Obama. This is stunning. While Obama has emerged as the undeniable front-runner during this financial crisis, according to Real Clear Politics he averages 49.4% support among likely voters nationwide.

Stein looks at future of conservative publishing

Harry Stein looks at the "future of conservative books" in an interesting article in the City Journal. He suggests that printing right-of-center books has largely been an experiment for the big NYC publishers, and one that they'll probably drift away from in future years.

On-demand book releases soar

Publishing information management service R.R. Bowker reports that a stunning total of 411,422 titles were released in the U.S. last year, a 39% increase over 2006. That is simply amazing. Print-on-demand and other short print-run releases fueled nearly all of the growth:

Bowker is projecting that U.S. title output in 2007 increased slightly to 276,649 new titles and editions, up from the 274,416 that were published in 2006.

While traditional book publishing was basically flat last year, there was a staggering rise in the reported number of “On Demand” and short-run books to 134,773, pushing the grand total for projected 2007 U.S. book output to 411,422 books.

Technology, by lowering barriers to entry, has made the publishing marketplace even more competitive. While there will always be big hits and bestsellers, this proliferation of content can only mean lower average sales and a greater focus on niches for publishers.

B&N exploring acquisition of Borders

According to the WSJ: "Barnes & Noble Inc., the nation's largest book chain by sales, has assembled a team of executives and advisers to study the possibility of acquiring No. 2 chain Borders Group Inc., according to a person familiar with the situation." Click here to read the rest of the article.

This would be a very dramatic development for the book retail industry. The same article estimates that B&N does about 20-22% of retail sales, compared to 10-12% for Borders and 15% for Amazon.

While it's probably a longshot, it wouldn't surprise me if a deal happens. There's a lot of pressure on retailers right now, and online shopping is changing consumers' buying habits.

Assoc. of American Publishers fights law protecting minors from porn

PW reports that the Association of American Publishers has joined with the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and several Oregon bookstores in contesting a state law that "the dissemination of sexually explicit material to anyone under age 13, or the dissemination to anyone under age 18 of any material with the intent to sexually arouse the recipient or the provider." The reason? They allege the statue “burdens the exercise of free expression and creates a chilling effect on the sale, display, and dissemination of constitutionally protected speech.”

A press release from the Oregon chapter of the ACLU contains numerous objections to what they cede is a "well-intentioned effort to target sexual predators." They say the law is overly broad and could catch numerous innocent parties in its web. Such as a Planned Parenthood Peer Educator, or the Cascade AIDS Project for handing out safe sex materials to teenagers. Or grandma, who is now evidently going to be targeted by eager prosecutors for giving her grand kids a book about the birds and the bees.

All of this seems a little far fetched. Does the ACLU really think granny will go to the big house over a law intended to stop predators from luring kids? It seems like fear mongering to me. And it's also a PR effort to claim the moral high ground and distract from the participation of groups such as Planned Parenthood that think they have a constitutional right to have unfettered access to foist their views on children.

I'm disappointed that the Association of American Publishers and the Oregon booksellers got into bed with this cadre. If there are practical issues where the retailers need clarification or were being hit with an excessive compliance burden, they could have sought clarification through other means (or possibly a separate suit) without joining these left-wing groups who are pushing their own agenda. But, then again, the AAP is headed by the outspoken liberal and super-genius Pat Schroeder, so it comes as no surprise...

Publishing venture aims to end retailer returns

HarperCollins is launching a new publishing unit that will aim to move from traditional author royalties and advances to more of a profit-sharing structure where authors get a piece of the bottom line. While innovative for a conglomerate, some independent publishers are already experimenting with this approach. But what's more interesting is that HC says this unit will also attempt to eliminate returns from retailers.

If successful, this could bring about some big changes in the publishing industry. Returns of unsold inventory have been a fact of life for publishers since the Depression era. While giving retailers the right to return unsold inventory for credit surely grants retailers more flexibility in some cases, it also puts a lot of financial risk on publishers. According to a respected industry overview (Publishing for Profit by Thomas Woll), in the 1990s returns of trade hardcover books averaged over 31% of all copies. This makes it very difficult to forecast how well a book will do, and it forces publishers to keep reserves against authors' royalties as a result.

If a conglomerate like HC is able to make headway in developing a no-return model, other publishers would surely seek to follow their lead. This would give the big brick-and-mortar retailers a strong incentive to collaborate on moving away from the current system. I think this would be a winner for many publishers and authors. It could even help retailers, as well. The article notes that "several years ago, Steve Riggio, CEO of Barnes & Noble, said in an interview that he would like to be able to mark down books rather than returning them." This would give retailers more pricing flexibility to maximize cashflow, something they currently lack -- and of course discounted books would benefit consumers.

Only time will tell if this idea is to gain any traction in the publishing industry. I think it has potential, though.

Holiday book sales report card

Book sales at Barnes & Noble appear to have done OK over the holidays. Excluding music (which is shifting online to MP3 downloads), same store sales were up just about 1% in Nov-Dec. Online sales were up 11%.

Borders' rebound under new CEO George Jones continues. Same store sales were up 2.4% for Borders, and their Waldenbooks chain posted a 0.2% gain. However, discounting is keeping profits down for the company.

I haven't seen details for Amazon yet, but it was the most visited retail website on Cyber Monday (which follows Black Friday), so one would hope their numbers for the entire holiday period would be strong.

Random wins Tony Blair's memoir

Random House's Knopf won the bidding war for North American rights to the former PM's memoirs. Knopf also published Bill Clinton's megalomaniacal My Life a few years back. The price tag for Blair's worldwide rights was a hefty $9 million advance. Random's Hutchison imprint will simultaneously publish the book in the UK. No pub date has been set.

Bush says "conspiracy theorists" behind Late Great USA

President Bush, at a summit with his counterparts from Mexico and Canada, dismissed the idea that a North American Union (NAU) could be in the works. A reporter from Fox News asked him to categorically deny that plans for an NAU or a NAFTA superhighway were underway. The transcript of Bush's reply shows that he side-stepped the issue and gave an indirect response.

Meanwhile, the 3rd printing of the NYT bestseller The Late Great U.S.A. -- the book by Jerome Corsi that first shined the light of day on the NAU concept -- has just shipped from the printer. It is showing up as "in stock" once again at both Amazon and B&N.com, and plenty of copies are currently in route to bookstores across the country.

Pat Schroeder wrong to claim conservatives don't read

Former congresswoman and still-liberal Pat Schroeder -- who holds the position of president of the American Association of Publishers -- claims that liberals read more books than conservatives because the latter "just wants a couple slogans: 'No, don't raise my taxes, no new taxes'...on every page." Schroeder was commenting on an AP-Ipsos poll that "found people who consider themselves liberals are more prodigious book readers than conservatives."

This strikes me as an ill-advised statement by Schroeder given that she's the head of a non-partisan trade organization that should not be alienating one-third of the country's population, especially since overall industry sales numbers remain flat. Of course, since liberals face the ever-present imperative of establishing their own intellectual superiority lest their belief system die,* it's easy to understand why Schroeder shot off her mouth over this poll. But when one takes a moment to study the poll, problems with her flippant interpretation become apparent. To quote the AP again:

Among those who had read at least one book, liberals typically read nine books in the year, with half reading more than that and half less. Conservatives typically read eight, moderates five.

By slightly wider margins, Democrats tended to read more books than Republicans and independents. There were no differences by political party in the percentage of those who said they had not read at least one book.

When you break down these statements, it becomes apparent that Schroeder's claim is full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. To wit:

1. Self-identified Republicans are just as likely to be book readers as self-identified Democrats.
2. The average self-identified conservative book reader consumes about the same number of books per year (eight) as the self-identified liberal (nine). Given the poll's sample size, I doubt there is much statistical difference in these averages, and plus the averages don't control for page length, difficulty, etc.
3. The breakdown Schroeder cites doesn't control for children. Parents are more likely to be conservative than adults who don't have children, and raising kids cuts into reading time. Controlling for this key variable would be necessary if we're to arrive at statistically accurate comparisons across groups.
4. Similarly, the poll's breakdown doesn't control for religion. A second AP article on the poll noted "those who said they never attend religious services read nearly twice as many as those who attend frequently." But that doesn't mean that religious people (who are disproportionately conservative) don't read. To the contrary, the same article notes that the "Bible and religious works were read by two-thirds in the survey, more than all other categories." Religious people read, but they're reading the Bible. And frequent Bible reading is going to bring down the average quantity of books consumed per year.
5. The poll can't surmise cause and effect. Liberals surely consume more indie art-house flicks, watch more hours of CNN, and are more likely to subscribe to the NYT. But these media convey a left-wing editorial perspective. Likewise, if the big New York publishers crank out a disproportionate number of liberal books, doesn't it follow that liberals will disproportionately buy them?

Simply put, the poll results Schroeder cites simply don't support the clumsy conclusion she is advancing. How ironic.


* To quote Thomas Sowell, "The welfare state is not really about the welfare of the masses. It is about the egos of the elites." Liberalism calls for top-down management of society by self-declared elites who desire to manage the lives of the ignorant little people who cannot take care of themselves and therefore tend to fall prey to the greedy, duplicitous "rich." But in order to make the case for being entrusted with lordship of society through centralization, elites must constantly assert their own intellectual superiority -- not just to advocate liberalism over competing ideas, but also to establish their bona fides.

Lonely Planet launching chapter download service

Lonely Planet has launched an innovative new program. It's called "Pick & Mix," and it allows readers to selectively download individual chapters from their travel guides as PDF files for use on mobile devices. This seems like an e-book application that could really catch on.

O.J. Simpson book is back -- with a twist

PW reports that the O.J. Simpson book If I Did It -- which helped cost Judith Regan her job last year -- is back on track to be published, but in a more tasteful form. The Goldman family obtained the rights through a bankruptcy court ruling, and the repackaged will contain additional commentary representing their point of view. The publisher has not yet been identified.

Scholastic declines comment on Laurie David book

WND reports that Scholastic declined to comment on Laurie David's admission to Publishers Weekly that she hopes to manipulate children with her upcoming global warming book.

What size is Laurie David's carbon footprint?

Laurie David, who just revealed that she wants to manipulate children with her upcoming kid's book on global warming, has come under scrutiny by David Frum for her enviro-hypocrisy. Frum writes:

It seems almost an iron law: Sexual moralists get hoisted by their own petard.

But there is another form of hypocrisy, very nearly as ubiquitous, about which we hear much less -- and that is the hypocrisy of the celebrity environmentalist...

If environmentalism is to Democratic America what religious morality is to Republican states, there is at least one Laurie David for every Ted Haggard.

Scholastic author: manipulate kids on global warming to influence parents

Since it can be difficult to sell liberal beliefs to adults, children should be manipulated in an effort to influence their parents. Or so states Laurie David, the liberal activist and co-author of Scholastic's forthcoming global warming book for kids, The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming. In a jaw-dropping PW interview published online today, the producer of "An Inconvenient Truth" makes it clear that her Sept. book is meant to indoctrinate children:

Both David and [co-author Cambria] Gordon see children as true agents for change. “Kids are the most optimistic human beings—they only see the future ahead of them and it’s bright,” David says. “Kids also are the number one influence on their parents, so if you want to reach the parents, go to the kids.”

Gordon agrees, “At times the adult world is getting burnt out,” coping with existing crises and forecasts for disaster. But “children’s concern is for their adult life—they don’t have the cynicism adults have.” Gordon foresees children reading the Guide in eco-clubs and after-school
programs, using it as a basis for classroom projects and fund-raisers, and checking its advice on green habits.

David and Gordon are suggesting that since presenting logical arguments to adults is too difficult, it's best to manipulate children with a book they encounter in their classrooms and after-school programs. In other words, bypass parental control and instead use kids to guilt-trip their moms and dads.

I've seen the preview copy of their book, and it's heavy-handed. It states that global warming is undeniably caused by industrial activities, and it shows pictures of little animals like the golden toad that it claims have been made extinct by climate change. What should kids do? Nag your parents to buy a hybrid.

This is exactly why we're publishing kid's book entitled The Sky's Not Falling: Why It's OK to Chill about Global Warming. We not only wanted to print a book that steers clear of this kind of fear-mongering, but we also wanted to make sure that parents have a choice if they decide to educate their kids on this complicated topic. As I discussed in a post earlier this week, unlike Scholastic, we won't aim our sales and marketing energy at kids, but rather take our message to their parents.

Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like Scholastic has any hesitancy when it comes to peddling politics directly onto kids. Laurie David makes that pretty clear.

Political bias in PW book reviews under fire

David Harsanyi, the author of a new book called Nanny State, criticizes the left-wing bias displayed in Publisher Weekly's book reviews. He catalogues a number of examples of PW bashing conservative bestsellers, and notes that Tammy Bruce also pointed out this trend a couple of years ago. (Thanks to Michelle Malkin for linking to David's post and therefore bringing it to my attention.)

Readers of this blog know that I've called out instances of bias several times before (e.g. here, here, here and here), and in my view Kirkus and the Book Standard have displayed a similar tendency in their reviews.

Before going any further, I'll add that I don't have an axe to grind with the trade pubs. In fact, PW has been reasonably fair to World Ahead. They ran a balanced article when we announced our WND Books deal last fall, and their recent review of Ike's Final Battle (available on the book's Amazon listing) was positive -- albeit the book isn't written with a political point-of-view. Hence I don't believe that PW is out to "get" World Ahead over our company's right-of-center focus. But nonetheless the fact still stands that their reviews are routinely negative for conservative titles and positive for liberal ones.

This persistent bias is a disservice to the publishing industry and consumers. While journals like National Review or Mother Jones can be expected to review books from an ideological viewpoint, the trade pubs would do better to focus on the quality of a book's writing and design. And while non-fiction reviews ought to comment on how effectively an author makes his or her point, the reviewer's agreement with that point shouldn't be that important. Whether or not you agree with a point is often determined by how you see the world, so if a liberal reviewer doesn't become a free marketeer after reading John Stossel it doesn't mean his book was poor.

Let's hope that the pubs acknowledge this problem and try to address it, perhaps by giving their reviewers instructions to leave personal politics out of the equation.

Authors in your office

The SF Chronicle reports that companies offering "enriched lifestyle" perks (such as Microsoft, Starbucks, and Google) have begun to host authors for speaking and book-selling events. This is an interesting manifestation of the long tail phenomenon.

8.3 million Potters moved in first 24 hours

According to the WSJ, Scholastic estimates U.S. sales of the final installment of Harry Potter to be 8.3 million copies during its first 24 hours. Borders reports first-day sales of 1.2 million copies (compared to 850K of the previous book), and Amazon says it has now shipped 1.3 million copies of the 2.2 million pre-orders that it received.

As I've noted before, I'm not a Potter fan, but I do hope the extra foot traffic provides a boost to book retailers. My local Barnes & Noble was busier than usual this past Saturday evening, which was nearly a day after the book's embargo ended.

"Late Great USA" lands on NYT Bestseller list

World Ahead's "WND Books" imprint, our partnership with WorldNetDaily, has just landed a book on an upcoming New York Times bestseller list.

Jerome Corsi's new release, The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada, will debut on the July 29 edition of the list. Dr. Corsi is no stranger to bestsellers, of course; he co-authored Unfit for Command.

Political books making news

There's some publishing news that has nothing to do with Harry Potter...

Nancy Pelosi is writing a memoir for Doubleday that will be released next year. The book is still untitled, and the deal will need to be approved by the House Ethics Committee* before the speaker can sign it. House members are allowed to be paid royalties for book deals, but not to collect an advance. (*That committee must have a major back log of work given the majority party's ethical issues.)

Meanwhile, Rowan Scarborough's new book Sabotage asserts that the monitoring of Internet cafes in Iraq lead to the successful killing of terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. I wonder to what extent this will influence the privacy vs. security debate since it highlights both the risks and rewards of these kinds of programs.