Can the e-Galley idea make a comeback?

Joe Wikert’s post the other day about Simon & Schuster's internal use of e-reading devices got me thinking about the possible resurgence of the idea of electronic galleys.

Two years ago, I personally phone surveyed about 30 book buyers from stores all over the United States. To a person, they all told stories about their love-hate relationship with galleys. They loved them because it gave them advanced understanding about the books that they were buying, so that they could decide whether or not to recommend them to their customers. They hated them because a. they couldn’t sell them, and b. because they were hard to store and eventually recycle. They seem like such a waste of paper.

One of the huge take-aways from that informal survey for me was that independent bookstores that survived the age of the internet, and survived big-box retailers, and chain superstores, did so by embracing the new realities, and directing their attention to things they could do that the competition couldn’t. It was interesting that many actually made their businesses far more successful than they had ever been before the large threats came along, simply by better engaging their communities.

Now booksellers (of all types) are facing another huge challenge, the possibility that e-book reading devices will gain real traction in the marketplace, and that sales of e-books may cut into sales of print books. As I have mentioned in another post, I believe strongly that the 'indies' need to have a role in the e-book world. The way it looks from my perch, it’s time again for booksellers to make a survival decision: be stalwarts against the new invader, or embrace the new reality and use it to their advantage.

My money is on those that will embrace the new technologies, and figure out how to leverage them into revenue. I’m not sure what those business models will look like yet, but I suspect my friends at Ingram Digital have some notions about that topic. But, one thing I do know from my years in ‘change management’, there are two necessary ingredients to developing a new business model: 1. completely understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of the new product or service, and 2. Use the product or service yourself before offering it out to others.

And so, one way for booksellers to embrace and understand the new technologies are to to use them themselves. Using them for reading electronic galleys would be a great start to this process. There would be many advantages, not the least of which is the ‘green’ angle. Think of all the paper that could be saved, and the recycling that wouldn’t have to be done. It seems like a such a logical win-win situation for the publisher and the retailer.

I also think this is an opportunity for the American Booksellers Association to take a real leadership stand. Perhaps they could start to work with Sony, iRex, and other purveyors of e-reading devices, and get a few samples to pass around to their constituents to ‘test’. It would be a great first step in having a centralized approach to having bookstores (who want to survive) start selling the e-reader devices in their stores.

Food for thought.

Read Michael Hyatt's blog!

I spent a lot of time thinking about Michael Hyatt's blog entry yesterday. There are so many different things to say about it, that it is probably fodder for about 10 different blog posts.

At the end of those thoughts, the most succinct comment I can make is read it!

It is so refreshing to see a publisher of Michael's stature say the things that need to be said about our beloved industry. We are so wrought with inefficiency, and it goes right down to individual people in individual departments inside the publishing houses. (Don't let me get started on book production...) Some of it may be inescapable, but the fact that Michael admits it means -to me - that he is ready to transform his company to mitigate risks associated with that inefficiency.

Bravo!

ps. I just went out there again to grab the link, and the number of comments to Mike's blog are astounding.

One idea of Independent Retailers and ebooks

Almost an immediate answer to my post yesterday about bringing Independent book stores into the ebook supply chain, check out this post this morning about an Austrailian bookseller who installed an eBook kiosk.

I can't wait to hear how they do.

Bricks and Mortar Retailers need to be part of ebook sales

The overwhelming lack of reaction to my post yesterday got me thinking that perhaps, just perhaps, ebooks pose a threat to one of the crucial players in our industry.

It occurred to me that if I was a bookseller, I might not be too thrilled about the prospect of large quantities of ebooks being downloaded from the Internet, and bypassing my shop - and cutting into my sales. I certainly wouldn't want to hear about new devices that would enhance those opportunities.

Bricks and Mortar retailers play a hugely important role in the book publishing ecosystem. Aside from the obvious, that they sell books, retailers are responsible for starting much of the viral marketing that occurs around new titles and new authors. They take the time to read many of the new works in print, and tell other retailers about them. They create "buzz" where none existed and where publishers did not have the resources to make it happen.

Booksellers know their customers better than the publishers do, and are a critical link in the author-to-reader chain. They are also actively involved in the marketing of authors, providing venues for authors to meet their readers via book signings and lectures.

Ebooks offer great promise to everyone in the book ecosystem, except physical retailers. Even libraries have figured out how to use ebooks to their advantage.

If ebooks are ever going to be a truly viable economic opportunity, book publishers should really think hard about how to help booksellers be a part of the equation. I think that the publishers themselves should take some responsibility here.

Retailers have had to struggle with many threats in the past, most notably chain superstores, and online only retailers. Those that have survived those threats have learned to adapt the the changed playing field. And, this will continue... but, I'm sure that they could use a little help!

And, how can we attack a problem like literacy, if we are not all working together?

In a Digital World, Should Bookstores & Libraries Collaborate?

In the non-digital world (5 - 10) years ago, independent bookshops and local libraries, peacefully co-existed, albeit separately, each with a seemingly separate mission. Each had it's own resources, and was somewhat limited to what those resources could supply to their communities.

Libraries are (generally) public institutions - founded for the greater good of all the citizens of a particular community (city, town, college, etc.). Bookstores are (generally) private entities, peddling their wares to individuals of a particular community (city, town, museum, market demographic).

The main difference between them though, seems that one is about providing entertainment and information for free, and the other is about providing entertainment and information for a price (note the lack of the word, 'profit').

Aside from that, however, they have many things in common. They provide similar types of materials to their patrons. They help and recommend items to their patrons. They are both under tremendous financial pressure. Neither really knows how to embrace the digital age. They both work with the community to foster reading and literacy. They both have the same suppliers (publishers), and they both 'curate' their collections to serve their communities.

At the AAP General meeting last week in NYC, I heard Ann Moore, CEO of Time, Inc. say that in a digital world, content from 'trusted providers' will be where the public turns. I also heard Peter Bloom use the word 'curation' to describe how 'trusted content providers' will be appreciated.

If you think about it, bookstores and libraries are, in their heart of hearts, curators of a certain collection of product. And, it is this concept, that they each curate on our behalf, that makes them so beloved by their communities.

So, is there a collaboration between libraries and bookstores possible? Well, my personal opinion is that they had better, or they will fall even further behind in the public's list of trusted content providers. Part of this opinion comes from the FACT, that this type of collaboration is happening already, except that it is being done by a publisher!

I am very intrigued by what I heard (and have since, seen) about what Tim O'Reilly is doing at oreilly.com. Working for a community that has never been particularly well served by either bookstores or libraries, O'Reilly has seemingly taken the best of both worlds and created a 'Library for Profit' space on the internet. O'Reilly provides tools for programmers and other technology aficionados. Note the word 'tools'. I didn't say books. I didn't say research material. And, I didn't say source code. However, he does provide all of that.

He helps programmers figure out what they need themselves by providing lots of free content, and lots of free contextual metadata. He allows educators to put custom course packs together. He provides (for a price) access to his entire library of collected works. He even allows them to comment on works in progress. And, of course, he sells books - and lots of them.

This sounds a lot (save the point about works in progress) like what bookstores and libraries do.

Now, I don't know the answer to the question of how libraries and bookstores should collaborate. What I do expect, though, that in the next few years, if they don't, we will see far fewer of them both in our communities as their individual missions will seem too anachronistic for the public to support.

The Independent Bookseller

Last year, I worked on behalf of the BISG office on a survey of bookstores. The survey was ostensibly about the kinds of data that bookstore buyers needed in order to make their purchases. The main hypothesis behind the survey was that publishers should focus their efforts on giving buyers the specific data elements that they need in order to make informed decisions. Part of the survey was done via an online form, and part was phone interviews with buyers. In this process, I personally spoke to buyers from 30 independent stores to get their views.

Buyers don't look at title information, the way that techies (aka product information evangelists) like me, think that they do. And, because the online form was geared around the original hypothesis, the results that came back were, unsurprisingly, useless. So, the formal survey failed, and the results were never published. However, what I learned in my phone interviews - while anecdotal from a statistical point of view - was profound to me in its simplicity.

I found two significant things during my conversations:

1. Independent bookstores that had not been put out of business by the rise of the chain stores, online retailers, big box retailers, and price clubs, were in fact, thriving.
2. The buying process is incredibly personal. Bookstore buyers, for the most part, rely heavily on the recommendations of their sales reps, the recommendations of other independent bookstores, and the feedback from their customers.

And, to a great extent, these two elements are tightly intertwined. The reasons behind these findings were equally interesting and insightful. They also gave me great confidence in the role of the independent store in the ecosystem of bookselling, and in fact, book publishing in general.

I also think that publishers can learn alot from some of these simple lessons. So, let's dive in and look at them.

Why are many independents thriving? Generally speaking it is because they have questioned the assumption that their mere presence in the community was important to the community. They have turned themselves from a business that simply received customers to a business that went out and got customers - or better said, they have gone from businesses that are generally reactive, to businesses that are generally proactive. The successful stores are the ones who are understanding and leveraging their own unique strengths in their communities.

Many of the independents I spoke to talked about their roles in the creation (and supplier) of local book clubs. Many work with and through the internet, using mass email mailings, RSS feeds, and targeted recommendations to keep themselves relevant in their customers minds. Others talked about the events they put on - especially related to authors. One very successful independent store owner, told me how she combs industry publications every week, looking for new deals that have been signed, and then proactively contacts the publisher to set up an event - even before a book has a publication schedule. Many also move these author events to venues outside the four walls of their store, so that they can bring more people into listen to what the author has to say.

Most of this transformation is eloquently described in one of the final chapters of (my favorite business book of all time), The Art of Profitability by Adrian Slywotzky. I highly recommend this book to anyone.

But, probably the most profound thing I got from my interviews was related to how personal this whole business is. Buyers at stores look through all the sales catalogs for the titles that catch their eye, but almost all (who have reps they trust) trust the recommendations of their reps. They will buy books recommended by their reps, even if they didn't see the fit of an individual title when they browsed the catalog. Equally true, they might bypass a title, that they thought might work, but the rep was lukewarm on.

And, what catches their eye? Many different things, but some are pretty obvious. Is there any connection to the geographic region of the store? Is the author from a nearby town? Does the author have some other connection (a brother, cousin, parent, or life history) to this particular community? Is the publisher putting any marketing muscle behind the title? Generally, buyers are looking for books that they can get behind personally, that their patrons will love.

It was incredibly powerful to hear time after time how important the rep was in this process. "They know our store, and they know the books". "If they say that I have to have a particular title - even if I disagree - I always buy one or two." Generally the feeling was that the rep helped the buyer cull the catalog down to those titles that the store needed, and equally important, help the buyer decide which titles they didn't need.

The importance of a title to the publisher was also a recurring theme. One buyer told me how they would heed the advice of an email that came from the VP of Sales at Random House, where he picked his favorite titles for the season. Other publishers signal their own picks by highlighting a national advertising campaign, or by publicizing the initial print run. Others, signal it through the position in the seasonal catalog. It seems clear that any help, buyers can get culling through the masses of titles being published (6,000 +/- per week) is greatly appreciated.

So what are the lessons for publishers?

1. Sell your books to the reps, and treat your reps like gold. They are the ones initiating grassroots demand for the title. In the age of the internet, the grassroots is where the power is.
2. Present as much information about the author as possible. Authors are the stars, and if the author has any type of connection to an individual community, their books will sell.
3. Layout your seasonal catalogs to make it easy for a buyer to get an understanding about whether the title will work for them. Most buyers I spoke to said that they spend less than 10 seconds on any given catalog page, so the title really needs to grab them. Leave alot of white space in a consistent place on the page so the buyer can markup the catalog.
4. Publishers need to identify and reach out to communities other than the bookselling community. When the list comes together, each title should be analyzed for the communities that may want it, and those communities should be marketed to directly.
5. As evil as it sounds, rank your titles, and make sure that the entire bookselling ecosystem knows which ones you are really behind.

comments? email me at ftoolan at qsolution dot com.