Crossing the Boundaries

Today's New Ager is far more likely to be an Oprah watcher concerned about health and spirituality than the granola-munching, Birkenstock-wearing, ex-hippie of the past. What's changed, according to a recently released study conducted by Natural Business Communications and the Natural Marketing Institute, is the sheer number of people that identify with LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability). The study shows that LOHAS consumers make up 30% of all U.S. households, which translates into 63 million adults.

In a complementary study, Natural Health magazine found that its 300,000 subscribers frequently turn to books for information on a variety of LOHAS subjects. "Our reader buys 21 books a year on average, and 97% of our readers buy books," notes publishing director Stephen Twombly. "The kinds of books they're purchasing are: 70% natural health, 63% nutrition and cookbooks, 43% spirituality, 37% personal growth and self-help and 32% religion and philosophy."

Together these studies indicate the potential depth of the market for products connected with the environment, social change and personal growth, including yoga, meditation and fitness. In effect, the New Age category has grown up. To find out how it's changed over the past five years, PW spoke with publishers about the challenges of publishing and marketing New Age books, and what they see in their crystal balls for the future.

Thomas Miller, executive editor of general interest books at John Wiley & Sons, is one of several publishers who chafe at the notion of a "New Age" umbrella, preferring to regard these titles as strictly "mind-body-spirit" books. To bolster his argument, he points to New Age Journal, which changed its name to Body & Soul Magazine with its March/April 2002 issue. "While there is still traditional New Age publishing being done," says Miller, "the largest part of the market has become much more mainstream. The mainstream market that may have resisted New Age a decade or so ago is now happily practicing yoga and taking healing herbs, and mainstream medicine is increasingly open to the benefits of mind-body practices such as meditation." Given that many of Wiley's mind-body-spirit customers prefer books by authors with a strong media profile, Miller is expecting strong sales for the company's latest nutritional guide, The Chopra Center Cookbook: Nourishing Body and Soul (Sept.) by Deepak Chopra, David Simon and Leanne Backer.

The mainstreaming of the New Age category influenced Penguin Putnam to rethink its esoteric Arkana (or "arcane") imprint. Two years ago it not only changed its name (to Penguin Compass and Viking Compass), but also widened its arc to include books that don't fall under the mind-body-spirit rubric. "What we're trying to do with Compass," explains editorial director Janet Goldstein, "is not lose the integrity of the list, but to broaden it. The challenge is, Does it become so broad that there's no center? How do we write books that go deeper but can't become too esoteric?" Quoting a bookseller who found just the right metaphor for the transition in New Age titles, she adds, "This whole category is like a lava lamp—it's always there, but it's changing."

Although today's Compass list is more commercial than the original Arkana ones and plays to Viking's traditional strengths in history, memoir and current affairs, many titles continue to fit comfortably within the mind-body-spirit tradition. Among them are books like Julie Soskin's paperback original How Psychic Are You?: 76 Techniques to Boost Your Innate Power (June), the third book in the popular Who Are You? spiritual self-help series. Or angel popularizer Sophy Burnham's The Path of Prayer: Reflections on Prayer and True Stories of How It Affects Our Lives (Sept.), a religious book with a New Age twist. At the same time these books have a crossover appeal into other areas. For Goldstein, they raise an important issue for many New Age books: where should they be shelved? "When we publish something," says Goldstein, "it can end up not having its constituency even in the bookstore. Where does it go? So much falls between the cracks."

Other mainstream publishers looking for a way to stand out in an increasingly mainstream, hence crowded, marketplace, have concentrated on packaging. At Chronicle Books, for example, publicist Steve Moore remarks on "the proliferation of traditional books in the mind-body-spirit category. It seems as if everyone has their own holistic diet or exercise regime in a standard trim size and price point." So when Chronicle began publishing New Age titles, it tried to avoid traditional paperbacks or hardcovers. Instead the house encouraged consumers to hit the decks, literally. Its first three deck sets of 50 exercise cards--The Spa Deck, The Relax Deck and The Yoga Deck--have done especially well, with combined sales exceeding 300,000 copies. Playing to its strengths, Chronicle has more decks on the way: The Stretch Deck (Aug.), The Perfect Calm Deck (Oct.) and The Essential Meditations Deck (Oct.).

For longtime New Age publisher Charles Nurnberg, executive v-p of Sterling Publishing, packaging and content are key. "Unlike even two or three years ago," he remarks, "you need to offer more book, more information, hard facts--and you need to make it look better. A few years ago, you saw more mass market and more unattractively produced trade paperbacks. The whole area has come into the 21st century. There's a bit more style. It's not New Age any more, it's mainstream. As a general subject category almost every major publisher is dabbling."

For Nurnberg, with so much activity in this area, the discussion of what to call it--"New Age" or "mind-body-spirit"--is beside the point. "I don't think the subjects have changed that much. It's the look and the packaging," he says, adding that "if you don't have a good book and good price point, you might as well not do it." Both factors are especially key to the success of book-and-gift packages such as Sterling's The Dalai Lama Altar Kit (Oct.), written by the Dalai Lama himself, and a spoof on spells, The Voodoo Revenge Book and Gift Set (Sept.).

As commercial houses begin to incorporate more New Age titles into their lists, publishers like 27-year-old Inner Traditions/Bear & Company in Rochester, Vt., which were once considered fringe, face a different kind of challenge. According to president and publisher Ehud Sperling, today's New Age publishers have to question their "relevancy. We need to stay true to our mission, to be driven by content." Two years ago, with the creation of its Bindu Books imprint aimed at teens, Inner Traditions attempted to answer the question, "Are you relevant to the next generation coming up?" notes Sperling. One of the early Bindu releases, M.J. Abadie's Teen Astrology: The Ultimate Guide to Making Your Life Your Own, went on to become the company's #14 bestseller for the period from January 2001 to the present, while Julie Tallard Johnson's Thundering Years: Rituals and Sacred Wisdom for Teens received the 2002 Independent Publishing Award for multicultural juvenile nonfiction at BEA.

"The teen imprint," says Sperling, "started out of a trip two teens made to my house." In the end they found that they each had much to tell each other. Then with the number of children being born to Inner Tradition employees (including Sperling) over the past 10 years, "it became more and more of a focus of the editorial department." The popularity of the house's YA continues to be strong. M.J. Abadie's The Goddess in Every Girl: Discovering Your Teen Feminine Power (July), for example, has stronger advance orders than any other Inner Traditions title, according to Sperling. "The purpose of this book," he says, "is to give teen girls an opportunity to create an identity other than what they see in magazines." In addition, Inner Traditions has done well with Bear Cub Books for younger children, such as Harish Johari's Little Krishna (Nov.), with illustrations by Pieter Weltevrede.

Barron's may be best known for its educational testing books, but it, too, has found a strong market for informative, and beautiful, books on New Age topics. "This category has really done well for us," says publicity manager Steve Matteo. Although the company didn't get into the New Age area in a big way until 1997, Matteo estimates that Barron's will do more than 30 mind-body-spirit titles this year, up from fewer than 20 in 2001. "We're looking to do more books that have gift appeal or are related to health--meditation, reflexology, yoga." In September, Barron's will publish its first oversized, coffee-table book, The Spirit of Yoga, by the health and beauty director of British Vogue, Kathy Phillips, with a foreword by supermodel Christy Turlington. Coming in August is The Little Box of Spells: All You Need to Bring the Power of Magic into Your Life.

Llewellyn Worldwide president Carl Weschcke looks at the problems confronting New Age--a term that he prefers over mind-body-spirit, because the latter lacks what he regards as the necessary focus on personal growth--as the ones central to publishing as a whole. "I don't think they're confined to New Age titles, by any means," he tells PW. The biggest change that he has observed in the past half decade is "the influence of the computer and orientation to the Internet, not only as a sales tool, but the back-end office. Through Bookscan," Weschcke adds, "we can look at weekly sales and see what's happening." Going forward, Weschcke anticipates that the computer will continue to play a key role in publishing and is investing close to a million dollars to upgrade Llewellyn's software.

Another issue that Weschcke raises of concern to all publishers is the declining role of the wholesaler. "Direct sales with our stores has increased quite a bit," he says. "As much as, or as important as, wholesalers are, what we have to develop is a way to relate to their customers. We have to find a way to exchange information." He also points to the influence of Barnes & Noble and its entrée into publishing. "We've sold reprint rights to Barnes & Noble," he acknowledges. "Are we just feeding a competitor? Now we have the bookstore competing against the publisher.

"We still don't know what's happening with e-books," he continues. "At the same time there's a lot of life left in the old printed word. We have to constantly look at diversification, but within the New Age." In terms of new book categories, Llewellyn has recently moved further into self-help, alternative health, religion, philosophy and fiction. The company is also exploring book-and-CD sets for subjects ranging from career guidance to astrology, as well as sidelines beyond calendars and almanacs. "We moved into sidelines," explains Weschcke, "because stores need the greater markup." Given that Llewellyn publishes four to six tarot decks a year and distributes the Lo Scarabeo line from Italy, one of its first sidelines was a cotton velvet tarot bag, released earlier this year.

Like Sperling at Inner Traditions, executive editor Claire Gerus at Adams Media is also concerned about fresh material for the company's popular Everything series, which does well with New Age topics, and for stand-alone titles like Maril Crabtree's just-published story collection, Sacred Feathers: The Power of One Feather to Change Your Life (June). Says Gerus, "There are so many competing titles for astrology, palmistry and feng shui."

Even more than title competition, Gerus regards the compensation of New Age authors as especially problematic. "There is the mistaken perception that New Age authors are less interested in financial remuneration than other writers--that because they are writing from the heart and soul, they just want the books out there helping others." Combined with the lower advance is the lack of splashy publicity coverage reserved for higher-profile books. To supplement publisher publicity, New Age authors--like many other midlist writers--are hiring their own publicists, according to Gerus, who keeps a file of recommended publicists for her authors. "A private publicist," she says, "can certainly make the difference between a so-so seller and a success, if all the factors click into place."

Several newcomers that launched in the past year or two remark on the same market trends as their elders, including the health of the New Age category as a whole. Fair Winds, for example, the year-old New Age imprint of design house Rockport Publishers in Gloucester, Mass., had net sales of $2 million, which the company attributes in part to a general turning toward spirituality in the wake of September 11. As a result, notes Rockport president Ken Fund, "our books going forward are as much about comforting the soul as nourishing the mind and body." He plans to increase the number of Fair Winds titles by 15% to 40 books a year. However, the company's fall list reflects other trends besides spirituality. It has several humor titles—Karma 101: What Goes Around Comes Round... and What You Can Do About It (Sept.) and Judika Illes's Emergency Magic: 150 Spells for Surviving the Worst-Case Scenario (Oct.)—as well as books on health—John Mayer's The Three-Week Family Fat Cure: The Revolutionary Family Fit Program That Breaks the Cycle of Obesity for Good (Jan.).

Independent Boston publisher Red Wheel/Weiser, which was ranked by PW as one of the 14 fastest-growing small publishers of 2001, is also continuing to expand. With its recent acquisition of Berkeley-based Conari Press, its revenues are expected to reach the $10 million mark (News, May 6). For publisher Jan Johnson, "the big change in the past five years is the kinds of books making their way into all parts of people's lives. When I think of New Age books, I think of books for people's needs in various parts of their lives, where they wouldn't have sought enlightenment before." To keep on top of this trend, Red Wheel/Weiser has added crossover titles like James Wanless's just-published business-oriented look at Intuition @ Work & at Home and at Play and Pamela Kristan's organizing self-help book, The Practical Matters: Find Meaning and Power in Your Stuff (Jan. 2003).

Addressing the proliferation of kits like its own book-and-pewter-cross-pendant set, The Celtic Cross: Croes Celtaidd (Sept.) by Derek Bryce, Johnson notes that "publishers are looking at the market and at getting their message out in different ways. Kits are doing well; people are attracted to the added value." Another way that she is trying to reach out to new markets is to find books that will appeal to other age groups besides baby boomers. At Red Wheel/Weiser that has translated into books for Gen Y, such as Tami Coyne and Karen Weissman's The Spiritual Chicks Question Everything: Learn to Risk, Release, and Soar (Oct.). "It was sold to us by an agent under 30 and was written by two women under 30 about the way their lives are," says Johnson.

At 25-year-old ECW Press in Montreal, which was also named one of PW's fastest-growing small publishers, New Age or, more specifically, pagan and Wiccan books, are part of a conscientious expansion program that "took us the pop culture and general trade way," says Julie Girard in marketing and communications. "Our goal is to tap into the market by providing pagans with thoughtful and intelligent writing on topics that go beyond the basic Wiccan and/or New Age theories." The company relies on word-of-mouth to get both authors and readers. Upcoming titles include Amber Laine Fisher's just-published Philosophy of Wicca and Judy Harrow's Spiritual Mentoring: A Pagan Guide (Sept.).

Similarly, Career Press in Franklin Lakes, N.J., expanded into the mainstream two years ago with its New Page Books division. "An integral part of New Page is its growing selection of New Age titles. We're proud that New Page Books has become a major player in this popular genre," comments publicity director Jackie Michaels. That popularity has become a double-edged sword for New Page, as it has for other New Age houses. "It becomes more difficult to stand out from the crowd," notes Michaels, who also finds it challenging "to pique the interests of readers who are new to this category, while at the same time maintaining the interests of those seeking more advanced topics."

New Page has grown from eight books its first season, fall 2000, to 15–20 books a season. "When we first started," says special sales representative Laurie Kelly, "our goal was to get the main accounts to recognize us and to get into the distributors. Now our goal is to get into the New Age specialty stores, to try and get them to know who we are." The company has begun telemarketing New Age stores whenever a new catalog comes in. "We're happy to have the distributors working with us," explains Kelly, "but we want the stores to get more information from us, to make it easy for them." Telemarketing is another way that New Page can keep track of hot topics. From the information Kelly's gleaned, for example, she anticipates strong sales for Sirona Knight's A Witch's Prayer Book (Sept.).

If there is one dominant theme that emerged from publishers both large and small, it's that New Age is no longer fringe, but part of the mainstream. No matter what it's called—"New Age," "occult" (as it was known in the early '70s), or "mind-body-spirit"—this category is here to stay. With books like Andrew Weil and Rosie Daley's The Healthy Kitchen: Recipes for a Better Body, Life, and Spirit (Knopf) continuing to dominate PW's nonfiction hardcover bestseller list, it's clear that New Age is no longer an up-and-coming area; it has arrived. To borrow a tagline from one of the big-five credit card companies: New Age books are everywhere you want to read.