L.A. Times Panel Debates Gatekeepers, Supply Chain and e-Books
By Wendy Werris -- Publishers Weekly, 4/30/2009 7:41:00 AM
A standing room only audience heard five of today’s leading book industry analysts discuss the role of technology and the Internet on the future of a book industry in transition on April 25 at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
The panel, moderated by the Times book editor, David Ullin, included former PW editor-in-chief, publishing consultant and author of So Many Books, So Little Time Sara Nelson; Richard Nash, former head of Soft Skull Press; Otis Chandler, founder of the Goodreads Web site; and Patrick Brown, Vroman’s Books’ webmaster and blogger engaging in a sometimes adversarial conversation about the profound changes that challenge the core of book publishing, how writers and readers connect, and how books are bought and sold.
“Writing and reading are doing just fine. It’s the intermediaries that are failing,” commented Nash, referring to ineffective supply chain management among publishers. That supply chain needs to deal with 300,000 books published annually, which led Nelson to two points. “This is a gatekeeper issue,” she said. “We simply publish too many books. We need more midlist novels and less of the celebrity books that challenge the bottomline of publishing conglomerates. The supply chain is broken. In the 20th century you got books to distributors and they got books into stores, and reps from publishers into stores telling buyers what to order... that doesn’t work anymore. The more you publish, the more overwhelming it is, and you need somebody to help you through the morass of choices. Goodreads is one of those gatekeepers.”
The Goodreads site now has two million reader members and 6,000 authors that use the site to make it easier for their fans to find them and buy their books. “We created Goodreads to help people discover and enjoy more books by finding out what their friends are reading. It’s like Facebook for readers,” Chandler explained. As publishers’ marketing budgets continue to plummet, it’s easy to see why Goodreads has become so popular with authors and book lovers alike. The service is basically free.
Also touting the advantages and potential of the Internet was Brown: “It’s a global tool, necessary to maintain relations with our customers at Vroman’s. My position was basically created out of nothing two years ago for online branding of the bookstore.” It was Brown’s comments on e-books, though, that set some to teeth-gnashing. “The future is heading toward the proliferation of e-books over printed books. Self-publishing will rise and rise, and the barrier will be lowered between you and having a book published.”
Nelson conceded that there are advantages to the e-book growth, snail-like though it may be. “They’re today’s equivalent of mass market paperbacks,” she said, “in that they’re not durable and they’re cheap. They open up a whole new market.”
When Nash remarked that he preferred the word "concierge" to Nelson’s "gatekeeper" term, he was referring to the industry’s responsibility to be in the service business. “We must be servants of writers and readers," he remarked. Brown countered by explaining Vroman’s is essentially a service provider, a curatorial business of bookselling that offers value at the same time.
One audience member commented that because of the economic structure and relatively low price of e-books, “writers are then screwed.” Nash responded, “No, that is not true. Printing accounts for 12% of production cost, thus there is actually more of the pie for the writer to get.” Chandler then noted that because of blogs and additional book Web sites, people can more easily find – and buy – the books they like, which is also advantageous to writers.
Ullin wrapped up the panel by touting the effectiveness of book blogs, including his own Jacket Copy, on the L.A. Times Web site. “There has never been a better time to market books. The entrepreneurial model now really works.”
