As the publishing industry, along with the rest of America, tried to get back to "normal" last week, industry members grappled with numerous questions--which books should be delayed and which accelerated; which authors should continue to tour; and if attendance at Frankfurt should be reconsidered. Their decisions were complicated by the uncertainty over when and where America's retaliatory strikes will occur, and how severe they will be. Add in a faltering economy, and few in the industry were willing to predict how sales will fare in the fourth quarter. Some publishers agreed with the sentiment expressed by Random House chairman Peter Olson, who noted in a memo to employees, "We must prepare ourselves for the prospect that the current flat marketplace for books may become worse." Others were encouraged by the sales reports from Barnes & Noble and Borders Group that showed that following dismal sales the day of the attack, comparable-store sales at both companies' superstores improved during the rest of the week, and that over the September 15-16 weekend, same-store sales were up compared to one year ago.
An immediate concern for publishers is the cancellation of television and radio interviews for all authors except those who can discuss issues related to the terrorist attacks. In the days following September 11, publishers received a flurry of solicitations from media for authors. AOL's Bookreporter.com, for instance, sent out a call for experts on terrorism and grief in an effort to land authors for chats. Publicists across the industry were busy last week alerting producers and editors to relevant authors. But most other titles were left to suffer the consequences of the media's single- minded coverage. Simon & Schuster spokesperson Adam Rothberg observed that "publicity-dependent books" would probably be delayed for a few weeks, and Hyperion president Bob Miller told PW that titles that need a boost from the media will suffer "until radio, TV and other media outlets start talking about books again." He added that Hyperion authors are willing to travel but "there is no media to travel to." The net effect, speculated publishers like Warner's Larry Kirshbaum, might be to push back the fall season so that it spills into 2002. In some cases, though, a delay isn't simple. "A lot of our books for the fall have already shipped, so we can't just postpone them," said an editor at a large trade house.
Publishers also worried about books that might be considered tasteless in light of the events. Thrillers, especially ones about terrorism; military titles; books that sport cover images of planes or tall buildings; and humorous takes on travel were all deemed questionable. Chronicle Books will not focus on marketing its semi-ironic Worst Case Scenario: Travel, the second in its burgeoning series, but will concentrate on upcoming titles in the series, which deal with less sensitive subjects like golf and dating. Putnam's Jove found itself in a predicament with thriller novelist John Nance, an aviation expert who has gotten plenty of broadcast time, but whose upcoming paperback, Headwind, features an exploding plane on its cover. After some deliberation, the imprint decided to leave the paperback release of the book on schedule for March 2002, but will change the cover image. Rather than yank books entirely, many houses are looking to another solution: "putting them out quietly"-- i.e., with little media or marketing. This tactic has been put in place for even high-profile books. Ads have been pulled for Simon & Schuster's tie-in to HBO's Band of Brothers and Random House's Stephen King-Peter Straub collaboration, Black House.
Disruptions in air travel meant that a few authors were unable to attend the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association's annual meeting in Portland September 13-15, although overall attendance was only down slightly. Publishers indicated that for most of the remaining regional shows, they will be represented by local reps.
But most publishers last week were still planning to attend next month's Frankfurt Book Fair, although all those contacted by PW added an important caveat--they will fly to Frankfurt unless military actions make traveling more dangerous. In addition, most houses were giving employees who feel uncomfortable about attending the fair the option to sit this year out, a measure that will likely drop attendance slightly. At press time, Zondervan and Standard Publishing were the only two publishers who had decided not to send any staff. Rights people from both religion houses were in Korea on September 11, and had a horrific time getting home. They were not eager to take another international trip.
The attack dramatically changed bestseller lists over the last two weeks, as books on the Twin Towers, terrorism and Osama bin Laden, along with books about Nostradamus, dominated the Amazon.com top sellers. The USA Today list had a more familiar look, as the trade paperback edition of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban took the number 1 spot, followed by Jack Welch's book and then The Sorcerer's Stone. Scholastic shipped more than two million copies of Prisoner.
Scholastic is also putting out an instant book for children--an illustrated paperback on the Pledge of Allegiance, with a portion of the proceeds to be donated to the Red Cross. A first printing of 400,000 copies has been ordered.
University Presses React
University presses, which publish extensively in such fields as Islam and terrorism, turned out to have a lot of the kind of titles people suddenly began looking for in the wake of the attacks, and the American Association of University Presses was quick to respond to the sudden interest.
AAUP executive director Peter Givler told PW that the idea for an online bibliography at the organization's Web site (aaupnet.org ) came from Penn State director Sanford Thatcher, who has a couple of books on terrorism in which there had been a sudden surge of reader and bookstore interest. "We realized we had a lot of books people wanted," said Givler, and he began e-mailing press directors and publicists September 14 for relevant titles. There was, he said, "an amazing response," and the AAUP's Brenda McLaughlin began putting the first list up on the site early last week. As of September 19, there were 103 titles, on a range of subjects, from the Trade Center itself (Twin Towers by Angus Kress Gillespie, Rutgers) through terrorism (The New Jackals: Ramzi, Yousef, Osama bin Laden and the Future of Terrorism, Northeastern) and Islamic movements (Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashin, Yale), to disaster management and airline security. Chicago, Princeton, Columbia and Penn State all have notable lists in at least one of these areas.
More titles are being added, said Givler, and once AAUP's fiber-optic links to the site have been restored, links could be established between the listings and the originating presses. Due to the attack, the association currently has only two working phones. Publishers were still canceling parties and other promotional events last week. New York Is Book Country, scheduled to run for most of last week and with a large public book fair planned for last Sunday, canceled most of its activities at the request of the New York Police Department. The Association of American Publishers still plans to move ahead with four events over the next several weeks, including its September 28 seminar for independent publishers, the October 1-2 Introduction to Publishing seminar, the October 2 seminar on the First Amendment and a math summit on October 3.
