Back
around 1980, sales for the entire book industry were about six billion dollars
– around the same amount of revenue in a year for Philip Morris Company back
then. What was the industry like – 36
years ago – when it was estimated that 220,000 books were in print, selling an
average of 1,200 copies each annually?
I
came across a book while rummaging through the musty, narrowed shelves of an
aging antiquarian shop in Manhattan, called In Cold Type: Overcoming the Book
Crisis by Leonard Shatzkin. He opened his 1982 book with this missive:
“This
book appears as the trade book industry in the United States is entering a
profound crisis. Some of the effects –
just the beginnings – are already being felt.
Publishing houses are generally reducing staff and publication lists;
authors agents are expressing frustration at the failure to get contracts for
manuscripts that, perhaps a year ago, would have routinely been granted
advances of $7500 or $10,000; publishers
are expressing vexation with high returns of unsold books from retailers and
the royalty rates demanded by authors.”
Back
then, as now, the industry had problems with returns, distribution, and
pricing. But things have changed since
then. The big chains and Amazon and
ebooks really improved things like
title variety, book availability, and fast delivery. New problems arose – and there are still
complaints about how books get sold – but the 1980-era book industry is no
longer the model for 2016.
In
reading the book, it was interesting to see how things used to work, as it
seemed like a more laborious task to acquire, produce, sell, and market a book
back then.
Take
a look at his insight on how different the book field is vs others:
“No
other consumer industry produces 20,000 different, relatively low-priced
products each year, each with its own personality, requiring individual
recognition in the market. In very few
other consumer industries does the product have so short a life. The average book is dead in days or weeks; 90
percent are dead, in their original editions, within a year.”
The
author noted book prices steadily rose back then. In fact, from 1967-1979, book prices outpaced
the Consumer Price Index. I don’t
believe prices have been rising the last decade the way they should have.
He also noted that back in 1980, except for a few favored locations like New York City, a full-range bookstore was hard to find. He cited 1972 US Department of Commerce data that showed a bookstore served approximately 27,000 people, but it included religious stores and college stores. By considering only general bookstores and book sections of department stores, a bookstore existed for 50,000 people. By contrast, a drugstore back then served 4,900 people and an auto supply store tended to 10,000 people. I don’t know how that compares to today but I do know there are about 2,200 independent bookstore locations. Then you have Barnes & Noble with another 600-700 stores. You have places like Costco, Target, airports, drugstores, supermarkets, etc. selling books too, not to mention online sites like Amazon and Apple. One would assume that books are more readily available now than back then.
He also noted that back in 1980, except for a few favored locations like New York City, a full-range bookstore was hard to find. He cited 1972 US Department of Commerce data that showed a bookstore served approximately 27,000 people, but it included religious stores and college stores. By considering only general bookstores and book sections of department stores, a bookstore existed for 50,000 people. By contrast, a drugstore back then served 4,900 people and an auto supply store tended to 10,000 people. I don’t know how that compares to today but I do know there are about 2,200 independent bookstore locations. Then you have Barnes & Noble with another 600-700 stores. You have places like Costco, Target, airports, drugstores, supermarkets, etc. selling books too, not to mention online sites like Amazon and Apple. One would assume that books are more readily available now than back then.
The
author felt that trade book publishers fell short of their potential. “The most important failing has been in the
costly and haphazard method by which books move from publisher to
consumer.” He also said: “It has been
true for a long time that books cost too much, they are sold in too few places,
the title one wants is too hard to find, the sales life of a book is
distressingly short, and that authors earn a pittance for their creativity and
even so, find it tremendously difficult to get their early work published.”
I
guess no one is jumping to enter a time machine to be transported back to
1980. Add to that criticism the words of
James Lincoln Collier, a prize-winning writer who said in a Publishers Weekly story back then that
most authors – without income outside their writing – would be below the
poverty line. Actually, a recent PW
piece showed this is exactly true today as well.
Collier
said back then: “I calculate that
writers today pay, out of their own pockets, about one-third of the true cost
of producing most books. The stock truth
is that, as presently constituted, the publishing industry exists only by the
grace of subsidies provided by writers.
In the United States, all publishing is vanity publishing.”
Are
we better off than 1980? Most certainly
yes. We have better systems of
production and distribution. Authors
have the choice of how to be published and by whom, if anyone. The industry has
many challenges and concerns, both from the perspective of authors, retailers
and publishers, but it is a healthy and growing industry.
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Brian Feinblum’s views, opinions, and ideas expressed in this blog are his alone and not that of his employer. You can follow him on Twitter @theprexpert and email him at brianfeinblum@gmail.com. He feels more important when discussed in the third-person. This is copyrighted by BookMarketingBuzzBlog © 2016
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