As book publishing, especially trade book publishing, has become absorbed into larger media companies, and as the pressures of digital technology continue to mount, publishers find themselves looking to other media to understand vulnerability and to gain insights.

In creating their digital warehouse last year, HarperCollins looked to “sister” companies like newspapers and magazines for guidance in the process. But one of the fixations of the publishing industry over the last decade, especially publishing associations, has been the record industry. Year after year at the AAP’s Annual Meetings, Napster and its ilk provided the fascination of a train wreck, until that offending company was wrestled to the ground by lawyers. The health of copyright was/is, purportedly in grave danger, if, god forbid, a P2P file sharing system that has bedeviled the record industry were to raise its head in book publishing. And the flames were fanned by the crowing of the RIAA that the reason for the declining success of their companies is that CD sales have been undercut for years by the “illegal” availability of music for free.

Oh, really? Then how do we explain this phenomenon, reported on January 10 in the NY Times?

In a twist for the music industry’s digital revolution, “In Rainbows,” the new Radiohead album that attracted wide attention when it was made available three months ago as a digital download for whatever price fans chose to pay, ranked as the top-selling album in the country this week after the CD version hit record shops and other retailers.

Several things come to mind. All large media companies are afflicted by lawyers… who individually may be great people. I remember being in a meeting where the lawyers were crafting language for book contracts that would give them not only electronic rights to an authors work, but rights to “whatever medium may be created in the future.” Nice, guys. Fortunately, we don’t seem as afflicted as the record industry, with the suits now crying in their beer after living for decades off the fat of rock and roll.

I would suggest that the book industry cast its eyes inwards. People love to be entertained. There is an infinite market for good works of all kinds. Understand your customers. Improve your processes. Do a better job of finding writers and nurturing them. Do your homework and go to bed at a reasonable hour. We’ll all be ok.

Posted by: Jim Lichtenberg

I can’t claim to be a F-O-J (friend of Judith’s). I have met her professionally on a few occasions, I know people who know her, and I know people who talk about her; there’s only a few degrees of separation between Judith and myself. And now I want to write about her, because she’s in the news again and is the most interesting book editor in memory to cross an otherwise boring stage.

About 18 years ago I had a private lunch with Judith Regan. I remember it and doubt she does. I was a young insecure literary agent and she was a youngish fledgling book editor at Simon & Schuster. I didn’t guess that within a few short years she would become the most dynamic and innovative editors in the business. In fact, it seemed that most new editors moved in and out of the business with silent velocity. I recall she was above average looking and had a great sense of style in the way she was dressed and groomed—a genuine head-turner in a town that boasts a lot of them, and in a business that’s known to clone blandness.  I was especially impressed by her sun glasses, or at least that’s what stays with me. I can’t say that I detected a sense of humor per se, but there was a mix of irony and sarcasm in her, and I suspected that if and when she laughed, it was noticeable and for good cause.

She was a high-strung Type-A personality, which is normal for a mid-towner in the middle of the week at mid-day. She was new to her job and had not yet made any big acquisitions. She explained she was recruited because of her Hollywood/LA LA Land connections, which made her a different species than her Ivy League in-bred colleagues. She expressed her dismay that “they” assumed she could simply open her Rollodex and recruit the rich and famous, and infamous, to write books real people would buy. Ms. Regan felt pressured to prove herself, and was willing to display her anxiety about it.

It was a warm humid New York kind of day and I failed to dress appropriately for the venue she selected, which was the NY Women’s Republican Club. Go figure. Because of me, we were not allowed to eat in the main dining area and were exiled to a side-room. I apologized for being “dressed down”, and she expressed her honest view that I should have known better. She was right. That and a cluster of similar experiences finally disciplined me to dress well. It became a habit to wear nice slacks and a collared shirt on days no meetings were scheduled, and a suit if I had appointments. Now I live and work in the countryside, and dress accordingly.

Back to Regan. With the speed of a comet, she became the “It Girl” at Simon & Schuster, and then seemed to be given a piece of the lease at Harper & Collins, where it was made clear that iconic Rupert Murdock personally liked her a lot. The rest is history. She made a lot of money for everyone, whereas most editors don’t. She hired her own publicist and became a celebrity, whereas many editors may not even recognize themselves in a mirror. She published books of so-called high cultural value and books that some people considered repulsive. Most of them made money, whereas most books that get published don’t.

Ms. Regan wasn’t a criminal and was a proven rain-maker beyond compare. So what was the problem? The answer to that loaded question is stuffed with years of bruised egos, resentments, dramatic interactions, steamy sexuality, and not always unreasonable concerns. I don’t have the inside story, but the trajectory of her Ms. Regan’ nine-figure law suit will surely uncork a rash of lushy gossip-geysers that most of us will enjoy immensely.

In closing, Harper Collins shouldn’t have lost Ms. Regan as a publisher and shouldn’t have acquired her as an enemy. Like a Hindu Goddess, she can either create or destroy with much more power than most individuals dare to aspire for.

Posted by: Jeff Herman

It’s interesting to note that the OJ book, which is independently published, continues to thrive as a bestseller. This should not surprise anyone. It vindicates Judith Regan’ commercial instincts and is why her peers and over-lords at Collins initially supported the acquisition. So OJ potentially “outs” himself as the killer. Why does that offend anyone? It would have been more offensive, and boring, if he wrote a book trying to prove that he didn’t do it. But people are always looking for reasons to get on their self righteous high horses, which can lead to censorship and often misses real opportunities to be useful.

The bottom line is that bloody true crime stories are commercially reliable, and that the OJ fetish is not yet ready to fade away.

The book became too hot a potato for any large corporate house to handle, which proves one again why independent publishing can, and must, thrive. While IF I DID IT isn’t an important book by anyone’s standards, it’s vital that a non black market venue existed for it to be published and widely distributed. All too often, and far below the public’s radar, countless good books are effectively terminated by the large corporate entities due to their lack of faith that enough people will buy them. But this is often due to a corporate culture that squelches risk taking, innovation, or anything that springs from gut instincts. Editors at large houses have to be mindful of their career tracks; it’s simply too risky to advocate for decisions that might end up losing a lot of money. Of course, independent publishers can go out of business for losing a lot of money, but they are also more likely to successfully follow their passion, not just their fears.

James Frey is in the news this week, but in a relatively silly and quiet way. Some kind of class action suit was settled that provided various lawyers with hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in fees, about $200,000 for random charities, and nominal refunds for the 2,000 or so consumers who feel compelled to demand them. But the need for the law suit is extremely confusing, because the publisher had already promised to give people their money back on demand. It may be safe to conclude that some savvy lawyers saw an opportunity to make some money for no good reason, other than the fact that they could.

The above scenario set back Random House and its insurer nearly a million dollars, and for what? Imagine how many books an independent house could publish with that much extra cash; which brings me to the real point. A dozen or so independent houses should form a consortium dedicated to the purpose of launching class action suits against their large corporate brethren. Only in-house lawyers would be used, thereby avoiding massive contingency fees. In any given week there must be at least one stupid thing one of the large houses does that is class-actionable and settleable. Eventually, the program can be structured so that the large houses simply pay a negotiated annual fee in exchange for not being hit by any class action suits. Sort of like protection money. Absurd? Well, is the current reality any less absurd? Are independent publishers any less deserving of such windfalls than vultures-at-law, especially since the money derives from the corporate supported houses?

Posted by: Jeff Herman