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

The transformation of publishing from finding and nurturing authors for the long term, to acquiring the most ready-to-go, commercially-promising packages that the budget allows, happened several decades ago.

So we’re used to it, right? We know what is, and what to expect from, a “NY Times Bestseller” (which is not the same as the NY Times bestseller lists).

A rock critic in my ill-spent youth (East Village Other to NY Times), I am now grooving on the spate of new books about rock icons like Dylan, Clapton, and even Patty Boyd, a beautiful young Brit, born of a dysfunctional family, who grew up to be a model and wife of George Harrison and then Eric Clapton. Wonderful Tonight by Ms. Boyd, is actually a whole lot better than Clapton’s Eric, which is an interminable set of acknowledgments of all the cool people he knew. (hence my title.) However, at a crucial point in Patty’s account of her break-up with George she describes the tension as being the same as “a chop stick about to come apart. Something had to give,” she writes.

Help! Did an editor ever read this? Not that Patty should be treated like Raymond Carver, but shouldn’t someone have asked for a better metaphor?

Of course, it is completely unfair to tar all editors with this brush. And I recommend, if you can, being a fly on the wall at an editorial meeting. It’s a fascinating dynamic to watch.

But, it does beg the question: what is a publisher? A few years ago, Peter Jovanovich, scion of Jovanich Publishers, told me that a publishing house is “a bank with an editorial department attached.” After all publishers haven’t printed, manufactured, distributed or sold books for nigh on to a long time. And if they are no longer really editing them, then what are they? Just a bank?

Enter the Internet, which is changing the equation quite fundamentally. As other publishing blogs have been feverishly discussing, and as I will attempt to demonstrate at the O’Reilly Tools of Change conference next month in NYC, bringing content to customers is essentially a “service” in which an increasingly customized and customizable product (often self-published by the author) is embedded.

Two examples of the dawn of this service function are author sites, for example:
http://www.harpercollins.com/author/index.aspx?authorID=17367 and http://www.oreilly.com/authors/

But then Tim O’Reilly foresaw this direction in a 1995 paper.  

Which just goes to show that things that appear to be suddenly “right on the brink of change,” were probably there for a while. They were just hard to see.

Posted by: Jim Lichtenberg

Reading is a technology, Like any technology, its life span is a function of its usefulness. Usefulness however is one of those things that change over time. How many of you can wield a sword or ride a horse… both staples of the educated person (usually male) only a couple of centuries ago?

The inscribing of symbolic representations of language on stones, papyrus, vellum paper, or a screen, has proved useful -- and with the printing press explosively diffused among human beings -- over the last 6,000 years since the Summarians created an alphabet and inscribed it on their famous mud tablets. However, it’s not the only way to go. 3,000 years ago, in Athens and other Greek cities around the Mediterranean, the philosophical pillars of the western world were set in place through a primarily oral tradition. Students (usually male) learned through dialogue (as in Plato’s), and through learning by heart the musical rhyming poems of Homer, and an avid public awaited the plays of Sophocles, et. al.

And if recent scholarship is to be believed, this was not the dawn of history. The history of homo sapiens stretches back many tens of thousands of years. According to these professors, there is no ‘pre-history.’ It ‘s all history, all the time. So reading is a relative new comer.

Yet once again, as if to celebrate the year’s conclusion, comes the now familiar article about the death of reading: “The science of reading and it’s decline,” by Caleb Crain, The New Yorker, December 24&31, 2007, citing an impressive range of apparently scientific statistics about the sad decline of reading among Americans of all ages.

Trying to keep a technology alive as its utility fades is sentimental at best. Don’t get me wrong. I am immersively involved with dozens of books and articles, and web pages every month. Reading is the primary way I interact with the world. But, I am not wringing my hands.

Reading, I believe, is not the issue here. Reading is a surrogate, a stand-in for the question of “culture.” The question really being asked: is our culture being debased (like coins) because of the decline in reading? Are we becoming a nation of dummies, political imbeciles, and brutes as indicated by the decline of reading? Unfortunately, those traits are part of human nature for all of its tens of thousands of years.

I think the real issue is the following: if, or as, reading declines, what other technologies will take its place for helping human being understand themselves and the world around them (or whatever’s left of it)? Maybe the theatre will be reborn. Maybe, along with Queen Elizabeth II’s Xmas message, Youtube will develop into the equivalent of the classic (pre-reading) Greek Plays, Maybe the technology of motion pictures will become so inexpensive and diffused that there will be 150,000 new movies a year. Maybe once the ravages of climate change stabilize, we’ll go back to cave painting. Stay tuned. It will be interesting.

Posted by: Jim Lichtenberg

When I was a kid in high school in the mid-1960s, one of my favorite books was A Sense of Where You Are, John McPhee’s 1965 account of the college basketball career of Princeton all-American and later New York Knick and US Senator, Bill Bradley. If distant memory serves, McPhee got his evocative title from Bradley himself, who coined it in demonstrating that success in basketball derived from an informed appreciation of one’s place on the court—from “a sense of where you are.” While no advice could have helped me in my frustrated pursuits on the basketball court, the phrase “a sense of where you are” resonates so clearly in my experience as an editor that it has never left me, even as I recognize it in the work of today’s great editors. 

 

In my end of our business, scholarly publishing, having “a sense of where you are” in perceiving where your field is going is what excites an editor’s imagination. That is, your success as an editor is predicated on having a clear sense of where your field is moving —be it religion, economics, or physics—and working backwards from that horizon to imagine what the next great books will be. “A sense of where you are” in the milieu of ideas inspires you, the editor, to ask, “what will the next truly great philosophy list look like, and what do I have to do to publish such a list. Which authors will I have to attract? What kinds of books will I have to develop, and in what combination?  What are readers—scholars and students here and abroad—interested in? What does the field need and how will such a list shape its frontier and its connections to other fields?”   

 

Scholarly publishers help to spur the course of intellectual progress by publishing various kinds of books—the tools of our trade:  Research monographs, the building blocks of knowledge in most fields; academic trade books, statements that provoke big questions about controversial issues within and across fields; treatises, systematic explorations of big subjects by major figures that galvanize entire intellectual discourses; and reference books, works that consolidate and memorialize knowledge in their fields.

 

While each of these genres is essential to a great scholarly list, of the four, the treatise provides editors their most delicious publishing opportunity because editors can often exercise an active hand in conceptualizing this kind of book and because it so generously rewards the editor’s sense of his or her field. Signing the big treatise is sometimes a function of blessed serendipity—being in the right place at the right time with the right author—but at a deeper level, such books can result from the planful imaginings of editors.  That is, astute and informed editors draw on a sense of what kinds of major, synthesizing works their fields need and actively look for such titles. 

 

Treatises can, and do, make singularly impressive contributions to learning. Think of the effect of E. H. Gombrich’s canonical Art and Ideas on the field of art, or Huston Smith’s The World’s Religions on comparative religion, or Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory on literary studies, or Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations on international relations. Provocative and path-breaking texts of this kind have for generations helped draw and redraw the map of scholarly knowledge—and can mark the careers of their editors.     

 

An excellent example of this kind of publishing can be found in the work of my colleague Brigitta van Rheinberg, Editor-in-Chief and History Editor of Princeton University Press. A few years back, Brigitta began thinking about the evolving trend toward global history, and started to discern the opportunity to engage this trend with a new set of books on master themes in global history. Beginning by signing a broadly contextualized historical book on racism, Brigitta followed through by signing global histories of empire and of famine, and is now working with prospective authors on similarly significant themes.

 

Brigitta works with a sense of where the field of history is going, a conception of how to embrace the themes that unify comparative and historical research, an understanding for how certain books would enhance the intellectual infrastructure of the field, an appreciation of the broad cross-national readership engage the themes addressed in these books, and a network of outstanding historian authors whose command of the relevant subjects enables them to tell the big story.

 

While it would be easy to consider the publication of these books simply as a string of thematic histories, that misses the point. Developing the idea for these books rewarded Brigitta’s sophisticated knowledge of the direction of her field, her understanding of the market, and her appetite for thinking big. For Brigitta, as for all good editors, “a sense of where you are” is the necessary ingredient in achieving major signings such as these. 

 

Bill Bradley would understand.  Ever the student of his game, Bradley offers an instuctive model to us for ours.  I recall stories of Bradley practicing his jump shot by methodically moving from under the basket outward, breaking down his hook shot into distinct parts, and deliberately pounding the last dribble of the ball before releasing his jumper to gain greater control over his shot. This mania for method may seem silly in a game as seemingly fluid and improvisational as basketball, but that’s not the point.  By self-consciously becoming a student of the game, Bill Bradley found ways to expand and refine his repertoire and improve his already awesome athletic gifts.

 

The lesson for scholarly editors is clear. To animate one’s publishing, it is vital to develop a sense of where you are in the flow of your field. That sense will produce a clearer understanding of the trajectory of your list, and will reveal new and exciting publishing possibilities.   

Posted by: Peter Dougherty

Posted by: Peter Dougherty

A little over two-and-a-half years ago, the scholarly publisher for whom I work, Princeton University Press, achieved the unlikely goal of placing one of our titles at the top of the New York Times bestseller list: Harry Frankfurt’s On Bullshit. Weighing in at 80 pages in a small 4x6 format, Frankfurt’s book became an instant classic, and its author, an elderly and distinguished philosopher and teacher, something of a pop culture icon.

But for those of us at PUP, some of the most interesting action on this title has since occurred far from the roar of the American bestseller lists, and the media, including The Daily Show, and 60 Minutes, that popularized this book: that is, on the translation front. Now appearing in some twenty-five translated editions, On Bullshit has quietly achieved the status of an international publishing phenomenon.

Appearing in languages as diverse as Finnish, Hebrew, Portuguese, Catalan, Japanese, German, Czech, Korean, Indonesian, Serbian, and Italian, On Bullshit now travels under a remarkable variety of titles and covers. The Italian edition sports my favorite Euro-title, the expressive, Stronzate; the Finnish edition, Paskapuheesta; the French, De l’art de dire des conneries; the Portuguese, Da Treta; and the Brazilian Portuguese, Sobre Falar Merda.

And yet, according to my colleague Ben Tate, PUP’s Director of Subsidiary Rights and Translations Editor, many of the foreign editions have retained the English term, “bullshit,” either as their title or in their title of their respective editions. Some of these include the German, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch.

Adds Tate, “among the those editions which conveyed the book’s title in the local language, only the Italian comes closest to a straightforward translation, as “stronzate” means bullshit in the literal sense of cow excrement, but also in the sense which Frankfurt is considering. The rest of those publishers who sought to localize the title either had to approximate the expression using several words or had to settle for something close but inexact, such as the Brazilian Portuguese edition, Sobre falar Merda (On talking Shit) or the French edition, De l’art de dire des conneries (On the Art of Saying Crap) . Indeed, that is the reason so many of the publishers left the word untranslated. It’s a unique word with a specific history, and its meaning as addressed by Frankfurt is underpinned by the crassness and vulgarity of its literal meaning. It’s a special word.”

And while many of the international editions have emulated PUP’s sober, monochromatic cover, some of our foreign co-publishers bravely chose to go the graphic route, in the process rendering some pretty imaginative cover art. The Dutch edition is a shocking pink, the Portuguese edition sports stripes. Truly amazing is the Japanese edition which features anatomical images.

What are the lessons for publishers and authors in this international story? First, size—in this case, brevity—matters. Since time immemorial, book editors have encouraged authors to keep their books brief, partly—though not entirely—because foreign publishers find it easier (cheaper and faster) to translate shorter books. This is an object lesson in that sage bit of editorial advice.

Second, ideas matter. Say what you will about the nature of the subject, bullshit is an idea and Harry Frankfurt treats it as such—that is, philosophically. Ideas, if they are engaging, travel to the far corners of the earth, and so do good books about ideas.

Third, on a more anthropological note, the global popularity of Harry Frankfurt’s book suggests, and to put it more emphatically, confirms, that “bullshit” as a cultural feature knows no boundaries. We Americans have no monopoly on it. It is everywhere.

Last, but not least, the fact that so many of our foreign co-publishers used the English-language title, On Bullshit, attests to the enormous power of global English as an all-pervasive cultural force and, I suspect, of the enduring power of American popular culture.

So much for my brief publishing disquisition on the international aspects of this remarkable little book. I’d better stop now, lest I find myself engaging in more stronzate than I’d like to be accused of.

Posted by: Peter Dougherty

Even if you are a dedicated liberal Democrat with a jones for anything Kennedy, do you really think Ted’s book is going to be interesting? Do you really think he’s going to write about the alleged philandering, partying, Chappaquiddick, dysfunctional relatives, misogynistic nephews, and homicidal cousins? If he does, I’ll shell out for a copy. More likely, he’ll tell us about his life in government and gloss over the rest. I’m sorry, but reading about that sounds like an intellectual form of “water boarding” (definition: A weird and legally questionable torture technique).

As publishing professionals, let’s follow the money. No, let’s fantasize about the money. An 8 @#%* million dollar advance! How many independent publishers can compete with that? It’s a rhetorical question and I assume we all know the answer. Grand Central, formerly part of Time Warner AOL, now part of Hachette, a French based, otherwise referred to as “Freedom,” 10-figure communications conglomerate, won the competition to publish the book. The French have always had a thing for the Kennedys, Jerry Lewis, and the willingness of Americans to bleed out on French soil.

In the days when book publishing assets were actually owned and controlled by the people whose names were on the mastheads, we were all independents. Some were big and some small, but the buck always stopped at the desks of the people who owned the firm and only cared about publishing books.  There’s no way that kind of money would or could have been concentrated on a single acquisition. Banks would not have extended that kind of credit line to even the largest houses, and there were not any multinational conglomerates in command yet to subsidize outsized advances and write-off the subsequent losses.

In less than a generation, a huge dichotomy has developed between the mega houses and everyone else. Except the term “mega” is misleading, because within the body of the conglomerate, the trade book publishing assets may amount to little more than the tip of one small toe nail. The book publishing companies get pulled around and traded like indentured servants. Firms like Grand Central have nothing to say about who owns them or from which nation their flag is planted. Perhaps there’s no reason to care, but most American book publishing assets aren’t domestically owned and haven’t been for years. This isn’t to suggest that the American based editors and other professionals are not entirely dedicated to their craft, but it does mean they ultimately have to answer to powers that would otherwise have nothing to do with the book business or this country. For them, it’s business. So at the end of the day, retiring Presidents and politicians can look forward to trading their connections and influence for multi-million dollar book advances; on the surface, all they have to do is deliver an “acceptable” manuscript. Behind the scenes? Well, what would you do under the radar for 7 to 8 figures?

Let’s go to the proverbial Main Streets, where privately owned publishing companies still exist and often thrive. This is where the real passion for books will be found. The only inhibitors will be poor choices or practices by the proprietors. This is probably not the soil within which the Kennedys and other celebrities will plant their so-called books. But it is where the word “independence” achieves its highest meaning and purpose. If there’s ever a day when conglomerate publishing is entirely controlled by “other” agendas, independent publishing will be here to save everyone.

Posted by: Jeff Herman

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