A New BookExpo America: Is it Time for BEA to Become "Book Con"?

It’s time to bust out your badges and prepare your bag for ARC-stuffing, because it was announced last week that BookExpo America will open its doors to general consumers for the first time ever this June. Publishers Weekly announced last week that the show manager's plan to welcome consumers in 2013 had been accelerated by a year.

Granted, the change will start small, with the show’s managers offering no more than a thousand tickets to consumers. And in its first year tickets won’t be sold directly to consumers. Instead, they’ll be doled out to publishers and booksellers to offer to their avid fans or most active book-talkers—a move which is likely to ensure that this year’s consumer attendees are still unlikely to include many customers far removed from the mainstream publishing bubble. But it’s nonetheless a move that could drastically change the feel of the show in future years, especially if at some point down the line the show decides to make consumer ticket sales its main focus.

And many within the industry are less than enthusiastic, to say the least. “This is a booksellers [sic] convention and we have become the least important entity as to the floor,” said one bookseller in the comments on the article. “Giving the jump on industry professionals is a privilege," commented another. "Now consumers and e-hawkers will be scanning and selling books illegally. Bad move."

Personally, though I think it would take many years and a very drastic change for the show to become entirely consumer-focused, I think the idea of a convention that welcomes customers is a fresh one that could have huge benefits for the industry. In 2005 I read a fantastic article on Publishing Trends which pointed out Comic Con’s strong role in both promoting comics to fans and, perhaps more importantly, keeping comic publishers informed about—and directly in touch with—their market base. Publishing Trends quoted a correspondent from the traditional book publishing industry, who said it even better than I could:

We all talk to each other, to buyers, to marketing and we may even have some research to let us know who is reading our books. But these are numbers, not interactions with real people. This attention to the fan is what I believe has kept comics and will keep graphic novels alive, even in hard times… Imagine if you will a BEA, open to fans, where publishing showcases their best and the brightest they have to offer. How many would show up? How many would dress up like their favorite characters? Is this the type of passion that needs to be ignited in publishing in order to survive the hard times and build for the future?

How much better could we as publishers, and especially as representatives of individual imprints, brand ourselves if given that kind of direct face time with—and avid enthusiasm from—fans? Few general consumers know their Knopfs from their Bantam Dells, but I think we could see a positive change in bookselling if they did, and if they used that knowledge to follow the publications of imprints whose sensibilities they like, just as avid fans might follow a particular author who's struck their fancy. I think it's no coincidence that one of the few imprints which I would argue has come close to achieving household name recognition is Tor, an imprint which produces genre working for a highly specialized audience and devotes significant time to networking and building a community with actual consumers via its forums at Tor.com. But while genre fans flock to Tor's booth at BEA, could a literary audience flock to another imprint's booth to discuss the latest Atwoods and Franzens? Could general consumers of children's books be counted on to dress as their favorite character and drop by the booth of the publisher who brought them that character? Could die-hard fans of a whole variety of genres be brought together in one celebration of the written word—and how much could publishers learn from and connect with their fans if so?

With consumers making up only a twenty-fifth of the show's attendees this year, any such change is a long way off. But still, I have to wonder: could the BEA that Publishing Trends's correspondent imagined be around the corner? Would you welcome it, if so?

The Future(s) of Publishing: On New Narrative Structures and the Digital Game-Changer

A few months ago I attended one of New York’s most celebrated and original shows in years: Sleep No More. A loose interpretation of Macbeth that pays homage, in tone and mise-en-scène, to Hitchcock’s films, Sleep No More had me on its premise alone.

However, what really sold me on the show’s genius—and what’s earning it rave reviews and a near-perpetually extended run in its New York City home—is the fact that Sleep No More is less a show than an experience. The set is a world in itself, an entire hotel gutted from the inside and transformed into a ballroom, a graveyard, a mental hospital, a bedroom, a museum, a forest, and more. Silent stewards in black stand sentry in these little worlds but do nothing to discourage guests from trying on gowns in a hospital ward or peeling back Lady Macduff’s bedcovers to reveal the dark stains of blood. The characters are plucked from Macbeth’s playbill but rendered nearly unrecognizable by their 1920’s apparel, their danced rather than spoken dialogue, and their deliberate refusal to separate out into “main” and “secondary” characters. Unconstrained by the conventions that are so integral to most theater as to go unnoticed—that the character with the most stage time is the main character, that any information not delivered onstage is irrelevant, and that all stories unfold in a linear fashion—each of Sleep No More’s characters cycle through their own haunting story, leaving it to the viewers and not the writers to choose how little or how much attention each merits. And if the viewers become the show’s scripters, so too do they become members of its cast, underscoring the show’s themes of guilt and madness by flocking to its characters, costumed in ghastly masks that transform them into the physical embodiments of the specters that haunt Macbeth and the horrors that plague his cohorts.

Sleep No More is not nearly the first piece of experiential theater ever produced, but I’d argue it’s one of the first and most important shows to make full use of an emergent narrative style: a storytelling structure in which the audience’s choices and actions determine the story that unfolds. While each of the characters in Sleep No More follows a script, the sequence of events from start to finish is wholly determined by the audience. Each viewer’s decisions about what characters to follow, what rooms to explore, and what information to ingest creates a new version of the narrative. And while the play’s producers are able to influence its overall emotional arc through external cues like music, set design, and choreography, there is practically no limit to the number of unique experiences that can emerge from the elements the audience pulls together.

I am fascinated by Sleep No More’s complex narrative structure, and I’ve been reflecting on it in the months since I saw the show, especially as I’ve watched publishers and writers experiment within the realm of e-publishing. You see, I don’t think it’s accidental that this innovation in theater has occurred alongside similarly monumental innovations in the way we experience written narratives. And I’d argue that while Sleep No More is a reaction to Shakespeare and to Hitchcock and a rebuttal of the rather ridiculous notion that some stories are more worthy of following than others, it is also an expression of the growing understanding, of writers and readers alike, that stories do not have to be linear.

This isn’t an entirely new concept for the storytelling world. In fact, video games have been embracing this idea for decades, with a range of titles from the Fable to The Sims adopting non-linear and even emergent narratives in order to customize user experience. It wasn’t hard for me to draw a link between Sleep No More, with its file folders full of mental profiles for the show’s characters and telltale blood stains, and the video game Fallout, in which the player pieces together the tragic histories of several different fallout structures by sifting through clues in the debris left behind.

It’s not that books haven’t dabbled in this before now. The Choose Your Own Adventure series of the 90’s gained immense popularity among young readers who devoured its customized plotlines and read each book multiple times to uncover new experiences and twist endings, and countless spin-offs of the idea followed. But at best (and I say this as a childhood fan who looks back very fondly on the series) these books were clunky, prone to spoilers revealed when the wrong page was flipped past or the too-present temptation to return to a previous page if the chapter one’s choices led to wasn’t satisfying. And with the exception of the occasional artistic use of the non-linear narrative form, like Mark Z. Danielewski’s House of Leaves, this structure never gained widespread popularity in adult books.

The missing link is obvious: technology. The very physical form of a book enforces a linear narrative; page 3 must follow page 2 which must follow page 1, and so on. The end has to occur after the beginning because it lies deeper into the physical object—and short of breaking the unspoken rules of literacy (as Danielewski asks his reader to do in House of Leaves) we can’t escape that experience of one event following another in physical books. And just as removing the barriers of stage and seating from the audience’s experience of Sleep No More opened it up to an emergent story structure, so removing the paper-and-ink makeup of a book opens up written storytelling to non-linear and emergent experiences.

New ventures in the publishing industry are showing this realization. Coliloquy launched last month with the self-proclaimed intention of “taking advantage of new technology to reinvent the way authors and their audiences interact with reading and narrative.” To quote their press release:

By delivering titles as active content applications, rather than static publishing files, Coliloquy enables new kinds of engagement made possible by advances in electronic book distribution. Multiple “what if” story lines let authors and readers explore different permutations of character relationships. TV-like episodes can grow and change, based on reader choices, voting, and feedback. Fans can reread a key scene from a different character’s point-of-view or unlock new content.

Writers and publishers of more traditional fiction are recognizing similar opportunities for their own publishing programs, as the enhanced-e-book-turned-emergent-experience Chopsticks demonstrates. And while The Wall Street Journal pointed out in a recent article that interactive e-books and book apps have yet to prove themselves profitable, it nonetheless called the technological shift rocking the industry “what could be the most significant transformation of books and reading behavior since Gutenberg.”

Interestingly, one of the contributions of Gutenberg’s printing press to storytelling may have been the widespread adoption of linear narratives; Shakespeare’s sonnets weren’t bound into a numbered order until their first printed compilation after his death, and in the old bardic practice of storytelling from which the tales of Odysseus originated, a bard chose his next plot point from a collection of stories he’d memorized based on his audience’s whims. And now, in reading’s next major revolution, we could see a shift away from linear narratives once again.

That said, am I kissing plot structure as we know it goodbye? Are non-linear narratives and interactive reading experiences the future of publishing? I’d say no. And, well, yes.

Storytelling is an art older than written history, and it’s undergone more changes and existed in more forms than we can count. It will continue to exist in more forms and styles than we can predict. I truly believe that as long as there is reader demand for specific types of stories, be they linear or non-linear or interactive or emergent or anything in between, there will be people who continue to create and distribute those types of stories.

So no, I don’t think this is the future of publishing. I think it is a future of publishing. It is an exciting opportunity to explore something new, to meet demands that have begun to surface or that have existed for a long time and been satisfied in other ways, like video gaming and roleplaying. It’s a call to open our minds to the many different ways to tell a story, and an opportunity to experience and embrace the potential for literary quality in myriad types of media. And in that respect, I can’t wait to see the future of publishing play out, in digital and in printed form.

Manga and the Mainstream: A Tempestuous Affair

A few weeks ago we discussed the collapse of American manga powerhouse Tokyopop, and the lessons spelled out in that end for publishers of both comics and mainstream books. This week, we’ll look at how comic books have interacted with the mainstream print industry, and how the loss of a manga megalith might affect the comics world at large. With the #1 company that primed manga readers (especially female readers, a huge chunk of the trade industry’s market) out of the picture, what will become of the illustrated novel?

The relationship between America’s mainstream trade industry and the world of illustrated novels has been rocky from the start. Censorship under the Comics Code Authority, established in 1954 to protect readers from inappropriate content, pushed the industry underground and spurred widespread prejudice against comic books. For almost fifty years after the code was created, comics were marginalized. “It’s really only in the last decade that the negative impression of comics and graphic novels in the States has changed,” Yen Press Publishing Director Kurt Hassler told Publishing Trends in 2009.

According to Publishing Trends, it wasn’t until 2005 that a large number of trade presses began to attend Comic Con, and finally began to recognize that illustrated novels might offer a piece of the publishing pie worth having. The comic book industry can thank Tokyopop for much of that attention. The teenage girls courted by the company made up one of the few readerships to consistently crossover to trade novels, and their interest in the genre certainly got the attention of mainstream publishers—particularly publishers of Young Adult fiction.

That attention helped comic book creators to emerge from the underground into the mainstream market. In 2006 Tokyopop partnered with HarperCollins to co-produce and distribute graphic novels. “Our partnership with HarperCollins will allow us to take the Manga Revolution to the next level,” Mike Kiley, Publisher of Tokyopop, said in HarperCollins’ press release announcing the partnership. And he was right—kicked off by Meg Cabot’s Avalon High, the comics that Tokyopop and HarperCollins launched together enjoyed great success. Both book-to-manga adaptations and original creations attracted a group of readers manga may never have been able to reach in the hands of independent presses. And though the partnership ended in January 2011, Matt Blind predicts that should HarperCollins ever decide to create an in-house comic book imprint, the company will find ample fodder in what’s left of the partnership’s books.

But despite the success of manga’s many interactions with the mainstream industry, publishers were predicting the death of manga in America as early as 2007. Though the niche market for manga remained and remains strong, it would seem that the growing rift between different types of comics was separating manga from many of the markets only recently opened to it. Graphic novels emerged as the “literary” form of comics most widely embraced by mainstream publishers—and mainstream readers.

So though it seems likely that Tokyopop’s apparent disinterest in its fans’ needs helped spur the company’s demise, it may have been doomed from the start. And if that’s so, then as a female reader and aspiring editor of stories for children and young adults, I can’t help but ask myself where that leaves the readers Tokyopop was so instrumental in winning over to comic books: teen girls. Where does the decline of Tokyopop’s immensely popular series—and manga as a whole—leave young women and the publishers who work to reach them?

Read the rest of the article at Publishing Trendsetter.

Tokyopop Closes its Doors May 31st

What Does that Mean for Mainstream Publishers?

Tokyopop, one of America’s largest comic publishers and the company credited with popularizing manga outside Japan, will officially close its doors in North America on Tuesday May 31^st. The announcement, made April 15^th, didn’t surprise many followers of the comic book industry; rounds of layoffs had reduced the company to a six-person staff months earlier, and a collapse seemed inevitable even as early as March, 2011.

But how did the company reach the point of collapse when, just eight years before, Steve Kleckner reported it had been growing by at least 200% for three years and wasn’t even slowing? And more importantly for publishers of more mainstream products, what is there to be learned from it?

[read more]

From time to time, I'll be posting links to my posts on Publishing Trendsetter in lieu of posting here. I look forward to reading your insights, comments and questions in both places!

Young to Publishing, or Still Making Your Way In? Publishing Trends Just Launched a Blog for You!

I'm really excited to announce that Publishing Trends has invited me to join them on a new venture, the launch of their Publishing Trendsetter blog. The whole Trendsetter team is dedicated to fostering dialogue and innovation among the new generation of book industry professionals—those within their first ten years in the business (and those aspiring to be!). With over ten regular bloggers at various points in their careers and with backgrounds in consulting, design, acquisitions, e-publishing, publicity, marketing, reviews, editorial, and more. We'll share our own insights; present research and analysis; offer Q&As, podcasts and surveys; and open topics up for roundtable discussions with young publishers and industry veterans alike.

There are a lot of great blogs out there for those at the executive level in publishing, and they all offer valuable insights on the industry and ideas for the future. But we are the future. With that in mind, Publishing Trendsetter is, in the words of our fearless leader Elisabeth Watson, "where the brilliant publishing minds of tomorrow are today."

I'm so excited to hear from you on Publishing Trendsetter. Click the banner above to go check it out!

Publishing After Barry Eisler: What Will the Industry Look Like When Its Bestsellers Go Rogue?

So, we all remember that a month ago Barry Eisler turned down a $500,000 deal in favor of self-publishing, right? He certainly wasn’t the first author to have the idea that he could make more money by taking his books’ publication into his own hands, but the numbers made his announcement, as Joe Konrath said, “one for the Twitter Hall of Fame.” It stopped the publishing world in its tracks for a moment. And it got me thinking about the future of publishing.

In conversation, Barry told Joe:

…The new generation [is] looking at self-publishing differently... The question—“Should I self-publish?”—[is] going to be asked by more and more authors going forward. And… over time, more and more of them were going to be answering the question, “Yes.”

This is exactly what’s happening now. I’m not the first example, though I might be a noteworthy one because of the numbers I’m walking away from. But there will be others, more and more of them.

In all honesty, I think Barry’s right—there will be more and more authors who choose to self-publish as time goes on, and especially as digital sales continue to rise. As he and Joe agreed in their interview, it’s a matter of numbers: by self-publishing digitally rather than publishing traditionally, an author makes more money on every single copy sold.

Before you scrap your query letter completely, though, let’s take a look at those numbers. As Nathan Bransford explained in an essential blog post on the math behind publishing decisions, in order to make from self-publishing exactly what he would have made from that six-digit deal, Barry Eisler is counting on selling at least 71,633 ebooks. Can he do it? Probably. Assuming he’s already selling that many copies (if not more) of each of his books, it’s a safe bet that his large readership will stick with him and keep his numbers high.

Well, that’s all well and good if you’re Barry Eisler, or Stephen King, or Dean Koontz, or Jonathan Franzen—especially if you can count on your day of Twitter fame to sell copies of your book for you, the way I bet Barry Eisler can. But what about the little guys?

See, Joe and Barry agreed in their interview that publishers aren't needed anymore. But, as a great many writers and editors alike will tell you, there are some definite benefits to working with a publishing house.

Perhaps the most important, especially as writers’ need for help with cover design, layout and printing decreases, is the benefit of a devoted marketing force. The average writer doesn’t go from a debut novelist to a household name on his or her own. Sure, it happens—you need look no further than Nathan Bransford’s post and his numbers for Amanda Hocking. But it doesn’t happen frequently, or without the author (or a devoted team close to the author) having a very special skill set.

Publishing doom-and-gloomers will tell you that it’s only a matter of time before all the publishing houses go under, that the internet will eliminate the need for "gatekeepers," and that anyone can and will be discovered through the internet. But really, I don’t think that e-publishing is going to save every writer from obscurity. It will certainly increase the number of writers who have access to publishing, but will it increase the number of readers, or even distribute existing readers evenly among all the writers being published?

I don’t think so. If anything, e-publishing makes good marketing and curation all the more important. With more and more books vying for attention, it’s going to become that much harder to stand out. Editors, "gatekeepers" if you must call them that, who have a strong eye for what will appeal to people, and marketers who know how to reach those people will become more important than ever. It’s a hard, hard world for the as-yet-unknown.

So when I think about the future of publishing in the digital era, I wonder not about what will happen to the New York Times bestselling author, but about what will happen to the debut author, the writer of literary fiction, and the quiet novel with a niche audience. Publishers have, for so long, financed their operations through bestsellers and hesitated to take on a riskier project with a potentially small or difficult to reach audience. But if the bestsellers break away from traditional publishing, will the industry fold, or will it redefine itself?

Perhaps the strength of publishers in a new era of publishing will be their ability to devote time and attention to niche audiences, to find new talents and voices, and to develop literary projects for the devoted reader. The profits would be smaller, and the industry would change significantly. It’s hard to imagine that the big four could make this transition smoothly. But it may be that small, independent houses are in the perfect position to consider it.

I don’t really know what form publishing will take in the digital era. I agree with Joe Konrath that “paper will become a niche while digital will become the norm,” whether that takes one year or ten. I certainly don’t want to see my job disappear, or the good work of editors, marketers and designers all over the world become valueless. But it’s becoming increasingly clear that publishers need to be flexible and adapt to their evolving roles as technology changes the media it delivers. And I think, if finding and promoting new talent and literary voices were to become the new role of publishers, I could be okay with that.

But that’s just one theory—what’s yours? What do you think will become of publishing in the digital era?