Despite the many challenges posed by the pandemic, the publishing industry will perform unexpectedly well in 2020. In the following article, Michael Pietsch, CEO of Hachette Book Group, uses the lessons learned from last year to make some educated guesses about the possible development direction of the industry in the near future.
This article is part of a larger section of "Publisher Weekly Publication Yearbook 2022: An Art Master Class to Bring Books to Readers." The yearbook was published by Skyhorse Publishing last month and was written in cooperation with PW. It aims to help authors, editors, agents, publicists and anyone else engaged in book publishing understand the changing business landscape.
Well, hell! If anyone doubts whether book publishing has a bright future, the global pandemic proves that our business is a once-in-a-century business. The business has undergone stress testing through an epoch-making interruption that cut us off from the office and temporarily closed thousands of booksellers. Despite the unspeakable loss, grief and isolation caused by Covid-19, our industry not only survived, it thrived.
The clearest and most exciting lesson of this subversion is that books are indispensable. real. In any era, especially in difficult times, a book is the best source of information, comforting entertainment, education, escape, and transformation. People seek to connect-and a book is still the richest way to connect with the souls of others in history.
The second lesson is: readers will find the book they want. We produce books in various formats and sell them through various types of retailers. People know that there are many places to buy and experience books. When favorite places are closed, they will find books in any available place or in a digital format that they have never tried before.
The third unexpected lesson is that releases are portable. For a long time, publishers have shouldered the expenses of big city offices, travel and entertainment, face-to-face events, book fairs, and other customary operating methods. We are already profitable enough. We have not put pressure on ourselves to learn everything we can do through long-term available online communication, digital marketing and remote working capabilities. Working from home, free from heavy commuting, without face-to-face phone calls, presentations, meetings, and performances, publishers have opened their hearts to new ways of working.
Extrapolating from these lessons and other trends, the future of the publishing industry looks strong. The rapid changes brought about by the epidemic have made long-distance predictions seem a bit reckless. So here are some thoughts about what we might see in the short term.
Authors will continue to need publishers. The choice of self-publishing is richer and easier to use than ever before, and self-published books constitute a large, largely unreported volume of purchases and readings. Despite this, most writers will continue to look for professional publishers instead of self-publishing if they can, because of the financial and professional support provided by publishers and the opportunity to fully enter the complex physical and digital retail market. Publishers provide advance payments for future royalties, professional editing, copy editing, design and legal services, copyright protection, manufacturing, warehousing, and most importantly sales, marketing, promotion and distribution. This is a unique combination of financial support and professional promotion, which cannot be replicated by self-publishing.
The integration is not over yet. As the business continues to grow, the sales of best-selling books are increasing, and retail and wholesale businesses are concentrated in the hands of smaller and larger companies. The financial dynamics of turning the Big Six into the Big Five will continue to inspire large corporate publishers to continue Acquisitions, just as smaller publishers will continue to face pressure to make sales attractive.
Online sales will continue to grow. Over the years, online sales of printed books have been steadily increasing. With the growth of downloadable audio offsetting the decline in e-book sales, more than half of book purchases are now made by people using computers, phones, or tablets instead of Conducted in stores. The pandemic has made more readers develop the habit of delivering books to their doorsteps or devices. When there are specific books they want, they are likely to continue to order online.
Printed books will continue to exist...I like to talk about how powerful the reading experience inherent in the delivery system of printed books is. Book buyers clearly agree: In recent years, they have purchased printed books from major publishers rather than e-books at a ratio of more than four to one. E-books and audio books have their own unique fun and are very suitable for certain types of reading. But for a deep immersive experience, rendering the author's text stream into a beautiful and long-lasting printed object and translating it by your own voice is the perfect embodiment of this kind of exchange of ideas.
...The bookstore too. As long as readers want to print books and shop in the backrooms of bookstores—experiences carefully curated and discovered among a large number of books, uniquely organized by employees who are passionate and knowledgeable about the books and authors they sell—will continue to be strong. Chain Stores Both the independent store and the independent store will be enduring based on selection, display, community-centeredness and individuality.
New marketing techniques will become essential. Book marketing has always involved influencing established media and retail gatekeepers, and these relationships and skills remain crucial. A set of interlocking skills has become equally necessary in order to get in touch with more and more online worlds. Hot topics explode quickly, and our ability to quickly join and influence social media conversations will become even more important. In a world where bestsellers are driven by TikTok videos, publishers will develop new and evolving skill sets. And the accumulation of data on readers' desires, affinity, preferences and habits will provide information on the skills and strategies of marketing specific books to specific readers at specific moments, spanning the entire front and back rows, and surpassing publishers’ traditional new book thinking.
Important work on diversity, equity and inclusiveness will continue. The painful and necessary reckoning of race that the publisher began in the summer of 2020 has produced some tangible early results. Publishers have explained the ethics, creativity, and business needs of change, and admitted that their efforts to hire and retain more people from disadvantaged groups in the past few years have not been successful. We are sincerely committed to buying more books from traditionally underrepresented authors and investing in multicultural marketing strategies to attract a wider audience. We should expect publishers to be accountable to themselves by prioritizing these important actions in order to achieve measurable results for employees and readers.
The publishing house will roll out. There was a time when major publishers needed to be in New York—the home of their parent company, the media they relied on for promotion and marketing, and the literary agent representing the writers they worked with. Because technology has allowed fewer people to build and cultivate relationships, publishers realize that in theory they can be anywhere. In fact, they may keep the New York headquarters, but will open hubs and smaller offices elsewhere. As employers try to mix work arrangements with office employees several days a week, publishers will seek lower management costs, increase racial and ethnic diversity, connect with regional literature and cultural scenes, and integrate more diverse worldviews and Life experience is brought into their work communities. This decentralization will bring serious problems, including how to establish connections, inculcate culture and promote professional development, and require a lot of work to maintain the strong sense of identity and mission that publishers cherish.
Publishers will listen and communicate more. For centuries, publishers have benefited from a large number of entry-level employees who are willing to work long hours at relatively low salaries and enjoy working with writers and colleagues who love books. As expectations change and social media provides each employee with a microphone, publishers can hear employees’ opinions about their work, work/life balance, career development, and the company’s social and environmental issues more than ever. Position, commitment to diversity, and more. Publishers will listen more and communicate more to make the company's ethics and business goals more open, and work harder to ensure that talents who choose to work in the publishing industry find where they want to stay and grow.
I am not saying that in this optimistic forecast, we ignore the main problems facing our industry: the escalating attacks on copyright by representatives of well-funded major technology companies, and the NSW law that aims to regulate e-books in the past few years. Bottlenecks in library sales, printing, and supply chains have been plagued by publishers. Our business, just like our world, is becoming more and more complicated every year, and the problems before us are becoming more and more complicated. But my optimism is valid. The partnership between writers and publishers is deep and essential, and I am sure that this partnership is sufficient to support the creation of a beneficial future together.
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