Thursday, February 24, 2005
John Eklund on the State of Publishing
John Eklund, sales rep for Harvard/MIT/Yale, writes a great article on the busines of books at Inversion Magazine.
Some choice quotes:
The Opening Line: "I’ve been drunk on books for most of my life."
On Bookstores: "Fewer and fewer cities are able to sustain good independent stores, while once-great university bookstores have become sweatshirt boutiques."
I met Eklund for the first time last year at the UMBA Fall Trade Show. And a bit of useless trivia, after college graduation part of my intern duties at Yale Univ Press was stuffing sales materials and publicity clips into envelopes to send to John and the other Yale reps. Little did he know I'd be blurbing his words six years later.
It's a great article, a nice summary of the state of books circa 2005: we have a shrinking population of readers who give a damn, a tightening force of niche marketing trying to find the few readers for each book, and the paradoxes of bestsellerdom causing backlash among elite readers against the exact success we're trying to promote for more books.
And I know I'm as guilty of the backlash as others. If I were more honest with myself I'd admit that Stephen King rose in the 70's, Tom Clancy hit the big-time in the 80's, Grisham had the 90's, and now we're seeing James Patterson become a superstar seller in the 2000's. But each of these big names were once out hawking their first novel and trying to build a readership. Is it really so wrong for them to find success and be able to create a franchise out of their writing (ok, maybe Patterson is just wrong, give me that one).
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Some choice quotes:
The Opening Line: "I’ve been drunk on books for most of my life."
On Bookstores: "Fewer and fewer cities are able to sustain good independent stores, while once-great university bookstores have become sweatshirt boutiques."
I met Eklund for the first time last year at the UMBA Fall Trade Show. And a bit of useless trivia, after college graduation part of my intern duties at Yale Univ Press was stuffing sales materials and publicity clips into envelopes to send to John and the other Yale reps. Little did he know I'd be blurbing his words six years later.
It's a great article, a nice summary of the state of books circa 2005: we have a shrinking population of readers who give a damn, a tightening force of niche marketing trying to find the few readers for each book, and the paradoxes of bestsellerdom causing backlash among elite readers against the exact success we're trying to promote for more books.
And I know I'm as guilty of the backlash as others. If I were more honest with myself I'd admit that Stephen King rose in the 70's, Tom Clancy hit the big-time in the 80's, Grisham had the 90's, and now we're seeing James Patterson become a superstar seller in the 2000's. But each of these big names were once out hawking their first novel and trying to build a readership. Is it really so wrong for them to find success and be able to create a franchise out of their writing (ok, maybe Patterson is just wrong, give me that one).
