I do plan to email him shortly and strike up a dialog… like minded souls we are.

He wrote the ‘back page’ editorial for PW on April 20th.

It’s free on their site. Just scroll to April 20th and click on “Soapbox”.

And do it!

He gets it. Maybe because he comes from the ‘dark side’, as far as publishers are concerned.

But he gets it.

Read, and you’ll get it too… or be very afraid of becoming extinct.

Wow… that was tough.

Is it just me? It has to be. I must not ‘get it’.

Why don’t publishers just decide to only sell non return?

Instead of printing 50,000 books, 45,000 of which wind up in bargain bins and fireplaces of warehouse employees… why not just print, ok, be generous, 10,000 books… and, hold on for this one… if you see the title is selling, reprint it! Just like bestsellers do. Feel funny about having four printings to get to 40,000 in print?

Or is it just easier to keep doing what you have always done, and overprint by 200-300%? Sure faster than having to watch inventories, track sales weekly, and laborious and boring things like that… and oddly, once everyone gets on this bandwagon, all truly ’selling’ outlets will order 10% more, and those who aren’t as likely, will order 50% less… and instead of having 45,000 very un-green remainders floating around… you might have 4,000.

How about a 90% reduction in the “tree waste” we are creating as publishers?

(Sorry to upset all these industry committees and initiatives and programs and task forces who are looking at everything from dirty floors to bottled water to pens that leak…) Just print less books! Print what you need, and use what you print. (Same rules I had when I was a kid at my family’s dinner table… take what you eat, eat what you take.)

I have been advocating, and practicing, my GREEN position for thirty years now… twenty years a futurist you know… always out in front of the curve.

I guess I just don’t ‘get it’.

Be well.

I am sure Robert Gottlieb is a perfectly decent guy. Well known, properly credentialled in the industry, and likely with more experience than I in dealing with author negotiations and ‘big deals’. He is, according to PW, a couple years younger than I, and has been in the business about as long…

And I understand that, as an agent, his job is to get as much as humanly possible for his clients. The article profiling him speaks of fighting, confronting, being vocal, and battling. Apparently, his reputation precedes him… and that, my friends, is often a good thing.

Unfortunately, for us, as publishers, he does, indeed, represent the enemy. And maybe he speaks in hyperbole to get attention, or let his clients know he is working for them… but really now…

When did authors become “PARTNERS” in the publishing financial process?

His quote, the headline of my article, speaks to the concept that with eBooks, since it is cheaper to produce them, that publishers are going to have to “share” that additional profit with authors. (And you wonder why I avoided EVER taking on an author who had an agent.)

Despite the fact that the author and the publisher are NOT on an equal footing, no mater how much fighting Mr. Gottlieb does… and despite the fact that authors and publishers are NOT “partners” and never will be unless they BOTH invest… in any sense of the word… he is demanding that publishers share every nickel of profit with them… likely 3 cents to the author and 2 to the publisher.

I am just curious, Mr. Gottlieb… if I find a way to print my books less expensively… maybe a bigger press run, or printing offshore, do your agreements call for me to “share” those additional profits as well? Or is this a new area you simply haven’t started ‘fighting’ about yet? (If you do, I want 15% of whatever you get using this new method of revenue enhancement.)

As I have maintained for years… if an author is unhappy with her/his deal, by all means, just like buses, there’s another publisher coming down the road in ten minutes. I ONLY do business with authors who are happy, if not ecstatic, to be part of my organization. It is the only karma that works. If we’re busy fighting and confronting over every last nickel and dime… the relationship in my mind is dead in the water on day one. If I can’t make MY comfort zone profit in a deal, I won’t do it. I wonder how many authors wind up at their third or fourth or no choice publishing house because of this ‘adversarial’ stance?

Publishers: There is an abundance of quality material out there… authors are self publishing at a frenetic rate… just keep your eyes open, advertise for qualified authors to join your group, and keep away from agents. Now this irrational avoidance of agents may make Mr. Gottlieb happy, but somehow I don’t think it enhances the general relationship among authors, agents, and publishers.

Keep your powder dry and your stick on the ice.

One for the good guys… the people have spoken again… and this one isn’t quite so momumental or pretty.

People were already scared in January and February, despite the great promise of this new, game changing President. I promised I wouldn’t allow personal ’stuff’ to get into the business news (that’s what my personal blog is all about), so draw your own conclusions. Pirates hijacking everything from aid ships to commercial cargoes; famous minds “disavowing reason for political favor”…as in Alan Greenspan testifying about ‘flaws in the model’ and his thinking… government owning businesses by command… FDR’s heavy dose of socialism walking the halls of the White House again…

Imagine… Mr. Obama appoints a Mr. Fitzgerald as “Director of the Automobile Community and Workers”? There’s a job title right out of the book itself.

And GM is now owned as a partnership between the government and the Auto Workers Union, shutting out the investors who put up capital to invest in the company. The message is loud and clear… capitalist pigs are no longer welcome at the feeding trough. They simply provide the feed.

Well, as Atlas Shrugged made clear… THAT game only lasts so long as the producers allow themselves to be taken advantage of. What happens when the producers stop producing? Who will pay the bill? Who is John Galt?

Reminds me of a lesson I learned as a young man at the weekly poker table. If after a half hour sitting at the table, you can’t figure out who the sucker is… it is probably YOU.

Time for the producers in society to pick up our chips and leave the table.

Canada, Switzerland, Hong Kong…. anyone?

Global economy you say… no use running anywhere. That thinking will get you fleeced… bahhhhh. And by the way, who says so? The government and its media of course. My son has spent the last year in Hong Kong… I have spent the last 12 in Canada… there are places where the point of a gun option never enters your mind. Be diligent of course, but if you want to work unfettered, then go somewhere where that work ethic is applauded, not trampled and regulated to death.

Publishing companies can be run from anywhere these days… global economy, you know.

Canada, Switzerland, Hong Kong… anyone?

Keep your powder dry and your stick on the ice.

When PW interviewed Peter Olson, retired chairman of Random House and headed to Harvard to teach at HBS, Mr. Olson stated that “publishers would find it difficult to compete with Amazon at the retail level…” referring to what he sees as Amazon’s undue influence on the future of publishing. He further stuck his neck out by suggesting “Publishers might be able to draw some customers (meaning retail customers) by selling special titles…” .

While this fine gentleman spends his golden years at Harvard… may I suggest one of his classes does a famous Harvard case study on what he said. Have you figured out the oddity of his comments?

He has forfeited the entire consumer market to Amazon, because, as far as his experience took him, publishers don’t market directly to consumers. They market to bookstores and chains and distributors, but not to end user consumers. It is, of course, one model for doing business in the industry, but, please, Mr. Olson, some of us actually DO compete with Amazon. We do have the kahones to sell books directly to people who buy them. I know it may seem like quite an amazing concept, but it works.

And here are two dirty little secrets that makes it work.

One-because we can. We can run a ’sale’ on a title or hundreds of titles and compete the heck out of Amazon. Amazon has a limit under which it can’t profitably sell books. As a publisher, my bottom line is far lower than theirs. I can sell books all day long on my website for 50% off retail and make plenty of money… Amazon can’t.

Two-while Amazon has some amazing powers, markets like an 800 pound gorilla, and has ‘the long tail’ of over 90% of the books in print available, it is the 800 pound gorilla part that makes them vulnerable. They still, like Ingram in wholesale, make you come to them. Smart marketers actually go out and SOLICIT customers. You are allowed to go to the customer, you know. And since you can choose which titles to promote, you can go and sell to the strong potential markets for books that have them, and make plenty of sales, tens to hundreds of thousands of sales.

As I said, just have one of your HBS classes do a case study… they’ll help you figure this one out.

Wow… that was tough.

Without one more shred of information, I can tell you without fear of contradiction, (in my humble personal opinion-just in case they have lots of lawyers!) that Stanford University’s Fair Use Project is the rough equivalent of Hugo Chavez let loose in publishing. One comment speaks volumes.

Anthony Falzone, the Executive Director of this project wrote in his blog after the J.K. Rowling/Harry Potter copyright infringement case victory last fall that “we think it is wrong”. How anyone with a brain and the civil understanding of copyright can believe this is beyond me. Then, I remembered… there is a move afoot all publishers need to be aware of. It is infiltrating academia and is trying to infiltrate society in general…

Copyright is a capitalist concept, serves only to line the pockets of the already wealthy, is a way for the wealthy to hold down the oppressed, and should be abolished.

Read that again. One more time if you are still upright in your chair.

The movement is a small and growing one.

You, as publishers, should do everything you can to spread the word among authors, media, and anyone else who will listen. If this movement gets a foothold, or as I like to say, has Velcro (and by the way, Velcro is a registered trademark of somebody and used with all due respect), the industry has breathed its last breath.

Unfortunately, the Fidel Castros of the copyright movement also believe that somehow, at the point of a gun, if necessary, publishers will be forced to continue publishing materials even though there will no longer be a profit motive, anyone can copy as much and as many of the titles of a publisher as they please for free, and basically, publishing will become a government sponsored public service.

I am admittedly sensationalizing, condensing, and leaning. Of course, I am a publisher in a publisher’s world. It is the only position I care about. Take away my income through some cry of capitalist pig, and I WILL take up arms against you if necessary.

Oddly, you would think AUTHORS of all people would be furious, opposed, fighting mad, and the like. But, as usual, maybe the Guild has told them to be quiet… who knows… maybe the Guild supports this form of publishing collectivism… or just maybe… nah…

Have a great one!

OWNER HAS OTHER PUBLISHING INTERESTS AND MUST SELL WHAT IS LEFT OF THIS COMPANY

We are pleased to be representing a small, yet known name in Sports Publishing.

The golf instruction division of the company features premier, PGA Hall of Fame level authors, teaching various approaches to improving your golf game, from swing to mental attitude. This side represents roughly half the revenues, and these titles, including DVD products, do not go out of style and are virtually forever backlist products.

The coaching education division, mostly sold off in a transaction late last year, featured long time experts in the field of coaching education. The company had leveraged the content of these books and materials into other forms of custom publications for various sports groups, youth sports councils, and training opportunities nationwide, also creating roughly half the revenues. The coaching division has a few titles left to be combined with the golf titles to sell off a small but profitable primary line.

Gross average last five years slightly over $100,000… Net average of $30,000. annually. Other assets including inventory, A/R, IP assets, total $40K+. Owner could only do so much with limited time, energy, and funds for expansion, so in process of selling the whole company, found a buyer in the coaching fiedl to take over the primary coaching titles. Would blend nicely with a golf or coaching related publisher, or a general sports company who might be weak in these two areas.

Was asking $125K… Owner has other personal interests now and MUST sell the half+ left of the company this spring! Now considering offers in the $85K-$100K range… a 25% reduction in the price!! Let me know quickly as the golf season approaches… a great price for a great company!

I have been asked by more than a couple folks what exactly I read every day/week/month. I don’t think my reading list is vastly different or superior to anyone else’s who considers themselves well read… Let me give you just a brief partial list:

What you must read every week to be informed: The Economist. What Time & Newsweek want to be when they grow up. Don’t be put off by the name… this is the world’s preeminent weekly news magazine. Period. For example, a recent ‘focus story’ was on offshore finance… everyone else would give you a page or two… The Economist devoted fourteen pages of text covering the subject from six different story lines. And no, I don’t get a new bicycle if I get twenty people to subscribe. (Pick up an issue before telling me what’s better.)

From politics, to a very interesting outsider’s view of the US, to an insider’s view of the UK and Europe, to spot on reporting on finance (they lean a skoosh to conservative), science, books, name it. They are truly worth every dime of the roguhly hundred dollars a year you pay for the privilege.

What you must read every week to be informed, and take with a large grain of salt: Publisher’s Weekly. What everyone in the industry would like to count on as gospel, but the magazine’s biases make it difficult. In the absence of anything else, read it. Let me know what you’re reading instead of PW, please.

Lately, I have been railing about the fact that PW doesn’t offer much “reading” in their read. Anywhere from 12 to 16 pages of ‘news’ and that word is used so broadly, as to be equated with politesse, per issue… really folks, what’s the point any more? The same editorial staff now covers three magazines that used to cover one. How much could they possibly care?

I am fast becoming a fan of Book Business and Publishing Executive. I get weekly and semi weekly email pages full of articles, and actually stuff of interest to those of us who are responsible for paying for things like printing, and advertising, and employees. As I read more, I’ll report back… maybe we can all migrate from PW to something that makes sense.

What you should read if you’re a marketing type: Catalog Age, DM News, trade publications about informercials, retail trends, and demographics; and at least some of the weekly/monthly business magazines. INC has been consistently good. Forbes is ideologically bent in my direction, and for a big business magazine, is simple to read, and covers lots of mid size applicable stuff.

What you should read to understand what’s next: I read hundreds of online and print magazines, writers, blogs, article series, and informational white papers and demographics, statistics, and trends studies every month. Since I have this moniker of being a ‘futurist’, I have to in order to be 12-36 months ahead of everyone else. Of course, I read a magazine appropriately entitled The Futurist for longer term trends in the world around us. While I am loath to have already chosen the next Stanley Cup winner, (Detroit looks good), I have been spot on about a number of publishing issues over the last four years, and if you keep reading, you’ll know what’s coming in the next four.

Books… do I ever read a book? I do my best to read two to four books a month, above and beyond the half dozen or so books I read every week in my regular daily workload. Since I am about a 99.5% non fiction reader, much of what I read is business, self help related, or humor.

The last three books I have just finished:

Atlas Shrugged – while this is my eighth reading and might not qualify as a new book for me, it rings far truer fifty years after it was written than when it first came out. Can I urge everyone to read it without being labelled a libertarian? I have been called worse. While I have some philosophical issues with Objectivism, the economics and politics are so frighteningly accurate, it is required reading… and I am not the only one who thinks so.

The Long Tail – I think I recommended this last month. If I did, read it again. If I didn’t, this is the one book that will give you the future macro about the Internet. Now you’re doing 2% of sales on the net… in two years, 50%… in five years, 100%, minus your special sales bulk sales. Here’s the why and the global how. You still have to figure out how the how applies to you, but here’s a big piece of the roadmap.

The Four Hour Work Week – Yes, it apparently can be done, and I have made copious notes and will be synthesizing them over the rest fo the year to see exactly how to apply this author’s structure to my organization. I’ll keep you posted.

Be well til next time.

About

Small, Focused, Experienced, Successful. In consulting, our specialty is Strategic Planning. In brokerage, we are driven by a “growth through acquisition” philosophy. Mr. Foner has spent the last twenty five years in ownership positions in Publishing. NPL only accepts consulting work, CEO Management work, and companies for sale where the prospects for success are at least solidly, if not overwhelmingly, positive.

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NPL Publishing Consultants provides consulting services to small and mid sized publishers in Strategic Planning, Brand Development, Marketing, Profitability, and Turnaround Situations. In addition, we can help you transition into the Electronic publishing world and still keep a foot in the real one. We provide Sales solutions in bulk, private label, and special sales. There is no cost or obligation for our initial discussion. All information is considered strictly confidential.