Why the Book World Has Radically Changed and Why It Hasn’t

by Scott Flora, Executive Director

For more conference details see Thomas Nixon’s Eyewitness Blog: Report from the SPAN Conference

Conference speakers like to be in front of the wave of big trends. They use words like “revolution,” “new world,” and “transformation.”

October’s SPAN Conference caught a big dose of the uprising in book publicity, Internet marketing, and distribution. At the same time, the conference was designed to teach the tried-and-true basics of marketing planning. Listening to the speakers, I got to thinking that the book world simultaneously has changed radically—and not changed much at all.

The Book World Hasn’t Changed
While revolutions are exciting, foundations and discipline are critical to success. The conference was designed to teach the foundations of creating or updating a marketing plan for publishers. It was based on a marketing planning approach that hasn’t changed in decades.

Patricia Fry and Brian Jud laid the groundwork by telling the attendees that marketing success comes from understanding your customers and their needs, selling your book’s benefits, creating clear objectives, and developing plans for action. All of the speakers reiterated that you are not selling a book. You are selling the benefits that book provides the reader, like more happiness, health, or wealth.

Quality is the other foundation of publishing. This was emphasized by the Cover Design Panel consisting of Cathy Bowman, Barry Kerrigan, and Pamela Terry, who examined their own covers and the covers of several attendees. The theme was that graphic literacy is high among both book professionals and the public, and your covers need to compete with the best on the shelves.

The Book World Has Changed Radically
Eric Kampmann gave our community of publishers a big boost by declaring that the monumental changes in the book industry have favored independent publishers. The reasons are numerous. Big-box, super-sized bookstores need independent publishers to fill their cavernous buildings with inventory. Print on demand (POD) reduces the cost of holding inventory for independent publishers. Book distributors are able to play a larger role in getting books from independent publishers into bookstores. Finally, one of the biggest reasons is that Amazon.com gives independent publishers great visibility and a more level playing field.

Penny Sansevieri, Jeniffer Thompson, and Erin Eaves underscored the truth that the Internet is the most cost-effective place to market our books. We’ve known that for years. What has changed recently is our ability to interconnect our Web sites with our blogs, mailing lists, newsletters, Amazon accounts, podcasts, and RSS syndication. This interconnection creates a powerful system to gather information on our customers and to promote our books and services to a very large audience.

Over the past year, blogs have increased from “kind of cool” to critical as an integral part of every author and publisher’s promotional strategy. Special interest communities can grow around your Web site, blog, and newsletter, helping you sell books and establishing you as an expert.

While the foundations of good planning and high quality will always be of the highest importance, the vehicles for promotion and distribution are changing fast. Your competition is using all of these interconnectivity tools today. The book world has radically changed—again. As part of the next Internet revolution, it’s time to hold fast to marketing basics and high quality, and also adapt, thrive, and ride the wave of the future.