Book Expo a Bright Spot in a Down Market

Attendance was down from the last Book Expo America (BEA), the annual publishing convention, held in New York and some attendees bemoaned the lack of freebies, galleys and other giveaways, but I walked away from this year's show with the Gloria Gaynor tune, "I Will Survive," going through my head. The publishing industry is moving in a digital direction, it’s being hit hard by the economy like every other business, but the authors – many, many great ones – were there, sending the signal that good books will indeed survive.

I had the chance to reconnect with Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy Kidder whom I worked with fifteen years ago and my old boss at Houghton Mifflin Joe Kanon who turned novelist years back and has churned out several bestsellers. Margaret Atwood, Michael Lewis, Francine Prose, R.L. Stine and Nicholas Sparks were all on hand as well, providing a literary and eclectic list of authors with a proven track record of getting people to read. Which, at the end of the day, when the booths are dismantled, the sore feet soaked, and the suitcases packed, is the goal after all.

Our fun moments included our digital media director Sara Schneider getting cozy with a Star Wars Stormtrooper, having dinner with our friends and colleagues at 800 CEO READ whose book, The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, continues to sell well and doing booth duty with the folks at Gallup Press who have over the years gone from being just clients to great friends.


Gallup's Geoff Brewer and me at the Gallup Press booth


Sara and the Stormtrooper

Gloria’s right, we will survive. And whether we read our books on a digital device or on the finest of papers, they are never going away.

Social media and old fashioned love launch a new book

It was a scene that seems fitting in a town like Austin, a gathering to celebrate someone's latest creative offering. In this case we gathered, ate and drank to celebrate the release of Jill Griffin's latest book, Taming the Search-and-Switch Customer, out this month from Jossey-Bass.

Jill, resplendent in her red suit, greeted her 70 + guests with the unbridled enthusiasm befitting the nationally recognized customer loyalty guru she is. But as she shook hands and hugged well wishers, it occurred to me that this was more than just a party – it was an event that brought together the best of many worlds – old friends, local business figures and social media mavens. Among the boldfaced names: Bloggers and customer loyalty pros Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell (Jackie live tweeted from the event); Bard Press publisher Ray Bard; Jill's Jossey-Bass editor Leslie Stephen; Bob Gutermuth, founder of The Dialog Group (who also lent his lovely offices space for the bash); Bob Lander, President and CEO of the Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau; well-known technology attorney Mark Murdock; Juan Portillo, President of Tramex Travel; Powered, Inc. CMO Aaron Strout, and Glenn West who heads up fundraising for the University of Texas' Department of Computer Science.

It takes a village to launch a book; and Jill's very loyal tribe turned out to kick things off the right way!

Vook. The e-book answer?

Making the leap from printed page to digital screen is still an experience in its infancy. Fueled by new apps for the iPhone and propelled by Oprah's love of the Kindle, more and more people are trading in their paper books for digital versions. But other than a lighter briefcase, the advantages are hard to see and sometimes till tough to sell. A recent New York Times story about a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and a handful of other developers has a great "value added" idea that may move the idea from the fringe to the mainstream.

The group, with Bradley Inman at the fore, is working to develop video content integrated into e-books that will make them more compelling and more competitive with other forms of online entertainment.

Sara Nelson, the former editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly, comments in the piece that video would need to be skillfully woven into a story to be truly successful – and I agree. Supplemental material, like video interviews with the author, video shorts, or "extra footage" like that done for the DVD version of a major film, is probably not enough for someone to open their wallet for the reading device. But what if that material delivered something that the book couldn't? Is there some visual component to the reading experience that we've all been missing? Can a clever jacket, for instance, be only the start of a visual experience that brings something to the story that words alone can't?

I love the idea that digital books could be something completely new for readers, something beyond their favorite, well thumbed copy of a classic or a clever film adaptation. Finding the right way to do this, though, may prove to be elusive. I suspect there could be a few clumsy attempts, like the awkward moments in the movie version of a Broadway show where characters burst into song for seemingly no reason at all. Done well, however, they could prove to be undiscovered gems. I eagerly await the first test drive or road show….plus, the name the Vook? It's genius in itself, with the quirky appeal that helped launch products like the Blackberry, the iPod and Google, those that quickly enter the lexicon and stick for good.

Publishing World Pulses with News

Feels to me like the publishing industry, like businesses everywhere, is looking for new ways to stay vital and grow in the economic downturn. Of note this week:

*A month after shutting an entire division, on Thursday HarperCollins rolled out a new imprint. It Books will publish 21 hardcover and paperback titles this year. The first one? Twitter Wit.

*On Wednesday, Thomas Nelson announced a new program called NelsonFree, which bundles together the e-book and audio versions of a title with the physical book. One of the first titles in the program is Collapse of Distinction by our client Scott McKain. The publisher plans on releasing ten additional titles in this format by the end of the year.

*Amazon launched the new version of the Kindle to mostly positive reviews, with the New York Times calling it lighter, brighter, and chattier. I haven't ordered one yet, although after taking a look from the briefcase of my friend Tom Hayes, a former New York Times writer who reads the newspaper of record on his, along with several pithy books, I am tempted.

*Random House bought Ten Speed Press, an independent house in Berkeley that has long been known for its cookbooks, business books and spiritual titles. The Moosewood Cookbook and the million copy bestseller What Color is Your Parachute? are on Ten Speed's list. We imagine that career guides are selling steadily as more and more Americans are forced to look for work.

*The first ever Christian Book Expo will make its debut this month, with a March show in Dallas. Looks like they are anticipating a crowd.

Partying Like Times are Good

Last week, while the temperatures were dropping and bad economic news filled the headlines, it seemed, oddly enough, no better time to host a book party!

Sara and I were thrilled to be at the party of the New York book launch for THE 100 BEST BUSINESS BOOKS OF ALL TIME: What They Say, Why They Matter, and How They Can Help You by our authors and friends, Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten of 800CEOREAD. More than 100 people gathered in Manhattan's beautiful Midtown Loft to celebrate the book, Jack's 25 years in the bookselling business and the winners of their 2008 Business Book Awards. Todd, newly sworn in as the company's President, used the opportunity to call on some big names in publishing including Wiley's Jack Day and Portfolio's Adrian Zackheim, editor of THE 100 BEST, to recall the best and funniest of times from Jack's life as a bookseller. Lots of authors were in attendance including Seth Godin, whose book Tribes won Best Business Book of 2008 and Erika Andersen (her second book, Being Strategic, is coming out in June). We saw agents Larry Kirshbaum, Jim Levine, Margaret McBride, Ron Hogan of GalleyCat and dozens of others in the publishing industry who seemed eager to take a break from bleak sales reports and mass firings to chat and mingle with their colleagues.



Photos by Kat Berger


At the same time, Dennis headed to Dallas to help our author Bob Beaudine celebrate the publication of his book, THE POWER OF WHO. Beaudine, fresh from an appearance on NBC-TV's "The Today Show" and glowing from a recent mention in Time, hosted about 100 guests at Legacy Books in Plano, Texas, a beautiful new independent store. Beaudine's book suggests throwing out the old rules of networking and instead relying on your close circle of allies, advocates and fans to get ahead in life. Obviously, Bob's top WHO were with him to celebrate including Bob's agent Jan Miller of Dupree, Miller & Associates. To make a great night even better, the store reported that they sold over 150 books. Way to go, Bob!

Big Week for Harry Dent and THE GREAT DEPRESSION AHEAD

It was a big week for author and economist Harry S. Dent and his new book THE GREAT DEPRESSION AHEAD. He was all over the FOX and FOX Business channels with interviews on The Glenn Beck Show, America's Newsroom and Cavuto. While his belief that America is headed into an even further economic slump isn't the news anyone wants to hear, the media is picking up on the clear and concise way he delivers the message and on the sound advice he provides.

And the bestseller lists show that people are listening, and buying. The book is #9 on the February 1 New York Times' Advice, How-To and Miscellaneous bestseller list, #9 on the January 23 Wall Street Journal's Business bestseller list, #4 on USA Today's January 25th Money bestseller list.

Congratulations, Harry!

Double Bestsellers for Gallup

American readers are apparently looking to their strengths to pull them through tough times.
The Gallup Organization, which ignited a national discussion on strengths nearly a decade ago when it released the results of a landmark 30-year study, has two titles on the January 16 Wall Street Journal business bestseller list. STRENGTHS BASED LEADERSHIP by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie hit the list at #4 (is also #12 on the general non-fiction list), just days after its official publication date. It joins Rath's other bestseller, STRENGTHSFINDER 2.0, which holds the #3 spot (#10 on the general non-fiction list).

For the new book, Gallup scientists surveyed a million work teams, conducted more than 50,000 in-depth interviews with leaders, and interviewed 20,000 followers around the world to ask exactly why they followed the most important leader in their life. What they found are three keys to being a more effective leader: knowing your strengths, getting the right talents on your team, and meeting the four basic needs of those who look to you for leadership.

Sounds like a manual for leaders in tough economic times.

THE POWER OF WHO author Bob Beaudine on The Today Show

THE POWER OF WHO author Bob Beaudine proved how being timely gets your air time this morning with an appearance on NBC-TVs "The Today Show."

Beaudine, the top executive sports recruiter in the country, suggests we throw out old notions of "networking" to get a job and instead, call on our "WHO" -- a circle of friends, fans, acquaintances, advocates and allies. Too often, says Beaudine, pride, fear and shame keep us from reaching out to those who are hard wired to want to help us the most. With a soft economy and the unemployment rate climbing, Beaudine's message is scoring him prime exposure. And of course, he is using his WHO circle to help him get ahead.

Ann Curry, who interviewed Beaudine, closed the interview by saying "the timing for this book could not be better."

If Bob's book had come out in the fall before all of the turmoil, it and its powerful message might have been missed. Instead, he was on national television and an already exciting PR campaign gets a huge dose of momentum.

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New Year, New Rules?

The new year may be bringing new rules in the land of PR. Or, they may just be the same rules, redefined, for the digital age.

On December 17, Stephen Baker posted a piece called "Freak Out-- Twitter Infected by PR" on Blogspotting, his BusinessWeek.com blog, that proclaimed, "It became clear to me in my early days of blogging, four years ago, that the historic divide between press and PR was no longer the same in the world of blogs."

Translate that to mean that Baker doesn't mind getting pr pitches via his twitter account, and further, thinks that at least half of the then 2,500 (now over 3,100) people he has following his tweets are probably PR folks. I suspect what they are doing what PR people have always done – trying to figure out what might appeal to Baker that might not be immediately apparent from his writing or bio on Cision.

But is this really anything new? Seems to me that tweets have replaced the idle chatter that PR people used to have on that old device called the telephone. We have always tried to dig in a bit with reporters -- finding out that one management reporter loves western movies, another has three kids and is married to a doctor and someone else wrote finance columns but was penning a thriller in his spare time. That behind-the-scenes information sometimes helps us deliver things that will appeal to the reporter that might not be obvious -- Twitter does the same, just digitally.

When all is said and done, I am not sure there IS such an historic divide between PR and the press. Many people (like me) move from journalism to PR, from writing the stories to trying to place them. Some of us are trying to place content, others creating content for their publication. If everyone does their job well, the stories will be cogent and compelling, the facts correct and everyone name will be spelled correctly. Nothing new there, even in the digital age.

Thankful for Teamwork this Thanksgiving

It's been a tough week for publishing, along with the rest of the nation. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, publishers of literary giants such as Philip Roth and J.R. Tolkien, announced that it has put a freeze on acquiring new titles, an extreme move that has sent shock waves through an industry already battling weak sales report at the bookstore chains across the country.

But here in my little corner of the world, I've decided to focus the things that are going right. With every business title I read, whether to consider it for a pr campaign or just to educate myself on running a company, I learn more and more about the importance of the team. One of our books, STRENGTHS BASED LEADERSHIP (coming from Gallup Press in January) uses Gallup research to prove that the best leaders build teams with a wide array of complementing strengths.

This week, I saw this work first hand. Caught downtown and on a conference call from a coffee shop, I saw my cell phone ring with a call from Dennis. While staying on the client call, I sent a him a text to check in. Turns out CNBC was looking for Harry Dent, author of THE GREAT DEPRESSION AHEAD (Free Press; January) for a live TV spot that night. I had him call Lew, our office manager, who would locate Sara, who is working with me on Harry's book, handling the digital campaign. Before I could conclude my own call, Harry Dent had been reached and CNBC was coordinating his appearance from a studio in Florida. Technology and teamwork together scored air time for an author, and I am infinitely grateful for a group of people who know that response time is key as we battle for airtime and space.

Sure, it's just one interview; but watching everyone jump on board without a nudge from me was the an incredible feeling. No dysfunctions for our team this Thanksgiving. What great news.

Update: Harry's interview on CNBC can be found here, here, and here.