Small Press Week? Why?

A Saturday Rant 10-27-01

I received a letter the other day asking for our help in next year’s Small
Press Week. While the letter was not from PMA, Small Press Week is
pretty much a PMA invention. While starting and touting a Press Week
is a benign activity which will do no real harm, I wonder if whatever
energies we apply to it will do much good?

First of all, I wonder if we want to be labeled “Small Press?” Who is a
small press? Ten Speed is small compared to Random, but a giant to
most of us.

Second, what is the point of Small Press Week?

The so-called return-on-investment on “events” like this are always
cloaked in fuzzy terms like “recognition,” “public awareness,” and
“contribution to the industry.” This is well and good, but will it help us
sell more books and collectively help ensure a more equitable place in
the industry? I doubt it.

While there are exceptions, for the most part the book buying public is
much like the movie going public. You don’t to go see a film because it
is from Tri-Star or Paramount. You go to see the actors, story, and on
the strength of the content and reviews. Yes, Disney might be an
exception, but in publishing, like the movies, there are very few of
them. (Wrox and O’Reilly are two. Their technical books are top-notch
and bought on the “name” of the publisher alone.)

So all the hoopla that may come out of Small Press Week, will in my
opinion, be great for the ego of many of us, but I don’t think it will
change the facts that we are part of the 20% of books sold, not the 80%;
for those of you who know the old 80-20 rule.

My point? We don’t need Small Press Week (although there is no
harm in doing so.) What we need is a “Books — Not TV Week.”

We should NOT be going to the Great Unwashed saying “We’re small
publishers, look at us,” but instead, “Hey Pea-Brain, turn off the tube
(computer, video game etc.) and buy a book. It’s your mind. Propagate,
don’t vegetate!” (Not a bad slogan!)

We need to sell books and reading as a viable form of learning and
entertainment vis-�-vis the electronic media. This is especially true to
school boards, who think that computers and video equipment are silver
bullets that will cure the epidemic of lower and lower test scores.

But for us to go flapping our feathers and crowing about how
wonderful we small publishers are, is, in my opinion, a glorious ego
trip that will expend lots of resources, get a few publisher’s names in
the newspapers, but which will have very little lasting effect.

I’d much rather see the PMA board (are you listening Pat Bell?) sit
down with the CEO’s of the large houses and plan a campaign about
BOOKS, not use their energy and resources to perhaps further divide
our industry along big/small lines. Maybe I’m wrong, but Small Press
Week sounds like a turf war to me.

HEY, JEENI, WE’RE ALL DISGUSTED

I got a letter from Jeeni C. who said:

—
> “What kind of F…n business is this anyway! – you want to hear the
> straw that breaks the camel’s back – as of yet I have not received one
> dime from any sales in Borders Books, nor anything from , nor Barnes
> & Noble. I’ve got one whopping post dated check from Amazon for
> $29, one from B&T for $39 and several small ones from Brodart. The
> only real sales (read: sales that resulted in money) are from sales I
> personally made from mailings, word-of-mouth, calls from newspaper
> articles, book festivals or my web site.”
—

This is one of the reasons I am so hostile to so many of our industry
gurus like Kremer, Jenkins, Ross, Rose, as well as the PMA. In essence
(read that again and understand what the word “essence” means) these
people are dream-sellers. They make a good part of their living selling
books or services to the wanna-be publisher and they use the dream of fame,
fortune, and the like to entice people into this business. Dreams sell
books, memberships, web sites, etc. Yes, yes, yes, most of these people
DO make brief mention about the difficulties of this business, but that
is not their central message or theme.

Just once I’d love to hear one of the “you can be a publisher”
luminaries say, like Jeeni has, “This is a F…n hard business, and most
likely you will fail.” But you are not likely to hear this from these
mentors. It would be bad for business for them to do so.

But by the same token, the problems are not with our “stars,” but with
ourselves. Anyone who reads a book on publishing or buys a web site
thinking that if they just follow “the rules” that fame and fortune will
seek them out, perhaps deserves to be “taken.”

I guess every writer, inventor, entrepreneur, and visionary has a “if I
build it they will come” mentality. But we publishers go one step
farther. We believe that if we just do what we’re told by the “experts”
that our success is assured. I can’t tell you how many people have told
me that they followed the guru advice to the letter and still had 5,000
books in their basement.

Perhaps the future will be different and less risky for us. Perhaps
Poynter “has it right” with his “New Book Model” seminar. Maybe
POD and e-books will be the royal road to riches for us. I don’t know.

For now, the truth, as we all know, is that that trade publishing for the
big, well funded publishers is a calculated risk. For small independents,
it is an outright gamble…and you get better odds in going to Vegas
and putting your $15,000 print and design money on red.

DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM

It the time of year when threre are a lot of regional book festivals.
This is probably why I have been having dreams about what
different keynote speakers might be saying.

John Wayne: Listen up or you’re dead where ya stand, pardner. I know
you’re goin’ up against a well armed and a well trained Ingram army
and I was hopin’ to go with you but I don’t want to get MY ass shot full
of holes. No, not MY butt. But if I WERE going out there with you
poor wretched excuses for publishers, I’d walk up to that Ingram rep
and say “Listen, bub, I wouldn’t use the word “return” too often and
once more would be too often.”

Rodney Dangerfield: Hey, I get more returns than anyone. No respect,
just returns. I printed 10,000 copies of my last book. Ingram bought all
10,000. They returned 12,000. They re-ordered 5,000 and returned
7,000. What a deal. I got 4,000 more books than I printed. I’m never
gonna print again… just keep sending them to Ingram. Soon I’ll have an
inventory of 20,000. I love them Ingram guys.

George Patton: American publisher sonofabitches love a good fight.
And we sonofabitches fight to win. It’s not your job to take the returns
up the ass, let the other sonofabitch take it up his. When I go out there
and I see the smoking remains of independent bookstores I say to
myself, “God help me, but I love it.” So if I see just one of you
sonofabitches back away from the fight, I’m gonna slap you silly.

John Kennedy: Ask not what Ingram can do for you, but what you can
do for Ingram. The torch has been passed to a new generation of
publishers, weakened by returns and softened by low profits. It is not
our destiny to sell to Ingram… but to be sold out by Ingram..

Bill Clinton: I uh, love to go to book conferences, huh, huh. I can
always count on free meal here. But ah know your pain and ah feel
your pain with returns. And ah hope you all will stand with me and Al
Gore and help me fight against them. I know your pain ’cause the entire
fuckin’ livin’ room of our house in New York is full of Hillery’s Village
book. A stack of book cartons is not quite the same as a stack of hay
bales, if ya all catch my drift, huh, huh.

Rush Limbaugh: Now everyone in the fruited plain including the fruits
knows that the return system is maintained by government liberals, Al
Gore, and his tree hugging friends. It’s the same old liberal “I don’t
have to take responsibility for myself” philosophy. Why order the right
number of books when you can always over-order and return them? It’s
all the fault of liberal Democrats.

Robert G. : Hey, aren’t returns that Al talks about just like spam? So
lets all sing together… “He’s a Spam Man…da da da da… He’s a Spam
Man.”

Pat G.: It is God’s will that we get returns. And I know God is male.
How do I know? Whenever I see a well-hung, naked man on
www.persiankitty.com I always say “Oh God!”

Eric A,: There is no such thing as returns. Only books that are sold can
be legitimately considered as returns. Since the books go to Ingram and
come back without sale, this is proof that they don’t exist as returns, but
as only displaced inventory. You see, I prove things. And by using
proof, I’ve upped my sell-through rate. Up yours!

Bill W.: Those of us who publish sexually explicit tomes don’t refer to
“returns” as “returns” but rather as come-backs. Instead of saying that
“this book was returned,” we might say that “this book came again.”

Thea L.: Even respectable grandmothers like to have an occasional
“return.” At least those who view persiankitty.com do!!

FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH

A horse walks into a bar in New York City and says to the bartender,
“I’ll have scotch, straight up.” The bartender stops dead in his tracks,
looks at the horse and says “You’re a horse! And you talk.”

The horse says, “That’s right pal. Now let me have a scotch.”

The bartender is going nuts. He can’t believe this. First there is a horse
in his bar and second it talks. “Tell me again. I want to hear you say it
once more.”

The horse says, “Look, What’s the matter with you. I’m waiting here
for my scotch.”

The bartender is having a fit. He runs to the back room to speak to his
partner. “There’s a horse at the bar who talks and is asking for a drink.”
The partner, being a jaded New Yorker, said “So serve him a drink
already.”

The bartender says “OK, but what shall I charge him?” The partner says
“Hey, what does a horse know from nothing. Charge him twenty
dollars.”

So the bartender goes out to the bar, gets the bottle of scotch, pours a
shot and puts it in front of the horse. “That will be twenty dollars. You
know, we don’t get many horses in here.”

The horse looks at him and says “At twenty bucks a drink, I can see
why!”

Alan N. Canton
Vice President
Adams-Blake Publishing