This is the ninth part of a presentation I gave to the German Book Office directors a couple weeks ago. Earlier sections of the speech can be found here. This is the penultimate part of the series . . .

Currently the marketplace is dominated by the idea that books should be enjoyable and useful, an entertainment alternative equivalent to watching TV or surfing the Internet. But, to be honest, books aren’t as immediately gratifying as a TV show. People who really read, who buy lots of books, are often attracted to the unique things the medium has to offer that goes beyond simple amusement. This discrepancy between books as simple entertainment and books as unique medium could be one of the reasons behind the dismal numbers reported in the NEA “Reading at Risk” and “To Read or Not To Read” reports, which found that in 2006, 15-34 year olds spent less than 10 minutes a day reading for pleasure. And that between 1985 and 2005, household spending on books fell by 14% when adjusted for inflation.

Independents driven by an editorial vision—houses like New Directions, Archipelago, Europa Editions—are in a better position because they aren’t trying to appeal to an enormous range of pleasure seekers, but are engaging with an active audience that is dedicated to the idea of serious literature. These houses are “deep” publishers doing a lot of books within a certain aesthetic range. Commercial presses ten to be very horizontal—publishing a few titles from a huge range of categories. Most importantly though, is the genuine desire to connect with their audience.

Despite having all the necessary resources and reach, commercial houses have historically been pretty bad at truly engaging with their audience. The websites for HarperCollins and Random House are aesthetically disastrous, and have little that draws a reader back or starts an electronic “relationship” with its fans. You may find excerpts and basic book data on the site, but you’ll also find an Obama book next to a cooking book next to a Michael Crichton thriller. There’s not much of a voice present on these sites, and there’s definitely not a sense of community. It’s as if the commercial publishers can only view readers as clients rather than supporters.

This idea that a press partners with its readers rather than simply treating them as customers is a concept that I believe will shape the future of publishing. For ages publishers have cut themselves off from their readers. For instance, the general public isn’t allowed to attend Book Expo, since publishers only want to deal with people in the industry. And the chain linking an editor with a reader is enormous, stretching from the author to agent to editor to sales department to wholesaler to bookstore buyer to bookseller to reader.

There are two main reasons that I think the iPod has been such a cultural force (aside from the “cool” factor): it isolates the user and makes him feel like a unique individual, while providing the listener with a greater freedom of choice than ever before. Parallel to the rise of the iPod and its message of individuality, social networking sites allowing people to connect and share information and recommendations have become more and more popular as well. Each of these innovations allows creators and producers to directly interact with “customers.” This combination of individual enjoyment, the empowerment of nearly unlimited choice, and instant access to a community of like-minded people is incredibly powerful and, in my opinion, is the setting the publishing industry should cultivate to engage and energize a large group of readers willing to explore and enjoy all types of literature.

Mathias Enard’s Zone, which we’ve mentioned a few times already, just keeps racking up attention.

Thanks to Michael, for pointing out that Zone made Lire‘s 20 best books of 2008 list. According to my pidgin French, they say that it “possesses a scope that is rare in the French novel” and that it’s “difficult, but great.”

PW also noted our acquisition:

What’s in a period? That might be the question Chad Post, at Open Letter Press, was asking himself when he acquired the French novel Zone. The book, about a traveler making his way to Rome via train, is a study in, among other things, grammatical experimentation; it unfolds over 500 pages, in a single sentence. Open Letter, which submitted a bid for the book shortly after the Frankfurt Book Fair, is planning to publish the book Stateside in 2010; the title is published in France by Actes Sud and was written by Mathias Enard. Charlotte Mandell (who just finished The Kindly Ones) is doing the translation.

Unfortunately, my French isn’t up to it yet (I’m working on it!), so I’m anxiously awaiting—along with the rest of you, I hope—Charlotte Mandell’s translation.

This is kind of old news, but last week Juan Goytisolo was awarded Spain’s National Prize for Literature, an extremely prestigious award honoring a writer’s career.

Goytisolo is one of my all-time favorite writers, especially Makbara, Marks of Identity, Count Julian, and Juan the Landless. I actually had the opportunity to have lunch with him once during the Guadalajara Book Fair. He was incredibly charming and intelligent (as expected) and told a great story about Fidel Castro and Goytisolo’s vinegar allergy . . .

Dalkey Archive has reprinted all of the titles mentioned above, with the exception of Juan the Landless, which I think will be coming out in the future.

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Over the holiday weekend, it was announced that Juan Marse was awarded the Cervantes Prize, which is considered to be the Nobel Prize for literature in Spanish.

Marse is best known for his novels about people enduring tough times in Catalonia after the 1936-1939 civil war, which ended with fascist dictator Francisco Franco’s victory and was followed by years of repression against his foes.

Doesn’t look like any of Marse’s books are available here in the States, although two—Lizard Tails and Shanghai Nights—were translated by Nick Caistor and are available in the UK.

Issue 14 of The Quarterly Conversation is now available online and features a number of interesting articles and reviews.

In terms of reviews, there’s a piece by Scott Esposito on 2666, and one by Scott Bryan Wilson of Attila Bartis’s Tranquility.

The “Features” sound really interesting as well, especially the pieces on William Gaddis and Carter Scholz.

And on top of all that, there’s a contest featuring questions from this issue of TQC. The winning entry will receive one copy of all of Roberto Bolano’s books . . .

This is the ninth part of a presentation I gave to the German Book Office directors a couple weeks ago. Earlier sections of the speech can be found here. There are still a number of parts left to post, but these should all be up before the end of the month.

Stage Four: What Happens Next?

Although it seems that everything is doomed (remember what I said about publishing folks?), I believe that amid all this chaos, potential or otherwise, there are reasons to believe that independent publishers, booksellers, and works in translation all could thrive.

Assuming Borders doesn’t make it, or at least a significant shrinkage in chain stores, an opportunity will open up for independent bookstores to make a comeback. For years these stores have been battered out of business due to the volume discounts, enormous floor space, and nationwide branding efforts of the major chains. But at this time, when, thanks in part to the greed that destroyed the financial sector, people are focusing more on “buying local,” independent bookstores can fight back. There have been a number of studies on the economic impact of buying books from a local store, including one conducted last year in San Francisco that found that a 10% increase in book sales in the local market would result in increased economic input of $3.8 million, 25 additional jobs, and $325,000 in additional retail activity. These arguments should appeal to a larger segment of customers than usual during this current/forthcoming recession. In the wake of a Borders collapse there would be a lot of underserved book communities where a niche store could step in and succeed.

One reason indie stores could make it in this sort of climate is the modest nature of their business model. Rather than try and be everything to everyone, stores with specific identities that are integrated into the local community—like St. Mark’s, City Lights, McNally Jackson, Shaman Drum—tend to succeed by cultivating and serving a specific group of loyal customers. Additionally, a number of stores are playing around with the idea of becoming nonprofits. Shaman Drum is transforming into the Great Lakes Literary Arts Center and expanding its community activities and offerings. The indie store as literary center is the antithesis of the box store, and exactly what we need in our world today.

In terms of niche marketing, Amazon UK recently announced a “Literature in Translation” store highlighting works of international authors and presses that publish a lot of translations. This isn’t dissimilar from the annual Reading the World program in which independent bookstores display a host of translated titles in order to draw the attention of readers to the wealth of great books that are available from writers born outside of our borders. This sort of niche marketing—or not even marketing, just providing information about a particular type of book—is highly effective and can make a big difference sales.

It might seems self-serving (or self-delusional), but I think that independents on the whole—nonprofits publishers especially—are in a better position to weather this storm than anyone else. I’ve long believed that the role indies play in book culture would continue to grow in the future, mainly because these presses are branded, they have a particular mission and vision, and their expectations are modest enough to allow for them to publish “real” literature instead of books that seem profitable.

Our latest review is of Skunk: A Life by Peter Aleshkovsky. This book was published by Glas years ago, but since Glas books generally don’t get the attention they deserve, we thought it would be a good idea to cover it.

Jennifer Cunningham, a language student here at the University of Rochester wrote this piece.

I’ve heard that today is a big shopping day (or used to be at least, pre-everyone losing all their money and jobs), so to get in on the action I thought I’d point out the “First Annual Secret Santa Gift Exchange” that is orchestrating:

Here’s how it works:

1) If you want to participate, email your name and mailing address to htmlgiant@gmail.com with the subject line: SECRET SANTA. The due date for this is Midnight on Friday, December 5th.

2) As soon as possible, we email you the name and address of your assigned gift recipient.

3) We assign your name and address to another Secret Santa.

4) By Christmas, you purchase for your gift recipient a wonderful gift and email us to let us know what you got him or her.

5) You simultaneously enjoy the gift that you receive from your own Secret Santa.

I wonder how many people will sign up for this. It sounds somewhat intriguing, and I’m all for people buying books as presents . . . In fact, I think the perfect Secret Santa Gift would be an Open Letter book . . .

(Thanks to Literary License for bringing this to our attention.)

Seeing as that today is a national holiday, we’re not going to be posting anything new today. We’ll be back tomorrow with a review and the next part of the “Publishing Model” speech. Next week is a big week for Three Percent, with the announcement of the Best Translation Book of 2008 fiction longlist . . .

This is the eighth part of a presentation I gave to the German Book Office directors a couple weeks ago. Earlier sections of the speech can be found here. There are still a number of parts left to post, but these should all be up before the end of the month.

The most frightening news of recent times involves the Borders chain. In March, Borders put itself up for sale and had to borrow $42.5 million Pershing Square Capital Management. Borders couldn’t find a buyer, and as a result, had to issue warrants to its largest shareholder, giving Pershing Square even more control of the company. And if that wasn’t bad enough, along comes the financial collapse, and Borders Group Stock falls from $7.80 to $2.44.

A couple weeks ago, Borders issued a memo to Independent Publishers Group, stating that Borders would “not be paying [IPG] for two months due to anticipated excessive returns.” Borders claims to have cash on hand and access to credit, but this is a very frightening message for the entire book world, sending a message about Borders long-term stability. And of course, the independent presses are the first to have to deal with this non-payment . . .

If Borders were to go bankrupt—and this is still an if—it would be one of the greatest catastrophes to hit the publishing world in decades. Even after liquidating as much stock as possible, publishers would receive massive returns, millions of dollars would be lost, and going forward, publishers would have 1,100 fewer stores to sell to.

Even worse, without a Borders store next door, a lot of B&N outlets would become superfluous. B&N could easily close down a number of stores to improve their financial standing, reducing sales outlets even further.

A lot will depend on the upcoming holiday sales season, about which there have been mixed predictions. To some, books are the perfect gift. Lasting, thoughtful, and most important in our economic crisis, relatively cheap. Random House recently launched a campaign to promote just this idea. Books=Gifts started last week and in the near future the New Yorker will do an e-mail blast to 25 million newsletter recipients pushing this message.

Meanwhile, Motoko Rich of the New York Times wrote an article for the November 11th paper about the market’s nervousness. Barnes & Noble chairman Len Riggio already sent a memo predicting a horrible shopping season, and HarperCollins just reported that first-quarter operating income plummeted from $36 million last year to $3 million in 2008. And a lot of people are expecting a serious downturn in January, regardless of what happens in the next six weeks. Bookstores are already cutting orders, and presses are trimming print runs.

Borders closing and a downturn in sales adds up to a doomsday scenario in which commercial houses are buried in inventory and bad debt, and have to cut costs severely (including personnel) to try and rebuild. A lot of independent presses could just go away overnight. And Barnes & Noble and Amazon would have a lot of power over publishing houses, allowing them to essentially set whatever terms of sale they desire.

As reported in Publishers Weekly,: sales at Borders fell by 10% in the third quarter to $693.4 million, resultiing in a net loss of $172.2 million for the period.

And in terms of being for sale? Well, that’s now a thing of the past:

Borders also announced that it is no longer for sale. Company CEO George Jones said that after completing a thorough review of its options, the company determined it was best “to remain as we are,” adding that he was “quite pleased” that the review is over and that Borders will remain an independent, publicly-traded company. The company still has the option to sell its Paperchase division to Pershing Square Capital, Borders’s largest shareholder, for $65 million. That option expires Jan. 15. The company said it is talking to Pershing about different financing arrangements.

In case you’re interested in buying some Borders stock, at this very moment, it’s listing for $0.98 on the NYSE, which is $0.26 higher than the 52-week low.