by PunditGuy | Apr 11, 2007 | Industry |
Just when I think I know a thing or two about the book business, I find out I really don’t know a lot about the book business.
Turns out thrillers’ are more than big sellers. They’re brands.
When James Patterson, author of the Alex Cross series, produces a new book, 1.25 million copies are routinely printed. After he was poached from Headline by Random House last year the victors crowed: “Signing James Patterson is like acquiring a one-man publishing industry.” His fortune was estimated by Forbes to be $28 million (£14 million) in 2005. Another big name, Robert Ludlum, has 210 million books in print, and every one of his titles has been on The New York Timesbestseller list. Clive Cussler has 70 million copies of his Dirk Pitt series in print, and Penguin UK sells 700,000 of his books every year. The books are fast-paced and addictive and readers cannot get enough of them. Including paperbacks, Cussler alone has five books out in the UK this year and each one is a guaranteed bestseller.
Small wonder, then, that the production of so many page-turners involves more than lone writers toiling in garrets. More and more, the people producing million-sellers are leaning on collaborative authors to do much of the writing.
The authors’ names still appear on the covers in 3in-high letters, but what we’re buying is the brand, not the writer. Robert Ludlum produces several books a year, every one a bestseller — and he died in 2001. More than a dozen books have been published with his name on the cover since, including the Covert-One series, none of which appeared during his lifetime. Readers aren’t worried, and continue to buy hundreds of thousands of the books.
Building book brands by sub-contracting. Brilliant.
by PunditGuy | Apr 9, 2007 | Travel |
I’m heading to the London Book Fair this weekend. Although this show has been happening for many years, this will be my second trip to the confab. The home of the event used to be the Olympia Exhibition Centre, but last year they moved it to the ExCel Exhibition Centre way out at Docklands. If you’re familiar with London, you’ll know that Docklands is out east and (ahem) not really in the city. My flight landed at Heathrow, and after going through customs, gathering luggage, taking the Heathrow Express and then the Tube, I ended up at my hotel in Silvertown almost 4 hours later. I guess the worst part of it was deciding what to do at night. London proper is 45 minutes or more via the Tube from Docklands. Most of the time I was stranded at my hotel.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one who thought the ExCel was less than convenient. After complaints and threats, the show moved back to London this year, and will be held at Earl’s Court. My lodgings are only a 3 minute walk from the hall, so that’s great. Plus, I’m minutes away from the standard London fare – Piccadilly Circus, Westminster, and my wife’s favorite place. She’s not coming with me on this trip, but her gift list is made.
As for the show itself, I attend to visit with current partners and scout out new relationships. LBF is much more manageable than Frankfurt. Besides being about 1/8th the size, the exhibitors are primarily from the UK and USA. That makes communicating much easier. I won’t blog about Frankfurt just now, but I’ll definitely address that subject sometime soon.
I leave on Saturday night, arrive on Sunday and stay through the end of the show on Wednesday. I’ll be blogging from there too.
by PunditGuy | Apr 9, 2007 | Blogging |
Welcome to Original Expression, a blog about the book publishing industry, ePublishing, and my 14 years of experience in each. As time goes on the format here will evolve. At the onset I expect to write about topics like copyright licensing, book sales and marketing, publishing models, industry transitions, etc. So, that’s where we’ll start, but expect diversions from time to time.
My name is Bill Nienhuis and (as stated previously), I’ve been working with book publishers for over 14 years. I’ve spent a great deal of time licensing content from them to place inside electronic products made by the company I work for. More than this though, I’ve helped publishers make technology decisions. This is no simple feat. I’ll get into that more as time goes on.
I’m going to have an open comments policy on this blog, for now. I ran another quite popular blog for the last 2 years and I know how comment sections can get out of hand quickly. I’m not to worried about this here though. If they work out, then great. If not, poof – they’ll go away.
I hope you’ll like what you read here and want to come back often.
by PunditGuy | Apr 7, 2007 | General |
Shhhh…
This blog is sleeping.
by PunditGuy | Apr 1, 2007 | General |
After a magnitude 8.0 quake hit off the Solomon Islands, the tsunami it created has inundated two villages.
Deja vu.
Tags:
Tsunami, Earthquake