The Bookseller.com

3rd December 2008

Laurence Orbach is chairman and c.e.o. of Quarto.

0.2 seconds to sell

31.03.08

Borders' new concept store in Michigan is apparently a great success. The lessons will be rolled out chain-wide: more titles displayed face out (so slightly fewer stocked overall), and more themed promotions. Seems kinda obvious, don't it? John Deighton, editor of the Journal of Consumer Research, recently told the Wall Street Journal: "People don't want choice, they want what they want." He then went on to point out the importance of marketing in creating desire.

Publishers can't afford splashy consumer marketing for each new book, and often the cover is our best, or only, opportunity to grab attention. If books sell better when they're face out, how can we make the most of the 0.2 seconds of attention that, according to research, consumers afford a cover?

In my field of coedition publishing, we're very alert to this, because we're pitching to potential licensees something that doesn't yet exist. Even so, all too often we struggle to make the leap from marketing to trade buyers, to focusing on the end consumer who pays the tab. I find that this tendency to see the market in terms of intermediary buyers is too widespread, with some notable exceptions, even among book marketing people.

For coedition publishers, the challenge presents itself before the book is commissioned. If the concept is well articulated, this can help to ensure that the title, which is generally a collaborative effort, remains "on message". But the even tougher job is to make people want the book. Maybe you think I want to sully your fine authorial and editorial work with grubby commercial realities, and you'd be right, in a sense. A book needs to offer the reader some real benefit in exchange for the money and time spent with it. We only rarely rise to this challenge.

We produce ever more titles that compete for the attention of what remains a small, minority audience. Every sustainable medium has unique capabilities and characteristics. We have to focus on what the book in general, and each book in particular, does better than other media. Borders is learning what the wonderful Daunt bookshops in London have long demonstrated: that people need to be seduced into buying more, and without discounting. We have to take the cover messages very seriously.

If an image can replace a thousand words, always remember that words can conjure up a thousand images. The words should not explain the imagery, but act in counterpoint. The two components, together, must attract the eye, create the interest and desire, and convey the benefit to be gained from purchasing the book.