The Bookseller.com

3rd December 2008

GAYLE FELDMAN

Gayle Feldman is The Bookseller's US correspondent.

Blogging BEA - Day One

30.05.08

1)

The question being quietly voiced by many who spent Thursday at the LA Convention Center is whether BEA will in the foreseeable future come to LA again. The day devoted to educational panels found many seats empty in many sessions, even if some of the sessions themselves were pretty good. This year, in any event, there is the sense that given the economy, the distance from New York, and the calendar closeness to LIBF, a lot of East coast people and Europeans stayed home. On the other hand, for those from Asia, LA couldn’t be more convenient, and it looks like the Chinese will be here in force. One thing is pretty certain: some of the greatest curiosity surrounds what the oracle of Amazon will say on Friday afternoon. Will Jeff Bezos look in the crystal ball and reveal the future?

Attendee numbers down or up, business will be done, and the consolidated British stand is once again a standout in terms of size. Jessica Kingsley made the trek here from London because, she says, “we sell more units in the US than in the rest of the world put together.” Since opening an office in Philadelphia four summers ago, Kingley’s US sales – in terms of dollars – have doubled. Four years ago, 20% of her authors were American; today the figure is more like 40%. Kingsley says that for her very targeted business, “BEA is a must.”

2)

Bowker once again released preliminary U.S. title output statistics to coincide with the opening of BEA, and although the number itself is mind-boggling – a total of 411,422 new titles in 2007 – the reason behind the growth is obvious: the staggering increase in POD and self-published titles. There was in fact only a small increase in “regular” titles, which numbered 276,649, up from 274,416 in 2006 (but it should be remembered that title production had actually dropped in 2005). The remaining 134,773 titles were of the POD and short-run variety.

In terms of categories, fiction was up 17%; juvenile was down slightly, showing the same pattern of erosion that has been in place since the peak of Harry power in 2004; and religion was down 5%, which helps to make sense of recent changes at Nelson and Zondervan. That old time religion just isn’t saving publishers’ bottom lines in quite the way it did just a few years ago.

3)

One of the segments in a panel on global markets for ebooks concentrated not on what American publishers can do for their country, but on what their country can do for them (albeit occasionally with a fee attached). It’s not quite the British Council, but nevertheless British publishers with US branches should take note.

Dawn Bruno, the U.S. Commerce Department Global Publishing team leader who is based in New York, described how Uncle Sam “has resources” to help publishers enter the global market and find international partners. She leads twenty publishing specialists, including one based at the US Embassy in London, and many publishers clearly did not know of her unit’s activities prior to the panel.

“The digital area is new for us,” Bruno said. “Our biggest and best role is as matchmaker,” and “our bread and butter” is working with smaller companies, although even large entities have been known to seek help. One big reference company increased its visibility in Japan via an event at the US embassy in Tokyo.

Occasionally, though, as Bruno’s German-based colleague pointed out during question time, help can be withheld “because of a set of ethical reasons not to support certain productions.”

For more information, take a look at Publishing Industry Market Briefs 2008, a 96-page booklet just out from Bruno’s division, with information on thirty-one countries.   

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