Bagaimana Karya Saya Ingin Ke Global?
May 31, 2007
Ramai yang berpandangan apabila ingin ke global, dia perlu menulis dalam bahasa Inggeris. Ini adalah satu pemikiran yang salah pada pandangan saya. Pihak kami pernah menghadiri satu perjumpaan antara penerbit Malaysia dalam satu pesta buku yang dianjurkan di sebelah selatan semenanjung tanahair. Dalam perjumpaan tersebut, ada satu soalan yang dilontarkan kepada sebuah penerbit yang menfokuskan penerbitannya dalam bahasa Inggeris.
Berapakah jumlah jualan naskhah buku yang diterbitkan dalam bahasa Inggeris?
Si penerbit tersebut dengan bangganya menjawab
Penerbitan buku bahasa Inggeris amat menguntungkan. Bilangan buku terjual amat tinggi. Bilangan naskhah yang terjual adalah sebanyak 500 naskhah setahun.
500 naskhah? Biar betul! Apabila ditanya adakah ia diulang cetak ataupun tidak? Jawapannya ada yang Ya dan ada yang Tidak.
500 naskhah adalah satu jumlah yang pada pandangan penerbit buku berbahasa Melayu sangat sedikit. Rekod jualan PTS, buku yang paling bagus jualannya adalah 3,000 naskhah dalam masa seminggu dan paling teruk 3,000 naskhah dalam masa setahun. Jika dibandingkan dengan jumlah jualan buku bahasa Inggeris tersebut maka terbit buku dalam bahasa Inggeris tidak menaikkan jumlah jualan.
Isu pelesenan hak cipta adalah isu hangat yang diperbincangkan dalam salah satu bengkel dikendalikan oleh En. Fauzul di USM Pulau Pinang
Habis tu? Jika tidak menerbit buku dalam bahasa Inggeris bagaimana hendak global? Bagaimana hendak memasuki pasaran luar negara?
Caranya ada. Kita tidak jual buku keluar negara, tetapi kita jual lesen penerbitan ke sana. PTS hanya menerbitkan buku dalam bahasa Melayu. Namun begitu sudah lebih daripada 20 buku PTS diterjemahkan ke dalam bahasa Indonesia. Caranya bukan melalui jualan terus, kita melesen hak terjemahan ke sana. Itu caranya untuk pergi global.
Jadi bagaimana? Caranya terbitkanlah buku anda dengan penerbit yang mempunyai rangkaian kerjasama penerbitan di luar negara. PTS mempunyai hubungan baik dengan ramai penerbit di Indonesia. Banyak buku PTS yang sudah diambil lesennya dan dalam proses negosiasi. PTS juga merancang untuk meluaskan jaringan kerjasama dengan penerbit-penerbit ASEAN lain.
Pilihlah dengan teliti. Inilah cara terbaik untuk ke global.
Menulis Adalah Satu Keajaiban
May 30, 2007
Apabila orang bertanya kepada saya apakah benda ajaib yang kelapan (selepas wujudnya tujuh keajaiban yang tak berapa ajaib). Saya mengatakan bahawa ia adalah menulis. Mengapa saya berkata begitu? Banyak perkara ajaib berlaku disebabkan penulisan.
Benarkah? Tak percaya?
Sebelum ini, saya bertemu dengan beberapa orang yang pernah membaca karya PTS. Mereka ini tidak mengetahui bahawa saya ini adalah pengurus di PTS. Mereka mengatakan bahawa buku-buku PTS memberikan banyak panduan dalam hidup mereka. Ada yang mengubah cara berfikir dan bekerja selepas membaca buku PTS. Ada yang mengubah cara bercakap, ada yang mengubah pendirian dan pelbagai lagi.
Bukankah itu suatu keajaiban? Mengubah daripada yang baik kepada lebih baik. Mengubah daripada teruk kepada bagus. Semua itu suatu keajaiban.
Keajaiban terbesar disebabkan penulisan adalah benda paling ajaib di dunia iaitu Al-Quran yang ada pada kita sekarang. Jika tidak ditulis mungkin Al-Quran itu tidak abadi. Al-Quran itu mungkin hilang. Disebabkan penulisanlah keajaiban ini kekal hingga sekarang. Ajaib kan dunia penulisan?
Berapakah Jumlah Jualan Naskhah Baru Dikira Bestseller?
May 29, 2007
Persoalan berapakah jumlah jualan naskhah baru dikira bestseller pernah saya tanyakan kepada penerbit Indonesia. Jawapannya pelbagai dan mazhab yang paling menarik adalah terjual 3000 naskhah sudah boleh dikira bestseller di sana. Wah! Pada pandangan saya apabila berkata sedemikian, maksudnya buku PTS kebanyakannya sudah mencecah bestseller. Kebanyakan buku PTS boleh habis 3000 naskhah tidak lebih daripada 6 bulan. Ini mazhab di Indonesia. Rakyatnya 240 juta orang. Bagaimana Malaysia?
Sebenarnya kayu ukur bestseller ini bergantung kepada pandangan dan kayu ukur masing-masing. Bagi PTS, apabila buku tersebut terjual melebihi 10,000 naskhah setahun ia dikira sebagai bestseller. Ada karya buku PTS yang diterjemah ke Indonesia mencecah jualan 20,000 naskhah dalam masa dua bulan! Bagi novel, Alaf 21 Sdn Bhd dikatakan novel bestsellernya terjual sekurang-kurangnya 30,000 naskhah setahun. Bagi penerbit lain mungkin berbeza. Jika diambil kira rakyat Malaysia berbanding Indonesia jauh bezanya. Rakyat Malaysia 24 juta orang sahaja.
Di kedai buku MPH, senarai top 10 bestseller diletakkan berdasarkan jualan dalam seminggu ataupun sebulan. Begitu juga Popular Bookstore dan Kinokuniya.
Namun begitu di barat jauh berbeza. Jualan karya bestsellernya mencecah jutaan naskhah satu tahun. Ini juga kayu ukur bestseller. Mereka mempunyai jumlah populasi penduduk jutaan orang. Jualan mereka bukan sahaja di negara mereka tetapi seluruh dunia.
Susah hendak kita ukur apakah piawaian sebenar bestseller ini. Namun begitu di Akademi Penulis Karya Bestseller, saya meletakkan kayu ukur terjual 10,000 naskhah sudah dikira bestseller. Apabila penulis Malaysia sudah boleh mencecah jumlah tersebut, itu sudah kira hebat. Bagaimana? Anda rasa mahu bagaimana?
Times’ Mystified By Definition of Best-Seller
May 28, 2007
Although The Devil’s Teeth sold just 36,000 copies in hardcover, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about 70 percent of book sales, it was a New York Times nonfiction hardcover best seller,” Times book reporter Motoko Rich wrote last week in a weird article that had book editors around town scratching their heads. “Although”? “Just”? Many Times bestsellers have similar and, sometimes, lower Bookscan numbers. Is it possible that the Times, arbiter of the most influential bestseller list in the country, doesn’t really have a set or sensical definition of what constitutes a “best seller”? An article in yesterday’s Business section reveals: yes, that is possible. Likely, even!
An editor’s note informs us that “the editor of the Sunday Business section is under contract to Random House and did not edit this article,” which maybe explains sentences like “Based on those figures and some analysis—about the popularity of the genre, the likely audience, the possible newsworthiness of the topic of the economy—they work up profit and loss projections.” It kind of seems like no one edited this puppy.
For starters, what kind of article sets out to explicate a mystery—in this case, the mystery of why some books sell a lot of copies and others sell very few, and how indirectly these sales typically correlate with the size of authors’ advances and publishers’ predictions—without even attempting to define the term that the article is purportedly about. Is “making a best seller” really so mysterious that no one can even begin to know what a “best seller” is?
It isn’t until almost three quarters of the way through the article that we get anything resembling answers. “There are two ways for a book to become a best seller. One is to make it on to a best-seller list by selling many copies in a week. Other books sell steadily over months and years, eventually outselling many official best sellers,” reporter Shira Boss informs us. (Say it with us, Shira: “backlist.”) So! There are best sellers on “best-seller” lists and then there are ‘unofficial’ best sellers? How many copies does a book have to sell to be considered in any way “best?”
Maybe the Times is being cagey because they don’t want to publicize how ultimately non-authoritative their bestseller list’s rankings really are. The methodology behind the list is a “trade secret,” based not on plain vanilla sales figures, as this article seems to imply, but on sales figures from “a selected sample of independent and chain bookstores.”
The article’s ostensible point—that publishers base their acquisitions too much on authors’ sales track records and too little on anything resembling reader feedback—is a good one, of course. But how on earth are publishers or readers meant to get a sense of the book sales landscape if everyone is confused about what kind of numbers they’re meant to be chasing?
Is poor Curtis Sittenfeld a failure because her second novel sold “only” 42,000 copies? Is Charles Frazier a failure because his follow-up to Cold Mountain, in spite of its 8 million advance, “only” sold 240,000? Or are the real failures the people who write about this stuff and can’t seem to wrap their heads around the seemingly illogical but ultimately sort of inevitable way that book publishing actually works—that is to say, differently than every other industry, especially those in which people actually make lots of money? —Emily
Apakah Maknanya Bestseller?
May 28, 2007
Ada satu bacaan menarik mengenai bestseller di ruangan wikipedia (Klik sini)
Bagaimana Saya Ingin Menjaga Hak Cipta?
May 26, 2007
Ramai yang terasa takut apabila bercerita mengenai hak cipta. Takut untuk menghantar kepada penerbit sebab pada pandangan ramai penulis mengatakan bahawa penerbit suka menipu. (Boleh baca mitos pertama). Sebenarnya ada banyak cara bagaimana hendak menjaga hak cipta. Anda boleh memilih cara yang sesuai dengan diri anda dan anda rasa selamat
Letakkan Notis Hak Cipta
Apabila anda membuka sesebuah buku, di halaman kedua selepas halaman separa. Ada satu label ataupun notis yang menyatakan bahawa Hak Cipta Terpelihara ………….. 2007 ataupun (c) ………………… 2007. Ini adalah notis hak cipta. Salah satu cara bagi menjaga hak cipta adalah dengan meletakkan notis ini di setiap halaman manuskrip anda. Letakkan dengan menyatakan Hak Cipta Terpelihara Nama Anda Tahun Penerbitan (Contoh Hak Cipta Terpelihara Fauzul Na’im Ishak 2007).
Membuat Akuan Bersumpah
Masukkan manuskrip anda ke dalam satu sampul surat. Masukkan naskhah cetakan dan salinan digital ke dalamnya. Kemudian gam penutup sampul surat tersebut. Kemudian bawa sampul surat tersebut ke pesuruhjaya sumpah berdekatan (selalunya mereka berada berdekatan dengan Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia seperti di The Mall). Buatkan akuan bersumpah menyatakan bahawa manuskrip tersebut adalah hak anda. Selalunya dikenakan bayaran RM10 sahaja.
Menggunakan Sealing Wax dan Pos Berdaftar
Cara ini yang saya cadangkan agar para penulis gunakan. Cara yang paling praktikal dan selamat pada pandangan saya. Mula-mula masukkan manuskrip yang sudah dicetak berserta dengan salinan digitalnya ke dalam satu sampul surat. Di pertemuan di antara penutup sampu dan sampul surat tersebut di palam dengan menggunakan sealing wax ataupun lilin cina (yang digunakan sebagai cop mohor pada sijil).
Kemudian sampul surat tersebut dibawa ke pejabat pos. Letakkan alamat diri sendiri pada sampul surat dan poskan dengan menggunakan pos berdaftar. Apabila sampu tersebut tiba ke tangan anda, jangan buka. Terus simpan di tempat yang selamat dan inilah bahan bukti apabila berlaku perlanggaran hak cipta.
Daftarkan Dengan Pusat Bibliografi Negara
Kaedah ini yang selalunya digunakan apabila anda menerbit dengan sesebuah penerbit. Setiap penerbit mempunyai nombor bersiri yang diberikan oleh Pusat Bibliografi Negara (terletak di bawah Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia) kepada penerbit tersebut. Nombor bersiri ini dipanggil International Standard Book Number ataupun kita panggil ISBN. Ia hanya dikeluarkan oleh sebuah agensi antarabangsa dan dibahagikan kepada pusat-pusat bibliografi seluruh dunia.
Bagi kaedah ini, para penerbit mengisi satu borang yang dikeluarkan oleh Pusat Bibliografi Negara. Borang tersebut dikenali sebagai borang Cataloging In Publication (Data Pengkatalogan Dalam Penerbitan). Ia diisi dan disertakan dengan maklumat buku seperti prakata, isi kandungan dan maklumat penulis. Ia dihantar kembali kepada pihak Pusat Bibliografi Negara. Mereka akan keluarkan CIP yang menunjukkan pendaftaran maklumat buku di sana. Contoh CIP adalah seperti di bawah ini
Ia diletakkan di dalam buku pada muka surat imprint (halaman kedua) buku. Apabila ia berdaftar di sana, maklumat ini boleh menjadi bukti apabila berlaku perlanggaran hak cipta. Maklumat lanjut boleh diperoleh daripada laman web Perpustakaan Negara Malaysia. (klik di sini)
Saranan saya kepada para penulis. Sebelum menghantarkan kepada mana-mana penerbit, gunalah salah satu daripada kaedah di atas. Walaupun anda yakin dan percaya kepada penerbit tersebut.
Menulis Seperti Anda Bercakap Dengan Pembaca
May 25, 2007
Pernah ataupun tidak anda duduk bersama rakan-rakan, bersembang, berbicara, berlawak, mengeluarkan kata-kata penuh perasaan, kadangkala ketawa dan kadangkala menangis? Pada saat itu segala fokus penceritaan dan bicara anda adalah memastikan maklumat yang anda ingin beritahu kepada rakan anda sampai. Anda selitkan dengan cerita, anda selitkan dengan contoh, anda selitkan dengan sketsa, anda selitka dengan memek muka dan banyak lagi. Pada saat itu rakan-rakan anda yang mendengar turut ketawa, sedih, gembira dan perasaan lain mengikut perasaan penceritaan anda.
Tentu pernah bukan? Begitulah juga cara kita bercerita dalam penulisan kita. Kita terangkan dengan bahasa penuh sahabat. Bahasa mudah, tersusun dan dipersembahkan dengan penuh menarik. Cuba bayangkan bahawa si pembaca adalah rakan kita yang ingin kita ceritakan sesuatu maklumat. Kita ingin agar si pembaca tersebut faham dan suka dengan apa yang kita ceritakan. Dengan cara sama diselitkan cerita, sketsa, kata-kata hikmat, kata-kata penuh perasaan, sedih, gembira, kelakar dan sebagainya.
Buku yang sebeginilah menjadikan si pembaca rasa tidak sedar bahawa mereka sebenarnya membaca bahan ilmu berat ataupun ringan. Buku itu dibaca dengan penuh minat. Ia mengusik jiwa, perasaan, minda dan rasa pembaca. Si pembaca merasakan bahawa sahabatnya yang berkata-kata dengan mereka. Contoh-contoh kisah hidup dan sketsa menyebabkan si pembaca berada di dalam buku tersebut. Apa yang diceritakan seperti seakan-akan berlaku kepada dirinya.
Apabila anda boleh menulis begini, yakin dan percayalah anda dapat menjadi seorang penulis bestseller. Bagaimana? Boleh ataupun tidak?
Penulis Perlu Melihat Worldview Dunia Penulisan
May 24, 2007
Ada beberapa komen yang saya baca di dalam laman web Puan Ainon Mohd mengenai penulisan buku motivasi. Ada yang memberikan komen positif dan ada yang negatif. Ada yang mengatakan buku-buku motivasi PTS stereotaip dan pelbagai lagi. Pihak saya mengambil perkara ini sebagai suatu yang amat positif. Ini menunjukkan bahawa para pembaca sudah semakin kritikal daripada hari ke hari. Apabila pembaca kritikal bermaksudnya memang mereka ini membaca dan bukan sekadar membeli buku sahaja.
Ia adalah satu cabaran kepada para penulis buku agar lebih kreatif dan lebih inovatif dalam membahaskan pengisian buku masing-masing. Jangan hanya melihat sesuatu perkara hanya sekadar perkara muka sahaja tetapi perlu mendalam dan padat. Saya memuji buku tulisan Dr. Danial Zainal Abidin yang mengupas sesuatu perkara dengan penuh mendalam. Setiap isinya diteliti dengan penuh ilmu. Perbahasannya juga menarik dengan fakta-fakta terkini dan mengagumkan.
Penyelidikan, penyelidikan dan penyelidikan
Itu yang saya boleh sebut dalam menghasilkan karya berkualiti dan menarik. Semalam saya ada membeli satu karya bisnes berbahasa Inggeris yang bertajuk E-Myth Mastery. Karya yang cukup menarik dengan menjadikan seorang individu sebagai kajian kes penulis. Beliau menceritakan bagaimana penulis membantu si individu ini daripada A ke Z. Bagaimana memulakan perniagaan hinggalah kepada kejayaan bisnes individu tersebut (saya masih lagi membaca buku ini, masih belum habis). Buku sebegini masih belum banyak dalam pasaran.
Apabila seorang penulis ingin menjadi penulis yang baik dengan selalu membaca karya yang baik. Beliau tidak boleh sekadar menulis, menulis dan menulis. Tengok apa orang lain tulis. Mana yang baik jadikan panduan, mana yang tidak jadikan sempadan. Sebab itu saya sarankan agar banyak berjalan ke kedai buku. Ada duit lebih pergi melawat pesta buku luar negara. Tak perlu jauh, Indonesia dan Singapura ada pesta buku yang baik. Dalam rombongan saya ke Jakarta untuk Jakarta Book Fair, ada seorang penulis yang turut serta iaitu saudara Ahmad Fadzli Yusof. Ini seorang pengarang yang ingin membuat penyelidikan, penyelidikan dan penyelidikan. Anda bagaimana?
Dunia Penerbitan Yang Dinamik
May 23, 2007
Demam Pesta Buku Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur masih terasa. Minggu-minggu yang sudah berlalu terasa lambat bergerak. Pasukan produksi PTS Millennia Sdn Bhd masih kelihatan lelah disebabkan pengeluaran semasa pesta buku mengerah segala tenaga yang ada. Pengeluaran menjadi dua kali ganda. Jadi tidak hairan apabila keletihan masih terasa walaupun sudah dua minggu meninggalkan pesta buku.
Dunia penerbitan Malaysia semakin hari semakin berkembang pesat. Individu dan organisasi sudah mula menjenguk ke dunia penerbitan sebagai salah satu cabang perniagaan mereka. Ada yang menghubungi saya bertanya bagaimana hendak menubuhkan pasukan penerbitan yang berkualiti. Berapa modalnya? Di mana hendak mulakan langkah? Berapa ahli pasukan yang diperlukan? Di mana hendak membuat kajian pasaran dan sebagainya.
Ini menunjukkan perkembangan dinamik perusahaan buku. Apabila trend sebegini, dunia penerbitan menagih lebih banyak karya berkualiti dihasilkan. Bukan sekadar bercerita persoalan pengantar tetapi melangkah ke dunia yang ilmu yang lebih advance. Masyarakat sudah semakin kritikal. Buku yang biasa-biasa dikatakan sebagai stereotype. Tiada benda baru. Mereka mahukan yang lebih. Lebih bermaklumat, lebih praktikal, lebih segar dan lebih baru.
Ini cabaran kepada para penulis baru dan lama. Jika tidak berubah sekarang, masa akan meninggalkan kita.
The Greatest Mystery: Making a Best Seller
May 21, 2007
Satu artikel menarik yang saya ambil daripada New York Times. Harus dibaca dan dikaji oleh semuaÂ
By SHIRA BOSS
WHEN Shana Kelly, a literary agent at the William Morris Agency, submitted Curtis Sittenfeld’s first novel, “Cipher,†to book publishers in 2003, she had high expectations. She contacted nearly two dozen high-ranking editors at major publishers, expecting every one to make offers for her client’s coming-of-age story set at a boarding school.
Within weeks, though, most editors had passed. “They loved it but weren’t sure they could sell a lot of copies, because they couldn’t figure out how to market it,†Ms. Kelly said. In the end, Random House was the only publisher to make an offer, giving Ms. Sittenfeld a $40,000 advance.
Random House published “Cipher†in January 2005, renaming it “Prep†and backing it with a clever marketing and publicity campaign. But the initial print run was just 13,000 copies — not enough to generate added royalties on the $40,000 advance.
“Prep†proceeded to confound all expectations by making the New York Times best-seller list a month after publication. The hardcover, with a cover price of $21.95, eventually sold more than 133,000 copies, according to Nielsen BookScan, which captures about 70 percent of sales. The paperback also became a best seller, selling 329,000 copies to date. Foreign rights have been sold for publication in 25 languages, and Paramount has optioned the movie rights.
The book was buoyed by favorable press and word of mouth. But other books receive similar attention and go nowhere, so why was “Prep†so successful? Conversely, what causes a book that was all the rage at auction time to fall flat at bookstores?
Brian DeFiore, a literary agent, asks: “Is it the cover? The title? The buzz wasn’t there? Timing? It wasn’t that good?â€
The answer is that no one really knows. “It’s an accidental profession, most of the time,†said William Strachan, editor in chief at Carroll & Graf Publishers. “If you had the key, you’d be very wealthy. Nobody has the key.â€
The hunt for the key has been much more extensive in other industries, which have made a point of using new technology to gain a better understanding of their customers. Television stations have created online forums for viewers and may use the information there to make programming decisions. Game developers solicit input from users through virtual communities over the Internet. Airlines and hotels have developed increasingly sophisticated databases of customers.
Publishers, by contrast, put up Web sites where, in some cases, readers can sign up for announcements of new titles. But information rarely flows the other way — from readers back to the editors.
“We need much more of a direct relationship with our readers,†said Susan Rabiner, an agent and a former editorial director. Bloggers have a much more interactive relationship with their readers than publishers do, she said. “Before Amazon, we didn’t even know what people thought of the books,†she said.
Most in the industry seem to see consumer taste as a mystery that is inevitable and even appealing, akin to the uncontrollable highs and lows of falling in love or gambling. Publishing employees tend to be liberal arts graduates who enter the field with a starting salary around $30,000. Compensation is not tied to sales performance. “The people who go into it don’t do it for the money, which might explain why it’s such a bad business,†Mr. Strachan said.
Eric Simonoff, a literary agent at Janklow & Nesbit Associates, said that whenever he discusses the book industry with people in other industries, “they’re stunned because it’s so unpredictable, because the profit margins are so small, the cycles are so incredibly long, and because of the almost total lack of market research.â€
Publishers do engage in limited numbers crunching. In estimating value, editors rely heavily on an author’s previous sales or on sales of similar titles. Based on those figures and some analysis — about the popularity of the genre, the likely audience, the possible newsworthiness of the topic of the economy — they work up profit and loss projections.
The advance payment to the author is often an estimate of the first year’s royalties, usually 10 percent to 15 percent of expected sales. The advance is a liability for the publisher because it is a fixed cost. It doesn’t have to be repaid by the author if it turns out to be an overestimate, which it usually is. But when earned royalties exceed the advance amount, the author is paid more.
Calculating the advance accurately would be a prized skill, but no editors claim to have a scientific handle on how a book will sell. Instead, they emphasize the role of intuition and say that while big unexpected losses and gains do happen, somehow it all works out.
Susan Weinberg, publisher of PublicAffairs, says some of the best and most interesting books have a unique appeal. “I don’t know how you’d research that,†she says.
But results are not spectacular, for an industry that had $34.6 billion in net revenue in 2005. Net profit margins hover in the mid-single digits for the $14 billion trade segment, which covers adult, juvenile and mass market titles, with an estimated 70 percent of titles in the red.
Sales in the trade segment (which includes both fiction and nonfiction) grew 5 percent in 2005 from the previous year, but year-over-year sales growth is expected to decline to less than 2 percent by 2010, according to book industry trade group data. The industry does follow trends to pursue growth, but when it comes to acquisitions, methods have not changed much in hundreds of years, says Al Greco, a professor of marketing at Fordham University.
IT’S the way this business has run since 1640,†he says. That is when 1,700 copies of the Bay Psalm Book were published in the colonies. “It was a gamble, and they guessed right because it sold out of the print run. And ever since then, it has been a crap shoot,†Professor Greco said.
There is a “business model†that supports this risk-taking. As Mr. Strachan puts it, “Lightning does strike.â€
And so it must. To make money, the industry depends on perennial sellers and on best sellers. It’s not so much the almost sure-fire best sellers by the well-known authors, because those cost so much to acquire and market, but the surprise best sellers. Those include books like “Prep,†“The Nanny Diaries†(bought for $25,000, it sold more than four million copies), “Marley and Me†(bought for $200,000, sold 2.5 million copies) and “The Secret†(bought for less than $250,000, sold 5.25 million copies in less than six months).
“They’re the ones we all hope and pray happen to us one day,†says Judith Curr, the publisher of Atria Books, which printed “The Secret,†a self-help book that explains “the law of attraction.â€
After seeing the movie version of “The Secret,†which existed before the book, Ms. Curr estimated that the planned book could sell a million copies. Based on what? “Just a feeling,†she said. She described it as a tingling that went up her spine.
All of the major houses have also lost on big bets. One of the highest advances ever paid was more than $8 million for a proposal that became “Thirteen Moons,†the second novel by Charles Frazier. He is the author of “Cold Mountain,†which sold 1.6 million copies in hardcover.
Random House printed 750,000 copies of “Thirteen Moons†for the hardcover release in October. The book became a best seller, but it has sold only 240,000 copies so far, according to Nielsen BookScan. That would account for less than $1 million of earned royalties, under standard contract terms. The paperback will be out next month, further diminishing hopes of selling out even the initial hardcover print run.
“It’s guesswork,†says Bill Thomas, editor in chief of Doubleday Broadway. “The whole thing is educated guesswork, but guesswork nonetheless. You just try to make sure your upside mistakes make up for your downside mistakes.â€
Downside mistakes are more risky when they come with higher advances. These result from bidding wars or when a house decides that a project is so special it is worth acquiring at nearly any cost.
“On rare occasions, you love it, bypass the numbers crunching, do back of the envelope in your head, call the agent and get in early and offer half a million,†Mr. Thomas says. That can lead to auction fever.
“That’s often when the business model of this industry falls to pieces,†Mr. DeFiore, the agent, says. “Because publishing houses are paying high six and even seven figures in hopes those books will turn into the megahits they need, but some will and some won’t, so those big bets are dangerous.â€
In the case of hardcovers, a few books that the publishers think have best-seller potential are promoted with generous marketing and publicity campaigns. Others are considered long shots, with anticipated sales of maybe a few thousand copies. Most are considered midlist, with respectable sales of 15,000 to 20,000 copies, Mr. Greco says, but not breakout sales.
Titles can shift categories unexpectedly. “Nobody in publishing is smart enough to know which of the big books will be fiascos, which of the little books will be successes and which in the middle might go up or down,†Mr. Thomas says.
There are two ways for a book to become a best seller. One is to make it on to a best-seller list by selling many copies in a week. Other books sell steadily over months and years, eventually outselling many official best sellers. “Unanswered Cries,†a true-crime book by Tom French, was acquired in 1989 by St. Martin’s for $30,000. It now has 400,000 copies in print in paperback and sold at least 31,000 copies last year alone.
These older titles are crucial to profits because marketing and acquisition costs have usually already been recouped. Yet publishers focus much more attention on the hardcover release. As they prepare to introduce a book, any combination of timing, packaging, marketing and other factors could help ignite the mysterious spark that leads to best-sellerdom.
Contributing to the success of “The Secret,†for example, could be any or all of the following: the subject, the title, the initial DVD release, the marketing campaign, the power of the Internet, “Oprah†and the latest trend.
But “The Secret†is only the most recent book of its type. “Many people have spent lots of money trying to publish the book ‘The Secret’ has become,†says Susan Petersen Kennedy, president of the Penguin Group. “A lot of books are just like that that haven’t worked.â€
The same uncertainty surrounded “Prep.†When Ms. Sittenfeld was writing the novel, she recalled, colleagues said, “The boarding school book has already been written. Why are you doing it again?â€
But after it became a best seller, Ms. Sittenfeld said, she heard the opposite: “Of course it did well! It’s a boarding school book!â€
The publisher of “Prep†attributes the success, in addition to the story, to a catchy title and book cover and creative marketing and publicity. A team of four publicists made belts that matched the cover for giveaways, and sent splashy gift bags (holding pink and green flip-flops, the belt, notebooks, lip gloss) with the galleys to magazines. The pitch letter included photocopies of the publicists’ own high school yearbook photos.
“It got attention, and we started getting calls wanting more and more galleys,†says Jynne Martin, one of the publicists.
An impressive lineup of press coverage followed. The book ended up with coveted crossover market appeal: in addition to young women, the book was read by adolescents, more mature readers and males, according to anecdotal evidence. Information about readers is often anecdotal because publishers argue that market research would be too expensive, or too difficult to pull off because one book is so different from the next.
“Some of the best and most interesting books have something contrarian that does surprise and delight. says Susan Weinberg, publisher of PublicAffairs.
TAKE the surprise of “Skinny Bitch,†a diet book by Rory Freedman, a former modeling agent, and Kim Barnouin, a former model. “The voice is funny, tough love, no nonsense,†the authors’ agent, Talia Rosenblatt Cohen, said. But the authors were largely unknown and advocate a vegan lifestyle. “Everyone kept saying, ‘No platform!’ and ‘Vegan!’ †Ms. Rosenblatt Cohen said.
The book sold to Running Press in Philadelphia for barely over five figures and has not received much mainstream press since its publication 16 months ago. Word traveled among vegans and college students, however, and it became a Los Angeles Times best seller. More than 100,000 copies are now in print, and the authors have signed a deal for two more books with Running Press for “well into the six figures.â€
Some experts wonder if book publishers might uncover more books like this if they tried harder to find out more about their buyers and what they want.
“The Newspaper Association of America has a staggering amount of data on people who read newspapers. The book business has, basically, nothing,†said Professor Greco. “They’re not going into the marketplace and doing mall intercepts and asking people, as they leave the bookstore, ‘What did you buy? Did you find what you’re looking for? What motivated you to choose that book?’ â€
An exception is the consumer research gathered by the Romance Writers of America, a writers’ association that publishes a regular market study of romance readers. It reports survey information on, for example, demographics, what respondents are reading, where they are getting the books and how often, and what kind of covers attract them. Romance authors and publicists use the information to create promotional campaigns.
Most publishers, though, continue to gather data on sales and not much else, though past performance is certainly no guarantee of future results, even from the same author.
After “Prep†became a best seller, Random House signed a two-book deal with Ms. Sittenfeld for a multiple of her $40,000 “Prep†advance that she would not reveal.
Her second coming-of-age novel, “The Man of My Dreams,†was published last May, and again the advance payment and sales haven’t matched up. According to Nielsen BookScan, “The Man of My Dreams†has sold 36,000 copies in hardcover and 6,000 in paperback.
Ms. Sittenfeld says she is reminded of something she heard from an editor: “People think publishing is a business, but it’s a casino.â€
Editors’ note: The editor of the Sunday Business section is under contract to Random House and did not edit this article.
