Ref lec t ions on the P u b l i s h i n g Scene

The Best-Seller Fishpond Invaded, Or, The Storming of the

Best-Seller Lists by Leviathan

Richard Abel

L ast fall at an informal meeting of bookish types, with a satisfying season- ing of well-grounded overseas bookmen, the CEO of a leading trade/text

house noted for the cultural quality of its list posed a riddle to launch lunch- time conversation along a different track than that which had preoccupied the group all morning. The riddle turned on the projected distribution of Pope John Paul's then forthcoming book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, which was clearly to make its way to the bestseller list. Orders for something between one and one-and-a-half million were then expected to be booked b~, publication date. The riddle was posed along the following lines: "How can this enormous number of copies be gotten out to the retail book-trade in some reasonable and orderly way? The book-trade has never satisfactorily absorbed anything much approaching half this number on publication date in the past."

Several tentative hypotheses were volunteered, but with little conviction, by some of the bolder members of the group. The riddler, sensing the floundering of the assemblage, put the uncertainty to rest by supplying the answer. Half or more of the total order had been taken up by the wholesale price-clubs and the retail discount chain~ Wal-Mart, etc.

The point of posing the riddle was not to marvel at the enormous number of copies of the book printed and subscribed to so early in its career but rather to comment upon the rapid advance of such discount outlets into a position of dominance in the making and marketing of bestsellers in the most startling and striking fashion possible.

The point made, the conversation moved on to other matters. But the impact and import of so compelling an example was such that it was impossible in later moments not to repeatedly summon it to mind, mentally turning it over and over to wrest as much meaning from it as possible--and to form hypoth- eses as to its likely long-term significance and consequences.

Not long after the riddle-telling occasion. Publisher's Weekly published an article on the reluctant use of wholesale price-clubs by some retail booksellers whose stock of one popular title or another had been exhausted and for which

104 Publishing Research Quarterly / Summer 1995

replacement inventory was not readily available. So, despite their aversion, an apparently growing number of retail booksellers have turned to the enormous quantities of such titles which the price clubs stock for their replacement in- ventories. By clear implication the price clubs stock and more importantly, are able to stock and sell, in such quantities because they are the most recent, most highly evolved, and most successful of the class of mass-market merchandis- ers. They are increasingly able to move almost inconceivably large quantities of that relatively limited number of individual products that are hugely popu- lar throughout the society in which they operate. Their management and their buyers clearly have a remarkably keen and certain sense of what the mass market will buy in mass market quantities. The wholesale price-clubs and discount retail chains do not stock books out of any fondness for books or any sense of the cultural mission/role of the book or any ego satisfaction derived from being part of an "in" literary crowd. They simply wish to satisfy the needs of the mass-market as expressed by that market with dollars in the till. They are performing the classic economic function of satisfying an economic market / need extraordinarily efficiently.

This evidence of the rapidly growing dominance of these kinds of marketers in the making and marketing of bestsellers when coupled with that of the lunch-time riddle episode recounted earlier can only foster considered specu- lation upon the meaning of such a growing dominance.

By way of establishing a starting point, one can safely stipulate that the Pope's book is thoroughly atypical of the vast preponderance of the titles that appear on the fiction and nonfiction bestseUer lists promulgated by various entities. The Pope's book, in fact, stands in stark contrast to the usual fare found on the bestseller lists by virtue of the eminence of its author, its serious and significant content, its committed ethical posture, its absence of intellec- tual cant, and its genuine contribution to the marketplace of ideas. Indeed, the obverse of these qualities can usefully describe and define all but a handful of the titles that appear in the fiction and nonfiction bestseller lists in any year. In short, the titles typically appearing on the bestseller lists, both fiction and nonfiction, are largely aimed at the passing fancies of the mass popular enter- tainment market.

Looking at the increasing dominance of the price clubs and discount retail chains, it seems we may well be looking at another of those critical junctures in the evolution of the book trade. We may well be witnessing another of those defining events which radically alters the role or place of a significant compo- nent in the totality of the codices encompassed by the book-trade amalgam. Such defining events in the book trade have most commonly taken the form of what can be styled the partitioning or defining of a distinct class of books. As with all classes, the members of a class of books all bear distinct likenesses to one another and distinct differences from members of all other classes as well as the general amalgam of what might be called textual artifacts or objects assembled as codices. (The latter formulation is cast in abstract terms only to endeavor to describe the entire universe of what are commonly called books.)

Abel 105

The employment of the codex technology for the packaging of a wide variety of mental products has led not only to much intellectual confusion in dealing with all the categories and classes of textual artifacts contained therein but in coming to grips with the intellectual, ethical, aesthetic, and social roles of those textual artifacts. While it is true that significant progress in sorting out this muddle of the intellectual, ethical, aesthetic, and social uses and ends has been clarified in the last half of the last century and this century, enormous confu- sion still abounds.

To get some bearings in trying to come to grips with the likely place of the price clubs in the world of bestsellers, it might be helpful to trace several of those past defining events which by partitioning off distinct classes of books helped clarify and define the uses and ends of text artifacts employing the codex technology. Only four of the most notable defining events partitioning off and thus distinguishing a class of books will be cursorily traced here for purposes of immediate clarification. Many more than those employed here have, of course, occurred. It should also be noted that when a class of books is partitioned off, the entire book trade is somehow involved---even if that in- volvement results simply in the exclusion of one or another sector of the book trade from any or limited participation with such a class of books. If a sector is excluded that outcome is, as will be seen, largely the work of the sector(s) excluded--and certainly not the result of some great conspiracy conceived by the principal players in one sector or another to exclude or otherwise have at one or another of the other sectors, a form of pseudo-theory altogether too commonly resorted to in this age of victimology.

The first example is that of the partitioning-out of the school (K-12) textbook in response to the upsurge in the formation of public schools in the United States in the latter half of the last century. Decades were to pass before this defining event was to be fully played out, with many casualties along the way. But the partitioning process went forward in an inexorable way as the conse- quence of social, economic, and later, political forces. When this class of book had finally matured, its uses and roles were relatively clear and it was equally easy to distinguish it from all the other kinds and categories of book being published and sold.

A handful of perceptive publishers, recognizing the opening of an entirely new fault-line in the socioeconomic structure of the society, responded by breaking out separate departments or forming entirely new companies exclu- sively dedicated to the publishing of this class of book. Much of the response by this small band of pioneers was of a cut-and-try kind for history was unable to furnish any useful prior model. The school textbook failed to find a home in the boardrooms and management offices of the bulk of the publishing commu- nity. Rather, it was the work of a few publishing entrepreneurs prepared to look beyond the comfortable, old-school way of doing publishing.

This defining event, which partitioned off the school textbook class of textual artifact from all other classes and categories of books, was not confined solely to the publishing side of the book trade. Clearly school textbooks had to be

106 Publishing Research Quarterly / Summer 1995

marketed and distributed to their users. In any case, only a few booksellers tried to adapt and those few did so in so half-hearted a way that at the end of the day an entirely new marketing procedure and practice was adopted. A few of the booksellers of an entrepreneurial kind who entered the field of school textbooks were ultimately reduced to a simple warehousing function, losing all characteristics of a fully operational book-selling role. This need not have been the outcome, as the case of the partitioning off of the college textbook proves.

The review media, in parallel with the booksellers, failed to respond vigor- ously to the emergence of this distinct class of books and their particular requirements. Virtually all of the newspaper review editors and writers and the vast preponderance of the magazine review editors and writers were so preoccupied by their cultish rituals of novel-watching that the radical parti- tioning of so socially and culturally critical a class of books as school textbooks passed them by entirely. This, despite the fact that significant fractions of their subscribers were parents of children using such texts. And also in spite of the fact that many of these parents had--and continue to have--a profound inter- est in the what, how, and why of their children's education. (The review of this class of books, given the vacuum created by the vacant-eyed, slack-jawed re- sponse of the media, left this vastly important critical function in the hands of the educational bureaucracy--but this is matter for another day.) Unhappily, this became the first of the cases in which the partitioning off of various subse- quent classes of books, and the books in those classes, has been ignored by the media.

The second great partitioning off of an entire class of books involved books dealing with religion. In this case, virtually all established publishers, book- sellers, and review media simply forsook or ignored this class of books. The field was largely abandoned to the publishing arms of various denominational bodies and the so-called "Christian" book-stores, and, again, the critical re- view function was derogated to the denominational media. A huge volume of publications of great cultural import were simply allowed to slip into a kind of underground existence. But, however various elements of the book trade may have dealt with the phenomenon, the more important fact for present pur- poses is the radical partitioning off or breaking away of a separate and distinct identity from the general amalgam of textual artifacts represented by books devoted to religious content.

In rough chronological order, the next major class of textual artifacts of inter- est which were separated out of the general amalgam of books were college textbooks. The typical pattern of a handful of alert publishers identifying the opening socioeconomic fault line which resulted form the founding of an in- creasing number of public universities is evident. These few either broke out separate departments or founded entirely new firms devoted exclusively to the publishing of books of this class.

An encouraging number of booksellers also had the foresight to comprehend this major upheaval in the cultural landscape. A sufficient number of far-

Abel 107

sighted booksellers capitalized on the fact that the marketing and distribution of college textbooks did not go entirely the way of school textbooks. It might be noted, in passing, that several of these pioneer college textbook publishers are still alive and well--among them the Barnes & Noble and the Follet groups. But the total number of booksellers prepared to actively market and sell col- lege textbooks proved too small so the marketing job remained at the end of the day with the publishers.

The review media, as could have been predicted, had by this time wandered so far into the swamp of providing and promoting the crassest of mass popu- lar entertainment and watered-down arts stuff that this momentous partition- ing-out of a major class of books passed them utterly by. This may have proved to be an enormous boon, for one can imagine the thin gruel and garbled accounts the review media would have made of the strong meat and dish of college textbooks had they the temerity to venture so far from their steamy, clinquish habitat.

The final example for present purposes of the partitioning of a distinct class of books from the general mass of textual artifacts was that associated with the defining event of the scientific revolution. This class of books is now generally referred to as STM books. The pattern of its partitioning roughly replicates that of the class of college textbooks. This is hardly surprising for the origins of the STM class are to be found, in part, in the advanced college textbook. And in any case, many of the leading STM publishers had earlier become major col- lege textbook publishers.

Again, a handful of booksellers saw the emerging fault-line underlaying the partitioning of STM texts as a distinct class of books. Some became dealers in STM books exclusively while others like Krochs in Chicago and Staceys in San Francisco never foresook some general book-selling to devote all of their ener- gies to marketing and distributing this class of books. Unhappily, again, how- ever, an inadequate number of booksellers were sufficiently alert to the emer- gence of this class of book or alternatively were unwilling to undertake the rigorous intellectual preparation needed to sell such books. So, once again an entire class of books largely eluded the retail trade and the bulk of the market- ing and the selling of this class of books remains with the publishers' direct- mail operations.

The review media were clearly quite unable either at the time or subse- quently to comprehend the underlaying intellectual roots which led to the structural partitioning of the class of STM books or the partitioning of this class itself.

Against this background of the successive partitionings off of an increasing number of distinct classes of books in response to underlying socioeconomic factors of one kind or another, it seems not unreasonable to posit that another great partitioning off of texts may be at hand as a result of the rapidly emerg- ing place of the price clubs in the selling of a class of texts of entertainment. There are several leading factors which support the proposition that this might be the natural coming together of these factors.

On the one hand is a mass-market product which has never realized its full

108 Publishing Research Quarterly / Summer 1995

market potential due to the well-known and oft commented upon limitations of the retail book-trade in fully reaching the mass market.

The next factor is the emergence of a new kind of retail organization care- fully crafted to sell mass-market products and always voracious for new mass- market products.

Next, it is clear that the publishers/editors who have been involved with books of this kind have seemed for years now more comfortable in the com- pany of those in the media--not just the newspaper and magazine industries but the film and television industries---than of bookmen and women. The tastes and values of those involved with mass popular entertainment products of all kinds seem those shared by those involved with books of this kind. In this environment publishers of the entertainment class of books have also found their natural allies---newspaper and magazine book reviewers and liv- ing section editors; radio and television talk show hosts; and other purveyors of sound and fury. In these precincts they can most readily find the editors, producers, etc. who wheel-and-deal in mass entertainment properties and so possess not only the financial resources but also the proclivities and values required to play in the high-stakes crap-shoots which mark every particular venture into slacking the fickle mass taste.

The leading figures in the mass popular entertainment quarters of the book publishing houses involved with this class of book are unquestionably watch- ing the new mass-merchandizing engines of price clubs and discount retail chains with the keenest interest. These advanced, sophisticated, complex re- tailing machines seem to represent to them what the automobile was to Mr. Toad---a device so powerful and compelling that the machines took on a near mystical quality.

Should the next great partitioning off of another distinct class of textual artifacts, texts of mass popular entertainment, as projected here come to pass, it would, unlike other major historic partitionings, have proved to be entirely socially and economically driven--and so lacking any political component.

The consequences flowing from such a partitioning off of texts of mass popular entertainment driven by the first mass-merchandising opportunity for origi- nal, as distinct from reprinted, titles is far from clear. The book-publishing community has proved itself remarkably adept at coming to terms with the emergence of other socially-economically-politically driven fault-lines in the last century-and-a-half. I will hazard the guess that the future pattern will follow that so successfully employed in the case of other major partitionings, including those summarily traced here. Some publishers will break out sepa- rate departments dedicated exclusively to the publishing and marketing of books of mass popular entertainment. Some such corporate restructuring is already evident in a primitive form in several major firms.

In some cases, entirely new publishing firms will be established, which are totally dedicated to exploiting this market opportunity. The model such new imprints will undoubtedly draw on heavily is that of the remarkably success- ful Harlequin Enterprises. Latter day book mass-marketers will endeavor to

Abel 109

quickly seize the mass-market agenda from established publishers and then attempt to maintain a dominating position and market share for this class of books. It would not be inappropriate to style such houses as niche publishers, despite the fact that this term has conventionally been applied heretofore only to the many small publishers which have emerged in the last two to three decades to serve the information/knowledge needs of various social and cul- tural subgroups.

The committed bookmen and women in mixed trade houses will almost certainly welcome such a partitioning away of this class of books and the staff associated therewith. Such a separation will more readily permit the former to not only get on with publishing of more substantial fare. More importantly, it will return the expectations, objectives, and general ambience to an environ- ment in which marketing, scheduling, and financial expectations are much more nearly in keeping with the underlying realities of the information/knowl- edge marketplace.

For the book-selling community sector such a partitioning out can only strengthen and extend the role of the so-called superstorewwhether those of one of the chains or the large so-called independents. Only large general book- stores capable of providing an increasingly wider assortment of other classes of books and specialist booksellers will be positioned to survive the marginal reduction in sales, and hence of marginal profit, of the mass popular entertain- ment class of books lost to the growing dominance of the price clubs and retail discount chains in this market.

So many other significant and economically consequential classes of books have been lost to the retail bookselling sector in the last 150 years, that it is unlikely the sales of other classes of books will increase sufficiently to sustain present rates of growth of the superstores. If this sense of the future is borne out, the number of superstores which can survive in any particular market area will necessarily level off or, in overly built market areas, decline.

The future of most of the book review sector in a scenario of roughly the shape projected here seems far more problematic. Clearly the strong sense of being a part of the apparatus which sets much of the tone and belief of what they conceive to be the contemporary cultural scene leads to a kind of man- nered vanity. It is hard to imagine many of those perceiving themselves as members of such a self-described elite body willing to demean themselves by writing product reviews and comparisons for the trade journals serving the mass-market retailer and chain store sectors or the organs serving the mass popular entertainment market. Yet that kind of text represents what has been for years at the base of the mental world of most of them. So what will become of them? Their principal stock-in-trade has, for years, been mass popular en- tertainment fare. It is virtually all they know. Yet their sense of their place in the society will likely prevent them from acknowledging as much when this class of texts is partitioned off from the amalgam of general books to find its natural and most productive market with the mass-merchandisers and their customers.

110 Publishing Research Quarterly / Summer 1995

Some can, and gratefully will, complete the migration to a total preoccupa- tion with the works of bureaucratic culture upon which they entered some years ago. Indeed, some of the grayer heads in the present-day review commu- nity were not only ardent proponents of, but quite active propagandizers for the proposition that government and foundations had a cultural responsibility to foster the small literary press movement. They and their associates in this campaign were, of course, eminently successful--the numbers of subsidized small literary presses and committee-approved literary publications have in- creased beyond anyone's wildest imaginings. The review media devoted to such bureaucratically approved undertakings and writings has grown equally remarkable for they have enjoyed the same formula-based fiat and doctrinaire support as their confederates who draft and publish such matter. The small literary press movement looked at whole has become a remarkably affluent and thriving cottage industry. It has been the darling of a not inconsiderable number of the mainstream review editors and writers. Many reviewers, dis- possessed by the likely partitioning off of books of mass popular entertain- ment, can undoubtedly turn profitably to bureaucratically acceptable review- ing in the hothouse of bureaucratic culture.

The perceptive reader cannot but have been put off by the failure in this piece to attend to the concerns of that sector of the book trade which makes the universe of books possible---namely the reading public. In every one of the partitionings of distinct classes of books in the past the reader was by and large the true winner. The sole exception is the school textbook. But this later exception is not the fault of the conception but rather of the massive--and entirely detrimentalwintrusion of political forces in its use. How might the partitioning off of a distinct class of mass popular entertainment books affect the reader?

Such an outcome would profit readers mightily. In the most concise terms: the readers of mass popular entertainment books--the largest single body of readers in terms of numbers of copies and dollars spent for any of the catego- ries of books presently in the amalgam of general book publishing--would profit greatly for they would be able to acquire their reading fare at prices well below those obtaining at present. This is because such books are, at present, moving through less efficient, and therefore, more costly channels.

The readers of more substantial books would profit as well, though not as markedly. This is because the pathway from writers' expectations through publishers' expectations and finally to booksellers' expectations would, in time, be resized or recalculated to the realities of the market for serious and substan- tial publications in retail outlets carrying a broad and deep stock. As a conse- quence, the prices of such books might fall slightly as they would not be forced to carry the heavy overheads associated with the financial expectations of those involved with mass popular entertainment titles. But more importantly, the broadened inventories which the marginal loss of this class of books would force upon superstores would provide serious readers with a bonanza of here- tofore difficult to obtain, if not inaccessible, titles.

Abel 111

And it might not prove utterly inconceivable that this widened availability of substantial titles might encourage more such publishing, and, also, prove part of the remedy for the seemingly uncontrolled collapse of our quite re- markable cultural heritage.

41i}iil!i!:

,!~i!i!~i!

~, , , . . . . . :'~/.: New York.~lY ~ 10003~5588 .... ::: ~'~ ~:

~ r subscriRtion i , f o ~ i ~ ! , write ~;~:i ;I~!! Class i ca l W o r l d : .~i ::: :; /

::i'.:;!i Departrnent of Classics :,=I ,i : , ?z;~:~ :Duquesne Universityi~;i i~i I ~ ::: ~i',i : Pittsburgh, PA 152~2:i704 % i ~'-!i~

Subscr ptmns (mndmvmdual:aod hbra~i:~;:~.~