Eric Kimmel is a wonderfully prolific author whose retelling of the Greek myths was one of my son's favorite books this year - and I enjoyed it immensely as well. Mother Reader is particularly fond of a certain cowboy/hamster book that Eric wrote (trust Mother Reader - she knows her picture books!) and he is simply a big favorite for those of us who read kid's books on a daily basis. I asked Eric what book he enjoyed this year and he delivered both a recommendation and some thoughts on publishing in general.
Ever so often something on the New Books shelf of our library catches my attention. That happened a month ago. The book is Flip: How to Turn Everything You Know on Its Head—and Succeed Beyond Your Wildest Imaginings. The author is Peter Sheahan, a young Australian who describes himself as a "globally recognized…leading expert in workforce trends and generational change."
It would be easy to dismiss *Flip* as a rah-rah business book. You can get whatever you need out of it in twenty minutes. Sheahan makes his point in the first two chapters and keeps repeating it chapter after chapter. However, the book is not easily dismissed because the point he makes explains what is happening in the headlines.
Sheahan takes Thomas Friedman's notion of the modern world being flat and expands it. The world is not only flat; it's flipped. It's turned completely around. Old ways of thinking; old ways of operating; old ways of doing business no longer work. The past is irrelevant. We're in an age of rapid change. Change is the only variable you can count on. Forget everything you were ever taught, everything you ever learned. It's old baggage. Dump it! The train is leaving. Get aboard or be left behind.
The successful business takes advantage of the interconnectedness and speed of the internet. What you're offering has to be faster, cheaper, and better than the competition's product. Then you add something. You don't know what's going to work and nobody can tell you. So you try an idea. If it succeeds, great! If not, get rid of it and try something else. Trying, experimenting, exploring, discovering new possibilities is staying alive. You have to keep moving. Those who stand still, perish.
I've been thinking about this book for months. Open a newspaper. Watch CNN. Flip! The financial companies are in turmoil. The auto companies are facing bankruptcy. Publishers are laying off hundreds of staff. Major newspapers are desperate for loans to pay their bills. All within a few months. What's going on?
The world has indeed flipped. Profound change now comes so rapidly that the dinosaurs can't adapt. Consequently, they face extinction. Look at what has happened in children's publishing. The chains wiped out the independent bookstores. Budget cuts eliminated libraries and librarians. School librarians had to reinvent themselves as teachers of technology. In time, they actually became technology people. Hardware and software consumed most of their budget. They dropped from being 80% of the market to something like 10% and falling. Just as the music companies realized—too late—that digital music can be easily copied and pirated, publishers discovered that with the demise of independent book stores and libraries, they had lost their major sales force. Who else makes it their business to get kids excited about books?
Kids have plenty of money to spend. *Harry Potter *proved that. But how do you reach them? How do you get them to know abut your book? You have to advertise. That means serious marketing, which publishers never had to do before. Marketing's expensive. You can't do it with every book. So which ones do you push? The ones that are likely to become blockbusters so you can get a return on your investment. The result? *Twilight*, *Eragon*: series after series. You liked the first book, kid? Hold on! We have nine more on the way. Plus a movie!
A lot of money gets pumped into these efforts. When they fail, they send shock waves through the company. Publishers used to say that trashy best-sellers allow them to publish less popular quality work. No more (if it ever was true.) The trashy best-seller builds up a budget to push the next trashy best-seller. The proof? Walk into the kid's section of Borders or B&N. Look around. What do you see?
So what's the answer? Sheahan gives it: faster, cheaper, better—add something. Frankly, I believe we're heading into the age of the digital book. Why not? Producing them is no problem. We currently have everything on our home computers that we need to write, edit, and design a book. Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and a host of similar sites allow us to get the word out. I'm currently offering my own audio recordings of my books on my website. Downloads are simple, fast, easy, and cheap.
Why can't I do that with a book? Well, I can and I intend to. Check out Amazon's digital offerings for its *Kindle*. Way too expensive! Ten to twenty dollars? The model should be iTunes. Offer a manuscript for a buck. Faster, cheaper, better. There are a lot of people with a buck out there, willing to take a chance to find a good book. Now add something: a close connection between author and reader. Even better: authors finally taking control of their careers back from editors, agents, reviewers, publishers; marketing themselves, and keeping the profits.
Don't mourn the dinosaurs. They accomplished great things in their time. But that time has passed. When the last one keels over, the little critters can finally come out of the shadows to enjoy the sun.
And them's us!
