Follow the Reader: How publishers and booksellers can reach new readers

Americans are reading fewer books each year, a fact confronting publishers big and small. Even as publishers continue to ratchet up production, they know that a digital frontier of publishing has arrived, and in order to remain a relevant among the iPhone and Web 2.0 users, they must find new ways to reach their audience. Or as I like to think of it, they have to follow the reader.

Formal and informal, the studies indicating fewer readers are many. Last November, for example, the National Endowment for the Arts released "To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence," which concluded that our country is experiencing "a general decline in reading among teenage and adult Americans," and that "both reading ability and the habit of regular reading have greatly declined among college graduates." Though this study built on the NEA's 2004 report, "Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America," the challenge to publishers remains clear: How do they sell books to people who don't read books?

Or are publishers interpreting the data correctly? At O'Reilly Tools of Change conference in February, Stephen Abram delivered a keynote address entitled "Information 3.0: Will Publishers Matter?" and pointed out a crucial distinction: Americans are not reading less, they're reading differently. To the point, they're reading online, a shift that explains MIT's estimated 25 percent annual growth rate in the number of websites. Abram explained that for today's reader, the Web's authority not only rivals that for printed material-it's beating it. If online information is reliable, convenient, and free, the real question to ask is, how can the printed book compete?

In his closing keynote at the 2007 PubWest Annual Conference, Andrew Savikas spoke to this issue and maintained that the Internet is "rapidly superseding the function of print publishing." Information that, up until recently, could be found only in print is now available online for free, 24/7. Entire categories of books, for instance cookbooks and travel guides, are under seige from websites like Epicurious and TripAdvisor. According to Savikas, book publishers must expand their model of publishing into one that supports and interfaces with digital media, enabling houses of all sizes to divide and repurpose book content into formats that accommodate readers' new reading patterns. Here are a few steps to consider when following the reader:

• Every book should be available in multiple formats: print, digital, and online subscription.
• Publishers should sell chapters individually.
• Book content should be divisible into articles available online for free, both as separately usable content and as teaser for the complete electronic or printed book.

However, publishers should not move to the Web without care, WIRED magazine's Chris Anderson, best known in publishing for his "long tail" concept, describes the pressures facing digital content in the March 2008 issue in this way: "Anything that becomes digital becomes free."

Many in the industry believe that the printed book will continue to hold value for readers long after publishing has transitioned into the digital era. They also believe there will continue to be a need for distribution, and for the bookstore. Arsen Kashkashian, buyer for the Boulder Book Store in Boulder, CO, is a believer but says that reaching or creating new readers poses a "vexing problem" for independent bookstores. Kashkashian follows his readers by focusing his efforts on retaining his best customers and rewarding frequent buyers for their repeat business. He has also designed the store to be welcoming and comfortable, like "a living room and not a library". To encourage reading, the Boulder Book Store donates pallets of children's books to local schools and schedules a wide range of events intended to appeal to nontraditional book readers.

Kashkashian believes the decline in reading is simply a cultural phenomenon, and feels the problem is exaggerated. "We didn't run around in 1957 fretting about how many people were reading," he says. "Some people were reading and passionate about books, and the publishing industry catered to them. Today, the problems facing bookstores and publishers are ones of competition, with websites and stores both offering an endless array of titles being published in an already cluttered marketplace. Perhaps the anomaly is the explosion of mega-stores, the number of published titles, and the commoditization of books, and not how many people are reading.

The Web is both threat and opportunity. Traditional print-only publishing faces an inevitable decline as the supply of information overwhelms the demand of a book-averse public. Yet the Web offers publishers an opportunity to serve (and follow) readers in new ways. While the Web's short history has shown that digital content eventually becomes free (think Google), the Web brings readers closer to publishers than ever before-and at close quarters, it promises to teach us how to stay connected to our readers.

This article was originally published in the fall 2007 issue of The Endsheet, the newsletter of the Publishers Association of the West.