Keeping Up with Today's Trends

It's not great revelation to anyone that the book industry has changed drastically over a very short time period. Publishers are now forced to offer their titles in both printed and electronic formats. Print runs for new books tend to be lower making the cost per book rise. Print on Demand is also a consideration and will possibly become a more integral part of book publishing as technology improves and costs come down.

For these reasons and others, companies that offer support services to self-publishers must adapt. At my company we are aggressively developing publishing programs for cookbook authors that offer lower prices on smaller print runs and flexibility on how we handle the development costs for our Publishers. We are also looking to expand some partnerships in logistical areas which offer the promise of greater distribution numbers in an effort  to get books out of the warehouse and into the hands of consumers.

Nothing ever stays the same but it is really fun staying ahead of the curve. We are adding strategies and publishing solutions for great regional cookbooks that provide a great value proposition for our Publishers. It is our goal to remain the industry leader in the custom publishing by offering the very best value proposition for our clients.

Don't be afraid to challenge your publishing partners by exploring all aspects of a publishing venture before signing a contract. If your vendors are stuck in the past I assure you there are options for companies that have been keeping up with the times.

What is the Future of Regional Cookbooks? Part 1.

Everyone in the book publishing world is trying to understand where the market is going. Never in my thirty-two years of experience have I seen things so muddled. Of course, selfishly I am focusing on the publishing of regional cookbooks but all genres seem to be dealing with the same issues.

What are the issues? In my world the 3 major issues are:

• Consolidation of the brick and mortar bookstores--only one national chain
• The advent of electronic publishing and e-readers
• Free content

The first is problematic because in times past an author or organization had many "community" outlet options for distributing a cookbook. In addition, the chain stores were at least pretending to be "community-friendly" by stocking and promoting regional titles. With only one national chain store in business there isn't much competition. It has become "do it our way or you are left out in the cold".

The electronic issue is a challenge because no one has a clue how the purchase of electronic versions of a title will affect the inventory needs for printed books. Of course, the number of printed copies affects the cost per book as the more books printed the cheaper the price per book.

The free content is especially daunting if one falls into the trap of believing that consumers only buy your book for the recipes. It is absolutely true that you can log onto a bevy of websites and find multiple versions of any particular recipe that you want.

Do the challenges stated above signal an end to the "regional cookbook" genre? I do not think so and many experts agree with me.

These challenges simply mean that an author or organization must be better organized, plan their content more carefully and implement a marketing effort before the books even hit the stores. In the next several posts I'll discuss these issues one at a time plus discuss the fallacy that is being sold as "Print on Demand".