Know Your Industry

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act but a habit."

- Aristotle

Inspiring People who Know their Industry
I get inspired by people regularly...particularly people with vision who can also execute.  As an author, you are an entrprenuer, and it's important to find and surround yourself with people (virtually or phsyically) who inspire you to keep pushing forward.  For me, Dave Williams is definitely one of those people who "knows his industry."  One of his recent articles is a super example of knowing your industry.  When you read his article on Facebook Advertising, you realize very quickly just how much Dave knows about Facebook and advertising.  Heck, I feel like I need to read this article 20 times just to learn everything that is mentioned in here.  If they haven't already, someone will probably write a 200 page book on the same information in the article...it's packed!

Knowing Your Industry
As Larry (my dad) and I have started the marketing planning work for marketing "the book," we have been doing a lot of research on what is going on in the publishing industry.  We are reading 100s of pieces of information about the market, the industry players, how money flows, what innovative authors are doing, the profile of our target market, book reviewers, etc.  There is a knowledge threshold you really need to clear to understand an industry and how to market yourself in that industry - know the book industry in addition to the industry of the market your book is going to go into (e.g. consumer entertainment, motivation, business, finance, psychology, etc.).  Meeting a knowledge threshold is important...and it takes time...but really costs nothing...the cost is a commitment to learn...and some spare time.  Musicians often fail in this area...they love music but they don't pay attention to business.  Music may be their passion, but if they want to make a living at it, they better understand the business side...I am willing to bet that any musician who has more than one platinum hit over the course of a decade has really learned the biz.  Authors...know the industry.

Why is Knowing Your Industry Important?
Because when you are making decisions about where to spend your time and energy, you are trying to optimize the ROI on your efforts (unless you are just writing as a non-profit).  Whether you know it consciously or not, you are constantly processing inputs that direct your energy...you are in a feedback loop.  And, the market is sending some feedback information to you.  Seeing and understanding what is going on in the book industry will help influence and improve your decisions...and ultimately your ROI.

Perhaps I am stating the obvious, but I am just sharing what is going on in our journey of taking a book to market.  As always, feedback, comments, criticism, etc. is welcomed and appreciated.  As well, let me know what ideas or topics you might want to see me cover.  Thank you for reading!

Amazing Book Facts/Stats

Wow, I just got edu-ma-cated.  There is a ton of interesting facts from this link.  Here are some particularly engaging ones...

6 large publishers (in New York)
3-400 medium-sized publishers
86,000 small/self-publishers


2006: The Top 12 Publishers by revenue were:
Reed Elsevier, Pearson, Thomson, Bertelsmann, Wolters Kluer, McGraw-Hill Education, Reader’s Digest, Scholastic, De Agostini Editore, Holtzbrinck, Gr. Planeta.
--Publishers Weekly, August 6, 2007



California has 6X the number of small publishers than any other state. This finding is consistent with surveys of other creative professions, including desktop publishers, web publishers and multimedia designers.

A larger publisher must sell 10,000 books to break even.
--Brian DeFiore, Maui Writers Conference.

A successful nonfiction book sells 7,500 copies. --Authors Guild.

In 2001, consumers purchased 1.6 billion books.
--2001 Consumer Research Study on Book Purchasing by the Book Industry Study Group

2004. “Of the 950,000 titles out of the 1.2 million tracked by Nielsen Bookscan sold fewer than 99 copies. Another 200,000 sold fewer than 1,000 copies. Only 25,000 sold more than 5,000 copies. The average book in America sells about 500 copies.”
-- Publisher’s Weekly, July 17, 2006

2007. Chains, Internet dominate bookselling.
Chain bookstores accounted for 33% of unit book purchases in the January through September period.
Purchases made through online retailers represented 20% of book purchases.
Book clubs accounted for 12% of book buys.
In all, the direct-to-consumer (Internet, book clubs, book fairs, other) channel accounted for 35% of purchases in the nine-month period.
http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6515670.html

Number of books sold online in 1999: 57 million.
--The Standard, October 23, 2000.

2008: MORE BOOKS SOLD ON THE INTERNET THAN ANY OTHER PRODUCT and the number is increasing. Polling company Nielsen Online surveyed 26,312 people in 48 countries. 41% of internet users had bought books online. 58% of those online in Korea had purchased books online. In the U.S., 57.5-million had purchased books online.

On the average, a book store browser spends eight seconds looking at the front cover and 15 seconds looking at the back cover.
--The Wall Street Journal

The library market represents over $5 billion.

90% of the 15,000 public libraries in the US order (some) of their books through Baker & Taylor and spend more than $444 million on books annually.

How much do people like to pay?
28% $5 to $7.99. Presumably they are buying mostly mass-market paperbacks.
19% $3 to $.99
19% $10 to $14.99
19% $15 to $24.99
--2001 Consumer Research Study on Book Purchasing by the Book Industry Study Group

1859: The first self-help book was published by John Murray Publishers. Written by Samuel Smiles, the title was Self-Help: with illustrations of character and conduct.
The self-help book category came into its own in 1936 with the publication of Dale Carnegie’s book How to Win Friends and Influence People. Today self-help sales are $538-million and account for one in ten titles sold.
--The Wall Street Journal, December 8, 1998.

64% of book buyers say a book’s being on a bestseller list is not important.
--Publishers Weekly, May 12, 1997, page 13.

Super Article Explaining Forces in Publishing

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-why-online-retailers-will-squeeze-out-publishers-in-the-book-business/