Books Lecture Thursday, October 25, 2012 8:32 AM Intro: READING HABITS The average Canadian reader purchases three books per month Readers who buy both paper and digital copies purchases 18 more books than the average reader (17 books per year) (Booknet) Leisure reading 75% of Gen Y reads regularly for pleasure (pew 2012) • Improves your mood • Deep relaxation • Low key entertainment 3x more women reading than men for pleasure over all demographics • Leisure reading is gendered from childhood - Little girls enjoy playing with their picture books more than little boys. When boys do read, they choose to read informational, humor, and graphic novels rather than fiction Correlation between reading and higher education: Age 15 is a key literacy moment: Research indicates that if you read well by age 15, you are more likely to enroll in higher education institutions by the age of 21. Only half of literacy-deficient 15 year olds will end up in higher education Reading online, on tablets e-reading: • 47% of 18-24 age group regularly reads long form content (such as books, magazine or newspaper articles) online (pew 2012) • Young children recalled less content from enhanced e-books than from unadorned digital versions of the same book - enhanced versions are entertaining, not educational. • Seniors read 3x faster on an iPad - Able to zoom in on the font to make it bigger - Screen's brighter - Change the contrast - Easier to scroll • Reading helps you age more successfully; less likely to get depression or dementia BOOK TYPES Divided by Trade titles and Mass Market Paperback Trade Titles → books you can find at the bookstore • 50% of Canadian sales are trade books - can be fiction/nonfiction, cook books, how-to, travel, biography, adult/children's books • More expensive Mass market → top 40 best sellers • Cheaper (around $10) • Smaller, paperbacks • 20% of Canadian sales Books Page 1 • 20% of Canadian sales • We sell more of them • Feature mass market blockbuster authors Blockbuster authors A huge fan community that buys everything they write • Fund the production of the trade books • Titles that are made into movies • Books will be published in multiple languages [ex] Young adult blockbuster authors: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Suzanne Collins, Stephanie Meyer • Some blockbuster titles have established a digital IQ (the Dark Lord twitter account) Romance fiction • The word of mouth surrounding praise for Fifty Shades of Grey has established the series as a romantic fiction phenomenon - More people feel comfortable reading this series from the privacy of their iPad • Harlequin Enterprises: a piece of Canadian history (created in Winnipeg, 1949), that follows the universal themes that appeal to a global market: love, sex, power - World's leading publisher of women's romance fiction - Classic narrative; fairytales for women - Exports 95% of what they produce, published in 26 languages - Publish >100 titles each month - "Entertain, enrich, desire" tagline - Pioneer producer of eBooks before tablets and smartphones were mainstream (you could purchase digital versions to read on your computer) • Romance novels have a very distinct narrative that they stick to - universal themes Cobranding: Harlequin partnered with Nascar Young adult Different Blockbuster authors who know how to package adventure and fiction • Historically, "chick-lit" was popular (Gossip Girl variety) • New fascination with the supernatural changes this genre - more dark fantasy The Twilight Effect: The flood of vampire related stories into American pop culture in the late 2000s due to the adaptation of the vampire novels in the "Twilight" series into film form, where women of all ages fell in love with pale, melodramatic people who sparkle in the sunlight wilst not being able to act to save their lives - Urban Dictionary • Harlequin has begun producing a vampire/supernatural series • Geared towards teens Teens have begun to recognize their favourite authors as celebrities: We can share our thoughts with the people who write our favourite books through social media approachability Comics, manga, graphic narratives Low cultural value - lowest form of formulaic fiction • Little or no value • Cause moral panics • Developed a self-policing code of conduct to avoid government censoring/external regulation and sale continuation Companies • Marvel comics was purchased by Disney (unexclusively), who is now producing films and theme park promotions centered around these characters - Marvel also sold the rights to their characters to other production companies, like Fox • DC comics Graphic narratives and manga: Books Page 2 Graphic narratives and manga: • Inspired in America by their success in Japanese culture since the 1920s • Most are geared towards males • Manga for women - the "Ginger Blossum" series from Harlequin publications • The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is being converted into a manga series. - More imagery than text The target market is not young adults, but rather middle-aged women • Many graphic novels have been adapted into movies (V for Vendetta) • Graphic novels were established as educational resources with the title "Maus", a 1992 story about the impact of Nazism on Jewish culture during WWII - Appeals to a younger demographic; interesting read for students Multimodal literacies → images and text coexist in an equally blended form • The ability to "read" images in an essential 21st century skill - we're a visual culture now • Linearity of narrative is not expected - potential cognitive workout • Different literacies work well with the rise of the graphic web • Attracts young boys to reading - useful classroom texts Instant and celebrity books Autobiographies, rise to stardom story, biographies, memoir Instant Books: first on the stand • Fact-checking is not important • Instantaneity is the currency • Capitalize on newsworthy-ness of the moment University press titles Mostly not in the business to be successful in the commercial marketplace • Won't see at Chapters/Indigo • Available online • Publishes professor's books Reference books, encyclopedias → Referred to rather than read start to finish • Encyclopedias • Catalogs • Dictionaries Need to be updated to online versions in order to maintain their usability • Many encyclopedias went online-only in order to be able to constantly update their entries with changing times, and to enhance their ability to include multiple entries from a variety of sources • Wikipedia (2001): 23 million articles, 365 million readers, available in 285 languages - Studies show that Wikipedia has similar error rates to online print encyclopedias Textbooks BOOK SALES Bestseller lists & book prizes How books are ranked on these bestseller lists determines how they will sell • Bestseller lists are compiled by industries, trade organizations, and newspapers Awards (nominated or won) will increase readability traffic • Winning an award allows authors to change their covers to include their award sticker, which will attract an audience Books Page 3 will attract an audience Bookstores, retail chains: trysumers, being-spaces • Indigo controls 40% of domestic book sales - Has swept up smaller book chains • Your book needs to be featured in retail chains to be successful Being Space → Space between work and home • Cafés • Being with other people while doing your own personal work • Half private/half social - encourage communication Trysumers → Allow you to try out the book or magazine in their in-store cafés before you buy it • Allow you to have a sample of the product so that you will make the purchase Independent & used book retailers Different landscape of books that are available to be purchased leads to a heightened discoverability of smaller, more obscure titles. • Not enough book traffic leads to closure of small book retailers - We have sentimental feelings about small bookstores, but we still tend to vote with our wallets: we want the immediacy and cheapness of the big box stores • Best chances at success if they niche themselves into genres Mass-market retail/non traditional & department store Nontraditional Book retailers: • 30% of Canadian book market is sold in Big Box stores like Costco, Walmart and other department stores • Will only hold on to titles for a short period of time - small window for success before being sent back to the publisher • Prices are extremely low - changes our expectation of how much a book should sell for universally Online bookstores • 35% growth in online book retail throughout 2011 now that we are more comfortable in using credit cards online • eBooks represent 16% of Canadian book market • Big box book retailers don't care if you buy books online or in paper copies Amazon.com is at the forefront of selling more books than any other company due to their extensive inventory International • 1.5 B annual Canadian book sales • 27.2 B in USA Bandwagon Sales: 65% of sales are the top 10000 titles, 35% of sales are the remaining 400000 titles (long tail effect) • We read the same books at the same time based on Bestseller lists Book clubs: mail order to online, and social book clubs Popular in rural areas who did not have an access to book stores A panel of literary experts choose the books for you: Oprah identifies books we should be reading (cultural and literary authority) through her online-only book club • Agenda-setting Books Page 4 • Agenda-setting • Celebrity endorsement curates the literary sales • A book club establishes itself as a sound selector of good books and sells by means of its own