Ep. 34: What’s The Best Option for Your Business Book: Hardcover or Paperback?

Welcome to the Pub Date Podcast, the show where two book broads discuss what should happen before, during, and after your book publication date. Brought to you by Broad Book Group with your host Vanessa Campos and Jen Dorsey.

Hello friends. Hello Jen.

Hello friend and friends. How we doing today? What's new? What's new in the book world?

So many things are new in the book world. People are trying to blend in their big corporations and then the retailers are having changes in the way that they do things. Bookshelves aren't going to be big enough for everybody.

It's a—

it's kind of a mess.

It's a mess. There's a lot, there's a lot going on. Books, books are having a real moment in the news right now. As you, as you alluded to, because of the big DOJ Penguin Random House Simon Schuster kerfuffle that's ongoing. Yeah, everything and everything is going on, especially on Twitter, on book Twitter. It's been very active lately. For lots of reasons, but the big one that you and I have both noticed is the middle grade fiction Barnes Noble kerfuffle that's going on right now.

Yes. So part of me is thinking, okay, the writing's been on the wall, but I know that because we've been in publishing and in those meetings, you know, the initial purchase orders from retailers, but we've kind of seen the trends going in this direction. Well, let's get into it. How about, how about you tell us a little bit about what, uh, Daunt— is his name Daunt? Daunt? Daunton?

Daunt? Daunt.

James Daunt has made a decision regarding Barnes Noble.

Yes. So, um, and people who are listening right now are probably like, what are they talking about? So let's bring everyone into the weeds with us.. And I'll just give a super quick overview of this. And it's— I think this will be interesting for, even though most of our audience is nonfiction, I think this will be of interest to everybody, and we'll explain why here in just a minute. So a lot of authors were on Twitter last week and TikTok and whatever social they are on to express their concern that their hardcover middle grade fiction books were not getting picked up by Barnes Noble for, for display in the store. Now, this has nothing to do with B&N online because you can get anything on B&N online as long as your metadata works. If it's on Amazon, it's on B&N. At any rate, this was just about the, the in-store piece of it. So lots of upset authors because their book was not— their debut book is not going to show up at B&N on the shelf. Um, and lots of questions as, as to why that is. So just to unpack it a little bit, there's— B&N has for the last almost two, well, more than two years now. It's been a long tail process. They've been rethinking and reframing how they set up their stores and what those stores look like. So, you know, in the old days, in the early, you know, in the early 2000s and the late '90s, B&N was technically a big box store and it was everything under the sun and it was a ton of books and, you know, it was, it was the big beast, right? It was a big bad B&N. And then Amazon came along and kind of knocked them off of their, off of their, um, their number one spot there. And then now Amazon's kind of the, the big bad guy, right? Or at least the biggest of the big retailers. So Barnes Noble over the last few years has learned that they've had— they will have to reframe how they present themselves to the book buying public. They can no longer be the big thing. So, um, over the last few years, James Daunt came in, um, who, um, he's British and I think brought in a lot of, um, a lot of ideas from what worked for Waterstones, which was the, the company that he worked with before. So part of that is that they have smaller SKUs, there are fewer books on the shelves, there's a lot of what we in the business call sideline items, which if you go in, it's toys, it's games, it's candles, it's all kinds of the random that you see at B&N now. A lot of those things are taking up more shelf space, so there's less space for books. So, you know, that's kind of the history of how we got here. And it's been happening across all categories. So middle grade fiction just happens to have a very enthusiastic and vocal, you know, author pool, I think. And, you know, you really have to be out there on social for middle grade fiction to work these days. So, you know, they're the ones kind of ringing the bell here saying, hey, why is this? Why are our new books not being put on the shelf? And it's business decisions. At least that's what Barnes Noble is saying. So that's kind of the backstory there. Sorry, that was a long and winding road to get to here, which is that everybody's mad. Everyone's mad.

Everyone is mad. But I think it's really important to also discuss something that Dawn did say. It was regarding, you know, and this is just across the board. It's not just middle grade. It's not YA. It's not nonfiction. But typically a bookstore wants to see, good solid marketing on the behalf of the publisher, on the behalf of the book from the publisher and the author. They want to see that marketing dollars are being spent to drive traffic to either the stores, you know, the locations, the websites, etc., where these books are being presented in order for people to say like, oh yes, I want to go get that book. There's a Barnes Noble down the street from me. Let's go ahead and do that. But as we have learned from the DOJ kerfuffle is that not a lot of books that get picked up will actually get the marketing platform and support that they need. So, right, guess who's kind of being pushed out is those up-and-coming voices, the marginalized communities that are, you know, essentially being picked up by a Simon Schuster. But guess what? From what I recall, if a book isn't in the $250,000 advance bucket, then you're probably not going to get a very robust marketing effort from your publisher.

Right. And I think it's very dependent on the size of the publisher. I mean, you and I know very well that you can have a big publisher, you can be with a Big Five, possibly soon to be Big Four, depending on how the DOJ trial shakes out. Um, and that's great. And you have this big what looks like a very big marketing machine behind you. And, and it is. There are lots of people who work in the marketing departments and the PR departments at those companies. But at the same time, if you're with them, with a more midlist-size author or an indie publisher, sometimes you get a little bit more traction when it comes to the marketing output there, just because you, you know, they're staking more on you. When you are one of thousands of books that are coming out, it's hard for a department, a marketing department, to say, okay, here's $100 grand to go run a marketing campaign. Whereas if you are the big fish in a smaller pond, even though that pond is smaller and has less money, sometimes you get a lot more organic marketing support. And, and you're right, something that a lot of people have been bringing up is, hey, this is really affecting marginalized authors. It's really affecting people of color who are putting their books out, and women, and, you know, all the people who are writing in YA spaces right now who you know, who this is their— it's their first ticket to the rodeo and, um, and they're not loving it so far, understandably so. So whether or not that was part of the intention, I don't think it was. I think it was a business decision. These are the people that it's affecting.

And I think it's important to also point out the fact that I believe the conversation started, um, with Barnes Noble specifically with the hardcover format. Right? So they're saying hardcovers don't sell through at the retailer level, so at the physical bookstores, paperback do better. So then you and I started kind of going back and forth and saying like, well, this is actually the age-old question when it comes to books, right? Which is the better option for your book, hardcover or paperback? All right. And being in business, you know, nonfiction business books I think traditionally you always saw the hardcover with the jacket and the gloss and emboss, and it was a very prestigious thing, right? A big ticket item when it comes to books, in my opinion.

Correct, correct. Very much the, the Jack Welch book model, right? That, you know, everything in, at least in the business and kind of the personal growth and development categories that you and I work with frequently, almost all of those books, at least back in the early days of the early 2000s, came out in hardcover first because it was prestige. It was sort of an ethos thing. You know, here I am, I'm subject matter expert, I have a hardcover book. So there was always this mentality around hardcover, this mysticism that somehow it made it better. Or more valuable in some ways to the author than paperback books. And so, you know, now it's a whole different world. We don't sell books the way we used to, we don't market them the way we used to, and quite frankly, we don't print them the way we used to because we're facing printer shortages, paper shortages, we're facing shortages—

printer shortages.

Yeah, printer shortages. And printers, like everybody else, are starting to consolidate. So, you know, there are a lot of business decisions that drive that decision, whether to go hardcover or paperback. So I can't speak to middle grade fiction because that's not my wheelhouse, but I agree. I think this is a good jumping off point for us to talk about it for people who we serve, which is what do you do? Do you do that hardcover or you do that paperback? From a marketing standpoint, what are your thoughts on that?

From a marketing standpoint, I know that everyone, you know, traditionally says, well, release the hardcover, leave it alone for, you know, 6 months to a year. So so that when you are releasing the paperback, it doesn't cannibalize your hardcover. But here's the thing, back to your point about how we're not printing and selling books the same way that we used to, I think it just need— the math needs to make sense to you as a, as an author and as a business owner, because the book is essentially a product. And as a self-published author, there's no reason for you to not release all formats at the same time. Because if you think about it, the person who wants to buy the hardcover is going to buy the hardcover. I, on the other hand, am a fan of the paperback because I like writing in my books. My books are my books. No one should ever borrow my books because there's writing all over them. But I love carrying them with me, and I think business books lend themselves to that. But also there is this there's this sense that, okay, your hardcover is your prestige. That's gonna be for your events and that's gonna be for like, you know, your event conferences are gonna be buying those for big, big ticket items, right?

Corporate.

Exactly. And then you have the people who are very much interested, and this is like, I love advocating for this part of, you know, the community. People who see that hardcover want it, want to buy it, but they just can't afford it. Because let's face it, $30 is a lot of money for a book, right? It's a lot of money. Yeah, I've seen, I've seen the prices go up to $35, and I'm like, for a hardcover paper, a hardcover book that is essentially 200 pages, I'm like, okay, yes, kudos to you and to everyone who wants to buy it. I don't think that you I mean, get it, get it signed.

Right, right. And, and I think too, accessibility is an issue that, that I think publishers need to think about more, and maybe authors need to understand a little bit more. Um, I am, I am like format agnostic. I say, I say release, release the hounds all at the same time, all at the same time, because you have different audiences for each format. And some people may need to have an audiobook because Maybe they have vision issues or they don't want to read. They don't want to read it. They want to listen to it in their car or wherever. You know, some people want that prestige. Some people like you want to be able to not feel guilty about writing the book. Um, so, you know, in my mind, there are readers that, that we're missing if we're not, um, format agnostic and we don't release everything. Now, that said, that can be, you know, an expensive proposition for a publisher, or if you're self-publishing, a very expensive proposition because the hardcovers are very expensive to produce. Right? So I think there are some ways around it. Um, one thing that I know you and I have done in the past is we've released paperback books and then we also release a hardcover, but it's print on demand only. And you raise the price of that hardcover book, uh, so that, you know, your margins aren't terrible, but it's only going to get printed if somebody orders it. And yes, make it non-returnable so that you don't have to take returns back for it. There's some easy ways to do that. And so to me, that's for people who are publishing on a smaller scale, whether it's by themselves or, or with a small press, that's one really great way to kind of overcome the issue so that everybody's happy. You've got, you've got your hardcover, you've got your paperback, you've got your ebook, and people can go to what they want to go to. Yes.

And, you know, it could be a marketing, uh, strategy for authors where the hardcover is only sold on the author's website. Therefore, you have the opportunity to really figure out, okay, what's my cost? Am I going to print these on demand? Do I have a warehouse or a spare room or an office that I can house 500 to 1,000 copies in? Those are the things to consider. But I always bring it back to the math. It's how many of these thing— of these books can you print? And how many people out there in your specific audience, your newsletters, et cetera, are already paying for that higher-priced product or service that you offer. Because if you're looking at like an 80/20 and you're seeing that the majority of your money is going to like a mid, like a mid-level service where it's like not the cheapest but not the most expensive, then you're probably gonna make the majority of your sales in paperback 'cause it's right middle of the road. It's what people want. So knowing your audience, your immediate audience can help you really figure out what the bigger national and international audience will likely want, right?

Exactly. And I think an important thing to keep in mind for authors too is you need to think like a modern author and a modern publisher. So in our minds, you know, stores like Barnes Noble, and when Borders was around— RIP Borders— um, you know, that was the pinnacle of what made you quote unquote successful as an author. If your book was in Barnes Noble. And I think there's still a, a huge cachet about having your book at B&N or at a really great larger independent like A Tattered Cover or, you know, or Book Bar or stores like that, right? That there's still that prestige element. But don't sell yourself short and think that that's the only path to success and that that is the only way that you are validated as an author. Um, those kinds of stores are wonderful. They're a part of the ecosystem. But think of them as that, as part of the ecosystem, not the entire ecosystem. Because if you are publishing in the business space or in the personal growth space, especially people— I mean, yes, they go to physical bookstores for your books, but it's so event-driven, it's so special sales-driven. And so I would just advise authors to, to not, you know, to not lose sight of the fact that You have to really have a holistic approach to where you sell, who you sell to, and in what formats you sell.

Being a student of the bookstores that are near you, that are in your area, is, is really key. So even if you are a business author, go into the Barnes Noble and be like, hey, would a book like this sell? And, you know, that's the other argument around the, the whole B&N thing is that now, book— the individual bookstores are being given the ability to actually buy to cater to their local audience. So if the bookstore knows that you are a local business owner, you are, you know, active in the community, there's a higher chance that they're likely going to maybe stock your book. That's something to do. Get to know the booksellers. Get, you know, independent Barnes Noble, Books-A-Million, Powells, everyone. If they say no, well, then that's okay. You know, you know that the book is available on their website and you could still support them, right?

And, and I would say too, have your network go in and request the book. Oh yes, that's a good one, right? So don't be— don't go rogue. Don't go and put like sneaky copies of your book on the bookshelf. We've seen that happen because you will get in trouble and they then they will not like you. Um, but if you have people who are local, um, go to, go to their local B&N or their any other local bookstores and just say, hey, um, I'd like to order this book. Have 2 or 3 people do it. That starts to build a trend with that individual store manager and they can see, okay, people are buying this book locally. I think I'm going to order 5 copies and keep them. So, you know, that's one grassroots way that you can kind of bridge that gap and do that kind of outreach too.

As a side note, that same thing applies for libraries, your local libraries. If people are coming to the library or reaching out via online and saying, hey, you guys don't have this book, book. Can you guys buy it so that I can borrow it? That is another really great way of keeping libraries in this whole conversation, talking about— talking again about accessibility and being able to bring your content to not just your immediate audience or potential clients, but people who maybe in 5 to 10 years could be a client of yours, or, you know, continue the conversation around who you are as a thought leader.

Absolutely. And don't let, um, paperback dissuade you from that market either. Libraries buy paperbacks. They do usually buy them from a library distributor, or they get them laminated at an outsourcing firm that does that. So, you know, don't think that just because your book is paperback that a library will not take it. That's not the case.

Yes, and they'll take the ebook. So always, always, always get the ebook conversion and EPUB and get it done correctly.

Right, exactly. And we've got some great, great partners that we have worked with in the past who do a wonderful job of that. So, um, we'll make that available in the show notes too so, you know, folks can know where to go to get their EPUBs done. But yeah, I think the more, the more formats you offer, the better. Um, yeah, don't lose sleep about it, just do it.

Yeah, just do it. Go all out. Have the hardcover, have the paperback. You know, everything is, is a matter of preference, and you want to make sure that your content is available in, in what could be the preference of your audience. Never limited just because you think that one thing is going to cannibalize the other. I've worked with authors that have said that, and then we find out that the, um, the hardcover outpaces the paperback 2 to 1. You never know. And that's, that's kind of like the wonderful thing about book publishing, especially the way that we're seeing it, is it's not the same as it used to be. I know that Simon Schuster want to keep it a certain way, and That's fine. It works for them. The model works. If it's not broke— what it was—

what's the saying?

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But you know, the beauty about being a self-published author is that you can make publishing work for you, and you can just— it's not really piecemeal, but you can customize things. The tools are out there, and if you don't want to figure it out, there are people like Jen and myself who love this so much that we just do it for a living.

We just love it. We're just having fun out here. And you know, one other way that you can have fun with this that we, we touched on just very briefly, but I want to put in front of our audience as well, is you can do a limited print run for hardcovers. If you just have your heart set on a hardcover, just print 500 of them, or 200, or 1,000 of them, and make it a special fancy limited run only kind of situation, which then builds the buzz, sells the books, and then you can can move into the paperback for everybody else. That's a nice entry point as well for hardcover. Yes.

Another marketing thing that you can do is you could sell the hardcover special to your conferences, your speaking engagements. And there are tools available out there where you can actually insert a letter from yourself to the audience as a speaker. Or maybe, I don't know, let's bring out, because Barbiecore is on my mind. Mattel has you come speak at an engagement, and then so the president and CEO of the regional Mattel office wants to include a letter to everyone who's going to receive this special edition of the book. You can always do that. IngramSpark has really cool tools to help you do that, but it creates that kind of marketing specialness around an event, around your content, around what it is that you're going to be doing for that limited time offer.

Absolutely. And our friends over at Porchlight do an amazing job of coordinating, uh, event purchases like that and doing the special things like putting a bookmark in or putting a letter in. And, um, they're awesome, and they will work directly with authors as well. So if you're an independently published author, um, they, they will still talk to you. You don't have to work for a Big Five, uh, or a midlist publisher to work with Porchlight. They're really great. And super kind, nice people who will help you navigate those kinds of specialty, specialty buys and help you envision what it could be. So yeah, I love those guys.

Oh, and one more thing. In order to kind of bring that additional— like, even if you're a self-published author, you can always go to the trade publications like Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Forward Reviews and pay to have them review your book. Just because you pay for it doesn't mean it's going to be nice. If it's a good book, they'll give you a good review. And if it's a bad book, then they'll give you a bad review. Just because you paid for it doesn't mean it's going to be good. And if it's a bad review, you don't have to make it live. You don't have to publicize it.

This is very true. You could just— you keep it on the DL, right? Yeah.

You don't have to tell anyone. But what it does is that once you get that, you can go to those bookstores and the libraries and say, hey, Kirkus reviewed this. And they think it's really great. I, you know, it's worth a look. Here's, here's a copy of it. You know, because you're not going to have that special sales force, the, the people that basically go into the Barnes Noble and Powells and sell your books. You're going to be that person. You're the publisher, you're the marketing team, you're the sales team, your distribution. It's all doable and it's all really fun. Or at least I think so, right, Jen?

Yeah, we have fun every day, Vanessa, every single day. At the end of the day, you want to reach the most people you can, and the best way to do that is to, is to be able to be nimble and to have all those formats available. Because here's the thing, even though it seems like publishing is a very old-school, stodgy business, things change very quickly, as we've learned in the last 2 years. So you want to be ready, you want to have all your formats in place so that you can meet the needs of your author or your authors, of your readers, wherever they find you, whether that is in B&N, whether that's online, or whether that's an event.

Agreed. Don't leave people out. Don't be like the Big Five or Four and gatekeep. Be better.

Be better. Do better.

Let's do better. Let's do better.

Let's do it.

Well, thank you so much, Jen, for joining me for this very good conversation. We should have more of these and talk about what publishing is up to, because sometimes it's just It needs to be discussed. And I always like talking to you because you have such a calm sense about it. I'm like, huh, okay. Me, on the other hand, I was just like yelling and screaming the other day. I was like, who do they think they are?

And that's why we work well together. You've got the passion I appreciate.

Well, thank you.

You bet. Well, it has been so fun. We will do it again. We'll dig back into this conversation next time. We chat. And, uh, in the meantime, we want to thank our producer Paul Roberts and our executive producer Emily Carpenter-Pulskamp of Little Red Communications. We'll see you next time.

Bye! We hope that you gained some valuable insights into the world of book publishing. Head over to broadbookgroup.com to learn more about us and all our services, and be sure to check out all our social media @BroadBookGroup. Until then, keep publishing.