I’m reluctant to add one more word to the infosphere about
Thomas Piketty. But for all the coverage
and meta-coverage Capital in theTwenty-first Century has garnered, we haven’t heard from the sales force
that had a small role to play in chaperoning the book into the world.
I have to say that I’ve reacted a little defensively to some
of the coverage about how well Harvard University Press has kept up with demand. “Clearly caught off-guard” quickly became the
reigning meme. Let’s look at that.
Contemporary book publishing, despite all the big data
tools, is about as wildly unpredictable as it was the day I cashiered my first
book in the 1970s. But publishers can
and do position books to market, and are often pretty good at it. Authors who have succumbed to the
self-publishing racket quickly learn that printing a book has little to do with
visibility or sales.
Thomas Piketty was brought to HUP by a whip-smart editor,
who convinced his rigorous colleagues that it was a book worth publishing, and
a board of Syndics that it was a book worthy of Harvard’s name. He solicited and got peer review reports that
lauded the book. From early on, there was a sense that this would be a hugely important book
with significant sales.
By the time the spring 2014 list was shared with reps in a
launch meeting at the press last September, enthusiasm was high and
unanimous. It was made the lead title in
our catalog. The ace marketing team was
mobilized, an ad campaign designed, and an author tour planned.
Then it was our turn.
Field reps hit the road to bookstores brimming with commitment. During sales meetings, I talked about the
timeliness of the issue, about Piketty’s star economist stature, about the
outstanding scholarship. I reminded
people that Harvard’s big, serious lead titles often outsell expectations. I noted that the French edition hovered in
the top five of the French bestseller list among various editions of Cinquante nuances de grey.
The book advanced well but there were some headwinds. “It sounds important, I’m sympathetic with
the argument, but I can’t sell a $40 economics book” was a typical
example. There were a few
stores who immediately got it, but for the most part I needed to apply a little
arm-twisting. (This is where the relationship-
knowing the store and the buyer- pays off.
I don’t use the “trust me” card often so people tend to listen when I
do.)
My most serious scholarly store changed its advance
number from 20 to 30; more typically, good general booksellers and college
stores changed a two to a five; and a few of the doubters who wanted to skip it
entirely were convinced to try a couple.
(At one store I did promise to buy one back personally if I was
wrong. Boy I should have structured that
bet differently!)
I will stipulate that this is a university press brand of upselling, which is to say it's polite.
And, for those who know me, the idea of Eklund arm-twisting must seem
hilarious. If we had been a trade house
I suppose we’d have gone into accounts with massive (and bogus) announced print
runs, pie in the sky media plans, and Thomas Piketty social inequality espresso
cups.
So yes, the phenomenon has surpassed even our most
optimistic forecasts, but it’s only the velocity that’s taken us by surprise. I suppose in retrospect one could say that
our initial print run could have been more aggressive. But booksellers have to share a little blame
on that one too.
HUP makes very
careful print run decisions by paying attention to advance orders from
booksellers and to comments on titles we pass along from them. Advances were solid but not extraordinary,
and the notes I forwarded all season had plenty of caveats about the price, the
subject, the risk.
While it’s little consolation to booksellers who have
fielded hundreds of phone calls while holding only sketchy information about
when they might have the book again, it’s my totally unbiased opinion that HUP
has done a stellar job keeping reprints rolling. These books are coming from several printers
on two continents, and being dispersed globally. Our warehouse folks have pulled 24 hour
shifts getting them out, while still attending to all the other books from
three big presses. And, though I’ve
heard uninformed assumptions to the contrary, our decision-makers have been
scrupulous about making sure stock is distributed fairly.
Once the phenomenon was clearly underway- which I trace to
Paul Krugman’s first call out, in which he christened Capital the “book of the decade”- the booksellers responded with
equal aplomb. They have a lot more
experience chasing bestsellers than we do publishing them, and I saw some very
savvy order wrangling. Booksellers are
great at selling what’s selling. Occasionally
I wondered why they weren’t ordering more aggressively- can’t you get a couple
cases and be done with it? But it’s for
the same reason publishers have to be judicious with reprints- fear of having too
many when the wave subsides. The wave
isn’t subsiding.
We are deep into the era of the just-in-time inventory. Sometimes it works well, but sometimes it
seems a bit like a ponzi scheme. At the
end of the day, somebody has to have possession of the pile of books. But that’s another
subject.
A few other takeaways from the past month:
In the digital age, customers expect that detailed
information will be instantly available.
UPS can track a package with mind-blowing specificity, and online
retailers are really selling their ability to forecast availability. So it’s maddening when a bookseller can’t
have a simple answer when the customer asks “when will you have it,” and it’s maddening
to me when we sometimes can’t provide that info. In
this case, the backlog of orders ballooned so dramatically last month that it caused
temporary info havoc. Now we have a much
better handle on when reprints will arrive, who is in the queue for them, and
when your customer can expect them.
Transparency and information are powerful.
One of the reservations booksellers often have about our
books is a doubt about our marketing muscle.
“If Knopf were doing that book I know we’d see reviews and media, but
Harvard?” Can we put that one to rest
now? Piketty didn’t happen
spontaneously. The very talented HUP
marketing and publicity team worked night and day, before during and after
publication, to spark and then extend the media blitz. This was
a marketing campaign for the record books.
Buyers, be prepared to have Thomas Piketty thrown at you if you want to
doubt our marketing finesse in future.
Has anyone noticed that the sale of thousands of copies of
the e-book edition- which, after all, was available instantly and never out of
stock- does not seem to have hurt demand for print copies? I read this as a good sign for my friends
selling print.
Finally, I wonder whether we- publishers, booksellers,
reviewers, and writers- are underestimating the appetite for serious
nonfiction. Time will tell whether Piketty is a freakish one-off. But
it seems striking to me that indie booksellers, who rightfully boast about
their close to the ground knowledge of their customer’s tastes, often missed
this one.
If I were still a
buyer and one of my rock solid truisms- say, “I can’t sell a $40 book on economic
inequality”- were challenged so dramatically by my own customers, I’d wonder
whether I know them as well as I think I do. Granted, when a serious book becomes a celebrity sensation, it
brings out the whole “must have” bandwagon, many of whom you won’t see in the
store until the next one comes along.
But some of them are potential regular new customers.
I used to think that great academic bookstores like Seminary
Coop, Harvard Book Store, and Book Culture were lucky anomalies. Sure, you can sell serious academic books in
Hyde Park or Princeton. But Piketty shows us that there’s a hunger for big idea nonfiction, even in general
bookstores. People like a reading challenge, it makes them feel smarter.
Aside from sharing the financial success that Capital in the Twenty-first Century has
brought us this season, let’s also savor the chance to spread its message. My old boss and mentor David Schwartz was a
big believer in books as change agents, and spoke about the “social profit” in
bookselling as a kind of fringe benefit. Influencing public
discourse by getting out a couple hundred thousand copies of a book like Capital is what he meant.
As Thomas Piketty himself said, “I wrote this book not for
policymakers, but for people who read books.
In the end, they are the people who’ll decide what politicians do, and
it’s more important to convince them.”
