DISTRIBUTION AND DISCOVERABILITY
Michael Reynolds of Europa Editions
INDEPENDENCE comes at a price. While supply-chain optimization, technological innovation, and shifts in reading and buying habits have lowered operating costs for many in the book business, publishers included, the price of independence is still mostly paid in the form of costs related to diffusion, such as fees paid to third-party sales and distribution companies, without whom it would be logistically impossible for indie presses—at least those like Europa Editions—to deliver books to our retail partners and, through them, to readers.
Despite dramatic changes in the industry, absorbing the costs of diffusion is a vexing problem for publishers today, much as it always has been.
It remains to be seen whether blockchain technology and distributed ledger systems will ultimately have the kind of impact on how written content is monetized and delivered that its acolytes predict. I don’t expect the impact to be great, at least not as far as quality trade-book publishing is concerned. No, for now and the foreseeable future, the costs associated with diffusion aren’t going anywhere, and they constitute the top line item on the list of expenses an independent publisher must meet in order to remain independent.
While distribution costs may be the principal expense associated with independence for publishers, discoverability in an overcrowded book market in which the Old Good Thing is routinely swatted away by the Next Big Thing, and overmarketed, focustested titles suck up a disproportionate share of review and shelf space, is the great conundrum.
How does an independent publisher make potential readers aware of its authors’ titles to the degree that both author and publisher deserve? The once calm sea of content has become a roiling ocean. Add self-published titles to the mix and somewhere around a million ISBNs are issued every year. Readers can find no purchase. Publishers, despite their best efforts, risk failing in their efforts to make their authors’ work visible.
The challenges of securing costeffective diffusion and of guaranteeing adequate visibility are both very old problems. Yet consolidation in the industry, hyperconcentration of book retail, a crisis in the culture of reading and criticism, and behavioral changes in portions of the population that have traditionally constituted the most assiduous readers make these challenges more serious today than ever before.
This being the case, does independent publishing in America have a future? My answer—and I stand ready to be accused of blind optimism—is a
resounding yes. It must. We live in an era in which true independence in the book world, daring, and bibliodiversity are threatened. In order for their virtues to be kept alive for a future age in which they can again flourish, independent publishers must survive, and thrive. But what conditions have to exist, or must be made to exist, for that to happen?
Regarding the question of diffusion, in addition to employing innovative and new direct distribution models, independent publishers in the future will have to negotiate healthy and dynamic relationships with their distribution partners. Those relationships must be open to change, innovation, diversification, and modification rather than rely on scalability and predictability. It is no longer the case that one size fits all; a business model predicated on this approach belongs to an earlier century. The independent publisher of the future may be a hybrid entity, combining roles typically associated with agent, editor, marketeer, and retailer; that is, a broker of content who is continually negotiating between writers and their global audience, compelled to offer multiple platforms and services with which a writer can fully develop that audience. As publishers continue to rethink and redefine their core product, in most cases moving away from a bookonly model, and in some even moving away from a book-first one, they will need distribution partners who can keep pace with these changes and fully appreciate the financial pressures that necessitate, in equal measure, fiscal caution and constant inventiveness.
The question of discoverability is an even more interesting challenge for independent publishers—one that will be met in a number of fascinating ways. One of the most effective approaches to discoverability, in my opinion, is the curation of a dialogue with readers and the market.
I do not like the word brand when applied to independent publishers. I don’t think we are ever consciously working on our brand identity, per se. That kind of talk can be applied to commercial activities wherein the core product is of little real value, and as such its perceived value must be extracted like marrow from the brand and injected by force into the minds of consumers. But the core product of indie publishers is of consummate value, and our job is to serve it, to protect it, and to bring it to its audience. I believe a good independent publisher, rather than developing its brand, is engaged in a conversation with readers, with the market, and with the culture of reading and that this conversation becomes an indie publisher’s principal discovery vehicle. An ongoing, evolving dialogue that is shaped by the books it publishes and the reaction readers have to them. Over time readers come to recognize the contours of that conversation and can decide if they want to participate in it or not. Their choice to participate in that conversation becomes the method by which a
publisher ensures visibility for its books. This model is especially beneficial to literary works that take risks, that do not conform, that do not correspond to the prevailing idea of what is commercially appealing to the market.
Independent publishers must constantly reaffirm the kind of conversation they want to have and why they want to have it. They must nourish and defend that conversation; without it they lose their competitive edge and their sense of purpose.
These conversations are most easily identified at publishers with welldefined programs. Mission-driven, highly specialized presses can take full advantage of today’s increasingly sophisticated audience-identification and delivery methods to make content discoverable for a specific audience. As we gather more and more data about readers’ predilections and interests, I predict we will see an even greater proliferation of bespoke independent presses catering to these interests.
On the other hand, understanding the nature of this conversation when it comes to a generalist indie publisher— one that does not target a niche readership so much as speculate on the possibility of a broad, uncategorizable readership—is more difficult. These kinds of publishers are engaged in a high-risk, highly speculative, highly unpredictable but vital form of publishing. The market for the books published by these kinds of presses is fluid and therefore cannot be targeted nor tested as easily. Yet curating the conversation is no less central to the success of these kinds of publishers as well.
The future of independent book publishing will be defined by factors that have not changed much over the centuries: diffusion and discoverability. But how these two challenges are met is changing and will change further as the definitions of publication, distribution, editorial curation, visibility, reader, and even the book continue to expand.
I would like to add to these few, rather technical considerations on the future of independent publishing another that is beyond dispute: Independent publishing will thrive in the future because it must. Independent publishers remain the primary bulwark against conformity and homogeneity in the book world. We ensure bibliodiversity, and diversity is an unassailable requisite for any ecosystem to flourish. Ours is not a courageous industry; it is a small-c conservative one. Publishers follow trends and replicate prior successes. The only sector of the industry where this is slightly less true is among independent publishers— those not beholden to shareholders or to profit growth at any cost, those not structured in a way as to discourage experimentation and risk-taking. Without independent presses, readers and writers would face a tide of sameness. Such a price—the price of no independence—would be too high indeed.