Cook Partners

Attitude Trumps Talent

Should you always hire the most talented person? An article in The New York Times suggests that is not always your best bet:

After three decades of painstaking research, Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck believes that the answer to the puzzle lies in how people think about intelligence and talent. Those who believe they were born with all the smarts and gifts they’re ever going to have approach life with what she calls a “fixed mind-set.” Those who believe that their own abilities can expand over time, however, live with a “growth mind-set.”

Guess which ones prove to be most innovative over time.

Peru: Books for Children Drive Industry Growth

Andina reports that Gladys Díaz, president of the Peruvian Book Chamber, estimates that

Sales in the Peruvian publishing market will grow more than 15 percent this year, fueled by the demand for books for children ... at a national level, 35 percent of sales in the publishing market are books for children... a factor in this market are textbooks, which represent 40 percent of sales in the sector.

Piracy is a concern, and therefore

Demand [for books] is centered in Lima 90 percent, while provinces account for 10 percent, due to the limited number of large bookstores in the cities in the interior of the country.

[Díaz] specified that 90 percent of the titles sold in the provinces are pirated, particularly books on popular culture and university textbooks.

Peru's 13th International Book Fair will take place July 24 through August 3 in Lima.

Promoting Books by French Christians

In an open letter issued October 18, 2007, Blogdei.com addressed French Christian publishing houses, questioning their reliance on translations of Anglo-Saxon works. (Though in recent years Editions Farel has increasingly sought to publish French Christian authors, sharing its strategies with its peers.)

Now Blogdei notes that La Maison de la Bible, in the current issue of Bible Info, states it has hired a person, full-time, to promote Christian literature by French-speaking writers.   

ICRS Reports

CBA's International Christian Retail Show (ICRS) has just concluded. The event, which took place July 13-17 at the Orange County Convention Center, in Orlando, FL, USA, gathered 8,000 publishers and retailers from the U.S., Canada, and over 50 countries, according to The Christian Post. Sunday included a gathering of 300 booksellers and publishers from Nigeria to New Zealand at the Christian Trade Association International's "Vision Celebration." Christian Retailing's dispatches on ICRS happenings are available here. Al Hsu, acquisitions and development editor for InterVarsity Press, discusses the show here and here.   

Norway: Adventist Book Sales Up 20 Percent

The Adventist News Network reports that sales increased:

Sales at [Norsk Bokforlag,] the Seventh-day Adventist publishing house in Norway, climbed 20 percent the past five weeks, due largely to 55 student booksellers hired this summer as part of its program to support students from developing countries, literature evangelists there say.

Would this strategy work for you?

USA: New Option for Magazine Sales

USA Today reports that Time is unveiling a new option for magazine readers. Instead of having to subscribe to magazines separately, and having to buy single issues at a newstand, Time's new service, Maghound, will allow readers to pay a single fee to subscribe to a variety of magazines, with the option of changing which magazines are in their bundle at any time.

Langham Partnership, EELAC Merger

The Christian Post reports:

Langham Partnership and the Eastern Europe Literature Advisory Committee (EELAC) have announced a merger between the two ministries to help them reach even more local level churches with high quality Christian literature.

The merger with Langham Partnership, founded by John Stott, will internationalise the EELAC’s 30-year strong ministry in developing indigenous Christian publishing houses in Central and Eastern Europe, and will enhance Langham Partnership's ability to partner with majority world churches in strengthening local publishing initiatives.

Mexico: Event for Entrepreneurs

Expocristiana is hosting an event on "Entrepreneurial Identity" this week in Mexico City, featuring Josh McDowell. Attendees will receive a gift book from Editorial Mundo Hispano (also known as Casa Bautista de Publicaciones). Expocristiana organizes one of the largest Spanish-language Christian book fairs each year. The 2008 event will take place October 16-19 at the World Trade Center in Mexico City and features authors from Tyndale Español, Editorial Unilit, Editorial Mundo Hispano, Editorial Vida, Enfoque a la Familia and Desarrollo Cristiano.   

Lonely People, Sheep, the Olympics and Everywhere Girl

Where do you go to get photos of lonely people, sheep, the Olympics, and an ordinary girl? Or how about funerals for pets, race cars, or business women? Slate magazine sheds light on the weird science of stock photography:

I was startled to realize that stock photo and video purveyors actually create material in anticipation of demand ... These suppliers of the world's commercial imagery are making bets on what life will look like in the near future. Which made me wonder: What ... do they imagine waiting ahead?

Christian Book of the Year Is Not a Book

The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association announced its 2008 awards at this year's International Christian Retail Show, and the winner is... an audio product: The Word of Promise™ New Testament Audio Bible, published by Thomas Nelson. Other winners include Tyndale (Bible category), Zondervan (Bible Reference & Study, Christian Life, and Inspiration & Gift categories), B&H Publishing Group (Children & Youth), and Bethany House/Baker Publishing Group (Fiction). David C. Cook was a finalist in the Bible Reference & Study category with the Wiersbe Bible Commentary 2 Volume Set with CD Rom.

David C. Cook, Others' Titles on Kindle

David C. Cook titles will soon be available for use on the Kindle, Amazon's e-reader. An Amazon press release today announced:

...that Christian book publishers Augsburg Fortress, Crossway Books & Bibles, David C. Cook, Gospel Light, Group Publishing, NavPress, Strang Communications, Thomas Nelson, Tyndale, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. and Zondervan have committed to making the majority of their catalogs of books available to Kindle owners by the end of 2008.

India: Christians Protest Inappropriate Depictions of Jesus

The Times of India notes that Vachana Jyotis, "the official journal of a Catholic diocese in Kerala, carried a picture of Jesus Christ with a beer mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other on the cover page of its June issue." In response to protests, "the church has withdrawn the issue and stopped publication till further notice."

Meanwhile, The Hindu reports that on Sunday in Hyderabad, Christians protested "the publication of an objectionable picture of Jesus in [Sakshi,] a Telugu daily." The publisher stated the paper planned to publish an apology on the front page on Monday July 14.

Is the Long Tail Strategy Viable for Publishers?

A Harvard Business Review article by Anita Elberse, associate professor at Harvard Business School, says:

The long-tail theory increasingly influences the development and appraisal of business models, particularly in the media and entertainment sector.

It is undeniable that online commerce has significantly broadened customers’ access to products of all varieties, including the most obscure. However, my findings suggest that it would be imprudent for companies to upend traditional practice and focus on the demand for obscure products. The data show how difficult it is to profit from the tail. What, then, are the implications of my research for practice? I have four recommendations for producers of media and entertainment goods, and four for online retailers or content aggregators seeking to profit from long-tail demand.

While Elberse derives her conclusions based on her research with music products rather than books, her recommendations are applicable to publishers. She advices:

1. Don’t radically alter blockbuster resource-allocation or product-portfolio management strategies. A few winners will still go a long way—probably even further than before.
2. When producing niche goods for the tail end of the distribution, keep costs as low as possible. Your odds of success aren’t favorable here either, and they will probably become less so.
3. When trying to strengthen your presence in digital channels, focus on marketing your most popular products.
4. Leverage your scale to improve online exposure and demand for products across your product portfolio. Again, hit products play a key role here.

For those who wish to pursue a long-tail strategy, she recommends:

1. If the goal is to cater to your heavy customers [i.e., those who buy lesser-known products "in the tail"], broaden your assortment with more niche products.
2. Strictly manage the costs of offering products that will rarely sell. If possible, use online networks to construct creative models in which you incur no costs unless the customer actually initiates a transaction.
3. Acquire and manage customers by using your most popular products.
4. Even though obscure products may have a higher profit margin, resist the temptation to direct customers to the tail too often, or you’ll risk their dissatisfaction.

Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, offers a response to her work, and Elbert critiques his response. To read the article and responses, click here... and decide for yourself which strategy is most viable for your publishing house.

"But To Us..."

"The message of the cross," writes Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:18, "is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." It is "a stumbling block" (v. 23) and an "offense" (Gal. 5:11). Sometimes, this reality shows up in news about Christian publishing.

In the U.S., MSNBC reports that  Zondervan is

facing a $60 million federal lawsuit filed by a man who claims he and other homosexuals have suffered based on what the suit claims is a misinterpretation of the Bible...

[Bradley LaShawn] Fowler says Zondervan Bibles ... use the word homosexuals among a list of those who are "wicked" or "unrighteous" and won't inherit the kingdom of heaven.

World Net Daily adds Fowler is also suing Thomas Nelson for $10 million.

And in Brazil, LifeSiteNews reports,

A judge in the state of Bahia, Brazil, has ordered the confiscation of a book written by Catholic priest Jonas Abib, in which he condemns witchcraft as immoral.

[The judge] ordered the confiscation of all copies of the book from book stores in the state.

Asian Influence Impacts English

Wired reports:

By 2020, native speakers will make up only 15 percent of the estimated 2 billion people who will be using or learning the language. Already, most conversations in English are between nonnative speakers who use it as a lingua franca.

...An estimated 300 million Chinese — roughly equivalent to the total US population — read and write English but don't get enough quality spoken practice. The likely consequence of all this? In the future, more and more spoken English will sound increasingly like Chinese.

 

 

 

Argentina: Books Have Become a Luxury Item

A blog for The Guardian laments the scarcity of used books in Buenos Aires:

This is a country with a rich literary tradition - think of Borges, Sabato, Hernandez - but since the devaluation of the peso in 2002, books have become a luxury item. Personal libraries, much less common now, are seen as a sign of wealth. People buy books they're likely to hold onto for longer. And they don't give them up so easily.