Last night, I had the pleasure of attending a children’s publishing panel with some real industry heavyweights, pictured here from left to right: Rosemary Stimola, literary agent to the stars, Neal Porter, publisher of children’s books for Neal Porter Books and Roaring Brook Press, Meg Cabot, YA author, and Lisa Holton, multimedia publisher of Fourth Story Media. The whole thing was moderated by the delightful Rachel Vail, another YA author.
The topic of discussion was supposed to be “trends in children’s publishing 2010″ but the hour and a half boiled down to two ideas. First, don’t follow trends in writing or publishing because the moment is gone by the time anything becomes a trend (they spent 5 minutes on this). Second, holy-s&*$-the-publishing-world-is-ending-and-wtf-is-with-ebooks-and-we’re-all-gonna-dieeeeeeee!!!!!!!! This sentiment reached a fever pitch, in part, because of the disastrously misguided NYT article a few weeks ago about the death of the picture book. Even though the panelists claimed to be feeling more and more optimistic about the industry after the recession, the audience questions made it clear that most laypeople watching publishing from the sidelines weren’t seeing the silver lining.
Are we right to be optimistic in the times of ebooks and declining literacy? Or are publishing people just in deep denial? To be totally honest, I don’t know. I wrestle with these questions sometimes. And I’m not the only one, clearly. Out of the ten or so questions from the audience, two had to do with whether or not publishing, children’s included, was going up in flames.
ETA: I’d love to echo Cynthia Leitich Smith in the comments, below. Every time I start to freak out for a minute, Andrea just gives me one of her signature stares, smiles, and reminds us all that people were saying all of these things about publishing back in the 70s. As editor Lisa Yoskowitz reminded the audience in Wisconsin this past weekend, the NYT, as a primarily print newspaper, isn’t doing so hot, either, so they could be in, in part, picking on other kids to get the heat off themselves.
In terms of the ebook “threat,” Rosemary made sure to point out — and some writers disagree with this, but I completely enforce this idea — that publishers aren’t printers. They’re purveyors of content. And no matter the platform, whether ebook or printed book or app, people will always need stories, art, and content. “Platforms don’t change the storytelling soul of publishing,” she said. (Read an earlier post of mine about ebooks that deals with some of these issues.)
Neal Porter believes that picture books are a sustainable art form. He says he’s tried to acquire books for purely commercial reasons and always finds it a bit of a disaster. That’s not to say he hasn’t been affected by market changes, though. He now publishes smaller lists and is involved in more marketing and sales meetings with his staff, to make sure he has a hand in the retail/commercial process.
Lisa Holton, formerly of Scholastic and other big publishers, now runs a multi-platform company that is responsible for THE AMANDA PROJECT, an eight-book series for HarperCollins and also an interactive website. It turns out she was the perfect person for this panel, as she had a lot of interesting things to say about ebooks. She says there are two reasons to be excited. First, ebooks and digital platforms give writers and publishers an opportunity to connect directly to readers. Second, everyone has a chance to learn how to market better. (As is, publishers market to their customers. No, a publisher’s customer isn’t the reader, it’s the bookstore or library that will stock and then resell the book.)
Lisa doesn’t think the printed picture book will ever go away. On the one hand, it is a beautiful, pristine thing. On the other, though, new platforms mean new opportunities for illustrators, designers, animators, and developers to take the picture book into new territory. And the two can work in tandem.
But that doesn’t mean we know what we’re talking about or just what those opportunities are yet. Rachel described ebooks and enhanced ebooks (animated, talking, singing etc. books and apps) as the “wild west” of publishing. Funny, I used the exact same phrase at a panel on Sunday in Wisconsin. We don’t 100% know what’s coming or what shape it will take, we just know that we have to be ready for it.
Neal mentioned some concerns about apps. They’re expensive, and so not every book gets one. There are also decisions to be made. Will the app be an advertisement or marketing vehicle for the book, a version of the book, or simply the book itself? Maybe none of these things. Maybe all of them. After all, as Rachel, pictured here, said, kids want a multi-sensory experience. They want to read their book, and then they want to play it, interact with it, take an imaginative leap. The book and the play are all part of how kids meet and interpret a story.
All this uncertainty about ebooks is, of course, daunting. So, is there any truth to the NYT article? Yes, Neal says. There are a lot of mediocre picture books in terms of design, production, and content. Picture books were a heavily published area (as those of you who’ve heard my market overview talk know), and now publishers are scaling back. I’d argue, though, that focus on quality, not quantity, is a good thing for the long run.
Meg dove into the discussion with author’s perspective on marketing in today’s web 2.0 world. Even though it takes a lot of time, she keeps a great blog and interacts with readers via Twitter and Facebook. She says the point of online marketing is to give your readers access and your authentic voice. The worst way to market, she says, and I agree, is to just push your book all the time. Nobody will tune in to that marketing message, especially not kids and teens, who want a more authentic connection to their audience. (As I said in a post about blogging, people want Internet content that’s valuable to them, and self-serving advertisements aren’t usually it…)
Overall, I think the panel delved well into some recent publishing developments. I spend a lot of time thinking about these issues and how they’ll affect the futures of creators, agents, editors, publishers, and readers, past, present, and future. And while the panel itself was short on concrete answers to all these questions about where everything is headed, there is one thing I can say for certain: the people who create and publish children’s books have forged an incredible community, and it was great to come out and feel part of it.
