Shrinking Library Market Poses Challenge to University Presses
Laura Waldron’s life is publishing. An author, a publisher and the marketing director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Press, Waldron offers a perspective on academic publishing that is uniquely well rounded.
After an internship at Carnegie Mellon Press piqued her interest in publishing, she cut her teeth in sales and marketing for Princeton University Press and eventually represented 15 different university presses in the Mid-Atlantic territory as a trade sales representative. Today, she is closing in on her 10th anniversary with Penn Press and is the author of “Museums of Philadelphia: A Guide for Residents and Visitors,” which was published in 2004 by Westholme Publishing, a company she and her husband founded. An independent publisher of American and European history and culture, military history, sports, and regional interest, Westholme will publish 20 titles this year and is expected to gross more than $1 million by the end of 2008.
The unique vantage point gained by Waldron as an author, university press marketer and independent publisher provides a unique look at the changing markets she—and many Book Business readers—face today.
What interests you most about your job as marketing director for Penn Press from?
Laura Waldron: The variety of responsibilities in my job. For instance, today I talked to our commission rep in the Southeast about some key accounts in his territory; wrote promotional copy for a book about the Lenni Lenape Indian nation during the Revolutionary War; and worked out inventory management for a new book of ours on the war on terror, whose author will be the featured guest on 20/20 for their 9/11 show—and that list just takes us up to lunchtime!
As Penn publishes books that are both scholarly and trade oriented, I am engaged with both the intellectual debates within the academic world, and the real-life challenges that the business of publishing presents.
What’s the biggest challenge facing marketing executives within the university press market today?
Waldron: Market-wise, our biggest challenge in university press publishing is the diminution of the library market. I remember being able to sell 1,500 copies of a book just to the library sector some 15 years ago. Today, that number is more like 250 to 350. And it’s that way across the board, for all academic publishers.
Libraries are getting less funding, both internally and from external sources, than they had, and their discretionary money is now earmarked for acquisitions in electronic products, or digitizing their own content. University presses are having to fill that shortfall in other kinds of sales, with varying rates of success. Some are publishing more trade-oriented books, some are raising prices on their specialized books, some are publishing books of regional interest, some are positioning themselves as nonprofit businesses and trying to set up fund-raising campaigns. Some university presses try a little of everything.
Can you point to any significant changes in marketing strategies or in the marketing landscape that have taken place in your career?
Waldron: Besides the decline in library sales, there are a few other significant changes in our world. [First,] the rise of superstores. This is old news, I know, but it has certainly changed the marketplace. Just as for trade publishers, they can make or break a book for us. We’re also dealing with the business conditions that trade publishers are.
[Second is] price sensitivity. Accounts due falling over 120 days, high rates of returns, dependency on a few decision-makers.
[Third], the growth of online retailing. In many ways Amazon and its counterparts have been a real boon to speciality publishers like university presses, as they have become a place where readers can find books that retailers might not carry. This positive aspect of online retailers is coupled with an unintended consequence, though, and that is the demand for information in specific digital forms. University presses do not have the resources to create jobs for specialists to meet this demand, and getting the right information out there, in the right form, can be a struggle for us.
[And finally], on-demand print technologies. Short-run and print-on-demand technology has become so sophisticated and trustworthy in the last few years that university presses rely on them in doing many first-time title budgets as well as reprints and back-in-prints.
Can you detail an example of one of Penn Press’ marketing campaigns that was particularly successful?
Waldron: The Press did a book titled “Pennsylvania Impressionism” about an early 20th century group of painters in the realistic tradition, who made their center in Bucks County, north of Philadelphia. I contacted nearly every business that I thought would have a stake in either the tourist market in this area, or in maintaining the image of the area as both bucolic and sophisticated. I made special sales deals with art galleries, bed and breakfast establishments, real estate companies and school districts. We secured reviews in both local and Mid-Atlantic venues, like The New York Times travel section, AAA Magazine and Philadelphia Magazine. In the end, we sold thousands upon thousands of copies of the book in just a two-county area. BB
Matt Steinmetz is the publisher and brand director of Publishing Executive.