Book Business Conference‘Strikes Chord’ With Publishing Executives

Morse summed things up perhaps most succinctly when he asserted, “We are publishing in the Age of Also.” He acknowledged the fact that content will to continue to be output in the form of printed books and magazines, cable TV, satellite TV, computers, DVDs, etc. His message? “There isn’t a best answer for things anymore. There’s not a best way to have transportation, there’s not a best way for communicating, there’s not a best way for anything. There are just good ways.”

Morse adds that Merriam-Webster “celebrates the fact” that they are print publishers predominantly, but says, “We are print publishers contingently, which is to say that we are print publishers for so long as—and to the degree that—that’s the way users want to get their language information. And because we know that users want to get their language information in many different ways ... often in the same day.”

Weiss, who asserts that his company’s Spark Notes are “the foremost brand in underground supplemental education,” discussed the backwards route to his business model. “Barnes and Noble is traditionally a distributor, a retailer, not a publisher. So the model here is rather backwards ... we’re a distributor, looking for new ways to distribute to our customers ... and, by the way, if there are new products that can be pushed through those channels—digital or otherwise—let’s be in those businesses too.”

Weiss also answered a question of Kreisky’s that is among the most prevalent ones facing publishers today: Will there be enough book readers in the future to support the industry? Weiss said yes. “Kids need content in a variety of formats, and the book is a brilliant format for certain kinds of content .... There’s not a novel in the world I’d want to read online.”

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