SYP AGM 2014: Why do people buy books?

Posted on January 31, 2014 in Uncategorized

The Society of Young Publishers came together on the 27th January for our AGM in the wonderful surroundings of Stationers’ Hall. The purpose of the AGM is to celebrate the past year’s achievements; to say goodbye to the old committee and to welcome in the new. Outgoing Chair Lottie Chase gave a speech mentioning some of her highlights of 2013 and the 2014 committee was ratified.

Outgoing Chair Lottie Chase says goodbye to the SYP committee

Our AGM also always features a debate on the current pressing issues in the publishing industry and this year with declining print book sales we focused on the question ‘Why do people buy books?’ We had five inspiring panelists from PenguinRandom House publisher Annie Eaton, school librarian and book blogger Anna James, Sunday Times Children’s book reviewer Nicolette Jones, to Louise Corcoran Supervisor at Foyles, Stratford, and ceo of Authoright Gareth Howard.

The SYP audience assembles for the debate

New Chair Helen Youngs kicked off the discussion by posing some audience questions to our speakers. The first of which was: what is the single biggest factor in people deciding not to buy a book?

Annie Eaton argued that the jacket of a book is still the best chance to sell it to a consumer. She said that this was becoming complicated however by the growth of online sales where covers had to be smaller and yet remain eye-catching. Our panelists all agreed that the style and layout of book was important in both children’s and adult publishing. Nicolette Jones admitted that newspaper reviews can often have a mixed effect on sales because a bad review can often sell a book. She did think though that professional recommendations were still key to getting the right books into the hands of readers and this was echoed by Anna James and Louise Corcoran who spoke about the importance of librarians and booksellers. Gareth Howard brought up the price of a book being an issue for many people, with which the panel agreed. Anna and Louise felt particularly strongly though that it would be a mistake to heavily discount books and Nicolette pointed out that library services must continue to exist so that everyone can read.

Helen Youngs talks to the first half of our panel from left to right: Louise Corcoran, Anna James and Nicolette Jones

This discussion prompted the next question to our panel: is it possible for publishers to manufacture a bestseller? Nicolette Jones said that she used to believe it wasn’t possible unless a book was good quality but that marketing is much more powerful than you would think. Gareth Howard took the opinion that it definitely should be possible because publishers exist to sell as many books as possible. Annie Eaton said that a particular strength of Random House was that it had an incredible range of books but with the recent proliferation of marketing channels it was not so easy to create a successful campaign just by spending a lot of money.

Annie Eaton and Gareth Jones discuss book buyers

Another question that Helen had for our speakers was Who are people buying books for? This was particularly relevant to those working in Children’s publishing as Children’s books have to appeal to parents, grandparents and teachers who are the ones purchasing on their behalf most of the time. Nicolette Jones said that these adults were the audience of her Sunday Times reviews. This question reminded us all of the gift market which is very important to book sales and Louise and Anna expressed their frustration with overly rigid genre conventions such as the distinction between YA and NA, and YA and adult, which can discourage adventurous book buying.

Where do the panel get their recommendations?
The panel were asked where they get their book recommendations from and the answers included:
Friends and family
Colleagues
Blogs
Editors/reviewers

We hope that everybody enjoyed the evening and would like to thank all of our speakers on behalf of the SYP. Look out for our next event – Career Speed Dating, coming up in February!