That's So Random
What has a glam budget, Stephen King in a suit and sneakers, and is brought to you by the number 12? The DOJ vs. Penguin Random House trial, that’s what.
It’s random, but so is the book business for Penguin Random House (PRH). This from PRH’s CEO, Markus Dohle, who was widely quoted for his testimony that “[e]verything is random in publishing. Success is random. Best sellers are random. So that is why we are the Random House!” <groans from the cheap seats>.
Last newsletter we discussed the DOJ’s lawsuit (take a look here for the nitty-gritty on the legal arguments). Mainly, the DOJ wants to prevent PRH from buying Simon & Schuster (S&S) in the name of antitrust. The DOJ claims that the merger would create a monopsony, reduce publisher competition at auction, and slash advances for top-selling authors. Stephen King agrees, stating succinctly at trial that “consolidation is bad for competition.” And, while Mr. King’s testimony provided a welcome celebrity moment amidst tedious legalese, it was that blasé and flukey “randomness” mentioned by Dohle at trial, along with some numbers dropped by experts and higher-ups for the publishing companies, that dominated much of the internet chatter. Let’s take a look.
First, there’s Dohle’s comment itself: that the “random” in PRH represents randomness in publishing. But, as many twitter sleuths pointed out, the origin of the name actually stems from the founders initial intent to publish a few books “at random.” The company grew from there, and, as Dohle made clear, the “random” meaning has evolved into a welcome (& convenient) ethos for PRH.
But what exactly is so random? According to PRH and S&S: advances, marketing dollars, sales, and how those things work—or don’t work—together. In testimony, the CEO for S&S, Jonathan Karp, and the CEO of PRH U.S., Madeline McIntosh, both stated that high advances don’t always equate to high sales. And, as for marketing budgets, it’s all very go-with-the-flow. Per Karp, authors with high advances often get elevated marketing allocations, however, those marketing dollars aren’t guaranteed. Karp reportedly stated “[l]iterary agents frequently ask us to guarantee marketing dollars, and we don’t do it. We don’t want to be locked into a plan.” McIntosh echoed this sentiment, emphasizing that dollars tend to go where the hype is.
It would seem, however, that a publishing giant like PRH would at least devote a hefty portion of revenue to book marketing, but the numbers revealed at trial left the internet with a field day of fodder and unfortunate math calculations. Per McIntosh, about 2% of PRH’s revenue is spent on marketing (the Hot Sheet assessed this percentage in terms of frontlist and backlist and estimated that the real number of marketing spend could be closer to a *still sobering* 5%), resulting in about $3k of marketing spend per print title. But, as Karp and McIntosh made clear, not every author is guaranteed that estimated $3k, meaning that high-advance or hype authors likely get much more marketing spend (and, sometimes, a glam budget) while the remaining authors might get much less.
These marketing discrepancies might have something to do with another statistic revealed at trial: that half of the 58,000 trade titles published per year sell less than 12 copies. <---- not a typo.
In an effort to remove our collective jaws from the floor, Kristen McLean, a lead industry analyst from NPD BookScan, elaborated on this number in the comments of Lincoln Michel’s newsletter. In limiting her data to frontlist sales of the top 10 publishers, she estimated that “about 15% of all of those publisher-produced frontlist books sold less than 12 copies.” The real story, she thinks, “is that roughly 66% of those books … sold less than 1,000 copies over 52 weeks.”
As bewildering as these numbers are, the more jarring result is for PRH authors who aren’t getting large advances or a shot at higher marketing dollars. What, if any, assurances do they have that any marketing will be spent on their book? Or is it just that after years of writing, talent and sweat poured out onto pages, and a book deal with the top publisher, they’ll find that their publisher's support behind their book is simply “random.”
Let's Talk About Something Else
It's still National Hispanic Heritage Month. Take a look at the list of Hispanic and Latinx owned bookstores on our social media (they have online shops—your bank account has been warned). Or, if you're over the book business for the day and would rather watch a movie about loving books, check out the new movie, The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry, playing at a movie theatre near you.
Or, Playing in an Actual Theatre Near You
Friend of the show and F***ing Shakespeare podcast guest, Jason Carmichael, stars in a one-man play at The Ensemble Theatre Houston that opens this weekend. Staged and produced by newcomer On the Verge Theatre and written by Houston theater scene mainstay Crystal Rae, "Tied" tells the story of David, father to one of the young girls killed in the 1963 Birmingham church bombing. Houston Press reviewer, D.L. Groover, says the performance by Carmichael left him "breathless with awe (in appreciation of both actor and author)." Show opens Friday, October 7 and runs through the 9th. Tickets here.
In it together,
Bloomsday