Are you Tuned In?

I’ve had the great pleasure to be working with a great team of marketers, the authors of “Tuned In:Uncover the Extraordinary Opportunities That Lead to Business Breakthroughs" (Craig Stull, Phil Myers, David Meerman Scott), published by Wiley in June.  It’s an incisive and clear book about how companies and organizations need to think and work in order to be successful in creating and then marketing their products and services.

At the most basic level, I think we all recognize “Tuned In” as a concept – when someone has a product or service that seems to work perfectly, or when the company truly understands what I want, I feel they are “tuned in” to my needs and wants, and are serving me in just the way I want to be served.  And conversely, it seems so obvious (and frustrating) when a business fails to meet my obvious needs or requirements in some basic or critical way.

Since I find myself thinking about Tuned In/Tuned Our behaviors frequently now, I know that the ideas this book sets forth have had a big impact on me.  Here are two recent personal examples that I think deserve recognition.

Tuned Out (in a really big way)
During the last heat wave, like a lot of Americans, I decided my old inefficient window air conditioner needed to be replaced.  I did extensive research using my usual online tools (Consumer Reports, Amazon customer comments, shoppers’ blogs, etc.) and determined that the best machine at a fair price was a Sears Kenmore low profile, high efficiency machine.  I went to the Sears site, where I discovered that I could order the AC unit and pick it up at the nearest Sears that had it on hand (which happens to be about 16 miles away).  I placed my order on a Friday night, received immediate confirmation, and further was reminded the next day by Sears that my AC unit was waiting for me to come and get it.  I printed my online receipt with scannable bar code and planned to pick up the machine the next day, when it might be relatively quiet in the store.

On Sunday afternoon, I took my daughter with me and drove to the Milford, Connecticut Sears store, parked in the convenient store pick up parking area, and entered the inside pick up zone.  Here is a checklist of my experience:

1.    The kiosk was right in front of the door, but did not work.  
2.    While I was pondering what to do next, a Sears “associate” came over and scanned my receipt, and got me into the queue to receive my unit.  
3.    About 15 minutes later he returned empty handed and told me they did not have any more air conditioners to sell.  I pointed out that I not only had bought and paid for it but had confirmation that they did in fact have it waiting for me.  Without apology or concern, he pointed to the store and told me to go see the air conditioning department manager.
4.    Suffice to say, after yet more waiting time, the department manager confirmed they did not have the AC unit I had purchased.  
5.    As a modern consumer, I was ready for Sears to offer me some sort of compensation for their mistake and my trouble.  Was I in for a surprise.  Not only is Sears “tuned out” to have created a system that does not function properly (you do not sell a product without being able to deliver it) but the store personnel’s only response was to offer a refund, or “allow” me to wait until the following Wednesday and come back to pick up a replacement unit they promised to have by then.  No recognition that I had wasted two hours of my time, 32 miles of driving (not insignificant these days of $4.50 a gallon gas), and was not going to be able to cool my home office for another three days.  No offer even of a credit off the cost of another machine.  Nothing but lame apologies and a confirmation by the manager that their systems were less than ideal (actually he blamed the people in the store back room).
6.    After I returned home, I wrote what I thought was a brilliant letter to Sears customer service, asking to be put in touch with a manager.  What I got back was a form letter apologizing for my experience and offering me a shipping credit for my order of another air conditioning unit.  I replied to that message again asking to be contacted by a high level customer service representative.  No surprise, I never heard another word from Sears.

In return for their miserable string of behaviors and missed opportunities to do the right thing, Sears has now lost a customer who really liked their products and their service, who owns and uses many of their tools and products, and who shopped with them for over 30 years.  In my view, it will neither surprise nor sadden me if the entire business were to disappear tomorrow.  Companies that cannot get it done will not earn a place at the table anymore.  

Tuned In (in a really big way)
What I find quite humorous is that telling the story of a “tuned in” business is a much shorter story than the tuned out example I just gave. My middle daughter is a rising high school senior; her summer activity this year is a stint at NYC’s School of Visual Arts in an intensive college credit film program.  She will spend three weeks living in a dorm, taking classes and hanging out with other kids her age. It will be a great experience, and nice preparation for college a year from now.  

Reasonably enough, as a teenager, she wants to look good when she arrives at SVA, and asked me to buy her a new pair of shoes.  She went to a local store, found her size for a pair of Asics, but not the exact shoe she wanted, and knowing I am an online shopper, she found the shoe she wanted in the right color and size at Zappos, and then asked me to place the order for her.  Since she was to be leaving in a few days, we decided to upgrade shipping to two business days to be sure they arrived before the 4th of July on Friday.

1.    Zappos provides the standard e-commerce tools, and sent me a standard email notice that the order would be filled the next day.  
2.    Later that evening, I received a surprise message that my order was being upgraded one entire shipping class at no expense to me, simply because I am a valued customer and Zappos wants to exceed my expectations.  Who could complain about this?  
3.    Not only did the order ship within 24 hours, but it was then delivered on the second day after the order was placed.  

Faster service than expected or paid for – big smiles all around and not only will I feel very good about ordering from Zappos again, but I will tell anyone who asks me, and now even write about how great Zappos is, how smart, how “tuned in” to the customer, etc.  All true – when we order online, time from order to delivery is critical.  Amazon knows this, which is why they implemented their two day prime shipping program.  If you want to get people to buy online when they could get the same thing at a nearby mall store by just going to get it, you have to give shoppers compelling reasons to shop virtually.  Exceeding my expectations will give you a pretty strong edge the next time I think about shopping for your product.

The other interesting news here – the shoes my daughter ordered did not fit!  But because Zappos got them here early, she had time to replace them with another pair from a local store, and Zappos will get this pair back from us using their exceptionally easy returns process.  Yes, this shopping experience really did not get me what I wanted and actually cost me money, but unlike my experience with Sears, I actually feel positive about it.  

Tuned In/Tuned Out Scorecard

Zappos – 100%
Sears – 40%

The most exciting writing about the future of the book business I have read in a long time

Every once in a while you find that someone has said better many things you have been thinking and writing about.  Sara Lloyd at thedigitalist.net (Pan Macmillan (UK)’s excellent blog) has been posting a series of six pieces comprising a long essay called A Book Publisher’s Manifesto.  Section V went up today.  I recommend going back to the beginning of the series and reading it all.  What struck me most is her focus on the idea of the book itself being in the process of change.  I think most of us in the book business, even those of us who have embraced Web 2.0 concepts, are still not recognizing the huge potential for transformation that is upon us.  Marketing physical, digital audio or e-books using modern web based marketing tools is almost peripheral to the real changes we are experiencing.  Which are that publishing is changing fast now, both in terms of defining what the "product" is, and redefining the relationships between creators, consumers and intermediaries.

Here is a quote from Part I of Sara’s manifesto:

In an ‘always on’ world in which everything is increasingly digital, where content is increasingly fragmented and ‘bite-sized’, where ‘prosumers’ merge the traditionally disparate roles of producer and consumer, where search replaces the library and where multimedia mash-ups – not text - holds the attraction for the digital natives who are growing up fast into the mass market of tomorrow, what role do publishers still have to play and how will they have to evolve to hold on to a continuing role in the writing and reading culture of the future? Will there even be a writing and reading culture as we know it, tomorrow? Is the publishing industry acting fast enough and working creatively enough to adapt to the new information and leisure economies?

Another bite that resonated for me:

And whilst the edges of the book become more porous, the concept of a ‘book as unit’ slowly disappears further into history, new business models are already emerging. The value in the chain moves from a model which intertwines content with distribution to a model which simply values the content.

Another:

And as a new generation of readers interacts with texts online publishers will be wise to place themselves in a position to harness the network data and collective intelligence produced by social annotation and media creation, the sum of the “Wisdom of Crowds,” and to apply this to its future content development and to its marketing.

And:

Publishers need to work quickly to define what the quintessence of publishing is, what the core value provided by the publisher is beyond the technicalities of matching content with readers. When pressed to think about this, much of what publishers have to offer beyond the technicalities is qualitative rather than quantitative: stewardship, consultancy, an imprimatur. Will authors continue to value these things enough to believe that publishers are critical to the publication of their works?

I will look forward to the final post in the series.  And invite my friends and colleagues to comment - let me know what you think of all this. 

Bubblegeneration

Bubblegeneration and new media thinking

Thanks to my good friend Bill Gordon, who introduced me to Bubblegeneration and the thinking of Umair Haque.  This is a blog site I can recommend to all my friends and associates, as the ideas are profound and thought provoking.  Here are a couple of quotes from a piece Umair posted in November 2005 that resonates, particularly interesting in 2008:

The media industry is changing. Radical technological, management, and business model innovation is reshaping all segments of the value chain. This is the result of nothing less than a fundamental inversion of mass media economics, as well as the strategies that dominated those economics.

This inversion offers huge benefits for incumbents and new entrants alike to derive superior returns through new and strategically powerful sources of value creation. These new sources of value are laying the groundwork for an entirely new media value chain; one which leverages micromedia to deliver personalized, post-branded attentionstreams of chunked and microchunked disposable and essential media to communities of connected yet ever more hyperpolarized consumers.

and this as well:

To get started thinking about Media 2.0, ask yourself:

To what extent are microplatforms, micromedia, and aggregators and reconstructors a substitute or a complement for production, publishing/marketing, and distribution in my value chain?

How can I use micromedia platforms strategically, to build resources and capabilities which drive a sustained competitive advantage across my products, services, or businesses?

To what extent is increased micromedia penetration likely to erode the power of publishers, distributors, and marketers in my value chain, and shift value to the edges?

This is just a sample of what Umair has to say - you can easily spend alot of time on his site and more worthwhile hours pondering some of his ideas.  It’s always enjoyable to find someone really smart talking about really interesting ideas.

About Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab: Bubblegeneration’s Principal is Umair Haque. Umair studied neuroscience at McGill, did an MBA and econ/strategy research with Gary Hamel at London Business School in 2003, and began working towards a PhD in strategy and innovation at Oxford in 2004. Umair has spent time working in finance/economics, at a KP startup, and as a strategy consultant. Recently, he put his postgraduate work on hold to pursue Bubblegen full time.

Booktrix produces video for a new book

We’ve added video book trailer production to our suite of services.  We’re mostly interested in the creative use of media, and it is definitely fun to translate print into other forms.  While we still think our friends at Vidlit have produced some of the best flash book trailers ever, we’re very proud of ours.  View it for yourself here.  It’s short and to the point - and we’ve noticed that on the 40+ sites where we’ve posted, it is getting alot of attention and praise from viewers.  We’re promoting Secrets of 24, a terrific book edited by Dan Burstein and Arne deKeijzer.  For all you 24 show junkies denied a new season to watch, this book will help you get through your period of withdrawal.  As always Dan and Arne have cast a broad net and given intellectual credibility to a pop culture phenomenon.  And if you like this intersection between different art forms, spend some time at our "other" site, Livewriters, and join that conversation by posting some videos of your own.

David Byrne writes in Wired Magazine about the end of the Music Business

Writers and publishers - are you listening?

David Byrne’s Wired article about the music business is important and well worth reading for anyone, but in particular, for those of us in the book business attempting to read tea leaves for what the future will bring.  After the holidays are over, I plan to write a longer piece comparing the book business to the music business in more detail.  In the meantime, I hope you will read Byrne’s piece, either in print form or online (see below for direct link).  Here is an indicative quote:

What is called the music business today, however, is not the business of producing music. At some point it became the business of selling CDs in plastic cases, and that business will soon be over. But that’s not bad news for music, and it’s certainly not bad news for musicians. Indeed, with all the ways to reach an audience, there have never been more opportunities for artists.

David Byrne’s Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists - and Megastars

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/mag azine/16-01/ff_byrne 

‘writers will move online’

A story in the Financial Times about the Writers Guild of America strike talks about the possibility that film and television writers will begin bypassing working with the film and television studios and go straight to their audiences via the web.  Here’s the link to the complete story.  FT

And here is the core of the piece:

"But with the strike in its second month, Patric Verrone, president of the WGA West, said the dispute was creating “entrepreneurial possibilities for the talent community to go directly into production and distribution”. He added: “With every day that goes by, our members are exploring internet TV. The ability to explore this business without media conglomerates is becoming a real possibility.”

Some writers have already enjoyed success with web-only content. Will Ferrell and Adam McKay have attracted millions of internet users to their Funny or Die comedy site, where original comedy sketches and short films are available."

I have heard some people in the business side of film and television write this off as posturing.  And certainly there are many writers who have neither the inclination nor the business mindset to become web content entrepreneurs.  But it seems to me there are plenty who do, and since writers are on the whole perhaps the most disaffected of all who work in creative businesses, whether it’s television, film, magazines or books,  this possibility is not so far fetched.

The tools to make film and video, books and all the emerging new forms of content creation like blogs are readily available.  The traditional businesses have money to invest,, but no particular knowledge of what new business models will work, and perhaps if writers do put their creativity to work on the web new business and investment sources will arise as a result.  Money will follow success.

Novelists and nonfiction authors who have seen their advances disappear and sales decline and who now cannot be published at all may in fact have no choice to but to explore new business models.  If the WGA strike does spawn some new writer generated entertainment on the web, book publishers and authors should be watching.

What Would Jesus Buy

Produced by Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) and directed by Rob VanAlkemade, What Would Jesus Buy is a hilarious and sneakily penetrating portrait of Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping.  I’m pleased to be working with Morgan and Rob to help promote their film, together with the book Get Satisfied: How Twenty People Like You Found the Satisfaction of Enough (from the wonderful Simple Living America, published by Easton Studio Press.)  The website for the movie is well worth a visit: http://wwjbmovie.com.  Make sure you watch the trailer.  The film opens in selected theaters around the country November 30.

Here is the review from the NY Times.

The Gospel of Stop Shopping

For some of the parents interviewed in Rob VanAlkemade’s fast and funny documentary “What Would Jesus Buy?” the answer to the question posed by the title is simple: whatever gadget of the moment their spoiled-rotten kids are craving.

According to the film’s subject, Reverend Billy, the charismatic bleached-blond performance artist and mock evangelist whose real name is Bill Talen, this is part of a larger problem. His get-up may be for show, but his activism is the real deal, and his mission is to fight what he calls the “shopocalypse,” the buying frenzy Americans indulge in every holiday season.

The film takes us on a 2005 cross-country tour with Reverend Billy; Savitri D, his wife and organizer of his Church of Stop Shopping; and the church’s gospel choir. Along the way they deliver their message — that peace and love, not spending, are the true backbone of holiday spirit — through witty speeches and songs to unsuspecting patrons at assorted problem spots like Wal-Mart, the Mall of America and Disneyland. 

Reverend Billy is zany and energetic enough to hold the attention of those he’s preaching to — average to extreme shoppers, many clueless as to what globalization means — long enough for them to consider his crusade. At the very least, the film might make a viewer think twice about that next purchase at the Gap.

And for the antidote to the American Church of Material Things, take a look at Get Satisfied (proudly a Booktrix project produced for SLA) at http://www.getsatisfied.org. You can purchase the book there or at Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Get-Satisfied-Twenty-People-Satis faction/dp/0974380687/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&am p;qid=1196232092&sr=8-1

Publishing, the Future, and Market Research

In most industries, market research is considered crucial.  In the book business, it seems as if it is considered antithetical to good publishing.  I do not believe that publishers should choose which books to publish based simply on research about what people want to read, as that would produce a market that looks like television (but hey, isn’t that what a lot of people complain we already have? Hmmm…). 

But of course some books might well be published (and published well) based on research about what the market needs.   But it seems rather that the book industry as a whole needs to know much more about its readers (current and future) and therefore about the kinds of delivery mechanisms that will appeal to them in a digital universe.

Back to the comparison with the record business….which is by all measures, the closest in nature and behavior to the book business….consumers of music have increasingly made clear that they are not that interested in traditional containers (CD’s being traditional in that they are a physical collection of songs - even though they are only twenty five years old as a specific physical format).  Record companies need to redefine themselves as content businesses, primarily. 

Is this true of publishers?  I think so, many others do as well.  How would we find out?

Wouldn’t we be able to ask readers questions about books, reading, digital delivery systems, pricing, etc., and imperfect as the answers might be, learn something meaningful that we could use to help reconfigure  how books are made, marketed, sold and delivered?

Does the Book Industry Study Group(BISG) have this responsibility?  Does AAP?  Does the NEA?  Are individual publishers doing this kind of research?  Maybe Amazon or Barnes & Noble is most likely to be working on these issues.

I think the Radiohead experiment ought to be replicated many times over in different variations, for both music and writing.  Regardless of the future delivery shape of the book, I think the configuration of the world of retail and the way the Web works makes it imperative for authors and publishers to begin to build different sorts of relationships with consumers. 

The only way we will learn what works and how what works may vary across different types of books and authors, is to experiment, and then study the results.

If anyone reading this has information about studies in reading and technology, new media publishing, consumer thinking about digital books, pricing models, etc., I’d be grateful to learn about them. 

The Radiohead Experiment

Recently Radiohead offered their new CD "In Rainbows" to consumers (http://www.inrainbows.com/) with the choice to download the entire album and pay whatever the individual feels is fair.  Authors and book publishers certainly should be interested in this project and the results.  While there are clear differences between the music business and the book business, there are also many similarities, particularly in the way that retail has evolved.  For example, the decline in the amount of shelf space available for new titles and backlist against the number of titles produced annually is strikingly similar between the two industries. 

The structure of each industry is very much the same.  In each there has been a decline of independent outlets, rise of mass marketers and big box stores, and the prevalence of large active used resale marketplaces is common to both music and books.  Additionally, on the production side, there are great similarities - with a small number of large publishers or labels, a huge number of independents, and now too, a rise in self produced products.

Differences of course abound; there is no radio or anything like it to promote books.  Musicians make money performing in ways that most authors can only admire from afar.  No one pays $40 for an author tour t-shirt either (well maybe once in a while). 

Music can be consumed while doing other things and is almost ubiquitous, and the internet has broadened its reach wildly, while reading requires attention and focus.  Certainly there will never be as many people interested in reading or buying books as there are who listen to music.  But then again, books are used for many purposes, with academic, professional and science categories that have no equivalent in music either.

Regardless, the idea of that both businesses are going through some serious changes now would be difficult to dispute.  So the Radiohead project is interesting to publishers and authors in the same way that Seth Godin’s work is illuminating for musicians and record labels.

*** 

Here is a report on the first three weeks of the Radiohead experience: http://blogs.mediapost.com/online_minute/?p=1601. 

Radiohead Results: 38% Forked Over $6 Average

Posted November 6th, 2007 by Wendy Davis

It’s no exaggeration to say the music industry is eagerly awaiting the results of Radiohead’s decision to let consumers decide how much, if anything, to pay for the group’s latest album.

And it’s probably fair to speculate that many executives are hoping that the group finds it can’t make as much money with their pay-what-you-choose pricing plan as it could have, had it sold “In Rainbows” through a record label.

Now, preliminary results in from comScore show that about six in 10 downloaders didn’t pay anything for the album since it was made available online on Oct. 10. Worldwide, 1.2 million people visited the album’s Web site last month, with a “significant percentage” downloading the record, according to comScore estimates.

Thirty-eight percent of downloaders worldwide paid something for the album, while 62% downloaded it for free. Paying downloaders forked over an average of $6, with U.S. consumers paying almost twice as much ($8.05) as those from other countries ($4.64).

Between the “freeloaders” and paying downloaders, overall revenue came to an average $2.26 per album.

But many questions need to be answered before any conclusions can be drawn from that figure. Among the most significant is, how many of those early downloaders only did so because the tracks were free? If the freeloaders wouldn’t have purchased the record under any circumstances, it doesn’t bode poorly for musicians that they chose not to pay here.

Consider also, bands typically receive only a small portion of the purchase price when their record labels sell the albums. While precise details of arrangement between Radiohead and its label aren’t known, music attorney and record exec Chris Castle
estimated to CNET that the group saw between $3 and $5 per album sold by their label and tended to sell 3 million to 4 million copies of each album.

Meantime, before anyone deems Radiohead’s initiative an economic failure based on just three weeks worth of data, the industry should consider the intangible factors — including goodwill from consumers — that could translate into ticket sales or other revenue down the line.

**** 

This may not mean that authors will be racing to replicate this idea with their books, but some will, perhaps with variations on the theme.  The truly excellent music and culture magazine from Georgia, Paste Magazine (http://www.pastemagazine.com/) is currently offering subscriptions for any price you want to pay them.  Why not sell books online the same way?  If you have a platform and an audience that will pay attention, it might just work well enough to provide authors with enough income to allow them to do what they need to do - which is write for a living.

New Book Biz Survey Reported

The Future of Publishing?

Blog Theory and Practice

Distribution Diary

Book distribution remains one of my favorite topics. When I was working as a book distributor, I spoke to literally hundreds, if not thousands of publishers, many of them new or relatively new to the business. Almost all of them had misconceptions or misunderstandings about how the distribution business works. Distribution and book distributors of all types continue to play a critical role for publishers, especially if they want to reach the core retail book marketplace. Certainly, specialty publishers, with very focused programs continue to find better alternatives for reaching their markets. And online direct to consumer and other alternative distribution channels continue to grow.

But the distribution function remains critical, and over the next few weeks and months I will do more posts here about this subject and working with Publishers Lunch and Publishers Marketplace, will try to lay out a pretty comprehensive dataset and description of all of the distribution options available to publishers (and authors who publish), along with a running commentary and some predictions about the future of book distribution and retailing.

Defining Booktrix

Booktrix is about to enter a new stage of life.  Within a few weeks, this site will be transformed from a blog based platform to a website that includes a blog.  With the new site we will be better able to define the Booktrix business.  In the meantime, I will be posting some thoughts toward defining “the brand.”
Simplest: Booktrix provides services and tools for making books, marketing books, and selling books.

Book Business and Environmental Economics: Belated Post #2

Right on target to one of the main points raised in my earlier post, Publishers Weekly featured an article this week entitled “Publishers Getting Serious About the Environment Can global warming help reduce returns?” (by Staff — Publishers Weekly, 7/16/2007). Here is an excerpt:

“Last week, Hachette announced that it will form an environmental board of senior executives to determine ways the company can reduce its environmental impact. An environmental committee will also be created that will include employees who want to be involved in making the company a greener workplace.

Random formed its green committee this spring; it’s chaired by company chairman Peter Olson, with Van Der Laan as deputy chair. The committee has already come up with some day-to-day ways it can contribute to a greener planet, like providing “techno trash” bins on each floor so employees can dispose of cell phones, discs and other digital refuse. Random is also conducting a carbon audit that should be completed by the fall, Van Der Laan said. The audit will help Random better understand the overall impact its business has on the environment and areas where improvements can be made quickly.

Pearson, parent company of Penguin, has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2009, while HarperCollins’s parent company, News Corp., has said it will be carbon neutral by 2010. Penguin chairman John Makinson said the publisher’s contribution to reaching carbon neutrality includes finding ways to lessen its paper consumption through the use of more recycled and other Forest Stewardship (FSC) certified paper and changing work practices by examining such areas as how, and how much, employees travel. To that end, HC, which has its own HarperGreen team, said it is transitioning its sales fleet to hybrid cars when leases expire.

Although the use of more recycled paper can make a significant improvement in the environment, Makinson said lowering returns would also make a huge impact on the planet. Makinson supports the idea of selling certain categories, particularly backlist, nonreturnable, and noted that Penguin has worked out discounting-on-site programs with Barnes & Noble as one way to cut returns. (Amazon already buys many of its titles nonreturnable.)

One company that has already developed an extensive nonreturnable option is Chelsea Green. Eighteen major independent booksellers have signed on to the Chelsea Green Partnership Program, introduced at BookExpo America this year, reports company president Margo Baldwin, and she hopes to interest the chains in the program as well. Under the program, retailers receive a base discount of 50% on all orders and an additional annual credit based upon the amount of business completed during the previous calendar year. Credits can be applied to open or future invoices and to co-op advertising. Baldwin said booksellers like the program not only because of the greater discount, but because they see it can make on impact on reducing waste.”

While there is no question that publishers can make relatively large contributions simply by printing on recycled paper, and adopting energy efficient and green office and warehouse programs (including switching over to compact fluorescent lightbulbs, turning off computers at the end of every workday, encouraging telecommuting, mass transit subsidies for employees, reducing paper waste, using recycled cartons, eliminating plastic tape, etc.)

But overall the largest change that can be implemented will be to change the book economy to reduce or eliminate the inefficiency and waste created by returns. Remember that 30% of all new books are printed, shipped to a warehouse, then shipped to a store, or to a wholesaler, and then returned to the publisher or distributor warehouse and finally shipped out again to a remainder wholesaler or retailer, or shipped to a recycler or landfill. Think of the amount of energy that has been wasted in this process. This does not even count the energy cost of forklifts and pallet jacks within the various warehouses in which returned books are moved around to no good end or purpose.

My next task is to calculate the energy value of returned books. But even without knowing the true energy cost of returns, everyone in the book business knows it is time for change. In the end this change will be driven not by publishers, but by retailers and wholesalers. As the article quoted above notes, nonreturnability is beginning to infiltrate publisher, retailer and wholesaler practices. And we do have successful models for how bookselling could become a nonreturnable business - calendars are currently sold under “shared markdown” terms with “remainder in place terms for liquidation at the end of their effective lives. Books could certainly be sold under similar terms.

The biggest concern in imagining a nonreturnable business for publishers, authors and retailers is how to make carrying new and unproven authors worth the risk for retailers of taking them into their stores in the first place. But this risk exists now in the returnable market. With nonreturnable terms including shared markdown and remainder in place, books that do not succeed will actually be less risky and less expensive to carry than they are now with returnability. The benefits of good data and reporting overwhelm the now obsolete returnable terms invented by Simon & Schuster during the Depression. Contrary to many, I do not think backlist is the place to start. We need to implement new business practices that are environmentally and socially responsible, that also increase the selection of titles that can be found on bookstore shelves. Nonreturnable programs, properly designed, will enable better distribution and more titles available to consumers.