Speeches by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, Knowledge Universe founder Michael Milken and Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, as well as a visit by First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, highlighted the 1999 annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers, held March 17-18 in Washington, D.C.
Bezos told the audience that he believes the number-one factor behind Amazon.com's rapid growth has been its focus on customer service. "We are a customer-centric company," Bezos declared. Favorable word-of-mouth reviews of Amazon helped to accelerate the online retailer's expansion, Bezos said, and he admitted that he had thought "it would take much longer for our business to grow to the size it has." Despite Amazon's dominance in online book retailing, Bezos -- observing that "we are only at the beginning of e-commerce" -- predicted that there will be "thousands and thousands" of successful Internet stores. "It won't be winner take all," he added.
Bezos reiterated that Amazon's long-term strategy is to become a retailer that provides consumers with whatever item they are searching for online, although, he added, "we will always sell books." Because Bezos said he sees e-commerce as such a large opportunity, he has no qualms about the company's famous unprofitability. "Our strategy will continue to be to invest heavily," Bezos said, noting somewhat sheepishly that the company was profitable after its first month in business and that its U.S. book business turned a profit in December.
The international market has played a key role in Amazon's success, with the company shipping books to 160 countries daily. Due to the global nature of the Internet, Bezos said, "over time, book [rights] will be sold in a language-centric way rather than a geographic-centric way."
Michael Milken advised publishers that they will need to redefine themselves to take advantage of the opportunities that lie ahead in the 21st century. As the U.S. moves deeper into the information age, people will need to develop more skills in order to close the wage gap that has developed between those with educational degrees and those without. According to Milken, a person with a high school diploma earned an average of $25,000 in 1996, while a person with a college degree earned close to $40,000. Milken also pointed out that lifelong learning and training is becoming more and more important as people increasingly move from job to job.
America's changing demographics will also bring new opportunities to publishers. The rapid growth in the Latin population, for example, will increase the market for Spanish books, Milken predicted. In his remarks, Treasury Secretary Rubin said that the U.S. economy "is well positioned for the next several years." He said that despite a soft economic outlook for most other countries, the likely scenario for the U.S. is solid growth and low inflation, although he warned that "the [present] economy can't be taken for granted."
Rubin noted that the Clinton administration's economic strategy calls for maintaining open markets, promoting fiscal discipline and investing in education, health care and job creation. Rubin argued that if the U.S. is to maintain its leadership in the world economy, the government must resist the pressure of protectionism. He also said that the projected budget surpluses for the next several years should be used to pay down the federal debt.
In her luncheon address, Mrs. Clinton noted that publishers had donated more than 400,000 books to the administration's Prescription for Reading Partnership and that the number of children participating in the program has risen from 150,000 to 780,000.
Mrs. Clinton also urged the private and public sectors to work together to promote reading and announced that the U.S. Department of Education was cooperating with McDonald's in a campaign dubbed Raising Tomorrow's Learners. The initiative, which will be launched in October, will feature the distribution of 13 million booklets glued to McDonald's Happy Meal bags that will help parents to get their children to read.
Attendees were also brought up to date on the industrywide Get Caught Reading campaign, which is set to run this May. Buena Vista Publishing's Bob Miller said that the campaign has received "remarkably generous support" from magazine publishers, who have donated about $1.8 million worth of ad space. Miller noted that with a $10,000 donation from Berkery, Noyes, the total cost of the program was about $94,000.
BookExpo America v-p Courtney Muller said that Get Caught Reading would be the theme for this year's convention; the slogan will appear on all show badges as well as aisle banners. To help kick off the promotion, Baker &Taylor and HarperCollins are sponsoring a party for all attendees on the first day of the show, Friday, April 30.
Lynn Goldberg of Goldberg McDuffie Communications said she is working on getting broadcast coverage for the campaign; she has already lined up an appearance on the April 27 Today show for AAP president Pat Schroeder.
