One word summarizes what's going on with business management books today: Internet. Other trends sort themselves out as derivatives or subtexts of this irrefutable and fundamental facet of business life. The way business is conceived and conducted -- and the way business management books are merchandised and marketed -- has changed profoundly in the last few years to reflect this new reality. The 20% of adult Americans who happen to be Net savvy, the "knowledge-based" elite in the new economy, also happen to be the prime market for business books. They are often the managers, the agents of change in their companies, and they have a huge appetite for information that will help them chart the future and get the job done.
The Internet is proving to be a paradigm shift, one that is affecting everything from information bits to zeitgeist. Business communication, e-commerce, e-conomy, e-tailing, e-trading, you name it, nothing has been left untouched. The speed with which business is conducted today -- and the speed of change in the business world itself-would have been unthinkable even five years ago. Globalization, a trend accelerated by electronic communication, is blurring national borders as never before and creating a host of opportunities and questions.
Add to this a robust economy, the longest bull market in history and record low unemployment, and we have an era of intensely competitive prosperity that continues to fuel itself, even as everyone wonders how long the good times can last. "The financial markets are flying," says Adrian Zackheim, publisher at HarperBusiness. "We've seen the largest single creation of wealth in history."
Demographics also play an important part in the mix. "Sales of management books began to increase 20 years ago," says Prentice Hall Press publisher Gene Brissie, "with baby boomers getting serious about careers. Now the demographics are loaded in the direction of leadership and investment. The boomers are executives in their peak earning years. This is one of the things helping to drive the stock market."
All of this, of course, is splendid news for business management books. Sales are up across the board. "We are way ahead of budget," observes Steve Arkin, publisher at Amacom, "and the ratio of backlist to frontlist has never been better." Dearborn Financial publisher Cynthia Zigmund tells PW, "This is our best year ever. It's been absolutely recording-setting." At Harvard Business School Press, marketing director Gayle Treadwell says, "Our sales have gone up dramatically -- in fact, they have tripled in the last five years."
Technology and the Speed of Change
With titles like The Dance of Change by Peter Senge (Doubleday/Currency) and Bill Gates's Business at the Speed of Thought (Warner) appearing on bestseller lists, it's pretty clear what's on managers' minds. "Everyone is concerned about the future of business as the breakneck pace of change continues," says Jean Kerr at Business Books Network. Adds Zigmund: "This is an increasingly online business environment." And Fred Hills, senior editor at Simon & Schuster, observes, "The knowledge economy and the wired economy are facts of life today and are turning a lot of the old ideas upside down."
Books about the speed of change, it seems, are appearing on practically every publisher's list. Berrett-K hler publisher Steve Piersanti notes, "The marketplace has become so movable that management constantly has to ask itself, `How do we keep the organization fast and nimble so we can remain competitive?' " In October, B-K is bringing out Birth of the Chaordic Age by Dee Hock, founder and CEO emeritus of Visa International, to address this issue. Hock argues that traditional organizational forms can no longer work because organizations have become too complex. He advocates a new organizational form that he calls "chaordic," or simultaneously chaotic and orderly.
A number of serious titles on the subject are due this fall. McGraw-Hill will ship in October Net Ready: CISCO's Rules for Success in the E-conomy by Amir Hartman, John Kador and John Sifonis, billed by the publisher as the "the inside lowdown on e-commerce from the most powerful force of the Internet." As an aside, publisher Phillip Ruppell notes, "We have had the most success with books that focus on a known brand or name. Readers want real-life, tangible examples of the best management practices at work."
Times Books has two case-study titles coming that show how winning companies coped with and profited from the new digital nervous system that is driving business today. Charles H. Ferguson deals with the start-up and funding of Vermeer Software in October's High Stakes-No Prisoners: How I Won My David-and-Goliath Battle in Silicon Valley, while January brings Money from Thin Air: The Story of Craig McCaw, the Visionary Who Invented the Cell Phone Industry by O. Casey Corr.
Wiley has no fewer than five big titles covering the new e-world of business coming this fall. High Noon: The Inside Story of Scott McNealy and the Rise of Sun Microsystems by Karen Southwick (Sept.) provides an "insider's view of the business maneuverings of some of the industry's most interesting players, including Sun, Microsoft, Oracle, Netscape, IBM, and Intel." In a November title, Microsoft: The First Generation: Success Secrets of the Visionaries Who Launched a Technology Empire, author Cheryl Tsang attempts to answer the question, Just how did they do it? David Siegel provides key strategies for customer-driven e-commerce in Futurize Your Enterprise: Business Strategy in the Age of the E-Customer (Oct.); and-also in October -- the hottest news on digital economy will be available in Mastering the Digital Marketplace by Douglas F. Aldrich, v-p and managing director of the Global Strategic Information Technology Practice of the management consulting firm A.T. Kearney.
Harvard Business School Press is publishing three technology-management titles in October that are geared to the professional manager. Secrets of Software Success: Management Insights from 100 Software Firms Around the World by Detlev J. Hoch et al. takes a look into the practices of successful companies; Blown to Bits: How the New Economics of Information Transforms Strategy by Philip Evans and Thomas S. Wurster explains how to rethink traditional business strategies for the information-based economy; and Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate by Fortune columnist Michael Schrage describes how experiments with simulations, prototypes and models lead to breakthrough innovation.
As if confirming the increasing popularity of the management category, Dearborn announced plans a few months ago to begin publishing titles in this area along with its traditional finance and training books; Zigmund says she expects management books to eventually account for about 25% of Dearborn's list. Due in November is e-tailing, in which e-commerce expert Bernadette Tiernan covers "everything from how to create high security Web sites to providing top customer service online."
Globalization on the Rise
The digital revolution has increased the velocity of the trend toward globalization of business. Tied together almost seamlessly by electronic communications, world markets are truly interdependent today and are growing more closely integrated all the time. Working in many different time zones, virtual teams can plan and execute business strategies as if they were in the same room together. Says Hills at Simon & Schuster, "The shift to the global economy has made the corporation as important as government." Jossey-Bass editorial director Cedric Crocker observes, "Businesses are concerned about how to create organizations that function effectively across national boundaries and cultures."
Global marketers can turn to a wealth of management titles scheduled for fall release. Coming from Dearborn in October is The Global Entrepreneur: Taking Your Business International by James F. Foley, a how-to guide for small- to medium-sized businesses seeking to increase profits by pursuing these international markets. Focusing on this new arena, Routledge recently published Made in Korea: Chung Ju Yung and the Rise of Hyundai by Richard M. Steers; coming in September is Global Explorers: The Next Generation of Leaders by J. Stewart Black, Allen J. Morrison and Hal B. Gregersen. According to business books editor Melissa Rosati, "There is a crisis in multinationals -- there are not enough mid-level managers to make the leap to senior management as a result of the downsizing of the '90s."
In a September release from Harvard Business School Press, Race for the World: Strategies to Build a Great Global Firm, Lowell Bryan et al. offer advice on how to stake out and shape a dominant position in the new global playing field-"no matter what business you're in, no matter what size it is," says marketing director Gayle Treadwell. Cornell University Press's contribution to the global playing field is Being Local Worldwide: ABB [Asea Brown Boveri] and the Challenge of Global Management by Jacques Belanger et al. (Nov.).
At least two publishers are watching the ph nix-like German economy and have news and information about it for global businesses. Wiley will bring out in December Germany, Inc.: The Challenge to America and How It Will Change World Business by Dr. Werner Meyer-Larsen. In the publisher's words, "As Japan's sun sets, Germany's is on the rise. German business, Europe's most powerful, is flexing its muscles. A new cadre of industrialists have worldwide ambitions and their first target is America." In October, McGraw-Hill is publishing Jurgen Schrempp and the Making of an Auto Dynasty: The Story of the Man Behind DaimlerChrysler by Jurgen Graesslin, about the man who masterminded last year's $54-billion DaimlerChrysler merger -- the largest corporate merger in history. "It's the first book in the U.S. about Schrempp," says Ruppell, "and it was a bestseller in Europe."
Managing Work and the Work Force
As a result of re-engineering (along with computerization and volatile economy), many businesses have been pared to the bone and the notion of corporate loyalty has been all but destroyed. Not surprisingly, this state of affairs is starting to take its toll on productivity. Coupled with record low unemployment, the situation has serious implications for business. "This year," says Harry Edwards, business editor for Amazon.com, "we are seeing many more titles on managing human capital, whereas last year the spotlight was on managing other company resources and supply chains." Lisa Lansperry, manager of corporate communications at barnesandnoble.com, notes that "along with change management, employee retention is a big trend in our business management sales." As Hills at S&S puts it, "Business has gone to a horizontal structure. There's a huge talent shortage and a shift to complexity, away from command-and-control."
In May Cornell University Press published a title that looks at the big picture of the changing workplace in the new business world -- On the Front Line: The Organization of Work in the Information Economy by Stephen J. Frenkel et al. Forthcoming titles that will take on this crisis include Keeping Your Valuable Employees: Retention Strategies for Your Company's Most Valuable Commodity by Suzanne Dibble (Wiley, Oct.); Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay by Beverly Kaye and Sharon Jordan-Evans (Berrett-K hler, Sept.); and Trust and Betrayal in the Workplace: Building Effective Relationships in Your Organization by Dennis S. Reina and Michelle L. Reina (Berrett-K hler, Oct.).
Changes in the workplace are altering not only corporate structures, but are affecting a great number of employees at a deeply personal level. In the words of Crocker at Jossey-Bass, "There is a big shift in the way people are working, from lifelong employment to all kinds of arrangements, including contract work and consulting." The publisher is about to bring out the second edition of Peter Block's Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used -- billed as "the best-selling consulting book of all time."
Other titles dealing with the effect of corporate change on individuals and their careers are Turbulent Change: Every Working Person's Survival Guide by Peter R. Garber (Davies-Black, Oct.); Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambition by Harriet Rubin (HarperBusiness, Nov.); and 101 Tips for Telecommuters: Successfully Manage Your Work, Team, Technology and Family by Debra Dinnocenzo (Berrett-K hler, Aug.).
Leadership Skills for the Brave New World
The science and mystique of what makes a great leader is the subject of numerous titles to date, and this fall publishers are sizing up the situation from an e-world perspective. What d s it take to lead in today's elastic and rapidly evolving business environment? As Peter Drucker says in his recently released Management Challenges for the 21st Century (HarperBusiness), it is imperative that managers become "change leaders" and individual workers to assume unprecedented levels of responsibility. Just how that is to be accomplished is the subject of many forthcoming releases.
In terms of what not to do, HarperBusiness is issuing in September Chainsaw: Al Dunlap and the New Era of Wall Street Greed by Business Week writer John A. Byrne. Dunlap, who became notorious for his draconian management tactics while at Sunbeam, provides a "cautionary tale" for executives, according to publisher Adrian Zackheim.
Three other titles offer recent success stories as worthy examples. In Saving Big Blue: Leadership Lessons & Turnaround Tactics of IBM's Lou Gerstner (McGraw-Hill, Sept.), Robert Slater presents a road map for achieving success the IBM way. Coming in November is another Slater/McGraw-Hill pairing, The GE Way Fieldbook: Jack Welch's Battle Plan for Corporate Revolution, a followup to Slater's Jack Welch and the GE Way, which Ruppell notes has sold more than 100,000 copies. The management process employed by GE in its history-making resuscitation is the topic of Six Sigma: The Breakthrough Management Strategy Revolutionizing the World's Top Corporations (Oct.) by Mikel Harry and Richard Schr der. According to publisher Doubleday/Currency, this is the only program ever endorsed by the American Society for Quality, and is a business process that enables companies to increase profits by streamlining operations, improving quality and eliminating mistakes.
The McGraw-Hill IBM book may well be duking it out with a HarperBusiness title on the same topic: IBM Redux: Lou Gerstner and the Business Turnaround of the Decade by Doug Garr is due in September.
Of Sports, Shakespeare and History
The world of sports is an evergreen source of leadership role models and inspiration, and this fall football and tennis pros dish up some timeless wisdom. In September, St. Martin's is publishing The Packer Way by Ron Wolf and Paul Attner, in which, says editor George Witte, "the general manager of the Super Bowl XXXIII champs discusses nine steps to building a winning organization." In a similar context, Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan has written Being the Best, due in September from HarperBusiness. In January, Random House will publish, with a huge ad and publicity campaign, The Inner Game of Work by Timothy Gallwey, author of the 1974 megaseller The Inner Game of Tennis. Lee Boudreaux, his editor, says, "For all the business books out there, no one is talking about the human factor of work the way Gallwey is. It's about learning to learn, about getting out of rigid patterns and getting out of your own way." Since the publication of Inner Game of Tennis, Gallwey has been a consultant to major corporations.
History, too, is a fertile field for great leadership stories and maxims, and readers will have a number of titles to choose from this fall season. Patton on Leadership: Strategic Lessons on Corporate Warfare by Alan Axelrod is coming from Prentice Hall Press; Gene Brissie calls it "the best management book I've read in three years." A second PH title approaches the subject from the vantage point of Asian wisdom: A Victor's Reflections and Other Tales of China's Timeless Wisdom for Leaders by Michael C. Tang (Oct.). On a somewhat lighter note, PH is also doing Never Give a Sucker an Even Break: W.C. Fields on Business (Jan.) by the comedian's grandson, Ronald J. Fields. Reaching back to the 19th century in our own country, Take Command: Leadership Lessons from the Civil War by Tom Wheeler is due from Doubleday/Currency in December. "This title, which is about the 'battlefield' of business today, has received great pre-pub reviews and endorsements," says editorial director Roger Scholl.
At least two publishers (HarperBusiness and Kogan Page Ltd., a British publisher represented in this country by Business Books Network) are riding the Shakespeare wave recently spawned by Hollywood, and are both bringing out books titled Shakespeare on Management.
For the start-up and would-be start-up executive, HarperBusiness has The Money Hunt: Entrepreneurial Lessons for Pursuing the American Dream by Miles Spencer and Cliff Ennico (hosts of the PBS-TV show Money Hunt). Jack Covert of Schwartz Business Bookstore in Milwaukee says, "This is a book I'm very excited about. It should do very well."
Marketing and Merchandising
The sea change in the marketing and merchandising of business books has been a boon to publishers, as well as online retailers, and no doubt contributes to the vibrant state of the category.
"Business books lend themselves to online promotions and sales," says Lynda Luppino, director of marketing for business and general reference at McGraw-Hill. "Things like online interviews and excerpting work very well." Arkin at Amacom tells PW, "There has been a huge change in the way books are marketed and distributed. The growth in online bookselling has boosted the sales of practical, how-to business books as well as expensive professional books."
Smaller publishers attest to the leveling of the playing field afforded by online promotion. "It gives us access to much larger audiences than print, TV and radio," says Cynthia Zigmund of Dearborn. Like most publishers, Dearborn has its own Web site and markets and sells products online. "It's becoming a major promotional conduit for us," Zigmund says, "and is starting to really pay off." Book-specific Web sites, sometimes produced by the authors themselves, have also become the norm.
Says Scholl at Doubleday/Currency, "We are focusing a lot of attention on the Net. Virtually all of the authors create their own Web sites, and of course everything is linked. Tom Wheeler [author of Leadership Lessons from the Civil War] is creating a special interactive site that will truly explore the power of the Net. It will involve more than 280 Civil War Web sites and should get a lot of attention in those markets."
"Online has changed the marketing strategy for business titles," says Joan O'Neil, Wiley's director of marketing and product planning. "We're able to get more early buzz before publication by having books featured on key Web sites. We are experimenting, finding sites by key publications, consulting firms and other ways. It's very much in flux and is new every month. Still, we can't depend on just one vehicle. We always have many things going on at once. But people want information fast, the pace of business is moving faster, and our window to promote books is shorter. We usually only have a month to build momentum. The campaign has to hit about a month after the books ship." Wiley continues its mailings to top CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, special events (like business breakfasts and forums), working with corporate training departments and working with authors in their own venues. Wiley has created a business breakfast with the Smithsonian Institute that has featured several of its authors and, according to the company, generated substantial book sales.
At Random House, senior publicist Alexa Cassanos says, "We're promoting The Inner Game of Work to various business-interest Web sites such as Upside, ZDNet and Forbes, as well as highlighting it as a category selection on the Random House Web site and promoting an advance excerpt to our business category e-mail list."
For online booksellers, business management represents a major sales category. Edwards at Amazon.com declined to say just how major, but notes, "It's big. Let me just say we account for a large percentage of press runs for publishers. I think business books in general have been underserved in terms of selection by traditional retailers." One of the eight key links on Amazon.com's home page is "Business and Investing" (the only other traditional category that is given its own link is "Kids"). Off the record, a major business book publisher says that business is second only to children's books at bn.com. Lisa Lansperry notes that bulk orders account for many sales through the site and so skew bestseller lists.
It's clearly an exciting time to be following business, with all of its daring leaps, fearless vaults and paroxysms of change. One might wonder how long this pace of economic metamorphosing can continue, and how much faster the rate of change might become. Maybe one day business management books will simply beam telepathically from the author's brain to the "reader's" and the publisher's job will be simply to handle the subscriptions and check the meter.
