A group of more than 200 authors, publishers, agents and others in the computer book business meeting at a San Diego, Calif., resort might not seem to have much in common with a group of fishermen who died off the eastern coast of Canada nearly a decade ago. But for many of the attendees at the Waterside 2002 conference, The Perfect Storm seemed like the appropriate analogy--the convergence of negative market forces to produce an extraordinarily bad selling period--for the state of their business.
Yet even looking back at a year of negative forces--the collapse of many Internet startups; flat sales being considered good sales; retail markets tightening orders or making returns higher; and no blockbuster advances in technology--the news was not all bad at Waterside. "Despite all the doom and gloom, this business is going to sell a lot more books than it did five years ago," said Bill Gladstone, founder of the Waterside literary agency, which organized the event. Much of the conference, now in its 12th year, focused on finding niches and gaps within the technology information field where publishers could make a profit.
There was also talk about the need to redefine the publisher-customer relationship. "Publishers should think of themselves as knowledge mediators," said John Kilcullen, former CEO of Hungry Minds. "Publishers celebrate a book after it comes out, but the publication of the book is really just the beginning of a lifelong relationship with the customer."
Most seemed to agree that the trade segment of the market was waning, but not lost. "The market is not going away," said Richard Swadley, who represented Hungry Minds/Wiley Technology Group at a trade publishing panel. "What is different is that some of the channels have certainly shrunk." When the warehouse clubs started shelving computer books by the score it was a boon for the industry, but now those channels are tightening. "There's less traffic going through looking for any product, let alone ours," said Swadley.
Don Fowley, publisher of Microsoft Press, predicted that over the next five years, new products would integrate reference and training materials and create tailored learning experiences for professionals.
Richard Bowles, publisher of Intel Press, talked about the opportunities in the high end of the market, i.e., servicing the needs of engineers and information technology workers who need to stay current with technology. Intel surveyed 3,000 engineers, and Bowles said they found that while most said they needed books for information, they had been disappointed with past book products and they often didn't have time to find the best book for their particular need. Bowles also pointed out that as companies cut back on travel budgets for conferences, books become more important for providing professional information, and opportunities lie in filling the gaps. "People who do that will be able to sell books and command premium prices," said Bowles.
Many observers thought Kilcullen overly pessimistic after he predicted that the first part of this year would be worse than 2001 for technology publishers. But he also said the downturn gives publishers "a great opportunity to rethink their publishing programs, the number of titles they produce per year, and realign around new realities in bookselling." He added, "When you are in a down economy, what people need is know-how."
