Harvard accepted only 9.8% of its applicants for the class of 2007, Yale 11.4% and Brown 14.95%. As competition to get into top colleges continues to rise, college guides are seeing a corresponding increase in sales.
In 2003, sales for the three titles that top Nielsen BookScan's category ranking—The Best 345 Colleges, edited by Robert Franek et al. (Random House/ Princeton Review), The Fiske Guide to Colleges by Edward B. Fiske (Sourcebooks) and Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, with CD-ROM—have increased significantly. At Princeton Review Books, publisher Tom Russell estimates that sales are up 20%. "We're having our best year ever," he said. Lonny Stein, director of marketing at Barron's, agrees that it's been a good year, though he finds it difficult to pinpoint exactly why: "Maybe it's demographics. Or the schools themselves are more selective. And kids don't want to waste their early admittance chances, since they only have one shot."
At Sourcebooks, president and publisher Dominique Raccah attributes The Fiske Guide's jump—from number six two years ago to its current position at number two on the Bookscan list—to a companywide effort that began in 2001, when the guide moved to Sourcebooks from Random House. "We reformatted the book, revisualized it and repackaged it," said Raccah, referring to the neon-green spine and front-cover stripe on the once-staid blue guide. "The second thing we did was put the author on the air. When the whole issue of early admissions came up last fall, Ted [Fiske] offered an intelligent and well-researched point of view." Then, too, Sourcebooks did a lot of old-fashioned marketing. The house offered co-op for endcaps, front-of-store and window displays to help persuade booksellers that the book could outperform its previous track record, Raccah said.
Those aggressive efforts, including drive-time radio ads in mid-April, the week that rejection letters went out, are starting to pay off: at some independents, The Fiske Guide is in first place. "Fiske is doing better than the others," said Pat Walsh, business and study guides buyer at Tattered Cover in Denver. "We have people coming in and asking for it." For her store, the 30-year-old Insider's Guide to the Colleges (St. Martin's), compiled and edited by the staff of the Yale Daily News, is also strong. "Fiske has sold probably two to one over The Insider's Guide and four or five to one over The Best 345 Colleges," she noted. Similarly, at Amazon, "Fiske is the leader by a fairly large margin, about two to one over The Best 345 Colleges, followed by The Insider's Guide to the Colleges and Profiles of American Colleges," said Amazon.com editor Keith Moerer.
Each book has its strength. Fiske is an authority on college admissions. Since moving to Sourcebooks, his guide is now the first of the annual guides to come out, in June. For The Best 345 Colleges, Princeton surveys college students—about 100,000 of them for the 2003 edition. "We update all our key college guides every year," said Russell, who plans to add six new schools for 2004, making it The Best 351 Colleges (Aug.). "We actually go to the schools and meet students in person. It's really labor-intensive, and that's why it's such a good product." Princeton is also savvy about publicity: the test-preparation company regularly conducts surveys like "College Hopes and Worries," released in March, which found that the top two dream schools in the country are Stanford and NYU. Barron's Profiles of American Colleges (July), which weighs in at more than five pounds, is by far the most comprehensive, detailing 1,650 schools, while The Insider's Guide to Colleges offers the students' view of campus life. "It has the things students really do obsess about," said St. Martin's editor Esti Iturralde, "the dating scene, quality of life, what kind of clothes people wear, and where they shop."
At Barnes & Noble, buyer Lisa Echenthal does best with "the big three" and finds that sales then drop off considerably for The Insider's Guide to Colleges. However, she points to Kaplan's The Unofficial, Unbiased Guide to the 320 Most Interesting Colleges, introduced this year, as "an up and comer." In general, she said, "My sales are strong all year long. I don't really think it's about price. People are just looking for the angle in the books. Hipness is popular."
Of course, college guides are only one piece of the college prep area, and not always the biggest. Barnes & Noble's combined sales online and in-store for the first quarter were highest for 10 Real SATs, by the College Board (Holt), while The Best 345 Colleges was number five.
What does that say about the market for college guides? Russell regards Princeton's biggest competitor as the Web. "Not only do we have to match the information on the Web, we need to offer more details on financial aid and the admissions process," he said. However, Stein at Barron's maintains that there will always be a need for college guides. "The school Web sites are almost overwhelming," he said. "Each one is different. For students who just want to get a list of schools together, it still comes down to the guides."
Correction: The TV tie-in listings for May—August (Book News, Apr. 21), cited the wrong publisher for Himalayan Quest by Ed Viesturs. It is National Geographic Books.
