As Bud Collyer used to say on that old TV quiz show, "Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" It's a mantra based on American idealism, but as those in publishing know, there aren't that many black-and-white truths in this mystifying industry.
The legend has it that Bennett Cerf—with Alfred A. Knopf on one side and Richard Simon on the other—came down from the publishing mount to present the industry with many of the tenets—truths, half-truths and some outright prevarications—the industry still embraces to this day. In his posthumous memoir, At Random, Cerf sang the praises of the power of the backlist: "The back list of Random House, Knopf and Pantheon put together is so good that I think if we closed up the whole business for the next twenty years or so, we might make more money than we're making now, because our back list is like reaching down and picking up gold from the sidewalk. There's nothing like it."
The publishing sidewalks may not be paved with gold, but it seems that there are plenty of backlist nuggets waiting to be plucked by the aggressive publisher. So PWasked several professionals in the industry to comment on 10 enduring beliefs about the power of backlist.
I. PUBLISHERS WOULDN'T SURVIVE WITHOUT BACKLIST
"In most years, 70% of our revenue comes from backlist. It would be a sorry day in publishing without those titles."
—Susan Katz, president/publisher, HarperCollins Children's Books
"Almost 60% of my division's sales come from backlist. It's hard to imagine how we could generate enough frontlist business year after year to equal that."
—Ellen Chodosh, publisher, Oxford University Press
"Ingram has built our business on backlist. Three-quarters of our business is backlist."
—George Tattersfield, director of merchandise, Ingram
"In the past two years or so, there's been a shift. We now see 60% of sales from frontlist and 40% of sales from backlist. Less and less space is being allocated to backlist in stores. And with some of the superstores also publishing their own titles, that's another competitor for us."
—Mariann Donato, senior v-p/director, sales/marketing, Penguin Young Readers Group
II. THE BEST BACKLIST AUTHOR IS A DEAD AUTHOR
Sales of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Vintage) by Hunter S. Thompson doubled for this year (reaching 850,000); Thompson died in February.
Saul Bellow died on April 5, 2005. The aggregate sales of the Bellow backlist in the two months prior to his death was 2,220. In the two months after his death, Penguin shipped 68,231 total units of his books, a 3,000% increase.
"Confederacy of Dunces is a top one for Grove and PGW," says Kim Wylie, executive v-p sales, Publishers Group West. Sales continue to increase each year."
This spring Oprah picked three novels by William Faulkner as her 2005 summer selection. The pick immediately thrust the Vintage boxed set onto bestseller lists. The boxed set has 605,000 copies in print.
"Susan Sontag's death [last December] resulted in us reprinting virtually all the titles in our Sontag backlist," says Darin Keesler, Picador's marketing director. Titles primarily shipping to the academic market—for graduate-level course adoptions—suddenly saw demand at the chains and independent bookstores. Sales for Regarding the Pain of Others, for example, increased fivefold in the week following her death."
III. REFERENCE IS A SUREFIRE BACKLIST HIT
"It used to be surefire, but isn't anymore. The Internet has had a big impact on sales for subject-oriented reference books. If readers feel they can get the same information for free from the Internet, you have to work harder to give them a reason to buy a physical book."
—Ellen Chodosh, publisher, Oxford University Press
"One wonderful thing about dictionaries, though, is that a good one always makes money...and there is no royalty to pay."
—Bennett Cerf on The American College Dictionary in At Random
"The Clear and Simple Dictionary and The Clear and Simple Thesaurus—both published about 20 years ago—these books are always in our top 15 or 20 for sales. No one takes much notice of them, but they keep on selling."
—Mariann Donato, senior v-p/director, sales/marketing, Penguin Young Readers Group
IV. MASS MARKET TITLES DO NOT BACKLIST
"Definitely not true. Almost all commercial fiction backlists in mass market and sells steadily and well."
—Erica Gelbard, associate publicist,Scribner
"We have built a lot of our up-and-coming authors by helping promote their backlist and seeding the market with their backlist."
—Anthony Ziccardi, senior v-p/director of sales/marketing, Random House
"We sell the Chronicles of Narnia titles in a wide variety of formats, but out of all of them, the rack-size paperback has been to date the bestselling format year after year."
—Susan Katz, president/publisher, HarperCollins Children's Books
V. THE INTERNET HAS HELPED BACKLIST SALES
"Yes, deep backlist churns well there, especially sex, wacky health titles, expensive tech books, drug culture/pop culture, business. It's easy to be a bold shopper on the Internet."
—Kim Wylie, executive v-p sales, Publishers Group West
"No question, the Internet has definitely helped backlist sales. The Internet has helped unite the fan base for many backlist authors, and serves as a useful tool for reading groups."
—Maureen Donnelly, v-p/director ofpublicity, Penguin Books
"I think Amazon has done a tremendous job recently of promoting [trade paperback] backlist. They have featured it and discounted it aggressively."
—Anthony Ziccardi, senior v-p/director of sales/marketing, Random House
"Once time passes and the marketing behind a book falls away, the Internet becomes the easiest method for customers to locate backlist titles."
—Richard Davies, PR/publicity manager, Abebooks.com
VI. HOLLYWOOD HELPS BACKLIST
"Sales of Sun Tzu's Art of War quadrupled the year the movie Wall Street came out and doubled after Tony Soprano mentioned it on TheSopranos."
—Ellen Chodosh, publisher, Oxford University Press
"Hollywood has been very, very good to us. We're working with a lot of studios about tie-ins on our backlist to movies that are now coming out in DVD. We're looking at how we can cross-promote with them."
—Anthony Ziccardi, senior v-p/director of sales/marketing, Random House
"Movie tie-in editions can expect a 5%—10% jump in sales. It doesn't matter what the movie is."
—George Tattersfield, director of merchandise, Ingram
"Yes! Look at Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants—a 150% jump in sales because of the movie."
—Chip Gibson, president/publisher, Random House Children's Books
VII. SUPERSTORES ARE A BOON FOR BACKLIST
"If superstores disappeared tomorrow, backlist sales would drop significantly. However, as superstores reorganize and reprioritize, it seems that there is less and less shelf space for backlist."
—Jen Linck, director trade sales/marketing, Rowman & Littlefield
"Both Barnes & Noble and Borders have rolled out some very, very successful backlist campaigns for us."
—Anthony Ziccardi, senior v-p/director of sales/marketing, Random House
"Superstores have absolutely been a boon for the children's business. In the old days, the selection of backlist in an average independent reflected the individual buyer's taste. Borders and Barnes & Noble now have the same selection of backlist titles."
—Rick Richter, president, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
VIII. A NEW BOOK BUMPS AN AUTHOR'S BACKLIST SALES
"Absolutely true, provided that the publisher commits to repromotion of the backlist titles and packages all the books in a similar and recognizable way."
—Olivia Blumer, the Blumer Literary Agency
"That's what they say, but it's not always true. This very much depends on the track record of their previous book(s)."
—Mary Ann Sabia, v-p/associate publisher, Charlesbridge
"We are lucky enough to have a new Lemony Snicket title every fall and we always see a nice, healthy bump for the previous titles then. A new title reminds the consumer of an author and it gives us the opportunity to take all the books and promote them together."
—Susan Katz, president/publisher, HarperCollins Children's Books
IX. BACKLIST SELLS BY ITSELF
"Throughout my career I've been frustrated by the unwillingness of most publishers to commit a significant portion of the promotion budget to backlist."
—Olivia Blumer, the Blumer Literary Agency
"Nothing sells by itself."
—Ellen Chodosh, publisher, Oxford University Press
"Never take it for granted: repackage, repromote, academic marketing, city reads, reading group programs—all build backlist."
—Russell Perreault, v-p, director of publicity, Vintage/Anchor
"Backlist sometimes sells because it's cheaper than frontlist. Some customers read reviews of a new book and rather than buying the new hardcover, they'll buy the author's backlist in paperback. Many people bought Da Vinci Codeonly after reading all his paperbacks."
—Bina Valenzano, owner, The BookMark Shoppe, Brooklyn, N.Y.
X. CLASSICS ARE A BACKLIST CASH COW
"That's an overstatement. It's a critical part of our business. If you don't spend any money on promotion, it's a cash cow, but the rent on the barn is still high."
—Rick Richter, president, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
"Since anyone can do them, you need the right combination of price, packaging and distribution to make them pay."
—Jerry Meskill, v-p sales, Dover Publications
"Classics are a good business, but you can't just throw them out there and hope they'll sell. Penguin Classics lead the Classics industry because of major repackaging, constant revamping of apparatus, constantly looking for the best academic and trade personalities for introductions and notes."
—Maureen Donnelly, v-p/director of publicity, Penguin Books
"Classics which are public domain are not cash cows as the competition is fierce."
—Erica Gelbard, associate publicist, Scribner
"The reason they are a backlist cash cow is so many of them are out of the public domain, so some of the costs involved in publishing are not there—you don't have to pay royalties to a book that's out of copyright. But I think that market has become so much more competitive with the emergence of so many different classics lines that it's becoming harder and harder to make money off of it."
—Jane von Mehren, v-p/publisher trade paperbacks, Random House
"You've got to keep pouring money in, you've got to keep it healthy."
—Chip Gibson, president/publisher, Random House Children's Books
