Although Time Warner sold its trade book subsidiary to Hachette more than two years ago, there is still lots of book publishing activity at the media giant, taking advantage of TW's well-known brands. Books produced by Time Inc. Home Entertainment, for example, draw heavily on the company's magazines for content, and in recent years the magazines have become more integrated in promoting the titles, said Richard Fraiman, president and publisher of TIHE. That support comes in the form of both ad space and editorial coverage.
The October 29 issue of Time, for instance, included a letter from managing editor Richard Stengel extolling Time America: An Illustrated History, an look at 400 years of American history published by TIHE late last month. Entertainment Weekly's October 26 issue featured an excerpt from The Sopranos: The Complete Book; a note at the end said that the book is being published this fall by TIHE. “More and more, we are supporting the launch of our titles in the magazines,” Fraiman noted.
Promotion in People and Life (before it shut down in April) was key to the most recent line that became a big hit for TIHE—puzzle books. First introduced in 2006 with Life Picture Puzzle, more than 800,000 copies of books in the series have been shipped, including 100,000 copies of The People Puzzler Book this summer. The Life puzzle books offer picture-based brain teasers, while the People puzzles are modeled after those in the magazine.
Despite the success of puzzles, TIHE's “bread and butter” remains illustrated coffee-table books, Fraiman said. In light of the soft market for expensive illustrated works, TIHE has kept its core titles, based on Sports Illustrated photographs, priced at $29.95. Out this fall is Sports Illustrated: The Basketball Book, which features photos and text on college and pro basketball; it has a 135,000-copy first printing. Two similar books on football and baseball have 265,000 and 214,000 copies in print, respectively.
SI's book franchise is particularly strong and has played a part in molding TIHE's publishing strategy, which Fraiman describes as creating “gift books for men,” particularly around various holidays. SI columnist Rick Reilly has been a steady seller, not just at Christmas but for Father's Day as well. His Hate Mail from Cheerleaders hit the bestseller list this year; it has 75,000 copies in print, and it was promoted by callouts in his column (Reilly is leaving SI for ESPN, but Fraiman expects his backlist will continue to sell). Golf Magazine: The Best Instruction Book Ever, from the editors of Golf, rose to the top of Amazon's golf list when it was released in early October.
TIHE isn't ignoring women-oriented titles. Real Simple Cleaning is the fifth book in the Real Simple series, and the newest title done with InStyle magazine, What Every Stylish Woman Should Know, was released last month. Both had first printings of 15,000 copies. And while most of TIHE's titles are done with Time properties, the division is branching out, as in the case of a new cookbook, McCormick Cooking with Flavor, which was published with the spice company.
Hachette Book Group USA handles TIHE's distribution, and sales through the retail channel continue to grow in importance for TIHE, accounting for about 75% of revenue. Continuity and direct-mail sales, once the heart of the business but hurt by the overall decline in direct marketing, generate 25%. “Continuity sales are almost incremental now,” Fraiman said. “It's the trade that's growing rapidly.”
