Technology's tight embrace gives us ample opportunity to read the fine print. In fact, we often have no choice, squinting into laptops in badly lit offices, in living rooms, on trains and even in cars; staring down at a BlackBerry or a Palm device as we wait for the first course; or trying to read the news crawl across the bottom of the TV screen. We do an awful lot of work with our reading, not to mention reading at our work. When it's time to read for pleasure, chances are that people, with eyesight already strained, might be on the lookout for a bigger picture.
Ironically, the type of technological advances that are zapping our eyesight are also enhancing the possible remedies: XML (Extensible Markup Language) tagging has made printing on demand much easier, an option tailor-made for the large-print business; some major players who've traditionally sold their large-print rights to other companies have brought the job in-house. And avid readers who've test-driven a device like the Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader may have instinctively selected a larger font for convenience or comfort, and they might seek out a similar enhancement when it's time to buy a printed book.
“We've distributed e-readers to sales and editorial groups, and when we've seen what they're reading— it's been in a larger print size,” says Anthony Goff, the publishing director for Hachette Audio and Digital Media, who also handles large-print books. “That's a good sign. Large print is not just for an older generation, but for people who are staring at a computer all day.”
A growing number of Americans are—or soon will be—a member of both camps. According to the nonprofit Lighthouse International, one in six people who are 45 years or older report some form of visual impairment, even when wearing reading glasses or contacts. That's a population of 16.5 million today; the number is expected to rise to 20 million by 2010, when all baby boomers reach 45. But as more and more people discover that bigger is better, what will they want to see writ large? According to publishers, booksellers and other large-print purveyors, the answer is surprisingly simple: they want what every other reader does.
“Right now the demand appears to be more frontlist-driven than backlist-driven,” says Dave Hathaway, who buys large-print books for Barnes & Noble. “In a given week, what sells is based on what comes out in the regular trade edition.” Fiction and genre fiction—mysteries and romance—are most popular, but as more and more large-print titles are being released simultaneously with the trade editions, books with buzz, like Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now, tend to spike sales. Says Hathaway, “It really appears to me that our customers are after what's new, what's hot.”
Even as large-print houses continue to publish—and to profit from—westerns and Christian fiction titles that aren't likely to flourish in the mainstream trade market, when they see a name-brand author with a new title, they jump quickly: “Since that correlation between the regular print trade market is only getting stronger, we can't wait for it to hit the bestseller list to figure out whether we're going to purchase the rights,” says Chris Bitey, marketing director for Center Point Large Print. “We expect that the names that are tried and true, like Jodi Picoult and Jeffery Deaver, will be our bestsellers, and they are. We're expecting Debbie Macomber's new book, Twenty Wishes, to do well because we'll be benefiting from the publicity.”
Leveraging Bestsellerdom
The simultaneous release of large-print titles—and that big push from marketing efforts for the regular trade edition—explains why name-brand talents are the bread-and-butter of large-print buyers. “For the most part, they're looking for commercial fiction and category fiction—big authors like Janet Evanovich, Dean Koontz,” says Debbie Engel, rights director for Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt, which licenses its titles to large-print publishers.
Publishers that release their own large-print titles are banking on a two-for-one marketing deal: “We rely on the same media that the hardcover does—TV, book reviews, advertising,” says Amanda D'Acierno, marketing and publicity director for the Audio and Large Print group at Random House. “If we're not simultaneous, we miss out on all that publicity.” Case in point: RH Large Print's most popular book of the moment, according to D'Acierno, is Barbara Walters's Audition.
As the demand for large-type grows, however, many expect interest to broaden. “I can say that the range and variety of subjects they're buying has increased over the past two years,” says Jill Sansone, executive director of subsidiary rights at Hyperion. “It's not your mother's large-print library anymore.”
Jamie Knobloch, publisher of Thorndike Press—which releases about 1,000 titles for the library market and about 250 trade paperback editions—has been with the company for 22 years; she's seen this evolution firsthand. “Twenty years ago, the title selection was geared toward a very senior, very conservative readership. That's changed dramatically,” says Knobloch. “Because that stigma is going away, the age range is broadening considerably.” Her company is getting more and more calls for nonfiction titles that may be popular with book groups, she says, such as David McCullough's 1776 and Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat.
Doubleday's Large Print Book Club, which has been offering deals and incentives on large-print books for a quarter of a century, saw a spike in membership about five years ago. “It's steadied out since then, but we expect the mean age of the club to drop as time goes on and the baby boomers get older,” says senior editor Jennifer Hufford. “And as this young blood comes into the club, I think some of the reading interests will change.” The tide may already be turning. “It used to be that our readers didn't like anything too graphic or with too much violence,” says Hufford, “but now they're reading things that are far edgier than I thought they would. It's great that they'll try new things.”
That perceived shift is in part why HarperCollins's HarperLuxe line has tripled its title count since its launch two years ago. “Baby boomers aren't just going to start reading cozy mysteries now that they're 60 years old,” says HarperLuxe publisher Liate Stehlik. “Our idea is to offer an eclectic mix, from popular fiction to serious nonfiction.” New releases include Simon Winchester's The Man Who Loved China and Elissa Wall's memoir about growing up in a polygamous sect, Stolen Innocence. “To offer only the biggest titles is shortsighted,” says Stehlik. “You want people to feel like this is a format they can find everything in.”
When Hachette brought its large-print business in-house last year, the company decided to experiment with both content and publication options. In addition to large-print trade paperback versions of current bestsellers from James Patterson, Stephenie Meyer and David Baldacci, the house will put forth David Sedaris's When You Are Engulfed in Flames and Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers this summer and fall. “Releasing our large-print titles directly into paperback allows us to be more competitive in pricing, and they'll have another round of life when the regular version goes into paperback a year later,” says Goff. “It'll also slide easily into a print-on-demand format at the end of the retail life cycle.” Offering customers the option of ordering a large-print paperback on demand is also a low-risk way to gauge a title's viability, says Goff. Katie Crouch's recently released debut novel, Girls in Trucks, is just one title that has been offered in this format; it's already sold a few thousand copies this way.
And while Gladwell and Sedaris may seem like young faces in this elder statesman of a category, one surprising emerging trend is the release of children's and young adult fiction in a large-print format. “We've done quite a bit of research, and special ed teachers know that large print is the most common accommodation used in testing,” says Knobloch of Thorndike, which currently carries about 60 children's titles. “It's easier for the eye to track, and kids have fewer decoding issues and the satisfaction of turning the page quicker.”
HarperLuxe will release four YA titles this fall, including Rumors by Anna Godbersen and The Graveyard Book from Neil Gaiman. “The idea is just to make the reading experience seem like a less scary thing for people who are already struggling,” says Stehlik. “[The content] is age-appropriate, but the books are comforting—the type size is more what it was like when they were learning to read, and the leading eases the reading experience overall.” Hachette Large Print's foray into YA will start this summer with versions of James Patterson's Maximum Ride series as well as The Dangerous Days of Daniel X—the first title in a new series due out in July.
Living Large
While publishers experiment with their large-print titles, the most popular place to find these books is still the good old-fashioned public library. “It's where people look first because it's where they've traditionally been able to find large-print titles,” says Thorndike's Knobloch.
What has changed is their expectations about what they will—or should—find. “When there was a gap in time before a bestseller was available in large print, there was more of a demand for Zane Grey books or Harlequins in large print,” says Joanne Hamilton-Selway, collection development coordinator for the public library system in Scottsdale, Ariz.: “Don't get me wrong. Romance is certainly very popular, but now our customers are frustrated that they can't get John Grisham's The Appeal as fast as it hits the bestseller list.” The hunger for #1 books in large print has increased so much that Hamilton-Selway now receives between 300 and 400 requests a month for forthcoming titles. “People are more vocal about what they want and about their right to have it in large print, which is wonderful,” she says. “They consider it both a privilege and a right.”
The same holds true for the patrons of the 40+ branches of the Miami-Dade Public Library. “People want to read what everyone else is reading,” says Audrey Ryan, who oversees the large-print collection and manages Connections, a library service for the homebound. “If they go to hear a book discussion or they hear Oprah Winfrey talking about a book, they want to read it, too.” Still, she fields a variety of requests for certain titles or topics that are still seldom released in large print. “There still isn't so much nonfiction or literary fiction,” says Ryan. “Some people will read the New York Times Book Review and want something listed there, but unless it's a bestselling popular title, it can be hard to get.”
Demand at local independent bookstores varies wildly, depending on demographics. “I'd think that with the aging population, large print would do a little bit better, but we're selling about as many as we have for the last couple of years,” says Stan Hynds, book buyer for Northshire Bookstore in Manchester Center, Vt. “It's a slow section—in a given month, we might sell two or three books.” Nevertheless, Hynds has been pleased by the number of large-print paperbacks now published at regular trade paperback prices. “Even if it hasn't translated into huge sales, I'm happy to stock titles like Eat, Pray, Love and Water for Elephants at $14.95,” he says.
And while bestsellers, popular fiction and mystery are among the most frequent large-print sales at Book Passage in Corte Madera, Calif., buying director Sheryl Cotleur has noticed increased demand for both topical nonfiction and edgier literary fiction—including Junot Díaz's recent Pulitzer Prize winner, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. “We do sell more topical books that aren't necessarily breezy reads, though they're historically interesting and insightful,” she says, citing Nathaniel Philbrick's Mayflower. And whether her customers' yen is for poetry, current affairs or the classics, more and more are asking her to special order titles in large print. “It's a significant service they've come to expect from us. Just yesterday I got a call from someone who wanted Macbeth in large print,” says Cotleur. “I think it's easier for people to admit that they want a better print size. For even though our customers' eyes and ears are very fragile, they haven't lost an iota of interest in intelligent books.”
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