°Ő´Ç»ĺ˛ą˛â’s EPP (Educational Publishing Pavilion) panel on “Global Innovations and Market Opportunites,” blended together two of the primary focuses running throughout this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair events: educational publishing and digital initiatives. (I’ll be writing about a number of e-publishing panels later this week . . .) This particular panel featured three CEOs who are utilizing emerging technologies to improve the educational content they’re producing.

The event opened with an intro by Dr. Hugh Roome from Scholastic International in which he pointed to four key markets that will become more and more important to educational publishers over the next five years: 1) developing online courses and materials for a variety of students, both in traditional schools and those being home-schooled, 2) English language training for the world, 3) school-to-work programs to teach immediately relevant skills, and 4) working with Ministries of Education in developing countries to incorporate solid, inexpensive educational programs into their poorer schools.

Each of the panelists presented a new technology (or new way to use technology) that would assist in the creation of educational materials designed to reach one of the markets/opportunities Dr. Roome mentioned.

Sudhir Singh Dungarpur from Q2A Media (Hall 8.0 J 954) presented information about the “Interactive Whiteboard,” a multimedia enhanced whiteboard that can be used in classrooms to better engage and interact with students. Although he didn’t have a whiteboard there (it is on display at their stand, which is (Hall 8.0 J 954), it sounded pretty cool. Teachers can edit and load lessons that contain a variety of flash media, learning quizzes, and other interactive activities, encouraging students to “do” things in class. (This “doing” was very important to Sudhir–according to a study he cited, we remember 10% of what we read, 30 per cent of what we say, and 90 per cent of what we see, say, and do. It was interesting, although scary to me, how visual-heavy these new teaching technologies are. Books are being replaced in schools by podcasts and flash animation . . . though if it helps kids learn, it’s definitely a good thing.) The first phase of this project is ready to be deployed, and over 300 schools in Europe will be using these in the near future. And apparently, American schools are receiving large grants to purchase these as well. Of all three presentations, this seemed like the most game-changing technology, altering the way classes can be taught.

The DNL e-book format was the focus of Adam Schmidt’s (DNAML Pty. Ltd., 8.0 L 977) presentation. DNL is a particular e-book format that works on PCs and will soon be Mac-compatible. At this time, it wouldn’t really work with an e-reader because it too is very media/flash heavy. (Maybe in the future . . . It would seem to make most sense to have these books available on iPhones. . . .) The format was pretty nice, contained all the bells and whistles you might expect, and was DRM protected on their server. (This was a huge selling point of his, something that helped his pitch with HarperCollins, but something that I’m personally not keen on. Kids illegally download math books is the least of our problems . . . Kidding of course.) You can also buy the book within the book, which is a very cool function. There wasn’t much info about how easy/difficult it is to create these books, which would’ve been interesting to find out about, especially in contrast to Sophie, a free, very usuable e-book programme.

Finally, Rachelle Cracchiolo from Teacher Created Materials in California (Hall 8.0 O 907) talked about the immense popularity of the podcasts they’ve made available on their website. Although they’ve mainly used these as a marketing tool, she saw a huge growth possibility in providing English as a Second Language content and materials for staff development and teacher training. The basic message: people dig iPods and are willing to listen to things they normally wouldn’t find the time to read and study. Sort of co-opting the Apple cool for educational purposes–not a new idea, but one that could be implemented more widely and in more situations.

Although I’m a trade publisher who loves fiction, this panel was interesting to me in the way it demonstrated how different types of publishers are preparing for the future of publishing and learning.

From the fascinating and incredible Buying In by Rob Walker:

The first full-fledged Bzz campaign was for a book called The Frog King. It lasted one month and focused on New York City. Balter persuaded Penguin Publishing to let him do it by charging the publisher nothing. The Frog King was a quirky, comic first novel by a young writer named Adam Davies. [. . .]

The guide for the agents, a no-frills seven-page document in those early days, welcomed them as members of “an elite group” of word-of-mouth spreaders [. . .] It summarized some of the novel’s highlights, noting a few passages in particular that might be useful “conversation points,” and suggested tactics like reading the book on mass transit with the cover clearly visible, posting a review on Amazon.com, and calling up bookstores and chatting with the clerk about this great new book about New York publishing with lots of sex and drinking whose title you can’t quite recall. JonO signed the cover letter assuring agents that the folks back at the hive found the book laugh-out-loud funny.

Local events for The Frog King drew larger than expected crowds of 100 or 150 people, according to Pascocello, who said that thanks to the word-of-mouth campaign, the book sold in three months what he had hoped it would sell in a year. [. . .] The fee [BzzAgent] charges varies according to the size and nature of the campaign, but in 2005 a twelve-week campaign involving one thousand agents cost $95,000.

Really not that much different from sending galleys to booksellers or giving away copies through LibraryThing, except for the fact that in those cases you’re not hiring the people to spread the word about the book or call up bookstores and play dumb. (Funny, I can’t remember how many hundreds of calls like that I got while I was working at bookstores. I just figured customers were forgetful . . .)

Basically, if you can convince in 50 words of less that a book is really “Borgesian,” this will do far more than any amount of trying to convince me how hip and exciting the plot is.

Exactly. This isn’t all that easy to do though . . .

In my opinion, a plot-recap makes for really crappy jacket copy, especially since I don’t really read the book for the plot. (This probably works better for thrillers, but that’s not the type of book we’re talking about.)

Northwestern University Press goes in the opposite direction, describing their books in a generally dry manner that makes them sound like a lot of work.

From Konstantin Fedin’s Cities and Years:

The cities are Berlin and Moscow, the years those of the First World War and the Russian Revolution, and the theme enduring: what role should the intelligentsia play in the inevitable revolution looming over society? Konstantin Fedin’s intense exploration of war and its aftermath focuses on Andrei Startsov, an intellectual who must wrestle with his ambivalence toward the convulsions in his homeland and with his love for the rebellious and fiercely independent Marie.

Well now. What that doesn’t convey is that the novel is fun, the form fragmented, and the writing engaging. But if you’re interested in the role of the intelligentsia . .

But “those in glass houses,” etc. By no means am I a good writer of jacket copy, but my goal in doing this is always to try and appeal to readers similar to me. It’s hard though, since we all read for so many different reasons. Reading is a pleasurable activity, but pleasurable to different people for different reasons. (Some do like the plot!)

Anyway, for Open Letter books, I think we should stick with the “x is like y meets z and a” strategy, with Nabokov, Borges, Cortazar, Antunes, Beckett, and Joyce being the data set for y, z, and a.

(And on a sidenote, in addition to good copy, there are other channels through which a publisher must get the word out about its books. Browsing doesn’t take place in a void, and publishers—especially small and mid-sized ones—have to pay attention to all these other ways of getting info about their books to readers.)

Quick, name you favorite book. Now, quick, name who published it.

Gotcha, didn’t I?

It’s a bit cute, but Warren’s point is obvious—non-industry people don’t pay attention to who publishes what.

True, when browsing we may be mildly impressed by a title that has Knopf on the spine, or Norton, or Houghton, or Farrar, Straus and Giroux. We may select a Harvard University Press book over a similar one published by the University of God-Knows-Where. We may even smile and nod in recognition when we see that a collection of poetry has been put out by Copper Canyon or Graywolf Press. But I’d argue that recommendations by family and friends, and fabulous covers, and favorable reviews, and favorite authors are much more likely to catch our attention than a dolphin logo or a Borzoi silhouette.

And Joe Wikert backs her up:

Do you ever think about particular publishers when you’re looking for a book? If you’re like the vast majority of the book buying public this rarely if ever crosses your mind. You don’t care who the publisher is. You might be interested in the author or maybe the series but publisher names are a lot like record labels; they aren’t the primary (or even secondary!) brand on the product.

All this makes sense, especially when we’re talking about best-sellers or mainstream titles. Who really gives a shit whether Simon & Schuster or Penguin published French Women Don’t Get Fat? (It was Knopf.)

But I think the situation is different when you look at literary fiction and independent presses. Presses like New York Review Books, Archipelago, New Directions, Dalkey Archive, Soft Skull, Melville House, etc., all publish a certain type of book, and because of this, they all have loyal followings.

Record labels might be an apt comparison. Places like EMI or Columbia are so big and diffuse that the good music is mixed in with everything else, and the overall “brand” doesn’t mean anything. On the other hand, Matador, Merge, Thirsty Ear, Aum Fidelity—these labels have a focus, and I know what to expect from them. And yes, similar to the publishers mentioned above, I seek them out online and in stores to see what they’re up to this week.

Other than browsing a bookstore’s shelves, there’s probably nothing better for this bookophile than browsing publisher’s catalogs—if only the books themselves took up as little space.

The ran a copy of the letter sent from A&R to Tower Books, which contains such choice bits as this:

We have recently completed a piece of work to rank our suppliers in terms of the net profit they generate for our business. We have concluded that we have far too many suppliers, and over 40% of our supplier agreements fall below our requirements in terms of profit earned. [. . .]

Accordingly, we will be rationalizing our supplier numbers and setting a minimum earnings ratio of income to trade purchases that we expect to achieve from our suppliers.

I am writing to you because TOWER BOOKS falls into this category of unacceptable profitability.

As a consequence we would invite you to pay the attached invoice by Aug 17th, 2007. The payment represents the gap for your business, and moves it from an unacceptable level of profitability, to above our minimum threshold.

OK, there are a few things I want to point out. First off, although the U.S. should never follow a trend originating in Australia, I wouldn’t be surprised if this idea comes up in future meetings with B&N or Amazon or some other U.S. chain. And I hope U.S. publishers won’t stand for this. The book availability at B&N is already pretty damn questionable . . . and it’s frightening to think this could get even worse.

Also, I love the insertion of “TOWER BOOKS” in all caps. Really thoughtful. And the bold italics (in the original!) of the demand for payment is pretty classy as well. Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to misrepresent this . . . it’s an “invitation to pay.” I guess that is classy.

As they put it:

Vine helps our vendors generate awareness for new and pre-release products by connecting them with the voice of the Amazon community: our reviewers. Vine members, called Voices, may request free copies of items enrolled in the program and have the ability to share their opinions before these products become generally available.

Aside from the fact that it’ll probably cost a fortune and only be available to the biggest of the commercial publishers, I think this is a really interesting marketing advancement. At least for books. I mean, it’s sort of like advanced screenings for movies, but in this case you can basically hand-select your audience.

(It’s worth noting that this idea has already been successfully implemented already by Random House and .)

This idea does reinforce my general belief that publishers need to start using the internet and finding innovative ways to get information out about books to readers. I