Leader Blog: We Hunt Them; We Promote Them; Take their Advice

Chairmen of The Board: Frank Sinatra & Len Riggio- Visionaries

 

Controversial King of Retail Book Publishing Speaks about Transformation Growth That Is Happening in Publishing -- "more than the analysts have projected"

Not really sure why they referred to Ole Blue Eyes as Chairman of the Board though he led the Ratpack, a elegant group of entertainers who were the "IT boys" (one girl) back in the forties, fifties , etc. It's just when it came to entertainment and the best show on earth, Frank Sinatra set the standards and sang the standards.

When it comes to bookselling, Len Riggio, loved by some, envied by many and dispised publicly by others (just like Frank) has been Chairman of the Board Of Barnes & Noble, Inc. since he founded it in 1986. His store is also the greatest publishing show on earth (and the best place to do homework), only eclipsed by the advent of Amazon when it entered the e-commerce fray, but a Chairman is a Chairman and leaders perceive growth.

I don't have the full Riggio dossier -- just the rumors over my 3-decade career but, like Sinatra, he appears to be one of those guys who keeps his friends very close and his frenemies at bay -- till the time is right

The time was right today when he appeared  as keynote speaker at this morning's annual meeting of the Association of American Publishers (AAP), his first appearance there in 11 years, people wanted to hear what he had to say.

From reports, I gather,

• He is excited about the possibilities the Rocket eBook holds for his company and the industry at large. "Think of all that could have happened had we all led the digital age together instead of following it."
• "Too many of us see bookselling as a zero sum game--that there's a limit to how many books people will buy and how many books people will read."
• Riggio chooses to see beyond that scope. Rather than "get locked into the Darwinian embrace for market share," Riggio said that digital has already proven "market size is readily expandable, and expanding markets lift all boats."
• Endless possibilities lurk in ebooks -- he notes readers now have a bookstore, an entire publishing company in their pockets. "The power of this cannot be minimized. If you think there's a limit to how many books people can read, you're back to a zero-sum game."
• Riggio perceives  the digital marketplace as exponentially greater than most people do--"the analysts, the people covering our industry," assering that the digital book market is "growing more rapidly than almost any sector of any industry has grown in 30 years."
• "We're not merely replacing sales of bound books," Riggio argued. "Even if you were to do a linear projection of ebook sales, you would have to conclude that our industry is on the cusp of transformational growth. For those of you who are treating it as incremental growth, I don't think you're going to get there."
• Win-Win for physical bookstores and traditional publishers to continue to prosper in this new era. From Barnes & Noble's perspective "a world without bookstores...is just not going to happen. We will adapt to whatever the new world brings us."
• A funny comment:  "Call them bricks and mortar if you will," Riggio said, but "they're not exactly clay tablets." (I liked this line). He underscored that BN's superstores occupy ever-more valuable real estate as the front entrances to America's malls because "landlords see the profitable connections between the upscale readers" they draw and traffic for the rest of the mall.
• Wall Street is still skeptical -- and Riggio reports that "our emergence as a major digital player will enable us to continue to support our retail stores and make them stronger." To reinforce the point, Riggio said that over the holidays "during the two-period when our digital device sales actually soared, our comparable book sales of printed book products increased the highest number we've had in years. These things are connected."
• BN members who own a Nook device--with "our customers buying millions of devices in the stores"--"are buying 60 percent more units" than other members.
• PEACETIME HAS ARRIVE. Riggio (heart) Publishers. "In all the years I've worked with pubishers I have never been so confident that our interests were so obviously aligned. Nor have I ever seen this level of committment from publishers in terms of capital spending and technical innovation, all aimed a securing for pubishers and us key positions in the marketplace of content, so I thank you for all you do."
• But lest us not send a kiss without some advice to the publishers (and take note!) Where "the internet had a way of disintermediating people who had content for sale, the digital universe fosters and enables those who have content to sell."
• In the digital world's limitless shelf-space he sees Barnes & Noble with "a catalog of 20 million books or more," with publishers helping to fill that catalog. Riggio suggested everything from shorter slices of content (chapters of books, brief biograhies, essay, novellas, and single stories), "publications in color, sound and motion," a new wave of digital color books, and "books for which updates can be sold."
•  "You could add thousands of ebooks to your catalogs with little or no plant costs, and many of those books are in the libraries of your offices," Riggio advised.
• And he pointed out "you actually sort through ten thousand times as much content...compared to that which is published."
• Applying publishers' curation, narration and packaging, Riggio said, "your brand and your expertise will prevail."

I think this is pretty sound advice and it's obvious that Len has the gist of the industry by the long and the short tail.

• "Readers require you to help them rationalize the dizzying variety of content they must sort through" in today's era of abundance, which he sees as an opportunity for companies to publish far more digitally than they ever have in print.
• His final suggestion was brilliant and I have been it happen already with one of my own clients, which publishes an annual guide. " How many of the books that you publish lend themselves to an update?" he asks. "what about working with us to make an offer of that update available to all those who bought the ebook?"

Everything has changed -- we can see how the industry reacts but the reality is, ebooks are here, B&N wants in and B&N will get in (excuse me, they ARE in, are you kidding?) So listen. If you can make it there, you can make it anywhere... it's a new moment for an industry that has always been 80-20. 20% of the books make 80% of the sales.

Start spreading the sales

We'll look at the specs

You want to be a part of it- in old New York (or globally)

• He closed with enthusiasm, saying "we've got a lot of work to do together" during "this exciting moment in our history--so let's get it on."

In other words, there's plenty to go around. That's a neat new concept in a cut-throat gentlemen's business and coming from Riggio, very cool.

With thanks to reporting from Publishers Lunch.