Transcripts For CSPAN2 Discussion On The Future Of Book Publishing 20240712

Politics. Hi, priscilla and brandon. You have to unmute. Nice to be here. Thanks for having us. When i was asked to sort of moderate this, one of the thing that it brought up brought to mind or brought null mill enemy he was now in the early how 200s there was a panel u. S. Discussion of the future of books and people making prediction about he future of books and how things had to change and which way they needed to go and that was all tied to the emergence of ebooks and ebook technology and most of the people saved at that time did not turn out to be true. Ebooks did not take over from print books. And in particular, younger readers more than any other Demographic Group preferred print books. So, the idea that Book Publishing needed to change with this technology, maybe it did some ways but not maybe in ways that people thought, and im wondering first, priscilla, i dont know if you remember that time or the kind of craziness that win along with it, but do you feel that i dont know how much credit you gave to that idea or but what do you think but it now . Do you think any of the predicts likely to pan out and how has that changed your own personal feelings about predicting the future of books . For me i thought, fully terrified to make any predictions. Im still terrified of making predictions. I was then and i am now. Before becoming a become publisher is was a political report sore i learned humility early. I would say that youre absolute lie right. I remember he the chart, and ebooks going straight up and think thats the end of the book store. But what happened is that about five or six years ago that trend stalled, and as you say, physical books continue to thrive. The biggest development, though, is that not only do millenials like physical books, they love audio books. And that has taken off as a genre and that is also very good for publishing because what it means is that you can take a book with you as you vacuum your living room, you can take a book with you everywhere, and that is also frankly at a time when we needed a very reliable source of income, it has turned out to be exactly that. So, the good news for me to me the big headline is so simple, which it people will read are reading more than ever. Theyre just doing it across whole different set of platforms, but this i call it the harry potter phenomenon, everybody thought we were no longer making generations of readers. Well, a whole series of books of that popularity came along and what we have is generation after generation of readers who just changed maybe changed the way they con sum what consume a page but dont change their desire to see something on a page. One of the changes that feels the most urgent right now has been about diversifying the industry, and we just recently have seen the day of solidarity where 1100 Publishing Industry workers took a day to do whatever they felt was necessary to support people of color who were writers or worked in the industry and have exacted some promises, although its always not clear what exactly the promise us will pap out to be from management pan out to be from management about making the industry more representative. Its very white, i think its anywhere from i have in figure right here depending on which survey you look at, its anywhere from 76 to 84 white, where the general population is 60 white, and hispanics and blacks in particular are underrepresented, and im curious, you, brandon, youre a young writer of color, and i dont doubt that you have ideas for books or probably working on one. How is the Publishing Industry look to you from your perspective . Yeah. Its interesting for me because i on the one hand i see that there are certain more Diverse Voices being richard that are out there and those are i think either voices that a lot of people love and el separate celebrate but then when you take a step back you realize everybody is talking about the same few people so it seems like maybe few people get and we have that people are revisiting them right no in spite of all the protested but then you think about all the people who have not been that successful, have not been able to actually break through and when you think boat it, i think its i dont want to sea disheartening as if the industry has not been change but you see how much still needs to change to find writers who not only want to write these stories bull empowered to write the stories. I think one thing ive noticed recently, especially on twitter and probably noticed different campaigns and people are trying to talk but what they paid for books. And its pretty galling to see somebody like roxanne gay got paid 70,000 or something for bad feminist, so shes already pretty well known bit that point and really reflected as as a writer. So you see stuff like that and see people at least ive seep people talk about theyll have an idea for a book project and maybe theyll approach at editor and the editor might say this up sod really good. This astory that needs to be told but i dont if im the person to work on that story which is sort of a double edged sword because on one hand it shows a degree of selfawareness that it important, you dont want to necessarily mess up somebodys work, if its not something you feel comfortable working with, but on the other hand you still need the editors. People who are comfortable working with diverse stories and the stories that maybe make people uncomfortable to edit a become about race and racism but that shows need to make people get to a pound where they feel comfortable and they have the resources to be able to actually do this work. Because is does impact a lot of stories told. And people willingness to tell the stories the think somebody seems to like this book but they seem skittish about tabling it on themselves. So those are just my sort of general observations over the past two to three weeks of oprotests. Do do you feel lying theyre skitishing because theyre white editors dont feel like they understand the issue and the oganic way an editor of color would . I do. I think its a matter seems like its a matter of respect. I dont necessarily want to botch somebodys very pick drat nuanced story bout race, around i think that can also be sort of a crutch so people dont have to do the work required to actually rigor obviously think about the issues theres clearly april tied for people read and consume. Its a disczech between the sort of livedder and disconnect between the sort of lived experience and intellectual experience youre supposed to work with and how do you brim the divide, get white publishers or white editors to feel comfortable throwing their weight behind these stories. Well, one thing that everybody is talking about this week is the fact the paperback bestseller list on amazon is almost entirely the antiracism which is exciting but then you realize, moe of the people who need buying the books are probably white. I dont think black people necessarily need to read about how to be antiracist. So, in a weird way, most of those books are written by people of color but theyre presumably written for still like so much publishing for a majority white audience, even though there are lot of readers of color who are interested in reading about their own democrat fiction about their experiences, and priscilla, what do you think are the most promising or even effective i mean, the industry is innovate budged that far on this, but if of have you seen strategies or policies that seem particularly helpful or promising to you . Basically get more editors the voices. I was going to say to take up where ban don was, the solution to skittishness is to have a diverse imprint. And youre absolutely right that publishing remains one of the most starkly white businesses around, and i guess it has the capacity to be dangerous because presumably books have something to contribute to the culture. So that by definition is not a healthy situation. I mean youre right that the good news is that i just was reading the New York Times bestseller list. The top ten entries, prints and ebook nonfiction, are about race. Thats never thats not happened in my lifetime, ever. It starts with white fragility, number one, number two so you want to talk about race, number three, how to be an antiracist and goes down to our favorite, just mercy and number 11 is michelle. I think i mean, based on what ive seen i dont real the strategy is that the people who have the right nerve endings for the stories should be all of us, i think. There shouldnt be a skittishness about it. But more importantly, we just need to change how we hire. Its really basic. And theres a i mean i dont want to get into detail but theres still a sort of a kind of its on the side to kind of attitude as opposed to its integral to our list. Its not this thing we do over here and that is a big attitude that needs to change. You can correct me if it get this wrong because i havent worked in Book Publishing but my understanding for decades, the economy of Book Publishing ran on the cheap labor of sort of junior staff who came from like the same set of east coast schools who were mostly women, who maybe at a certain point many of them were not even necessarily on a real career track, this is just their little hobby job because their parents were rich but they were doing until the married a stockbroker and that was like the economic model of publishing that your junior staff were beam who did not need to be paid a living wage or to really have didnt need to offer them like the possibility of ever getting one, and it seems like its only gotten worse because the industry is in new york, and its more and more difficult to for anyone on even a middle class income to live there, let alone what editorial assistants are paid, and yet everyone always says publishing is the low margin industry. So i think one of the issues is partly that theres a certain class of people who can afford to work for publishing who can work their way up in publishing. You im assuming you came in at a higher level from journalism which happens, but for people who want to start out kind 0 in the trenches and work their way up they have to be able to police in new york on a pittance for several years at least, and then there arent that many not that much theres in guarantee. Theres not that much space to move up in. So, that limits the candidate pool a lot. Limits by race and limits by [inaudible] im wondering what are some of the measures that can be taken to deal with that . I feel like thats just like a wall that you hit at a certain point. Well, youre right that 70 years ago there was a culture of where publishing was that your entry job was for people who could afford to not make a lot of money. I would say the salaries of entering people are still low, and are still difficult to live on in new york city. If theres one dish if one of the things that come another of the pandemic were suddenly able to expand the universe of where people can live and edit that would be a very good thing. Spoke to brilliant editor today who was let good of his job by another publisher because he wanted to relocate to providence, and i said, youre going to get hired because no one cares anymore where you jet edit your book. So thats the good thing if think the biggest remedy is the change to change the range between the higher salaries and lower. You dont make a lot of money even at my level in publishing, meaning at Vice President level. Its not like working on wall street or at a high level at big ibm type place, but theres still, i think, quite a gap between what entry level editors get paid and part of i think the philosophy behind that is you lilly get train right out of school, trained on the job. So the good news is that what i have seen in recent years is a lot of hiring of nonwhite, very ambitious for books type people who just have to be near a book every day of their life, and theres me pool is getting larger and we are Getting Better at finding those people and hiring them. Well, one promising concept has come out of the organization we need diverse books which started as the childrens Book Publishing which is to sort of help fund internships for people of color and i would hope other lower level jobs so that people can actually afford to get started in the business if they dont come from money. Brandon, i want to ask you what you think what you feel is missing . Youre a younger read he, youre a reader of color. What do you see Book Publishing industry not providing to readers like you. This such a tricky topic. One thing is a need to sort of expand the universe of what kinds of stories people want from writers of color. I think theres often sort of assumption and its not totally inaccurate that the only topic that writers of color are able to talk about are their own lived experiences, and so i feel like beyond sort of the genre of a memoir or collection of first person essays. Seems like thats the only way to break into the industry is like i have to dissect some part of my life or make a part of my life legible for white readers, white audiences. Thats the thing that sells so i will do it. To be able to understand that there are many many things that writers of color card readers of color are interested in besides purely learning about their own experiences. Im not saying its not important but expanding that conversation expanding representation what ive also heard some writers say is just focus only on the traumatic experience as opposed to like its a whole range of abits human lives. They have everything in them. Are you working on a book yourself i guess its not related to not guilty of what i just said. The idea im interested in sort of Whitney Houston as this cultural figure somebody who hasnt gotten this more cultural criticism treatment. Im really interested in sort of looking at how she is somebody, with a lot of ways with her life century was a microcosm of the expectations that we have a black artists also somebody who came in, pop heavy obviously black but didnt want to seem too black. How that change the trajectory of her clearly dumb a career later on. She was booed at the soul train awards. I am really interested in sort of the broader sort of legacy of the effects of mainstreaming on in particular black artists. Im guilty of a little bit of what i just said. It sounds amazing and maybe theres somebody who is listening in who will find that intriguing. [laughter] sounds great. Lets talk a little bit more about technology. Its a lot about technology. What you said this all about audiobooks really struck a nerve with me because ive been writing about them for a while and got into them maybe 10 years ago in a complete addiction for me. Anytime one is on sale, then a ait seems like theres a lot of competition from podcasts. It is a great app called autumn that has top level audiobook readers from encore journalism which is like a dream come true for me. It was interesting at the top of the conversation when you mentioned Millennials Millennials like both i mean the two book clubs joined and started once the pandemic started. One is a Gay Book Club and we are reading, and reading a hard copy of politics the form of a mortal girl, it came out a couple years ago. The other one is the siobhan trenches by andre sally. For me thats an audiobook. Thats the one im looking to winning cooking dinner or cleaning up the house. When you said that people are doing both. Im literally doing both of those right now. Ive definitely seen from some of the younger readers i met this love of the print book like an escape from screens. The ticktock videos of people opening books and turning the pages. Strange ways feels kind of alien to me and fetishizing the fact that its on paper. It clearly is presented as this relaxing escape print sales really did really get a boost during the pandemic. Audiobooks are the book that you read that you can read can multitask. Youre not getting an ear full attention. It will be interesting to see where that goes. The more popular audiobooks become the more significant the performance. Its not just like a simple translation from the page to the microphone. Theres another artist involved. That can make a huge difference. He reads his own book so thats gotta be fantastic. I think we are at the point we can take some questions. . I cant tell . I thought we were at that point but im not getting any ab while we are waiting to figure out if people have questions priscilla comey mentioned audiobooks but what else do you see on horizon in the Book Business . We acquired a book thats going to come out in four different formats immediately. One is an audiobook by audiobook by his Famous Artist of the physical book is gonna show us and then at some point its going to become both a cd and vinyl. Its a book of poetry im only mentioning that because we never would have theres a lot of experimentation need to get its biggest audience. 10 years ago people discovered graphic books. Who knew you could tell that story in a graphic novel or a graphic nonfiction book. Theres a lot of experiments that have at work. At one point when i first joined the business, which is god knows, 12 years ago. Everybody thought, will have ebooks and then in the ebooks will be able to press a button and either make a comment or get an audio or video that will accompany your ebook. They said, no, i just want to book. Let me read the story. The point is that, we have experimented, we continue to experiment. Another thing we tried that didnt work was, an event will happen in the world and lets get David Mccullough to write the historic version of the story and will put it out in ebook you couldnt find those books. People werent interested the good news is we keep experimenting and thats good. We should continue to do that as we did today when acquiring this book. Thank you priscilla, we do have a question now from anonymous attendee, thank you very much. This person asks, as a writer of color are there any good resources for those of us who are interested in one day writing a book but fighting the various entry into the state a little intimidating it depends on where you are. Or belong to a writers book i think writing in itself is isolating and then if you feel like the first step is to build the Community Maybe you need a writer whos published its kind of the way it works partly because partly because theres so many manuscripts floating around up there such a general rule not write qualities that Everybody Needs somebody to help them find a good one. Its usually somebody they know. The thing i would say to do is even though writing is such a solitary activity and you might feel like its just this alone thing you do you dont want there to be other steps in the way but building a community with other writers is your first step toward entering into the community of published writers and people who work in the Book Business. May become a priscilla comey might have something else. I would like to add to that i think its really well put. The other way to do it is look at your bookshelf or bookstore and go to the acknowledgments and see who the abif its a book you love and the book will have a literary agent. The agent is going to be predisposed to really wanting to hear your voice because youve loved a book that he or she has represented. You think that person can really hear you. They are our agents who have a great track record with the books i mentioned earlier that are dominating the bestseller list. You can find them if you just go there i think they will listen. Heres another question from andre martinez. He used to these said that big bestsellers would subsidize a lot of worthy books. The titles that are worthy but you dont necessarily know there can be successful, i think thats what andres means. That might not sell too many copies is this a roughly accurate description of the Business Model or has that changed. Basically, are there big bestsellers more or less guaranteed but sort of give a Publishing Company to try other things may be books that necessarily arent at their advance or maybe sell a million copies but they want to publish this because they believe the book should be out there or book by authors who maybe are not quite there yet but who think might get there someday. I guess, priscilla, thats one for you. Right. Its true but its a little less true than it was then it was because we did benefit from whats known as the longtail meeting the idea you could bring about some flattening effect. More things better smaller could last longer. I would say that frankly, if given a choice between instant bestseller on the New York Times bestseller list for two weeks or a book that back lists and grandchildren are going to pull out of the library. Thats really the model we all aspire to and thats the hardest thing we do is figure out, is this book that i have endurance . Is gonna have value . Are we going to look at it and years from now and say that was the best biography i ever read and pull it out again and recommended to next generations. Thats where i think you really make money. Another anonymous attendee asks, can you speak to publishing houses choosing or not choosing to publish members of the Trump Administration or other controversial members like woody allen, priscilla, youre the editor of john wholesomes book. Maybe you can speak to that. He was already a house offer. He had published a book years ago called, my brain has gone. It was a modest selling book. We have what is called the options on his next book. We were inclined to publish it because i think the book was called surrender is not an option. Ever know if im typical of the Publishing Industry. I come from journalism. When i was there we put Michael Moore on the cover one week and and pulser on the cover the next week and the idea was sort of trying to get across the range of voices out there and the kind of different important cultural and political influences that were shaping our politics. Ive also published till he pulled abi also published paul roses memoir about his time in the white house. I feel like in the first draft of history if they are books of quality and i believe those books were then they are important contributions about how we need to know about the country moving forward or not. I tend to think there should be, we only publish on the other hand of the book is going to say things that are irresponsible and if its not going to be a quality book then you wouldnt publish it. What you think, brandon . I like the way priscilla framed it in terms of the first draft of history. It sounds like a rigorous way to at least give the opportunity to have these kinds of conversations. The way you want to understand the influence the forces of that influence. And you have a brain. If something is bad if something is inaccurate. If something is just wrong or inflammatory then you wouldnt publish it but otherwise especially in this moment is like a good place to find yourself in. Personally its not my choice to publish things or not but i been working on a piece that involves reading a lot of books by former members of the Trump Administration im reading them with a lot of skepticism but im also i do feel like im gaining valuable knowledge from them. I think when you talk about someone like milo, whose last name i could never pronounce. Whos basically just a ab80 of the things arent even true. Then you get into like its just trash and you dont necessarily want to publish trash. Just because i disagree with someone politically theyve had some kind of Important Role or seeing things i can see some kind of truth through it even though i dont credit it. Heres a question for jennifer howard. Someone i never met used to work with back in the day. Any thoughts on whats currently happening with the Book Distribution chain amazon and ingram and how thats affecting publishers and booksellers. That is something im completely incapable of commenting on how about you . If its about the pandemic, bookstores shut down barnes and noble shut down. A lot of the consuming of books happened online. Even at the beginning amazon made medicine and food a priority for shipping so books fell down the priority list it was difficult to even get books. One of the good things that happened is the Publishing Industry got together and started something called bookshop. Org. Which i know you know very well both of you. It allows you to basically get a book from your local bookstore even though the bookstore is closed and make sure they get the money for it. Also that it goes to supporting the people in the industry who get these books out there were certainly disruption in our warehouses. Its a heartbreak but i think for authors i think mostly because theres nothing like working on a book for five years all by yourself your spouse is tired of hearing you talk about it finally you get it out there there are no bookstores. But more importantly the story on television or on the radio makes it impossible for your book to get oxygen. Very inventively i think all the publishing houses found ways to put their authors out there to Virtual Events and get their voices heard and there been some wonderful opportunities. We had to learn every week what was working and what wasnt. Im very excited about coming out in july it does touch on race because its the story of a friendship between true they have found their audience already. They are getting their message out in an unconventional way but they are getting it out. I think this crisis is just a reminder like it impacts different titles differently for an established author who has a new book out, stephen king, its kind of in a weird way it was great because people have this idea they would be home all the time reading. I dont know why people with kids would think they would have that much reading done but book sales were up for the first few weeks of the quarantine. I think because people have that in mind but one of the main ways that people find out about new authors, debut authors, authors outside of their comfort zone, is through a bookstore. Especially if they are lucky enough to have a bookseller who really knows them and their taste and who says, brandon, i have just the book for you let me show you. Thats what the local indie bookstore should be doing and is doing a lot of communities. With that gone its much harder for a new author to be launched. Given the contrary circe over american and general sensitivities of the time. That something we talked about from the other side. The editor is not a person of color, they are editing. This is white nonfiction authors the thing about American Dirt is that it was fiction and chose to tell a story from the perspective of a person of color even though the offices white and many people felt many writers of color who could also tell that story. So why was this white author getting all of the oxygen as priscilla would put it. What about writing nonfiction history biography. What you think authors of those kinds of works need to be thinking about. Perhaps more than they have in the past. I think its an interesting question because i think what that unsolved civil rights murders. Al scott i remember his moonlight a few years ago. I think what set the writers apart is that they do the work of just understanding the different issues and experiences. Its about talking to people, doing the reading. I still think about this Nicole Hunter jones she said you want to be a scientist scientist without studying science and we have people writing about race in this country dont know thing about race in this country. Its that being rigorous about what you do the research and the homework. I think those are the things that give you the ability to write about things and write about experiences. Even my own writing. I read about gender a lot and specifically from the perspective of political candidates and how i feel comfortable doing that only because especially when im writing those groups of stories spend a lot of time reading and listening to what people have already been in making sure describing something in a way that casts into whatever subconscious i have. Its a muscle you have to work. I think people often think because because people havent experienced something themselves it hasnt happened. I think we are getting close to our wrap up time. Im going to thank everyone for coming and invite everybody who, you didnt phone in, but who signed in and enjoined us to attend more social distancing social distancing socials on tuesdays and thursdays in the future. Here are some of the current bestselling nonfiction books according to new york citys strand bookstore. Topping the list is the late historian howard sends a peoples history of the United States followed by why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria . Beverly tatums look at the psychology of racism come after that he brought candy argues america must choose to be antiracist and work toward building a more Equitable Society in how to be antiracist. Then an Indigenous Peoples history of the United States Roxanne Dunbar ortiz examines the history of america through the lens of native americans experience. Wrapping up our look at some of the bestselling nonfiction books according to new york citys strand bookstore is the autobiography of black panther member a shada shakora. Most of these authors have appeared on booktv and you can watch them online at booktv. Org. [applause] thanks molly, good evening everyone. Welcome to this evenings a [laughter] welcome to this evenings screen join. Tisch College Distinguished Speaker Series featuring a conversation with cyntoia brownlong, an author and activist for criminal justice reform. I want to thank molly goal, we just heard from. It was her suggestion that we bring some toyota campus. She was also instrumental in developing the program for said toy iscspan2 11s