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August 30, 2001

University Press: Like its counterparts, it's awash in a sea of change

Looking out on Forbes Avenue from her new office on the 5th floor of the Eureka Building, Cynthia Miller says, "It's wonderful to have windows!" Miller, director of the University of Pittsburgh Press, and her staff of 15 moved into the 5th floor suite last month from windowless offices across the street.

However, when looking through the "window" of the academic press industry, the picture isn't so wonderful, although it's still rosier than its commercial counterpart.

The Association of American Publishers (AAP) preliminary report on book sales for 2000 showed sales of adult hardback books down 11.6 percent and paperback sales down 7.2 percent from the previous year.

University press book sales also slumped, down 2.4 percent from 1999. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported recently that university presses across-the-board, including large operations like Harvard and California, took a big financial hit. Small and mid-sized presses, which have tried to develop more books for general readership to offset losses in sales of monographs, also suffered high return rates from retailers last year, the Chronicle said.

That raises the biggest question of all, Miller says: "Should we be doing scholarly books?"

In the early- and mid-1990s, university presses greatly expanded their sales market into the retail area, Miller says. At first sales were boosted by the spread of giant bookstore chains like Borders and Barnes & Noble and web-based distributors like amazon.com.

The big retail stores were large enough to make room for scholarly titles, which smaller bookstores often could not. "And as soon as amazon came on-line they would list everything. At first, we were selling older scholarly books that hadn't sold in years. It was a way of re-promoting our backlists."

"Because of the way the trade market is evolving, we're still seeing a higher percentage of our books being sold that way," Miller says.

But, simultaneously, the response to academic presses' targeted direct mailing campaigns dropped off sharply. "It's not that overall sales are necessarily going down, but people either order on-line or go to a Barnes & Noble because they might get a particular title there. You might pick up a few people who would not be reached by a direct mail appeal. The difference is when we sell a book through amazon or through a bookstore, we sell it at a discount, typically between 40 and 50 percent off the list price, so that cuts your income in half or close to it."

Also, bookstores can return books to the publisher at no cost, which the larger chains are doing in record numbers. "If we're going to be selling books through the trade market anyway and selling mostly those that are more likely to appeal to broader audiences, then first, you're taking away from your original mission and, second, if you're going to do a trade book and do it right, you're going to have to have the wherewithal to advertise the way trade publishers advertise and we're never going to have that kind of money. But if we don't do scholarly books, who will?"

That is why books for a regional, non-scholarly audience must carry the financial load. A book on, say, the Pittsburgh Steelers, might sell 6,000-7,000 copies and help offset costs for scholarly titles.

"We're holding our own," Miller says of Pitt's Press, while acknowledging that she is an optimist by nature.

The Press had $1.33 million in FY 2001 sales. "That represents 9 percent under the initial sales projections and 2.8 percent under the revised budget," which is sales projections adjusted in January. Sales in FY 2000 were $1.24 million, she says.

The Press is a non-profit University unit reporting to the provost. Pitt and select regional foundations subsidize the current $2 million annual budget.

The Press prints 47 or 48 titles a year, including 6-10 volumes on regional western Pennsylvania intended for a general reading audience; 7 or 8 poetry volumes, usually 2 first poetry books and 5 or 6 by established poets; and the Drew Heinz fiction award-winning volume of short stories. "The rest are scholarly monographs, which is really our core mission," Miller says.

Miller says projecting sales to gauge the appropriate quantities to print is much more problematic today due to the influence of the large bookstore chains, on-line sales, shrinking library acquisitions budgets and the vagaries of the economy.

"Projecting sales is part art, part science," Miller says. "And it's part experience and part luck, too. This year, Billy Collins saved us. We had phenomenal sales in June."

Collins, who has three volumes of poetry printed by the Press, was named U.S. poet laureate last spring, sparking a renewed interest in his work. Sales of his Press poetry volumes are up to 105,000 copies through July, Miller says. "Of course, we can't count on a Billy Collins every year."

A few things are constant in predicting sales: An academic press should expect to do 55-60 percent of its annual sales in the first half of each fiscal year, Miller says, because that factors in holiday sales and fall textbook sales. Each January, sales projections are re-evaluated based on the success of the first half-year.

"When we're considering a book, the acquiring editor does a sales analysis before we sign a contract," says Miller, who doubles as one of the Press's three acquiring editors. "The analysis describes the book and the audience and it includes the comments of the manuscript's two outside peer reviewers. At that point, we try to identify the potential markets for the book and get some sense of the proportion of cloth and paperback we would want to print: Is it primarily for classroom use? For scholars? Is there any crossover to the trade market? Is it very specialized? If you can identify that, you at least have a solid foundation for predicting sales."

A specialized scholarly book, for example, means it's going to sell to libraries and perhaps 200 or 300 scholars. "Then that's a hardcover; there's no reason to even think about it. You also don't print a thousand copies for such a specialized book. If, on the other hand, it's clearly for classroom use, then we're going to do a paperback for student use simultaneously with cloth for library sales."

A typical University Press title would have a run of 300-400 clothbound copies and 1,000 paperbacks, but all potential books are evaluated on an individual basis.

Miller predicted that electronic publishing will be the next concern for academic presses. "Right now, it's a market issue, because we can't find any readers who prefer electronic books," she says.

Once an audience becomes available, however, electronic publishing open doors to book formats that don't have the same physical limitations as traditional books.

"And I think within 10 years, as the formats are starting to change, it opens a whole different way of thinking for authors and publishers alike. If you're doing a book on Franklin Roosevelt, you can get his speeches in his voice as part of it. Or with an art book, do you need to get permission to reprint photographs of the artwork, or do you just link up to a library's web site where the original art is and view it on the screen? We're just beginning to think about all this and I do think it's pretty exciting."

What will drive university presses into the electronic market, Miller says, are textbooks. "Students are younger. They're more receptive to it. And when you think of students carrying around 100 pounds of books which all could be downloaded" to a personal computer, it's obvious that market is coming.

"Once major textbooks get into electronic form — and they are moving that way, tentatively, sporadically — then teachers are going to want collateral reading, such as our scholarly books, in electronic format, too. But, again, I don't see that you're necessarily increasing your audience for sales."

The Internet has already had an effect on the industry, she says. "We see it not just in on-line sales, but in manuscript submissions, and we're just beginning to explore marketing that."

And as for electronic books replacing traditional printing? "I don't see that happening for a long time. I think there is a natural resistance to change. And there are issues of copyright and how we can be appropriately compensated that need to be addressed."

Right now, the most difficult task for publishers, Miller says, is getting a handle on whatever trends are forming. "A pattern hasn't emerged. If you're used to predicting sales and now you can't, it's very disconcerting. But I guess I feel I'm in a comfort zone with ambiguity. You learn to live with the volatility. Every decision is harder than it used to be, but at the same time, more opportunities are opening up."

–Peter Hart

Filed under: Feature,Volume 34 Issue 1

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