Friends of the Parrot

Editorials

An Open Letter to “Literate Kitten:”
In Search of the Habitual Reader

An Open Letter to “Literate Kitten:”
http://litkitten.blogspot.com/2007/02/friday-buzz-habitual-reader-web-site.html

Hi, LK, and thanks for the mention of the Habitual Reader in your blog. Your praise is important to us AND your challenge even better. KOMENAR welcomes critical reviews, in fact we encourage it (think “Once Was Enough”).

And we’d love to see criticism of our books. Why not? At every trade show, book club and bookshop, some one has volunteered what might be construed as criticism, and I’ve loved it all. Few people criticized our books without reading them and the dialogue they opened up by their reader comments made me eager to go forward with more publishing ideas and books.

So, bring it on! I think everyone is eager for that real discussion about the books we buy and read.
Charlotte Cook
President, KOMENAR Publishing

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	In Search of the Habitual Reader
	By Charlotte Cook “Yes, there really are people like me who actually read the books we buy and spend a substantial amount of money on books that we will read . . .  Think of those public transit riders who miss their stop because life in that parallel reality within a book is so damned good.”

 

What’s going on in the book industry?  Why do we ignore the very people who buy books, read them, then go out and do the same thing again and again?  These people spend thousands of dollar each year per person on books that they read.  You think I’m wrong about this?  Well, I’m not, and I’ll show you.  Let me introduce you to the Habitual Reader and why the industry knows so little about us.

Fewer than 50% of all titles published each year sell enough to recoup any portion of their original investment.  Somewhere around 30% of all books sold each year are never read, let alone opened.  Another 30% are started but not finished.  Many—too many—best seller and best selling titles/authors are produced for a special market opportunity such as pop culture, crime, politics, psychology or history.  And many of these have been ghost written to some degree.  Then too, many big selling novels are the next volume of an on-going (fiction) series that is branded by author and/or protagonist and fulfill a specific expectation of predictability. 

These books hug the walls, fill the shelves, and cover the tables of most bookstores.  They also stand in stacks at such unlikely book-selling establishments as Costco, Target and Wal-Mart.  Few are actually offered or sold at the publisher’s printed retail price, suggesting that their content or long-term value isn’t worth full price.  Then too, any book at any point can be returned to the bookseller, distributor, wholesaler, and publisher for a full refund, making the sale of books a consignment business.  In fact 40% returns to the publisher are and should be “expected.”  And this is the book industry.

Here’s another set of statistics.  About 50% of all books sold each year were not published in that year.  They represent “sale” and used books, classics from other decades and other countries, books that have been made into recent movies, and “sleeper” success stories such as The Kite Runner, many of these in trade paperback editions.  These books are often referred to as back list books and dismissed as not representing “the heart” of today’s book business.  Returns of these books to booksellers, distributors, wholesalers and publishers are so low that no one will quote a return rate.  This world of business I am repeatedly told is only a “small part” of the book business.  Interpretation:  Not the real book industry.

What intrigues me is this idea of the “book industry.”  That first paragraph of statistics definitely represents a “book” industry, one that focuses on manufacturing and selling units.  Here the world circles around buyers who can be made to think they should have a book, this book in particular, and “having it” is much like “having” those expensive high-heel shoes no one expects any woman to actually take a step in.  Interesting.  Not my view of reading and books.

That second paragraph of statistics focuses on books that will be perused, reread, passed on.  Those statistics represent a humble, committed marketplace where a reader may enter and purchase reading material, repurchase lost favorites, and scout for exciting new reading finds and earlier books by a reader-discovered author.  No, this isn’t the book industry, this is the world of readers.  It’s my world, the world of the Habitual Reader. 

So do statistics exist about people like me, these Habitual Readers?  You bet.  Fresh from recent scrutiny.  Based on the reading and buying habits of my friends and myself.  Double-checked at book fairs and tradeshows with knowledgeable colleagues and peers across the country and across generational, socio-economic and educational lines.  These statistics have been accrued through discussion and observation, and garnered by me, a professional writer, editor, and publisher who reads all the time.  For purposes of ease, I will reveal these statistics in “I” statements, as recommended by fellow Habitual Readers, given the consensus that we are in fact a cohesive, predictable community, even if we are mostly unknown to others.

Within a three year period I read all of the books that I buy for myself.  Except when an impulse has led me to buy “an important book.”  Those impulse purchases used to represent about 15% of the books I bought, less than one in five.  Over the last five years, that percentage has dropped to 2%, maybe four books a year, and that may be high.  The reason for the drop is that most “important books” have ultimately proved to have little long-term value and are poorly written in my opinion. 

Yes, I have a particular taste in how books should be written and edited.  Don’t you?  Most habitual readers do because we have been reading since an early age.  Almost all of us shared the under-the-covers-with-a-flashlight habit as a kid.  All of us subscribe to the dictum:  So many books, so little time.  And all of us have read thousands—yes, thousands—of books.  Ask Oprah.  She isn’t an avid reader.  She isn’t a voracious reader.  She’s an Habitual Reader.  Our most notable celebrity.  Perhaps the “poster child” for Habitual Readers. 

I read neither The New York Times Best Seller List nor most reviews.  The books I love rarely make that best seller list.  Most are not seen as important enough to be reviewed by “major” reviewers, whose policies often exclude books from small publishers, local publishers, first time authors, authors without “platform.”  Advertising has little impact on me.  Neither do author tours, nor glossy and magnetic bookmarks.  Instead I listen for and eavesdrop on discussions among other Habitual Readers.  And sometimes I read a book because it sounds interesting and turns out wonderful.  (Examples:  In the Lake in the Woods by Tim O’Brien, Winter’s Bones by Daniel Woodrell, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, Atticus by Ron Hansen, Final Payments by Mary Gordon, House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros, Jasmine by Bharati Mukherjee.)

When I find a new author, I “google” or “amazon” them.  Not to find the most recent titles, but for the list of previous books, those earlier efforts by the author.  Better yet, I call a friend who sells used books to see what he/she has on the shelf.  I know that I’m more likely to enjoy a previous book than what comes out after the author has been “discovered.”  The reason:  In “brand” books, I can often detect a formula or find too many of the story elements predictable.  Predictability is not my thing, certainly not why I read.  In fact many Habitual Readers will name an author and then tag to the name the phrase, “But only the early books.”

Oh, and by the way, I spend about $100 to $200 each month every month buying books.  That’s $1200 to $2400 per year, probably a predictable $2k each year, a bankable $2k to a bookseller worthy of this Habitual Reader’s trust.  (Habitual Readers tend to be loyal shoppers, returning to those wonderful, knowledgeable booksellers who can advise, tease, and pamper us with new suggestions.)  Now multiply that $2K by the dozens of Habitual Readers you know and the hundreds of thousands of us across the country and consider how much real money that is.  And you should also know that I-we-don’t return books.  In fact we frequently buy the same title again and again as a gift or because the person to whom we loaned our precious copy has kept it “too long.”  I even indulge in collecting different editions of the same book (think “A Christmas Carol” with different illustrators).

Yes, there really are people like me who actually read the books we buy and spend a substantial amount of money on books that we will read.  There are many of us.  Look around.  Do the math.  Think of those public transit riders who miss their stop because life in that parallel reality within a book is so damned good.  Or that spouse who doesn’t avoid the offer of intimacy with a headache:  “No, not tonight, dear, I have one more chapter to read to finish this book.”  Or the woman next to me who points a slender finger to a book’s spine and whispers:  “That was a really interesting read.”  Or the kid who asks me:  “Do you really think that book is too old for me?” 

We aren’t book buyers, we’re book readers who buy lots of books.  We also aren’t an “aging demographic.”  Please consider that young Habitual Readers only have more years of reading opportunities ahead of them, and they read far more widely than just Harry Potter.  “Older” Habitual Readers have more time to read and more focused taste.  Those in the middle inch their way through a current favorite as time permits or read the back of a cereal box when they forget to pack a book, making notes in their Day-Timers of the books to save for future reading.  We aren’t going away.  We are only getting more determined and more marginalized. 

Marginalized?  Is that the right word?  Excuse me.  I mean that the “book” industry doesn’t know us very well and/or doesn’t consider our buying power.  And that’s strange because we are reasonably easy to predict and inexpensive to market to.  We like to hear what fellow Habitual Readers are reading and why.  We just need a little recognition and innovation.

True, innovation in an industry as old and fixed as the book business has become harder and harder to create.  Technology has done little more than encourage more people to consider self-publishing and business people to automate order taking.  Unfortunately this industry hasn’t had anything beyond The DaVinci Code to energize and animate it for quite some time, and The DaVinci Code represents more of a pop culture phenomenon than a reader indicator.  Ask an Habitual Reader who has read The DaVinci Code.  If you can find one.  I stopped at chapter four.

But I see innovation ahead.  I see a new movement among real book business people to find ways to marshall and attract the Habitual Reader, maybe even a rejuvenination of the fiction market.  Consider placards in home, business and library windows:  Official Habitat of the Habitual Reader.  Books promoted by content and quality:  The Habitual Reader Seal of Approval or a rating of five Parrots.  Laugh if you want but the statistics are there, our money is real, and best of all I have an inside track on those readers.  Not only because I am one, as is most everyone I know.  But there’s something on the web.  Something for us Habitual Readers.  We are coming together as a community with a home on the web.  You know, YouTube or MySpace for readers.  In fact if you are reading this bit on the Habitual Reader, you are already there:  www.habitualreader.com and thanks for proving me right.

Charlotte Cook is the President of KOMENAR Publishing, a publishing house whose tag line is “Compelling Fiction for the Habitual Reader.”  The first title Over the Edge, by Marc Paul Kaplan, is an edgy thriller about violence and redemption.  The second title My Half of the Sky, by Jana McBurney-Lin, is a Jane Austen-view of family dynamics and tradition in modern China.  Charlotte and her KOMENAR team of Habitual Readers (Julie Smith, Marc Paul Kaplan, Diana Wells, Jasmine Nakagawa, Nick Ponticello, and Alan Morris) are launching the Habitual Reader website with lots of information and discussion material  to satisfy that dynamic need to find great reads, specifically in the world of fiction. 

copyright 2006 KOMENAR Publishing

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