621 Ten Trends in Publishing

The Wall Street Journal on November 22 featured a special section on "Trends." The article in that section on trends in publishing suggests the following:

1. The "Do not call lists" have hurt magazine sales. The new approach is to pair up with a major retailer--launch a new title at a specific store, like Wal-Mart.

2. Publish more women's titles. In 2003 consumers spent $1.6 billion on women's magazines. O (Oprah) and Lucky lead the growth.

3. Overstatement--is it a trend? Three major dailies overstated circulation numbers, and in this industry, three examples prove a trend.

4. The line between editorial content and advertising continues to fade. More magazines will resemble catalogs.

5. Hook the young. Some newspapers are putting out special editions for younger readers--Redeye, Red Streak. Heavy on entertainment, news articles larded with short, snappy stories. The training wheels of newspapers. The hope is they will graduate to the "mother paper."

6. Long bets--a balooning pool of titles. 19% more titles were published but fewer readers. Publishing field is looking for the block buster--a DaVinci Code or a Purpose Drive Life (19,000,000 copies since October 2002) to float the others.

7. Political black hole--it is possible the bottom will drop out now that the campaign is over, but maybe not--with cabinet members resigning, there may be more stories to tell.

8. The next Dan Brown--best seller. (can't read my notes here)

9. What's cooking. The trend is for TV personalities on the Food Network to issue titles. Cookbooks are big sellers, and they have a built in readership.

10. New or used? New books are being sold as used on the internet. The jury is out on whether this hurts or helps--some of us will never pay $35 to read a book--we'll wait or go to the library.