News
The Zuckerberg Effect
Mark Zuckerberg is not Oprah Winfrey. It may not matter to publishing folk, though. When the Face- book CEO announced his new literary initiative, a
book club called the Year of Books, on January 2, the parameters—a new title will be unveiled every two weeks—likely
made stomachs in the industry drop. And for good reason.
With no advance notice, since at present Facebook is not alerting publishers of forthcoming selections, houses will have to
scramble to get print copies into the market. More problematically, by the time most accounts receive shipments, the club
will have moved on to its next selection.
Perseus Books Group has seen this firsthand. The publisher,
whose Basic Books imprint released the club’s inaugural selection, Moises Naim’s The End of Power (which looks at changes
to the concept of power in the 21st century), moved quickly to
get books on shelves. It said that, a week after news of the selection broke, it had sold 13,000 copies, 10,000 of which were
e-books. Perseus CEO David Steinberger said that by using
digital printing through the company’s Constellation digital
platform, the house pushed out a total of 30,000 print copies
within a week of Zuckerberg’s choice.
Print sales, however, may have peaked in the week after the
selection; according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks about
80% of print sales, Power sold 3,089 trade paperback copies in
the week ended January 11, a huge jump from the 29 copies it
sold the prior week. However, sales fell to 1,298 copies, according to BookScan, in the week ended January 18. (By the end of
last week, Steinberger confirmed that Perseus sold 15,000 e-book copies, and about 30,000 print copies.)
While those are solid numbers for a backlist title not otherwise receiving any media attention, they certainly don’t match
what Oprah had been doing with her book club—her selections, which generally kept a book in the spotlight for a month
or more, routinely generated sales of at least 500,000 additional copies for each pick. (By comparison, the community
page on Facebook that Zuckerberg created for his book club
has received over 270,000 “likes,” about six times the number
of sales it generated for the Naim’s book.)
Despite the fact Zuckerberg’s club hasn’t moved the needle
like Oprah’s, and despite the headaches it may cause publishers
trying to set print runs, Penguin Books’s v-p and associate
publisher Kathryn Court said the club is still a plus. When
Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature was named the
second selection in Zuckerberg’s book club last week, her
imprint, which initially released the title in October 2011,
went back to press, twice, to get 12,000 copies out before
week’s end. When asked if she thought it might be wiser to
simply let consumers buy the e-book, since the book club will
• sell 1000s of ebooks in minutes
• easily deliver to any large group
• fulfll special sales orders
ebook sales
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