Transcripts For CSPAN2 Panel Discussion On Publishing 201404

Im hoping theyll take credit theyll take my check. They disenchantment, could we please think this fabulous panel in thank you for moderating it. And the ending question we can talk about during spring break. [inaudible conversations] the National Black Writers Panel continues now with black writing. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] ladies and gentlemen, i am dr. Linda michele bair and from your college, the Sister College to this fabulous and the two shin. I am just honored to be here to introduce the final panel for today, the state of publishing. In doing so, this is a 2014 odyssey. This is a clean start. You will have lost all of what i didnt be previously. But i do have really just such a wonderful opportunity to introduce a friend of mine from a person i can do for a friend who is in the world of publishing. I give you a little bit of information and shes going to be the moderator on this auspicious occasion. Linda atkins director of publicity at Grand Central publishing, an imprint of hatchet leclerc as cofounder of the harlem book fair, she has helped to create a nationally recognized venue that promotes literacy and literary expression with writers of the diaspora. Duggins is the creator and producer of the annual International Womens History Month Literary Festival in enough Pratt Free Library in baltimore. There is so much more about her. You have to promise me. I wont read any more if you promise to read about her. Is that a deal . Could we welcome my friend and a person youll have a pleasure hearing moderate today, linda duncans. [applause] afternoon, everybody. Thank you for making time out of your day to spend with us. As youve heard, this panel is the state of publishing, a 2014 odyssey. In my mind, we just might as well call it a 2014 space odyssey. We all know the Publishing Industry is in major flux. However, we are dealing with some of the same opportunities and challenges as we were during the very first National Black writers conference. It still is a wonderful trip. The publishing landscape is a strange and beautiful combination of culture, commerce and art. Another commerce, the 12th National Black writers conference is as you have heard black writers reconstruct in the master narrative. It is vitally important that we continue to build our presence. The black writers contribution to this literary canon. We create and must continue to create our stories because we are part of this collective master narrative. Tony marston said, critics generally dont associate black people with ideas. They say marginal people, sociologically interesting people perhaps, the very parochial. We are people, not alias. We live, we loves you guys. Today we will talk about the language of publishing and how readers and publishing professionals and those aspiring to be published later go on this journey to redefining this master narrative. We all know they are sent that mean nothing postracial about the Publishing Industry. Conversations that took base in the 60s, 70s, 80s and on a nonare still happening in 2014. In march of 2014, the board of directors of the National Association of black journalists and an open letter to news media startups. N. A. B. Shares americas oldest and largest organizations for journalists of color. They represent more than 3000 talented media professionals. Their open letter addressed the lack of diversity of noxious legacy newsrooms, but the current crop of news media startups as well. In january this year, the Pew Research Center reported on what many of us starting new. Black women read. We read more books than any other group surveyed are not. I dont even care what the survey says. Again, nothing postracial about this fact. Free black women in the late 18th and early 19th centuries in this country. Im on the board of directors of the 12yearold National Book Club Conference based in atlanta and the National Book Club Conference is an annual gathering of black book clubs around the country. Over 100 groups meet every year. The sisters hail from cities all over this country and they buy tons of books. We drew them a shop on the Creative Genius of many fell asleep day, tony barro, gwendolyn brooks, margaret walker, jay california cooper baldwin, baraka, delaney, Bebe Moore Campbell convinced terry williams. The list goes on and on. James baldwin spoke at the role of the writer in america conference in 1960 at a cisco state college. He said a country is only as strong as the people who make it up in the country turns into what do people want us to become. This country is going to be transformed. It will not be transformed by an act of god, but by all of us, you and me. I didnt believe any longer we can afford to say that it is entirely out of our hands. We made the world we are living in and we have to make it over, and code. The language of publishing is what we are here to talk about this afternoon. Economics, technology, cultural aesthetics, creativity. Look anywhere else in the world in your home, in my home, all Publishing Houses have their own Cultural Values and norms, cultural messaging going on all over the place. Are we paying attention . Can they go with the flow and be flexible . What do we bring to the mix and how do we see ourselves in this industry . Do you know who you are and are you grounded enough to hold on to your foundation while the landscape shifts all around you through your . We have lots of work to do and manage different levels. But this amazing panel and many. Theres about 95 years of publishing experience appear, yall. A lot of information these folks have them were going to step you through, nuts and bolts and talk about some of these global issues we face inside the Publishing House, outside the Publishing House, but more importantly in our own selves, truly. Panelists, we have paul combs, the founder and director of black classic press, specializing in republishing of scaring significant works by and about people of african descent. She is also held editorial positions at Harper Collins and crown publishing, and last put not least, troy johnson, an Industry Leader in marking books on the web. The webmaster o the africanamerican literature book club. It was launched in 1998 and is now the largest and most frequently visited web site dedicated to books and films by and about people of africanamerican descent. So we have a lot to talk about today. Lets talk about the bower report. They stated more than 3500 becomes were published even day in the united states, and in one form or fashion. Interviews, reviews, advertising, marketing, all is very important, but how do you convey the message to your authors and client that the real deal is reaching their readers. Troy . Okay. A large number of ways of reaching the audience. My specialty is doing online but i recognize what i do online is part of a broader ecosystem about becomes. When you ask someone how they discover a book . At it generally through word of mouth. From a friend. How does that friend find out about a book . Historically we were able to find out about books in our local book store. That become increasingly difficult. We have been able to historically find them on the web. But that surprisingly is becoming more and more difficult despite technology, despite faster, better software. Its just become much more difficult. We lost magazines so to answer the question, i can say its become increasingly challenging, and despite thed a ven of the advent of Technology Like social media you have to become an expert in a lot of different thing that writers done need to become expert in. So, that the part of the thing like to come away with, how do we expose people to books . When i first started my web site, i could sit back and wait for every new back to come across my desk and say, ill cover that or post that. 3500 books coming out a day, thats impossible. And its impossible to discover which are the good books because theres so many coming at you, like a fire hydrant. At it difficult to discern which ones are worth reading. I dont have an answer, actually. Well talk about that. As an agent, you work with all different types of writers, and as a publicist i know writers and some are very surprised that they have a lot of work to do in order to get the book out into the market place. What happens inside a Publishing House but often happens outside of a Publishing House is more important before the book is published. So, how do you help your client understand the terrain . Well, one of my important jobs is to help manage my clients expectations, meaning to make it clear to them what the Publishing House can do for them and what they cant, and for them to communicate and collaborate with their editor and their publisher, and their publicist to make sure that each one of them works to theyre greater strengths. So the Publishing House is great at getting reviews, sending out early galleys, pitching to television and radio, and the author theres a bunch of other things the awe that are can do depending on their strengths. If theyre great at social media, already have a great platform and twitter followers, i toll them to keep building on that, and put the word out early to all their followers. If they dont have a twitter account at all, theres probably not much opinion in starting one now not much point in starting one because it takes a really long time but it theyre really great at doing personal appearances, why not do some do some podcasts and send them out to become clubs and say im happy to skype with your book club or do personal appearances. I try to tailor my advice to my clients strengthses and also what kind of book they have and what the strengths of the Publishing House are. Okay. La toya . How to you help your authors . You get them obviously, the agent, shop the book, get people to buy the book, and then what happens along the way . Honestly starts in the very beginning. For me im definitely ill actually read a submission before i check out the authors credentials, and then once i follow in love with the project, ill look at the authors platform, and you cant see where their strengths are. Some authors are great at facebook some not so good at twitter. So in buying the book its more than just liking the book. At it also, as you said, seeing where their strengths are, we we can promote them. Can they do publicity, National Media or podcasts, or is it just a matter of building that . I have a lot of debut authors where they dont have any platforms and barely he web sites but theyre readers first. So their social media platform might be permanent but theyre following the writers they look, theyre in book clubs. So i say, go speak to those people, your author friends who may have an equal following you have. Tell them to talk about your book, rely on your friends and family. Its about word of mouth. Even if you dont think you loving scandal is exciting, theres a million other people talking about scandal and you can build a fan base just by talking about things you like. So, often times i tell my authors, lets build on that first. Lets get your social media platform there, because its free. And its a great way to network with people, as we edit your book, as we get the right cover, as we set up a publicity campaign, you can be kind of being yourself out there and networking with people because it is about word of mouth and notworking, and getting other writers and your friends and family to help you as well. Its not all on you. It takes a support group. And so the bigger your net, the more successful. Paul, when you created black plastic press you had one vision in mind and then a little bit down the road things shifted and crowd created a diggal part of the business. So, digital part of the business. What did you see in the publishing model that required that you had to shift . Gosh, i prepared a long answer for this one to follow troy. Well get back to it. Thats good. I got a lot out of the responses you guys gave. The thing i want to distinguish is that black classic press some people know this or dont we didnt start as a publishing company. We were a Prison Movement out of the black Panther Party and that was to provide and produce books and make becomes available as a way of actually transforming our community, transforming the people who are in jails in ways so they would come out and join the struggle in a positive way. So we really began from a place of not thinking about books in the traditional way, and it did come to a time that after we were publishing books for a while, we realized we were a publishing company, and after having successes through the 90s, we hit a wall just like most people in publishing hit in the early 90s or mid90ss. And books began to be more cutterrized, particularly in chain stores, books began to come back in after selling black books through the roof, we began to hit periods in which we w. Selling books, and instead of selling 5,000 books it was 500 becomes or less. And i ended up with a warehouse, not unlike other black publishers, with a warehouse full of books, and it occurred in that process that a change was necessary. Ive been doing some work with digital printing, prisoning books printing books on demand. In the 1995, we acquired our first diggal printing engine, and the company at that point not only published books, we began producing our books, which was part of the roger original vision. We would sell and produce books. It was at the black writers conference, linda, in 1995, actually, that we 1996 . 1996. Im sorry. We announced that we had acquired that equipment. So at it interesting. Were like going around now. And the company grew through producing books and using that equipment, the digital equipment. Troy, all panelists, in terms of the social media, the marketing, the web sites, we always talk about, can the reader find the author . Can the author find the readers . It works both ways. How does one do that . With all the changes and all the tricks with one platform or another platform . How does that work . And do the black books get lost in the shuffle . That a complicated question. Its extremely difficult. If theres an author you know, a celebrity author, real easy. But if youre trying to look for a great historical novel, or trying to look for a romance book, and you do a search on that, it becomes real tough. Ten years ago, if you did that type of search, you would come up with a variety of web sites, independent web sites mostly, that were tailored to the genre. Today what you get when you do a search is, basically three or four amazon search results, search amazon pages, three or four good read pages which is amazon, wikipedia. Doesnt matter what the search is. So, what is happening is a lot of the independent sites are being crowded out. So unless you know about the sites you wouldnt know to go there to search. So part of what i try to do is help people know help spread the word about book stores, web sites, that are promoting on literature in particular. So, one of the things ive launched well, its been two years now a site calls huria. Org, and its essentially a search engine. The way you look about ten years ago, pure research, no sponsored results. No advertising, just information that youre looking for. If you go do a search on something generic, youll get results that have been curated. All of the book sites. All of the book store web sites. All the platforms that im aware of that will be most likely to talk about us stuff. And i find that to be a good way to learn about books or authors or writers, because what you find from the larger corporate sites typically are the things that would appeal to the broadest audience or the things that are generally perceived as most profitable, and most profitable being the key thing. And what ive discovered is that isnt the stuff that actually feeds us. It is not the stuff that is going to uplift us, so if were going to be able to share information about things that really enrich us, all of you are going to have to help do that because the large corporations simply will not do it, its not in their interest to do it and havent demonstrated a propensity to doing it. One thing i feel is lacking is lately our willingness to promote our stuff, and we are losing were hemorrhaging platforms. Theres a good side and a bad side to the story. I actually brought a list of the book stores that have closed, not since i started my web site but since i started keeping track of them. The list actually this is a list of book stores that have closed those in black book stores or book stores generally . Independent book Stores Across the nation. What is the count . Approximately. Over 100. I mean, honestly, i dont have a count 300 . Well, this is how many i last this is counting the studio museums book store, the hub at howard university, so, we were to look at the number of blackowned independent become stores in this country, its less than 50, and when we talk about the number of book stores per black person in this country, were looking at numbers like 800,000 to one. States like alabama doesnt have one. The last one closed, i think, last year. The cradle of the Civil Rights Movement . Im getting a fit just thinking about it, and i dont feel this anger anywhere. I feel its a lie. These are i do it because of these stores. Before i thought about a web site, i was going there and learning things, learning about actually thirdworld press, and learning about black classic press and the authors and learning about things that matter, and that is one of the things that are changing. When we talk about the black become ecosystem, were talking about family, and at it interesting when paul mentioned the book store