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Stories about the imperiled publishing industry have become so familiar that it was something of a shock when publishers reported marked growth last year. According to Nielsen BookScan, 571 million print books were sold in 2015 -- a 17 million increase from the year before. So what’s driving those sales of physical, paper books? Carolyn Kellogg, books editor at the Los Angeles Times, talks with Brooke about recent successes in publishing and what to expect in the future.
BOB GARFIELD: From WNYC in New York, this is On the Media. I’m Bob Garfield.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And I’m Brooke Gladstone. To kick this hour off, consider all the dead cultural products that - aren’t dead. For instance, if you think that, say, epic poetry died after Tennyson’s “Idylls of the King” in the 19th century or maybe after Ezra Pound's “Cantos” in the 20th, check out Wikipedia. They’re still being written.
BOB GARFIELD: And, of course, we've heard forever that movies would murder theater (uh-huh, anybody got “Hamilton” tickets?) and that TV would do in radio. Hey, {TAPPING ON MIC) is this on? Unh, it turns out neither is dead yet, or even wheezing. And, I could go on. The point is we've all heard that e-books will kill paper books, and since paper books are more profitable for publishers, that will kill the industry. Ergo: the book, dog-eared and scribbled in, that thing we grew up with, is dead.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: But not so fast. It lives! Seriously, some numbers: Last December, Nielsen BookScan reported that 571 million print books were sold in 2015, a 17 million increase from the year before. What’s driving those sales of paper books? And what can we expect from the publishing industry this year?
When we first aired this hour back in March, I asked Carolyn Kellogg, books editor at the Los Angeles Times, whether this was the year that the myth was overturned that e-books were going to destroy paper books.
CAROLYN KELLOGG: E-books have definitely leveled off. They were predicted at one point to be about 50, 60 percent of the market and they seem to have leveled off at around 25 percent.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Paper books definitely got a big boost in 2015 but, according to the AP, it’s due to the rise of coloring books and books by YouTube stars. So should we be cheering?
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Well, those are two very separate demographics of people who buy books, so we should. Publishing is always driven by a couple of really big hits, and the big hits usually come out of nowhere. So like when Harry Potter first became a big hit, books about boy wizards had not been topping the bestseller list, but then they did. And then there were lots of other books about magic.
And so, this past year there were coloring books, which came out of nowhere, and exist as a real alternative tier screen. They’re really complex and people are touting them as like a Zen way to remove yourself from the constant Twitter, email, dinging, text messaging cycle that you get into on your phone, or I get into on my phone.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: And the YouTube stars?
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Well, the people who are buying the YouTube star books are tweens. It's interesting because the YouTube stars are people with whom they have a very intimate relationship through a screen. And you wouldn’t think there's anything else to share in a book, but it's a way of transporting that experience into a different kind of permanence.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: You said that it's a way to further that relationship with this person you know through the screen –
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Mm-hmm. [AFFIRMATIVE]
BROOKE GLADSTONE: - which speaks to the issue of just the fact that this is a physical object that you can touch, and maybe we’re reacting to our increasingly digital lives by embracing the analog. You know, vinyl records are back, book sales have gone up, coloring books - you've got this intense relationship because you are actually building on the material that is in front of you.
CAROLYN KELLOGG: And Johanna Basford, who’s sort of the queen of the coloring books - she started them with these like Enchanted Garden and this undersea book – she doesn't want there to be an app version of her books. She only wants them in print.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So how about audio books? Sales have grown nearly 40 percent, compared to last year, so they seem to be hitting a groove.
CAROLYN KELLOGG: I think their popularity is connected to the ongoing popularity and discussion around podcasts.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Hm.
CAROLYN KELLOGG: When you start listening to something and you can get it in installments and it tells you a story and you find that satisfying, then you can go to your library and take out a library book or you can go to Amazon's Audible store and buy the books there. I mean, Audible advertises profusely on podcasts, which –
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Oh, yeah.
CAROLYN KELLOGG: - which sort of points me to the idea that they’ve found that a fruitful crossover point.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: What you're saying, basically, is that people live in a cultural universe, and so, your consumption of media in one area will directly influence your consumption in another, right?
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Yes.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So what are the trends of 2016 in the current cultural universe?
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Well, one of the things that I noticed is that there was this huge sort of ramping up around science fiction. All of the major houses seemed to be having one new imprint that is gonna make a big push for science fiction. And I think that's directly connected to awesome Star Wars.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: [LAUGHS]
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Simon & Schuster launched a science fiction imprint called Saga. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, their new imprint is John Joseph Adams Books. And he is the longtime editor of the best American science fiction and fantasy. In publishing, we often group science fiction and fantasy together and apart from literature, but I think there's a lot of crossover. I mean, ask Margaret Atwood where her books belong.
[BROOKE LAUGHS]
And certainly, when you get to like George RR Martin and Game of Thrones, like people are just clamoring for his next book.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: You’ve noted that independent presses seem to be coming on strong.
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Yes, both in terms of the people that they’re publishing and the creative and ingenious works of art that they’re finding and bringing into our publishing system.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: How do they get their books noticed?
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Well, you know, that’s interesting because small publishers like New Directions or Open Letter, they’re on the margins but now they're getting into our awards slipstreams. There are a couple that were finalists for the National Book Award. They’ve got great books. And when there's an exciting book, word-of-mouth is the best way to sell a book.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: So how would you assess the state of publishing, overall?
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Overall, I would say that publishing’s not dead yet. [LAUGHS]
[BROOKE LAUGHS]
People of all ages are buying books, and they might be buying different books but they're all walking into the bookstore or going onto Amazon and putting books in their virtual/real-life shopping cart.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Think you so much, Carolyn.
CAROLYN KELLOGG: Thank you, Brooke.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Carolyn Kellogg is the books editor at the Los Angeles Times.