Support Your Local Book Pages!

I'm astonished that Publishers Weekly could print something so crass:

In her letter to Mong, Schroeder wrote, "...severely curtailing book coverage or eliminating it altogether, newspapers not only fail the communities they serve, they defeat their own interests in regaining those elusive and essential advertising dollars." But Mong told PW that advertising "does not sustain the paper's book coverage," though he added, "I'd love to make a presentation to publishers with our advertising people. I could talk about the benefits of reaching our readers both in the paper and online." He indicated that the paper has noted a "strong demand" for book coverage from its readers, who are generally affluent and educated.

For her part, Schroeder said, "I'm always amazed they say you don't see enough ads—but I don't see too many ads for sports teams. It's been a nagging concern for the last couple of years. We talked about it at our recent board meeting—people said, 'this is horrendous'—the real question is what to do." As a first step, Schroeder asked the AAP's Trade Committee, chaired by Hyperion Books president Bob Miller, to explore ways to facilitate more book coverage in newspapers and other media.

With newspapers under increasing financial pressure, however, is it reasonable to expect them to give extensive coverage to an industry where they get relatively little support?

I didn't know that a newspaper's responsibility to inform the public depended on how much a certain industry funded its product. To suggest that newspapers should curtail their book coverage becaue the publishing industry doesn't correctly "support" them with advertising is ridiculous.

Comments

[Jennifer Redmond]

Gosh, so much to say, where do I begin? Yes, we need more regional reviewing and selling; no, we publishers don't have enough money to support book pages in newspapers, but why do politicians and sports teams get so much "free" ink? Why are there society columns? DO people pay to get their photos on page six?
The bottom line is of course, the bottom line--but I agree with the comment that people who read books also read papers--I know I do! And even if we only read some of the daily papers online, we are still seeing advertising (lots of ads) so we're supporting the online paper.
My company publishes regional histories (among other regional books) and I've often been asked by TV producers and local newspaper editors why those books are "relevant". What would be the right reply? Because people who live in California and Arizona don't know the history of the southwest U.S. as well as they know Plymouth Rock and the "pilgrims." We published a book on the land expedition to San Diego in 1769, and a local newspaper editor asked what "angle" she should use to do a feature about it in the San Diego paper! Maybe "this book is the true history of your city"? Or maybe "San Diego's founding fathers didn't hop on a plane and fly here"?
Some days you just want to give up!
Glad there's some discussion at least--though often the discourse about dwindling media coverage of regional books seems like the conversation at a wake...The subject is already dead.
Jennifer Redmond
editor-in-chief,
Sunbelt Publications
San Diego, California