Thursday, May 08, 2008
The Friedman Watch!
Posted by Jane

friedman1.jpgIn today's PublishersLunch, there's a news brief on third-quarter results at HarperCollins; as usual, Jane Friedman gives her analysis:

"The one soft spot is Zondervan, which is not a new story," Friedman says. "What's going on in the CBA ... is pretty scary," she observes, adding that "the CBA is really diminishing and I'm not one who thinks it's going to recover any time soon." With Christian customers buying more product in the general market, Friedman says that Zondervan's books need to "have the content and look for the general market." Friedman believes that "what Nelson is doing is absolutely correct" in trimming and refocusing their list and says "we're also looking at our title count. Zondervan has to publish fewer books and focus on more of the books that have the potential" to work in the general markets. On the brighter side, Friedman notes that "spirituality is going through the roof," with the company benefiting via the Harper One division.

What genius that both Jane Friedmans are in agreement over Nelson -- and reducing title count!

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5/8/2008 1:38:24 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)  #  Comments [1] Trackback
5/8/2008 10:20:04 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
what Nelson is doing is absolutely correct" in trimming and refocusing their list

Nelson isn't refocusing anything. They still serve the highly conservative evangelical market that CBA and ECPA have always served with writing restrictions and guidelines in place to make sure no reader in this market is offended. (for more on their strigent guidelines one can go to the following link http://www.usask.ca/relst/jrpc/art6-xianfiction.html But maybe that's not what you meant by refocusing. :)

Writing for this market with these guidelines excludes them from apppealing to the general market they now so ardently seek to appeal to.

Zondervan's books need to "have the content and look for the general market."

Which isn't going to happen anytime soon. Zondervan and most other CBA and ECPA houses use ECPA's MS submission program to get their MS's. ECPA is even more restrictive and less appealing to the general market than CBA.

Thomas Nelson nor Zondervan will change their spots anytime soon. Especially Nelson. They are CBA's number one seller. Number one at anything is tough to give up and so far Nelson shows no signs of wanting that to change. They still don't accept MS's from anyone unless they meet CBA's restrictive writing guidelines. If they do, they risk being able to get into "Christian" bookstore because as we all know, most Christian bookstores only carry books published by the niche CBA and ECPA market.

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