BEA will be a shame to lose, but can it be saved?

Posted by Mike Shatzkin on June 1, 2009 at 5:27 am · Under Community, General Trade Publishing, Industry Events, New Models, Publishing, Supply-Chain, Vertical


Dinner Saturday night. 12 of us. Three spouses who had no particular interest in the BEA. Eight of us with one interest or another in the book business, but no possibility of personally being an exhibitor. And one publishing company CEO with a stand.

Of course, I got my money’s worth. I got in free as a speaker and live in Manhattan. I had several meetings with publishers and distributors on stands they were paying for that could result in assignments. I had other meetings with a bookstore chain and some technologists that came because of the publishers too that also could result in work.

An ROI of pretty much infinity. We all felt that way. Except for the exhibitor.

“No way it is worth it,” he reported. He even had to plan on having four people at the show on Sunday, just to cover the booth when he knew in advance there’d be hardly any productive business conversation. (BEA is fixing this next year by shifting to a mid-week schedule.)

I am always skeptical of any individual’s ability to characterize a show like this based on their own experience. After all, there were considerably more than 20,000 people there. There were dozens of panels going on that had great impact that I didn’t even know were happening, because I was engaged doing something on the floor. But, speaking for me, it was a great show. Lots of fun and lots of business.

Martin Levin, whose first ABA was in 1950 and who commented on my previous BEA post, argued with me about my prediction that BEA would soon come to an end. I had to remind him not to confuse what I say I think will happen from what I would hope would happen. It is work to keep those things separate.

Martin said, “being fat is no reason to commit suicide. This show is fat. It needs to go on a diet!” Another trade show veteran from one of the supporting technology companies said very much the same thing.

But wait, there’s another point of view. Make it bigger! Richard Nash and Michael Cairns (two smart guys I agree with a lot, but not this time) both suggest “open the show up to the public.” Frankfurt does! Book festivals in Los Angeles and Miami attract huge crowds! 

Sorry, public participation is not the “solution” for this show. What ails this industry is horizontality! What ails this industry is dedication to the book as a form! Publishers need to understand niches better; they don’t need to try to replicate the horizontal world that is disappearing in newspapers and bookstores through trade shows!

What made BEA such a fabulous experience for those of us for whom it was that was the aggregating of all of the industry players from around the world. And not just publishers! What do Bowker, Bookmasters, and Klopotek (just to name three exhibitors who were important to me at this past weekend’s show) have to gain by having the public come in? The smartest publishers who are beginning to understand verticality — like Wiley or F+W or  Taunton — need to meet the public in verticals. They don’t need to spend a beautiful Sunday fending off people looking for a free novel or a free children’s book. (And, of course, the German model isn’t “free books for the public”. Exhibitors sell the books to the public off the stands! I wonder what the sales tax authorities in New York would say to that…)

I’d love it if Reed would keep BEA going for years and years, particularly when they bring the mountain to me on my very own home island. But I’m still having trouble seeing why publishers will keep paying and, if they don’t, no more show. I’m afraid that what will work for publishers is smaller and more focused, not larger and more horizontal. That may very well not work for Reed. I expect very shortly it won’t work for Reed. I think the rights-trading piece can be revived in a much cheaper form. The retailer-facing piece — horizontally — is a dinosaur. And all the PR opportunities occur because of the size and glitz. Like most horizontal PR opportunities for books, that won’t get replaced either.

My message of verticality is clearly not getting through! The Washington Post was kind enough to feature me on the front page of today’s Style section with a lengthy and, as far as it went, accurate summary of my Shift speech from last Thursday. But, you know what? Not one mention of the central theme: verticality!

These are twilight times for the good old days.


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  • This is a great thread. Like you Mike, I found this year's show to be fun and potentially lucrative, and also like you, we are vendors (royalty systems) not publishers, so the value may not be going to the right audience.

    All that said, I did a session Sunday with Laura Dawson and Brian O'Leary on the Google Book Settlement, and one result of that is that I think that these could be VERY exciting times for the book industry - times that could in some ways make BEA more relevant than ever.

    With the establishment of the BRR, the potential exists for content to be used more widely and more meaningfully than ever before. When that happens, a venue like BEA will be more relevant than ever. Instead of showcasing books, as Mike suggests, there will be a shift to showcasing content, and usages of that content. I'm excited to think of the wheeling and dealing that could be happening.

    This raises a couple of questions: how far off is this (i.e. can BEA survive till then)? And can it be monetized?

    How far off it is depends on too many variables to predict.

    In terms of monetization, while this is virtually unpredictable at this stage of the game, I have to think that QUALITY content will become MORE valuable, and therefore MORE salable. We are so inundated with noise, and that problem is only going to get worse. The editorialization of content could become more and more relevant.

    So BEA probably will get smaller before it gets bigger, but I hope and believe that we are in the trough of a cycle.
  • David, this is a very useful comment. Yes, I agree that the content business gets more and more diverse. One of the points I made in the Shift speech last Thursday was that today's publishers, which are content developers all, will have a business selling to a whole new world of publishers: entities with web sites but no experience or talent for developing content. So the sellers are still "us", but the buyers are all different. And face-to-face contact always accelerates commerce.

    What I believe will happen is that BEA will die and new things will replace it. But maybe Reed will be so smart about managing this transition that they'll just shrink and then grow, as you suggest. That would be fine with me (although I don't expect it.)
  • I am with Mark on BEA being a gathering of the publishing tribe. Would people pay for it? Yes, they would. As a matter of fact, it would further define the people who should be there from those that shouldn't. SXSW is a gathering of the tech tribe. TOC is staking out the space for the new gathering of the tribe, but it is more about the future than the present. Why not have the AAP and ABA co-host a industry event? Yes, I know the conflicts and problems, so someone else can come along and create what it needed.

    This opening the floor to the public idea is not an answer to some problem that BEA has, but it would send a positive message to a set of customers that don't currently feel connecting to the producers. They identify with the authors/celebrities. The calaphon on the spine means nothing.

    As a book lover, I would save my pennies all year to be able to purchase things I saw at the show. Publishers don't appreciate how much they are customers of each other. Opening the floor and creating the planet's biggest bookstore would be another sign of someone listening.

    ComicCon is about fans. SXSW is about fans. There are alot of book fans who would like to hang out with other book fans. Let's make something that works for everyone.
  • Todd, I don't think the idea of an industry conversation show mixes comfortably with the idea of a public show. I think both are valid, but very hard to combine. Speaking personally, I am all over the former and not interested in the latter.
  • Publishers may find value in this venue going forward - but it isn't in collecting orders from accounts or discussing terms of sale on the floor. This show has evolved from transactional (I started going in the '70's) to a professional networking meeting. But there is huge value in that. I WISH that there had been an hour or two for discussion after your SHIFT presentation, Mike - it would have been fascinating. The same is true of several of the other educational sessions I attended. Let's leave the booths to the scrap heap of history. Save the books for fans. Let's ENGAGE in meaningful discussion - publisher, retailer, author, media, all concerned parties - and learn together.

    On the contention that the shift to vertical you describe is questionable - simply look at market share for the 'big 6' in fiction (where they still dominate) against non-fiction and you'll see that smaller vertical (content expert) companies like Harvard Business School Press, Storey, etc. have already eaten away a huge share of the business.
  • Mark, no disagreement at all with you on the central point. I love BEA and get a lot out of it.

    But it is being paid for by a prior model. Would we get 20,000 people together paying their fair share for this kind of professional networking conversation? If we can, there's no problem. But I think it is a heavy lift.
  • Carolyn Pittis
    Two responses on the vertical point:

    1) I think—a year hence—that word choice may be the problem. The words “vertical” and “horizontal” are jargony and not emotive and suggestive of what you mean: communities. I would suggest dropping them, and finding something more resonant. But caution: when one says “community” the following is connoted: ad-supported business model or "can't make money."

    2) Until sites rich with content and community organized around natural themes plumb in a content sales or subscription models properly, we won't be able to evaluate the financial opportunites for your assumptions. Why HASN'T someone done this well and successfully to date at scale? A partial answer is that since the horizontal offerings are fundamentally so small, it doesn't make thematic communities look more financially interesting. A second answer may be that sites typically do one or two things really well: content or community, community or commerce, not all three. If you disagree, love to hear you post on examples of what I've missed.
  • Carolyn, I'll stick with the terms. They may seem jargony to some ears, but they're accurate and the message they convey is still important and not yet grasped by most of the horizontal elements of the industry.

    Community is definitely a big piece of what is meant by vertical and I do say that we're going from "monetizing eye pee (IP) to monetizing eye balls". It is going to get increasingly difficult to sell content for a profit.

    Your questions are, to some extent, answered in the Shift speech from last Thursday. You're right and I say in there: the future revenue models aren't clear. I am afraid publishers are going to have to go out on limbs that don't have clear revenue models associated with them. This seems unattractive but I'm not sure there will be a choice. The old revenue models are breaking down and are working for fewer books, fewer publishers, and fewer bookstores every day.

    I only see two ways for a large horizontal trade publisher to survive for any period of time. One is to simply outlast the rest. Be the one who is the acquirer as each competitor, consecutively, becomes an acquiree. The other is to recast as a publisher in many verticals rather than simply "general trade."

    There is one example that I know of where somebody has made it clear that content isn't the key to revenue, community membership is. And that people will join the community for many reasons: some for some enhanced content, some for database tools, some to get a web page the community can see, and some just to be there because everybody else is there. You know the business very well.

    It's called PublishersMarketplace.com.
  • Mike - was very sorry to miss your presentation, as I was covering another at the same time. But a couple of things come to mind as I read this:

    - how much is BEA's future contingent on who owns it? Reed hasn't exactly had a lot of shiny happy news of late, and even though the exhibitions side certainly sees growth with Comic-Con, how much longer will they want to be involved with a trade show that can't maintain focus?

    - BEA is indeed many things to many different people, so why should there be a one-size-fits-all show that appeases no one? It's akin to the decline and fall of mass market in other cultural sectors. The Klopoteks and Bookmasters could exhibit just as successfully at, say, Tools of Change or a more tech-oriented convention; SXSW could beef up its publisher and book industry presence from the social media side; rights could be brokered virtually or through that "Frankfurt in NY" you and Michael Cader advocate for; and the regionals could pick up the slack on the books/authors/galleys front. Cross-conversations might be lost but, with so many people in attendance, the probability of those conversations happening were never all that high to begin with.

    There's a lot I do still like about BEA but never before did I feel, as I wandered the floor, so strongly that "there has to be a better way."
  • Sarah, thanks for the comments. You can actually see my presentation on PublishersLunch TV!

    The Klopoteks and Bookmasters of the world do exhibit at Tools of Change. But if they didn't exhibit at BEA because the show changed its nature, that would dilute the value of the show for some people. Including me.

    There is virtue in a show like this that pulls everybody together. The problem with it is that the virtue for all is largely being paid for by publisher-exhibitors who are no longer getting their money's worth. That's the conundrum.
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