Books

The Shatzkin Files
The Most Powerful Trends in Publishing

By Mike Shatzkin
Published by Hyperink (January 2013)

This anthology of posts from The Shatzkin Files between March 2011 and September 2012 represents the best of Mike Shatzkin’s insights, opinions, and recommendations to the publishing industry. He covers the rise of Amazon, the decline of traditional book stores, ebook pricing and the agency model, the changing roles of both authors and publishers, and the future of ebooks and the book publishing industry as we know it today.

Available as an ebook at Hyperink, B&N, Kobo, and Amazon. Additional retailers and formats to come.

In Cold Type: Overcoming the Book Crisis

By Leonard Shatzkin, with new introduction by Mike Shatzkin
Published by The Idea Logical Press (November 2012)

During the nineteen seventies and early eighties, the trade book publishing industry faced financial and philosophical problems of a magnitude unparalleled in its 342 years of existence. It was believed that without the undertaking of urgent and far-reaching reforms, the profits of publishing houses would decline to a level that would make the survival of many old and established firms extremely doubtful. The expansion of the major bookselling chains, combined with antiquated distribution and marketing methods, would cause large numbers of independent booksellers to close. Authors of talent, vision, and intellect would find it more difficult to be published than ever before. And readers would grow more jaded by a glut of formula books, or more frustrated trying to find that special title that suits their needs.

Leonard Shatzkin’s “In Cold Type” explores the reasons behind that decade’s crisis in publishing. Neither an essay about the perils and personalities of the best-seller list syndrome, nor a bland sociological study, “In Cold Type” offers a penetrating critique of exactly what was wrong with the nuts and bolts of publishing and with the ingrained attitudes that resisted change and reform. Backed by more than thirty-five years of experience in executive positions at major publishing houses, Leonard Shatzkin discusses publishing’s nineteenth-century methods of distribution, the marginal profitability of booksellers, the unnecessary evils of remaindering, the mountainous waste in book production, the decline of the editorial function to a clerkship, the collapse of the paperback book publishers, what authors need to know about their publishers’ “skills,” and why the commonly heard complaint “We publish too many books!” is simply not true.

Shatzkin not only saw what was, he also saw what could be, and offered a number of new solutions that helped the book industry overcome its malaise. Solutions that were immediate, practical, and necessary. Solutions that were, above all, essential for America to continue to have a vital publishing industry dedicated to free expression in the marketplace of ideas.

The Mathematics of Bookselling

By Leonard Shatzkin
Published by The Idea Logical Company (November 2012)

The Mathematics of Bookselling is a definitive resource for book retailers looking to maximize margins and profits through the proven pricing and inventory management practices developed by Leonard Shatzkin, one of 20th century book publishing’s most innovative executives.

Because bookselling involves dealing with so many different products from so many different suppliers with so many different prices and margins, it is perhaps the most complex retailing challenge there is. The Mathematics of Bookselling, a monograph by Leonard Shatzkin, explores a variety of the real-life challenges booksellers face — what and when to buy, how margin (the amount made on a sale) and turn (the speed at which inventory brought in gets sold) affect profitability, whether to add or subtract titles from the mix — and lays out the logic and calculations by which the “right” answers can be found.

Leonard Shatzkin was perhaps the most far-sighted and groundbreaking executive in American trade publishing after World War II, working for Viking, Doubleday, Macmillan, and McGraw-Hill. He showed publishers the benefits of more extensive sales coverage when he more than doubled the size of Doubleday’s field force in the 1950s. He pioneered vendor-managed inventory in the book business during the same time period. But, most important, he was the first publishing executive to concern himself with the intricacies of bookstore profitability. He came to the conclusion that there was much more leverage for both publisher and store in picking the right books at the right time than in increasing store discounts (which is, ultimately, a zero-sum game). And he had the rather unconventional view that returns were a good thing for both publisher and retailer, although he makes it clear in The Mathematics of Bookselling that intelligent inventory management minimizes them and uses them as a tool, not a crutch or a substitute for poor buying.

The Stars Bear Witness

By Bernard Goldstein, translated and edited by Leonard Shatzkin
Published by The Idea Logical Press (November 2012)

Bernard Goldstein was a prominent Polish socialist, union organizer, and Bund leader in the pivotal pre-Word War II years of 1920 and 1921. He became active as a leader of the Jewish resistance movement in German-occupied Poland, eventually playing a critical role on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

Bernard was born in Shedltze, just three hours from Warsaw, in 1889. His was a generation destined to contribute its best sons to the mounting revolutionary tide in Eastern Europe, and he joined the stream early. At the age of thirteen his imagination was already fired by stories of anti-Czarist agitation in Warsaw brought home by his two older brothers. He began to read forbidden revolutionary literature and attend the meetings of underground youth groups.

Bernard gave much time to trade-union organization and was also active in Bundist party work. He was in charge of all large political demonstrations. During the twenty-year period between the wars there was not a single Warsaw Bund mass meeting or demonstration of which Bernard was not the responsible organizer.

Because of his extensive political and trade-union activity, he was constantly in contact with Polish labor leaders and other Poles prominent in public life. In the years 1920-21 the Warsaw Bund found it necessary to set up special defense groups to protect public demonstrations from attacks by Polish hooligans, and to maintain order in the crowded union halls. Shortly after their organization, Bernard was placed at the head of these groups.

The most difficult task of Bernard Goldstein’s long political career was setting down the story told in the following pages. For a long time he refused to undertake it. Only after repeated pleadings from his comrades, particularly the late Shloime Mendelsohn, did he agree to attempt it.

His active leadership before the war and his position in the Jewish underground during it qualify him as the chronicler of the last hours of Warsaw’s Jews. Out of the tortured memories of those five and a half years he has brought forth the picture with all its shadings—the good with the bad, the cowardly with the heroic, the disgraceful with the glorious. This is his valedictory, his final service to the Jews of Warsaw.

The appeal to Bernard’s sense of duty reversed his early stubborn refusal to write this book, but nothing could shake his modesty and he refuses to speak of the bloody encounters in which he was an organizer and active participant. For him, the heroes of the Warsaw ghetto died in battle. Let no one presume to strike a pose upon their ashes.

The Shatzkin Files
Vol 1: February 2009-February 2011

By Mike Shatzkin, with foreword by Michael Cader
Published by The Idea Logical Company (April 2011)
POD edition by Worthy Shorts (August 2011)

In this volume, you will find all two hundred and seven posts from the first two years of The Shatzkin Files (covering February 2009 through February 2011). Mike Shatzkin’s eponymous blog is one of the most closely-watched ongoing commentaries on digital change in trade publishing.

All posts have been re-categorized into topic specific chapters for this edition which also includes a new introduction by Mike Shatzkin and a foreword by Michael Cader.

The Ballplayers: Baseball’s Ultimate Biographical Reference
Volume One: Hank Aaron to Jim Lyttle
Volume Two: Duke Maas to Dutch Zwilling

Edited by Mike Shatzkin
Created and Developed by Mike Shatzkin and Jim Charleton
Published by The Idea Logical Press (1999)

This one of a kind book tells the stories behind the stats, cataloging the facts and folklore of 100-plus years of baseball in one authoritative reference.

• Over 6,000 baseball lives, up-to-date through the 1989 season
• 5,000 entries for major league players
• An additional 1,000 entries for teams, leagues, umpires, owners, Negro Leagues, scouts, writers, broadcasters, ballparks, AND MUCH MORE

“For a player or a fan of the game, this is the book. It’s never been done before, and it’s easy to read. This is terrific stuff.” — Brooks Robinson