EVENTS
FutureBook Live 2019 Getting to know the speakers
story of declining sales: one that ran counter to the true direction of the e-book market. We’ve already seen some initial overtures acknowledging that, in recent years at least, unreported e-book sales not included in publishers’ numbers have made up a very large share of overall e-book sales.
Four questions for... Alex Fane Fane Productions, managing director
01 What gap in the market did you spot that led to the creation of Fane?
It was clear to us that, in a digital age, audi- ences were increasingly curious, engaged and craving real-time conversation. Live events granted access to bestselling authors, experts and thought-leaders that publications, social media, TV and print press didn’t. Our aim was to produce dynamic and
marketable events with heightened produc- tion values that took place in theatres across the country and developed new audiences, therefore enabling us to pay authors properly.
02 How have publishers adapted to the initiative?
Publishers have adapted by shifting towards event-led publishing, whether that be working collaboratively with a promoter such as Fane, or up-scaling events via local festivals or book- sellers. It’s been very important to develop the right relationship with publishers so that we can work as closely together as possible. This includes making the book front and centre of our projects, arranging large-scale events in the week of publication, securing the right location, and combining our marketing forces to contribute to building momentum for the author in question. The way we market a live event or tour would differ from the way a publisher would—such as theatre-led emails to huge regional databases and marketing
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packages with event-led websites, both of which expose the publication and author in places that they wouldn’t have been other- wise. The author is always going to come out on top when the best teams in their fields are jointly using their expertise to work together, rather than in competition.
03 What type of authors are best-suited to live events?
That’s the million-dollar question! It is true that non-fiction tends to lend itself better to live events than fiction, because authors of non-fiction tend to develop a rapport with their readers through the often personal or topical nature of their work, and through social media and podcasts. Having said that, we are increas- ingly seeing fiction authors becoming more savvy with both. Of course, any author who loves being on stage is naturally well-suited to live events, compared to those who shy away from the limelight. But less is more: those that aren’t as seemingly accessible to their fans will always sell better.
04 You are very focused on regional events. Why is this?
Around 90% of our events take place region- ally, because we feel the industry is already naturally weighted to the South and London. We often find authors are selling more tickets in locations such as Chester, Gateshead and Salford because there is less competition. Audiences there are more active. A lot of the media coverage gained for a new publication speaks to audiences in the South, so you may have already sold a book to that audience, whereas we sell more books at our events in the North. Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Ireland also provide brilliant audiences.
Further reading
Alex Fane will appear on the panel Event horizon: finding the money in live events, at 2.55 p.m.
While e-book sales have grown, print book sales have also stabilised, creating two distinct but successful markets. What are the parallels between the two that you see? The parallel success and growth of e-books and print books reflect how well each format has been able to evolve separately to beter suit its own primary customer base. Each format appeals to a distinct set of book buyers, differentiated mainly by the genres they read and, more importantly, by how many books they each read. For high-volume readers of genre fiction and serial fiction, e-books essentially replaced mass-market paperbacks with a more accessible, lower-cost alternative that encouraged frictionless, instant-gratification purchase and download of the next book as soon as one reached the last page.
On the other hand, for close readers of non-fiction, literary fiction, and other bookshelf-building genres, and for the giſt trade, publishers could now divert valuable print resources away from low-margin mass- market paperbacks to focus on higher-qualit hardbacks and trade paperbacks, for which that particular set of book-buyers would pay a premium. Each marketplace was able to
Annual print sales in the US have continued to grow by single digits only because Amazon’s online US print sales are growing by double digits each year
optimise itself, and both grew.
But another major parallel exists between the e-book and print growth, and that is in where the overwhelming majorit of that growth is occurring today: online, through a single, increasingly dominant retail channel. In the US, the most dramatic shiſt has been happening on the print side. But this shiſt has gone almost entirely unreported, because it cannot be seen in Nielsen BookScan print numbers, which only show a single aggregate total for retail bricks-and-mortar sales and Amazon online print sales, combined. The
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