Blog
Written by b small founder, Cath Bruzzone
I’ve just been at the Independent Publishers’ Guild (IPG) Spring Conference as an online delegate. It’s always a terrific event with good speakers concentrating on practical advice for independent publishers, large and small. There was good and bad news on how things are going. For some 2022 had been a very difficult year but for others the bumper sales of the pandemic were still holding up.
Here are ten take-aways which I know the b small team will be ruminating on over the next few months.
Economic background
Recent years have been very turbulent times for publishers from increased paper costs, increased shipping costs, reduced warehouse space and more. The key word for the future, unsurprisingly, is still ‘unsettled’ but there was some optimism especially for children’s books.
Value of books
Books, and children’s books in particular, are excellent value. Parents may not be able to afford a costly outing or a Caribbean holiday but a book can give hours of quality entertainment or learning for a modest price. (Funnily enough one retailer said Caribbean guide books were surprise bestsellers. Dreaming on the sofa?)
TikTok
Taking the book promotion world by storm, BookTok, or should I say ‘hashtag BookTok’ has apparently had 111 billion views worldwide, a large percentage of them in the UK! That doesn’t mean 111 billion sales of course ☹️. Romance, Young Adult and Fantasy books are the most popular purchases. But are parents and grandparents buying via BookTok? No, not yet…but of course the young TikTokers will be the book buyers of the future so it’s great to see their enthusiasm for books.
E-commerce
Online shopping is very big in the UK: we are the third largest market for e-commerce in the world and two out of three books are bought online, mainly from Amazon. If you are reading this blog, remember you can buy all our books from this website. We welcome your custom!
Warehouse crisis
Warehouse space in the UK is shrinking fast and what is left is very expensive. We will need to keep on top of stock and look at alternatives. Print on Demand (POD) is great for a lot of publishing but not so good for children’s books. Other solutions are e-books but again not for small children.
Sustainability
Always a hot topic for publishers and perhaps not quite so front and centre at this conference and it’s now taken for granted that we must make the industry more sustainable. Shout out to Bookshop.org – the online retailer supporting independent bookshops. They provide carbon neutral delivery for all books purchased on their platform.
China
The unstable geo-political situation as well as sustainability issues mean we’re all keeping a close eye on the situation. But in the meantime, China still manufacturers most of the world’s goods from iPhones to kitchen taps…and children’s books.
Discovery
No, this is not about adventure travel but how do you find out about books? Amazon can give you some not-very-helpful suggestions and, if you’re a teenager #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt is a compelling message. Word of mouth is the number one driver of book sales so, again, if you’re reading this, please do pass on the link to any of our books you’ve enjoyed…and tell us too.
Prices
They’re going up! But not by much and, once again, books are still superb value for money so we just need to make sure that we produce the best content, the best learning and entertainment and the best quality books.
Tech developments
Last but not least, the future is all about Artificial Intelligence (AI). Aheee, what a revelation! I’d just started to wonder about ChatGPT and now I know that it will take over all our jobs. This future is disturbing…but also exciting and we can’t ignore it. (I promise this blog wasn’t written by ChatGPT…but it certainly could have been.)
