Free Labor: Ooligan’s Secret Weapon

Part of the business plan here at Ooligan Press is that, for all of the challenges we face in securing funds for decent PPB or creative book launches, there’s one thing we’re supposed to get for free:  Labor.  From acquisition to copyediting, from cover design to marketing, all of us busy little bees are, at least in theory, pouring our hearts and souls and tuition money into the press, receiving in exchange a comprehensive, hands-on publishing education.  It’s a simple, elegant solution, so long as everybody holds up their end of the bargain.

Unfortunately, the problem with not paying your staff is that it’s easy to lose track of them.  At a recent FOOP (Friends of Ooligan Press) meeting, it was brought to my attention that we actually don’t know how many students we have at Ooligan.  This information came up in light of an oft-heard observation that labor keeps coming up short next to the official number of enrolled students.  It may well be that some percentage of these officially enrolled students left the program without graduating, and were therefore never removed from the list. It also may well be that there are students who are actively enrolled but simply choose not to work.

If the discrepancy is caused by the latter, our business model is in trouble, and so are our students.  Taken for all it has to offer, the program functions both as an internship and a formal education, but if a student doesn’t actually participate in the work groups, he’s getting the degree without the experience.  This not only jeopardizes his chance at getting a rad job, but Ooligan’s reputation as a teaching press.

So what do you all think?  My impression is that working for Ooligan is not formally “required.”  

So, should it be?

Are Direct Sales Part of Reality?

Marty Asks:

Why would anyone ever buy books directly from the publisher?… Do you think that book publishers can expect to see significant, ongoing growth in direct sales through their web sites? Does it matter?

To answer the first part: Right now, there is no compelling reason. As discussed, the stellar growth of Amazon clearly indicates that readers are just as comfortable clicking books into virtual shopping carts as they are pulling books off of actual shelves. Nobody’s bummed on buying books online, but what are the odds of publishers becoming viable competitors with Amazon?

In class, Marty mentioned that a publisher doing 5% of their business through direct sales (as in, purchased through the company’s website),would call its direct sales healthy; robust even. And as we’ve gone over, again and again, readers (even publishing students) don’t care about publishers. We look for new reads based on content, reviews, bestseller lists, recommendations, and only very rarely imprints.  

Take Ooligan, for example.  Let’s say that a reader for Deer Drink the Moon stumbles upon our website.  She likes what she sees on the homepage, so she clicks through to the booklist.  She finds a psychological thrillers, some historical fiction, some Croation translations, and the autobiography of a politician.  In other words, barring a fantastic coincidence, she’ll find nothing she wants.  

Now let’s say she goes to Amazon.  After she types in the title and reads the customer reviews (well, in this case, review — we’ve gotta get on that), she’ll be prompted to check out a book of poetry by Mary Oliver; Swordbird, a similarly-genre’d read for 4-6 graders; and a John Steinback novel, Cannery Row.  What the Steinback has to do with anything, I’m not sure, but these results are still a lot more likely to interest our reader.  

And, of course, the book is at Ooligan’s site for $19.95 and Amazon’s for $14.99 (or $8.88, used).  But let’s not dwell on that.

My point is that unless publishers publish in very specific niches, and a reader can expect a specific kind of product from them every time (like Harlequin, for example), there’s no reason for a reader to even visit their website, much less purchase from them. The McSweeney’s of the world should keep on focusing on readers, and, if bookstores disappear entirely, expect rising direct sales.  Ooligan, unless we reform our list, probably should do neither.

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As if The New York Times were trying to prove my previous post wrong, this Sunday’s book review had an Actually Pertinent to My Life Article about book sites, posing the ever-potent question:  “Do elaborate Web sites and videos really sell books?”  The article’s author, J. Courtney Sullivan, interviews the (apparently) hot-shot book site designer Jefferson Rabb, debates the merits of book videos, and, by the end, had convinced me that I needed to learn Web design.  Not because it necessarily sells a lot of books (it might not sell any at all), but because book sites can be so rad. 

Sullivan cites the Rabb-designed site for Reif Larson’s new book, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivel.  Here are some that I thought were motivational\inspired me to make learning “code” or whatever you write websites with a medium-level priority:

 Miranda July’s website for No One Belongs Here More Than You.  July does, after all, have a long history as a legit multi-media artist, so it’s no surprise that she nailed her book site so well.  She wrote it on her fridge because she didn’t have a dry-erase board.  Low budget!

 This next one, a book trailer…excuse me, book “video” for Rivka Galchen’s Atmospheric Disturbances is also very simple, and spoooooky.  It’s hard to find book videos for “serious” adult novels, probably because they’re so hard to pull off.

Notice how short it is.  It’s simple and, like July’s, gives you an immediate sense of the book’s tone.

Any other favorites from people?  Ideas for Ooligan?  Should I divert completely off track and drop out to study site design, or is the whole World Wide Web thing a passing fancy?