Where Have All the Chicken Dinner Eaters Gone?

Tim and I are attending the AAP general annual meeting in New York in a couple of weeks. The Association of American of Publishers is an interesting and diverse group for both large and small publishers. The first day of the meeting is for the big guys. Executives from S&S, Random House, Penguin, and others will listen to presentations by top level government officials and corporate executives on the state of the industry. (All the trade publications will pick up any interesting news so we're skipping day one. I'm meeting with agents and other industry folks in the city that day before having dinner with one of my favorite food and wine writers!) The second day is the meeting for smaller publishers and much more practical including sessions on cover design, marketing, and financial strategy.

But the over-arching theme for the first day caught my eye: Where Have All The Readers Gone? (and Where Can We Find the New Ones?) I'm fascinated by this ongoing fixation the Big 5 have with the idea that Americans are reading less. Every year they release results of another study and groan about the death of the book, bookstores and "lit-er-a-ture". Please. Americans aren't reading less -- they're just buying fewer books through traditional channels! They're not reading less -- they're reading *differently*. Americans are just reading smaller segments for informational purposes and fewer rotten novels or bad political memoirs.

Americans today are more educated, do more research, and read more than any other time in history -- they just do it in smaller pieces and in different mediums. This isn't a reading problem or even a book problem. It's a *bookstore* and *book delivery* problem. The Big 5 have to figure out how to stop trying to cram products the public doesn't want down sales channels that their vendors don't want to support. (So, really, it's a publishing problem in that if they don't figure it out, they're going to have to downsize or retool which, ultimately, is why it's on the agenda for the big day at AAP.)

Think of it as a meat and potatoes problem. If you were a sit-down restaurant that only made chicken dinners with mashed potatoes for your customers (and you made great chicken, don't get me wrong), you'd be a hit if you were the only game in town. And you'd still be a hit if you were better than any other chicken dinner restaurants out there. But today, consumers have options like Chinese, Thai, Mexican, Moroccan, and steak. Plus, consumers don't have to sit to eat anymore. They have take out, fast food, and every option in between. So, it's not hard to imagine that they don't sit down and consume as many chicken dinners as before. What do you do? Lament the passing of the chicken dinner? (Where Have All the Chicken Dinner Eaters Gone?) Or do you figure out what your business is going to be. Do you take your customers chicken dinners where they want it eat them? Update them to make them oriental style? Make smaller, healthier chicken dinners? (Create edgier chicken dinners that cause indigestion and make you go on Oprah on defend your recipe?) Or do you decide you don't want to be in the chicken dinner business anymore?

Put in perspective, I can better understand the worry about the changing American reader. One answer is figuring out how to get books to readers more directly than relying on bookstore channels. (Niche and target marketing is a topic near and dear to our company's heart.) Another is to examine other models and methods for delivery of content. We had a great lunch this week with publisher and blogger Joe Wikert who is one of the smart folks, looking forward at what the future of publishing might look like. I understand -- and respect -- the "old school" idea that publishers are gatekeepers of what the public should read, but times are changing, the reader is changing, and the days of no-option sit-down chicken dinners are coming to a close. The winners will be those who can figure out how to keep serving up quality and getting it in the reader's hands.