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F R I D AY, M A R C H 0 2 , 2 0 0 7Are You Looking Forward To That New BookBy....?No, of course you're not. Who are your favorite authors? What summerbook titles are you eagerly anticipating? Can't name many, if any, canyou? Now, what summer movies are you looking forward to? Whattours or albums? What TV shows?The simple fact is that the book industry simply doesn't advertise. Theydon't tell people when books are coming out; they rarely take out adswhen books ARE out and they don't even think it matters. Sure, thereare exceptions. We all know the next Harry Potter is coming out. AndJohn Grisham and Stephen King get relatively big ad pushes. But forsome reason the book industry thinks just putting a book on the shelf isenough to get people to buy it. Time and again, I'll walk into abookstore and find out a novel by one of my favorite authors is alreadyout. And I WORK in this industry.Here's a classic case in point: the LA Times was rumored to bedumping its book review section. They told Publishers Weekly thatwasn't happening but it MIGHT be moving to Saturday (the lowestcirculation day of the week) instead of Sunday (the highest circulationday of the week). And they pleaded with book companies to supportregional book review sections. According to PW, the Feb 25 editioncontained only TWO book related ads: a classified ad for a ghostwritingservice and a tiny Borders ad promoting a David Mamet in-storeappearance.Just like the music industry, the book industry is feeling beleagueredwith flat or down sales and so many technological changes. Instead ofadding value to books (by making audio versions and electronicversions available for free to anyone that buys a hardcover version),instead of embracing Google and using instant publishing to keep everytitle they're ever released available on-demand, they simply raiseprices, virtually eliminate cheap paperbacks, refuse to advertise andthen wonder why book sales are slow.POSTED BY MICHAEL IN NEW YORK AT 1:24 PM

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