But the more I look, I can’t find a publisher that is doing what Deseret Book is doing.

Yes, book publishers are creating apps for their books. But in general, those apps are for a single title. In order to either take advantage of the marketing opportunity that selling an app gives them, or to add features not supported in the current format used by ibooks and other readers support, book publishers often spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars creating apps for books.

But this isn’t what Deseret Book has done.

Deseret Book has essentially re-invented the wheel — they are providing an ebook reader and sales app that does the same thing that Apple’s ibooks app and Amazon’s Kindle app (and several others) does. And, from what one reviewer says, the Deseret Book app doesn’t seem to do as good a job. The reviewer says that the Deseret Bookshelf app is slower, crashes occasionally, and doesn’t have as many features as these other apps.

So why another app?

The news articles about the app have all touted the app’s access to more than 1,400 Deseret Book titles (all for sale), which is, as near as I can tell, its main advantage. The reviewer mentioned above says that the Kindle (and Kindle app for the iphone and ipad) only has 1,200 Deseret Book titles, while other apps don’t have any Deseret Book titles available.

By itself that seems like a slim advantage. The review does indicate some features useful to LDS readers—links to the scripture, ability to search all the books purchased. But I don’t see that these, or any feature I can think of, justify a separate app. Are there any ebook features that LDS readers need that other readers don’t need?

Deseret Book is restricting availability of its titles so that the most comprehensive option is to use its app. And in return users get what? One more app using space on the device? The user has to now use at least two apps–one for Deseret Book titles, and another for everything else?

I think I’d be a bit more open to this app if it included all or most Mormon ebooks. There is an advantage to segregating out Mormon items from the noise that comes from the vast volume of titles available. This could be especially helpful for fiction titles that either can’t or don’t include Mormon elements in the description.

Given all this, I am somewhat confused about Deseret Book’s motivation for creating this app instead of simply making the books available through the ibookstore. Its a little hard to believe Deseret Book really wants to create a competing app to ibooks, kindle, stanza and the rest. Is Deseret Book committed to continuing investments in programming this app to keep it competitive with other apps? Surely app development isn’t part of Deseret Book’s core mission!

Instead, this comes across like some kind of attempt to control the market, to keep LDS customers somehow inside Deseret Book’s fold. It may instead be more likely that Deseret Book is trying to serve those customers trying to avoid morally questionable titles, just like seems to be the case for many customers of its stores.

If this is true, then at some point those customers may become dissatisfied when the app isn’t competitive with those done in the broader, national market.

This move ends one of the more consistent and long-term sources of information about Mormon literature, which makes up a significant portion of Cracroft’s coverage. The columns mention as many as a dozen titles, meaning that over 20 years Cracroft has covered something approaching a thousand books. His column was especially valuable for the first decade of its existence, before the AML review archive was started and reviews of LDS books became much more common.

Most of the columns are available online in the BYU Magazine archives, which go back to 1996. For the first 5 years of Cracroft’s Book Nook column, you’ll have to find them in a library or private collection.

If I get a chance, I’ll call BYU Magazine later today and ask if the column will be continued by someone else. [I called -- see comment #11 below.]

I have the impression that the market for LDS audiobooks has faded away. Despite a relative revolution in audio, due to technology, LDS spoken-word audio materials are somewhat difficult to come by and not a bit part of the market. Deseret Book seems to be the only producer and, for downloads, the only place to purchase.

This wasn’t always the case. In the late 1970s and early 80s, following on the heels of the introduction of the Sony Walkman, a burgeoning market for LDS books on tape developed, led by Covenant Communications, which pioneered the format for the LDS market. Customers could purchase classic conference talks, BYU Education Week presentations, and various kinds of works of fiction. I recall going into some LDS bookstores at that time and seeing an entire wall full of audio materials on display.

Somehow the attention to audiobooks that I saw then has disappeared. I know that there are still audiobooks produced for the LDS audience, but relatively few compared to the current number of books being published. And the few audiobooks produced now don’t seem to get the emphasis in LDS stores that audiobooks once did. I suspect that the reason has to do with the changes in the technology used for audiobooks, and the resulting changes in customer expectations.

After the boost that the walkman gave audiobooks. I believe technology has had a significant effect on audiobooks. The walkman was succeeded by portable CD players. In the 1990s came mp3 players and the Internet, leading to the rise of audible.com and sites that distribute mp3 and other audio files. In the past decade we’ve seen the rise of the ipod and its cousins and competitors, leading to the itunes store. And smartphones in a huge variety have provided even more ways to consume audiobooks. For many people, its somewhat difficult to know where to go to get audiobooks (let alone those that are LDS), and with some devices its even hard to know how to get the audiobook onto the device so that it can be heard.

In all of this, LDS works seem to have been lost. Although Covenant was the audiobook pioneer in the LDS market, it did not specialize in audiobooks, instead also selling printed books and other products. And instead of relying on a specialized producer to prepare and market audiobooks based on their products, Deseret Book and other LDS market publishers (such as Bookcraft), developed their own inhouse capability to produce audiobooks. But since these were sidelines instead of core functions of these book publishers, when the move to mp3 files occurred, I suspect that these publishers had difficulty making the switch and providing downloadable audiobooks in a way that they could be added to the devices then current. As near as I can tell, Deseret Book (which in the ensuing years purchased both Bookcraft and Covenant, two of its erstwhile audiobook competitors) is currently the only publisher of LDS audiobooks, and the only way to download mp3 files of these titles is through Deseret Book’s website. Deseret Book’s audiobooks do not appear in the catalogs of either audible.com or itunes.

I don’t want to imply that the fact that LDS audiobooks aren’t available on itunes or audible is somehow Deseret Book’s fault. Neither itunes nor audible is known for making it easy for small providers to participate in their online distribution systems (unlike audible’s current parent company, Amazon.com, which makes it easy for almost every book publisher to sell their wares through the giant bookseller). As a result, on audible.com or itunes.com, the only results you get when searching for “Mormon” or “LDS” are the handful of general market titles in which Mormons are a subject—things like Jeff Benedict’s The Mormon Way of Doing Business and Krakauer’s Under the Banner of Heaven.

Of course, there are many Mormon spoken word audio files available for free — General Conference talks, LDS Church-provided audio files, BYU’s audio materials and many files produced by third parties. But very little, aside from a few podcasts, is available through audible and itunes, where many consumers look first.

I’m not quite sure where this leaves the LDS market. I believe that we should have Mormon audiobooks available, but I have no idea where they should be distributed. Perhaps there is now room for an audiobook specialist company in the LDS market, someone who can specialize in producing audiobooks for Mormons and who knows how to effectively distribute them—perhaps even get them into itunes and audible.

In any case, if my understanding of what happened to LDS audiobooks is correct, then the their decline may be an example of what technology can do to a niche market, and what the LDS market as a whole might face if we don’t work better with the general market.

Last August I wrote a little about this drama renaissance and what we have lost since then—most importantly, the culture and infrastructure that supported the production of so much theater. Where once wards and branches throughout the Church mounted theatrical productions annually, now less than a dozen Mormon-themed productions are mounted each year, and those productions are usually in Utah. Where once a book of plays suitable for production by local congregations was published each year, now we are lucky if more than one play is published (last year is an exception). Where for many years a significant portion of Mormons might have seen a Mormon play in a given year, today we are lucky if members of the Church can even name a Mormon play (except for, perhaps, Saturday’s Warrior), let alone actually see a production.

This decline is certainly remarkable, especially given the attention paid to Mormons in dramatic works in recent decades. Instead of our own works, we are the subject (or target, if you prefer) of dramatic works at the highest level of the theater world.

While the reasons for this decline are perhaps complex, rooted in both societal changes in the U.S. and changes in focus from Church leadership, I’m not willing to say that drama shouldn’t and will not have a significant role in the future. Instead, I wonder what can or should happen to give theater a greater role in LDS culture, even if it never reaches the kingly role it once held.

Looking at the current status of Mormon theater, many of the structural elements needed are already there. We still have Mormon plays being written by a corpus of playwrights. In fact, the current crop is, I believe, as good as or perhaps better than Mormon theater ever had.

With the increase in the size of the Church, the educating capacity of BYU and other Church schools, and the rise of the current wave of LDS films, it seems likely that the corpus of actors and directors is also very strong, although mostly oriented towards non-LDS works and production.

Venues are a little bit trickier to assess. While we have many times the LDS chapels with stages that we had when MIAs were mounting productions, without Church support they may not be very useful—you can’t charge admission to a production in an LDS meetinghouse, which forces productions to seek donations to cover expenses if they wish to perform there. On the other hand, there are likely many, many more venues than there were in Mormon theater’s heyday, and a significant portion of these venues can be rented in order to mount a production—making the funds required an investment instead of a donation. The bottom line is that finding a venue is more difficult than it once was, but far from impossible.

It seems to me the larger hurdles, especially those that weren’t there before, involve more organization and financing than physical and human resources. Unlike during the MIA period, would-be directors and producers aren’t as likely to know what Mormon plays are available or how to obtain rights to those plays. Nor do they have any easy way of finding local Mormon actors, if they believe Mormon actors are necessary for a production. Financing the play can also be problematic, since there isn’t any easy way of identifying and contacting the obvious source of financing—wealthy local LDS Church members. And, should they overcome these hurdles, they likely face the most difficult hurdle of all: how to let the natural audience for Mormon theatre, LDS Church members, know about their production and encourage them to come see it.

Can these hurdles be overcome? Yes. It happens all the time with both LDS and non-LDS theatre. Producers and directors find actors and mount productions on shoestring budgets at times, and many times somehow find an audience. But there are also things that could be done to help, given the hurdles mentioned. A directory of Mormon plays, including descriptions, resources required and how to obtain rights would be nice. Perhaps a directory of LDS actors interested in local Mormon productions would help. And, in my experience, there are often well-connected local Church members who know sources of financing, and how to promote to other Church members.

Unfortunately, these hurdles seem overwhelming, and the solutions to them are not necessarily obvious. So I wonder if some kind of Mormon dramatic organization might be able to help—a group that could support efforts to produce local Mormon drama, providing local producers with information about how to find Mormon drama, locate suitable actors and venues, get financing and promote local productions to a Mormon audience, at least passing on what information is known and help that is available. Do you think that would work?

Perhaps this is just my vague daydream about what might be done. At a minimum, I hope that it defines the hurdles ahead of Mormon drama, and encourages someone to see if they might mount a production in their area. At least couldn’t cities with significant LDS populations and strong theatre industries—such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Washington D.C., New York and London—find enough talent and resources to put together productions or even set up acting companies? As I look around at the producing and acting capabilities that I see among LDS Church members here in New York, I have to think that it is possible.

In general, the move does make sense, just like consolidating competitors in neighboring stores often makes sense. Even if Deseret Book doesn’t make any profit on the church distribution sales, the move could bring additional traffic into Deseret Book stores. Why not add an inspirational book or Greg Olson print to your purchase of garments? Its good for everyone, isn’t it?

Thinking about this, you might ask why there is any distinction at all!

As far as I can tell, at least one of the answers is U.S. tax law. LDS Church Distribution Services is part of the Church’s non-profit operations. In order to maintain its non-profit status under U.S. tax law, the materials it produces and distributes are priced on a non-profit basis, far lower than comparable for-profit materials.But, the Church doesn’t have to pay any taxes on its revenues. As a result of all this, LDS Church Distribution Services charges the same amount to consumers as it does to retailers (i.e., to stores), meaning that stores either don’t make any money on distribution materials they carry, or they must increase the price they charge for distribution materials to more than what the Church charges.

In contrast, the book publishing operation of Deseret Book is a for-profit operation whose products are priced normally. As a result, Deseret Book (the publisher) can give stores a discount that allows them to make money while charging consumers a price based on the book’s list price. Deseret Book, or is parent company, Deseret Management, pays taxes on the profits it earns before turning those profits over to the Church.

As near as I can tell, Deseret Book’s stores are not making any money on the LDS Distribution materials they sell, and are instead getting just whatever benefit might come from additional traffic in their stores. Perhaps the company may also get some kind of recognition from the Church for the benefits the Church gets from not needing as many LDS Distribution outlets and volunteers. For what its worth, this also means that there is little keeping other LDS bookstores from carrying most LDS Distribution items, except for, perhaps, garments. The books and videos that LDS Distribution sells can be purchased at the same price that Deseret Book pays. Like Deseret Book, however, these stores would either have to sell the items at cost, and not make any money on them, or mark up the items and charge more than distribution. [This has long been the case, as  understand it.]

What becomes confusing in all this is any distinction between the materials published by LDS Distribution and those published by Deseret Book. In general, the materials published by LDS Distribution are those that are part of regular worship in the Church—Scriptures, manuals, etc. And those published by Deseret Book are more commercial in nature.

But I’m not sure that this line is clear to everyone. When consumers purchase materials at a Deseret Book, is it clear what materials are published by the Church? and what isn’t? Is that important?

When I talk to most consumers, they have little or no idea of who the publisher of a book is. They connect to the text, and usually recognize who the author is, especially if the author is well-known. I must admit that even I, as involved as I am in the industry, I often don’t know who the publisher of a book I own is.

Distinctions between publishers are then more important to those in the industry—booksellers, reviewers, etc. Inside the industry, employees use the distinction as a way of comparing who has done what, and who is more successful. The information is, of course, necessary for booksellers to determine where to purchase a book, and who to contact if there is a problem or if the book needs to be returned. But even some of this is of little importance in the case of LDS Distribution.

Still, despite all this, there is something uncomfortable about this agreement. I can’t help feeling that this increases the likelihood that anything sold in a Deseret Book store is somehow approved by the Church, giving Deseret Book an advantage over other stores. I believe that this is already a wide-spread belief. In addition, I have to wonder if this same policy is also available to other LDS stores. Can I sell garments also in my store?

I suspect that its not quite as simple as being willing to sell garments at cost. The Church wants some control over who sells garments and how they do it. And there may be a consumer perception that it wants to maintain. Still, I wonder about the perception of fairness and of Deseret Book’s role. Should those perceptions also affect this policy?

There are, however, some large hurdles to overcome.

Jonathan’s vision includes 5 broad elements. He wants the bookstore to be comprehensive in its list of titles, deep in the information about each title, well organized and categorized, with a customizable and interactive interface. I agree that all of these would improve the store’s ability to succeed.

In the post, however, Jonathan recognizes only one of the major difficulties with creating the store site: the list of titles to be included. I think there are at least three other major difficulties that anyone attempting this project would have to face. Below I’ll explore each of these four difficulties briefly:

1. The Title Database — As Jonathan mentioned, collecting the information about the titles is key. It isn’t just a list of titles, authors and perhaps ISBNs, however. The post does recognize many of the bits of basic title information (technically, database fields) that are needed — “publishing house, pages, binding, ISBN, etc.” plus some of the important additional information that help customers connect to the title:
   

   some kind of rating system or description (e.g., violence, sex, language — for those to whom that’s important), genre(s), topic(s), award(s), links to published reviews in places list AML and AMV, links to author publisher webpages/website, and whatever other information might be easy to collect and useful to help readers figure out if the book might interest them (setting? timeframe?). There should also be an indication of the Mormon connection (Mormon characters? Mormon themes?) and stance (e.g., pro, anti, neutral), though the latter would have to be done cautiously.

   In addition,this database also needs information about the publisher: contact information, purchasing terms, pricing, etc. This information is sometimes difficult to get also. First, not every publisher does what it should to let potential customers know that it exists. [An example is the edition of the poetry of Eliza R. Snow released a few years ago (no, not the recent Derr and Davidson edition, but the self-published edition that was only available from Sam Wellers and nowhere else)] Second, terms and pricing are usually given to those who are purchasing books for resale, and, sometimes vary by who the reseller is. Obtaining this information from publishers sometimes almost requires that the store be ready to purchase.

   Large retailers like Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble get information about available titles from several sources—distributors, wholesalers, books-in-print, publishers presentations. But in the Mormon market these aren’t as easy to use: There isn’t a true wholesaler in the Mormon market, and the distributors, which usually serve just the smallest publishers, don’t seem to provide this information on a regular basis, and the small retailers in the market don’t seem to be looking for it.Like it or not, the Mormon portion of the market doesn’t use the sophisticated data tools that the national market does.

2. System for Maintaining Title Information — Once the data on the titles in the Mormon market has been collected, it still needs to be updated regularly — in this case probably at least several times a month. I believe that the Mormon market produces at least a few hundred new titles each year, or dozens each month. In addition, these days new publishers arise several times a year, and publishers change their terms from time-to-time. Adding reviews and blog posts about titles, and maintaining the information becomes almost a full-time job.The problem here isn’t just the amount of work required. It is also the systems needed—what files are created and passed to whom and how are those files processed. Any bookstore trying to be comprehensive and to provide deep information about titles would need to develop its systems for maintaining that information.
3. The Logistics of Purchasing from Publishers — Even with a fairly complete database of information and a way of keeping it up-to-date, the bookstore would still need a system for purchasing the publisher’s books. Regardless of whether the store purchases from a wholesaler or the publishers themselves, this means meeting the publisher’s requirements for setting up a resale account. This often means meeting a minimum volume of purchases and meeting credit requirements (odd as it might sound, some publishers assume that all their customers purchase on 30 days credit and might have difficulty setting up an account on any other terms). While its usually straightforward, setting up and maintaining these relationships is necessary for the kind of book seller described here.
4. The Logistics of Packing and Shipping — One of the sometimes overlooked realities in online bookselling is the idea that the books for sale will ship in a short time after purchase. Because many of the publishers in the Mormon market aren’t represented at the national wholesalers, having the assurance that the book will ship a few days after purchase, is much harder to get. The largest retailers in the national market ask wholesalers like Ingram Books to ship the copies their customer’s purchase, so that the books never actually touch the bookseller’s hands. Since the Mormon market doesn’t have a wholesaler, such a relationship can only be set up  with the national wholesalers (which don’t have every Mormon title). Thus this bookstore would need to use national wholesalers (if possible) and also stock and ship at least some books—those not available through the national wholesalers. And stocking and shipping books means workers, a place to store the books, and shipping materials.

Setting all this up means an initial investment of tens of thousands of dollars (in the Mormon market) and a lot of work to get everything established (although it may be possible to develop all of this over the long term).

Of course, it may be possible to avoid some or all of this by using partners — such as developing a store that is simply links to the books on Amazon or another online seller. But that idea also has drawbacks — such as not being able to include titles that aren’t in the partner’s catalog.

I’m not quite sure that I’ve included everything in the difficulties above. I’ve probably left out something somewhere. But I do believe that the difficulties are significant.

But I also don’t want to give the idea that these difficulties are insurmountable. They are not. While its a lot of work, the project is worthy, and could make a big difference. It is possible, and even probable that a store like this will exist.

The title database is, I think, the most important piece. And the Mormon Literature and Creative Arts Database gives anyone who wants to do this a big chunk of the old data that they need. Unfortunately, without the access we asked about last year, I’m not sure that we can use it as a place to store even the relevant portions of the data needed — its not possible to add data there yourself! So perhaps we just need a way to create a structured database and give the Mormon Literature community access to add and modify data. Once that information is available, the other difficulties may be easier to solve.

I don’t have any new ideas about how to find those readers. However, I do have an idea about a different piece of the puzzle. At the moment, there’s no single place to send people where they can browse for authors and titles that might interest them. My suggestion: an online store that caters specifically to Mormon literature, organized to make browsing easy — like a good brick-and-mortar bookstore — with a broad and inclusive enough selection that people could explore with a fair confidence of finding what they’re looking for.

I hasten to admit that I have no idea how this could be done (from a technical perspective) or who would do it. The idea started as an electronic parallel to an art gallery co-op, where the different artists put in shifts at the desk. Maybe this could be done as a cooperative effort among some of the independent LDS publishers, though that could have some disadvantages (see below). Perhaps it would be better to run it simply on a volunteer basis. For now, though, I’d like to talk about what I’d like to see in such an online bookstore from a user/customer perspective.

• I’d like to see as broad a selection as possible within the realm of Mormon literature. Ideally, this would include titles from as many publishers as possible (including self-published) and information about out-of-print books, with a link to Amazon or Sam Weller or somewhere else that might be willing to sell and ship a used book. Even if part of the goal is to help people find the realistic stuff, I think the idea will work better if everything that could be described as Mormon literature is listed in the inventory. While the original idea had to do with providing a space for books not found in standard LDS bookstores, I think that in the interests of offering a complete range — and in order to increase the chances of success — it should also include titles from Deseret Book, Covenant, etc., on an equal footing.
• Accurate, standardized information about each book, including all the regular stuff (publishing house, pages, binding, ISBN, etc.), plus some kind of rating system or description (e.g., violence, sex, language — for those to whom that’s important), genre(s), topic(s), award(s), links to published reviews in places list AML and AMV, links to author’publisher webpages/website, and whatever other information might be easy to collect and useful to help readers figure out if the book might interest them (setting? timeframe?). There should also be an indication of the Mormon connection (Mormon characters? Mormon themes?) and stance (e.g., pro, anti, neutral), though the latter would have to be done cautiously. It strikes me that authors and publishers would have a strong motivation to do much of this work themselves, if a consistent framework could be set up.
• A top-level organization by genre (like a brick-and-mortar bookstore), but with options to list and access book titles/descriptions flexible in many other ways as well (e.g., by topic). It should be possible to see lists such as the Whitney Award winners and finalists, AML award winners, and possibly top-20 lists (in general or by genre) by noted Mormon critics (e.g., Richard Cracroft) or others. Favorite books by well-known Mormons without particular literary credentials might be worth considering too, for sheer market appeal (e.g., Gladys Knight). And it should be possible to see (a) new releases, and (b) new additions to the site since a date specified by the user.
• Something that might be nice (if it’s not too difficult to do) would be to make the website organization and appearance customizable by the user. For instance, if you’d rather see books that only match specific criteria, that should be possible.
• There should be a way for readers to rate and share their opinions about books. Possible this would need to be moderated to reduce the possibility of turning it into a way of promoting one’s own work or sabotaging that of others. Ideally, there would also be some kind of “if-you-liked-this-then-look-at-this” setup.
• I don’t know but am guessing to trying to actually sell books from the site might be a pain. Links to places like the publisher’s site or Amazon.com would suffice. Maybe it could be set up like the AMV deal, where the links to Amazon bring some small amount back to the coffers? It might never pay enough to make the site a paying proposition, but at least could help pay for server space.

So there it is. Anyone want to take a crack? I’d even be willing to serve my shift adding and coding books, if someone actually gets it started…

Most of us involved with the LDS market simply assume that there is a consumer need or desire that is being filled, and that the audience will always want Mormon materials. Less frequently, many assume that separate LDS stores and perhaps publishers will eventually be absorbed into the rest of the market for books, music, film and other cultural goods, because, they believe, there isn’t any reason that consumers need separate LDS stores.

Perhaps.

The current LDS market is best defined as a niche — a small portion of the overall market that consists of customers with specific interests or needs different from the rest of the market. A niche is usually small enough that it is overlooked or ignored by the rest of the market. It often also has some kind of impediment or ‘insulation’ from the rest of the market, something that keeps those in the  rest of the market from simply adding one additional product to serve the needs of the niche.

The answer to whether or not the LDS market will continue lies in this “insulation” form the rest of the market. Without some impediment, companies currently outside the market will eventually see the niche as attractive and absorb the market.

So what are the impediments? What, if anything, keeps Random House from publishing books for Mormons? or what keeps Barnes and Noble from becoming the preferred seller of LDS titles for most buyers?

I’m not sure that I have all the answers to these questions, but several possible impediments have occurred to me:

1. Unique Products — By and large the products in the LDS market are different from those outside of the market, and many of the products outside of the market won’t work inside the market. The language and terms and other cultural elements that we use in Mormon books, music and film make us comfortable and help us understand what the author means, and the doctrines and cultural beliefs that most Mormons share are reflected in these works. While we understand outside works just fine, in certain kinds of works (religious works, or fiction with Mormon settings) outside language or beliefs seem strange or out of place. Outside publishers and other companies would likely need to have LDS employees in order to get these things right in books for the LDS market, and it doesn’t seem likely that they will make the necessary expenditures anytime soon.
2. LDS Consumer Interest in “Safe” Products — Many Mormons, influenced by Church counsel to seek wholesome entertainment and avoid that which might fill the mind with impure thoughts, look for materials that are “safe.” They are cautious about purchasing books, music and film from non-LDS sources, because the works they purchase may not be as “safe” as they want. They then look for indications of what to expect — publisher/imprint names, authors, etc., that they know will fit what they believe to be “appropriate.” At least in part, they believe that books in LDS stores are “safe” and prefer to shop there for some kinds of materials. This doesn’t mean that they never purchase elsewhere, just that they have a preference in some cases where the risk seems greatest. This preference will, I think, continue at least as long as Church leaders continue to emphasize avoiding unwholesome materials.
3. LDS Publishers and Marketing Information Often Unavailable — While most LDS Publishers do make their books available to the rest of the market in the U.S., that doesn’t mean that their books find much of a market there. Other than basic availability, LDS books largely aren’t noticed and haven’t much of a presence in the market. LDS publishers in general don’t try to sell their books to stores outside of the LDS market–no sales calls are made to stores, no marketing materials sent to vendors and no advertising to the non-LDS consumer outside of areas where LDS members are a large portion of the population. The few vendors like Amazon.com that list LDS books, music and film are lucky to categorize books as LDS at all, let alone divide them into categories meaningful to consumers. Of course, this could change, but both LDS publishers and outside vendors would need to perceive this as worth their while.
4. The Christian/LDS Split — In a sense the most likely market to absorb the LDS market is the general Christian market. I believe that, if asked, most professionals in the national market would assume that these markets are already the same. But most LDS Church members and most evangelicals know that any combination of the two is impossible. The few LDS authors, musicians, publishers, labels or producers who have attempted to get their works into Christian bookstores have been roundly rejected, even when their works are not specifically Mormon. While in contrast LDS stores have been somewhat more open to Christian materials, they are often different from LDS materials in a way that makes it difficult for LDS consumers to relate.

There could be other impediments that keep the LDS market separate from the rest of the market (please let me know if you think of something). But even if these are the principal impediments, I think they are quite substantial. And I don’t see them changing much in the next few decades.

I won’t be surprised if someone believes that the Internet, or print-on-demand, or ebooks will somehow overcome all this. Personally, I don’t see that happening. While the Internet continues to have a substantial effect on the market, it most likely means that the division we see in the physical portion of the market will continue, as it has, transferred to the virtual portion of the market. LDS products will still be different from other products, LDS consumers will still want different products and want assurance that what they purchase is “safe.” Print-on-demand and ebooks are simply changes in form and production process. While important advances, they won’t overcome these impediments.

That isn’t to say that these impediments are permanent. It is possible to overcome them, or for preferences among consumers to change. But those changes are most likely to take decades, if they happen at all, because they involve long-standing cultural assumptions and needs, not technology. In the meantime, I think we can safely assume that there will be some kind of LDS market.

The word imprint is generally unfamiliar, I think, outside of those who work with books. Librarians have long used the term to refer to the name on the book (in addition to the author and title)–the name of the publisher or printer of the book. But as the publishing industry grew more complex and professional, the term was used in the industry to mean a brand that was put on the book–something customers could use to identify the book’s genre or quality. Rather than identify the publisher, the imprint is often more like a marketing tool.

In my view, using an imprint makes most sense if there is a marketing need–if it helps sell more books. Given that science fiction is a separate genre with a separate audience, it makes a lot off sense to have a science fiction imprint, if you publish more than a few science fiction books along with a lot of other titles. On the other hand, it may not make a lot of sense for a publisher to separate books into fiction and non-fiction imprints if its audience doesn’t need them separated. Does the audience really need LDS fiction and LDS non-fiction identified by separate imprints? I’ve seen publishers sometimes create imprints for each of the categories or genres of books they publish out of the need to categorize and not because their audience will purchase more books due to the branding of a group of titles.

However, an imprint doesn’t always arise because the publisher analyzed the audience and decided that using an imprint will help the publisher sell more books. In some cases, publishers use imprints to reward key editorial employees–like a kind of vanity moniker (for example, Regan Books was an imprint at HarperCollins created for editor Judith Regan. The imprint disappeared after Regan was fired in 2006). Other times, imprints arise out of publishing mergers and acquisitions–as a way of preserving names or brands familiar in the minds of consumers. This is what happened with Bookcraft.

Founded in 1942, Bookcraft grew to become an important part of the LDS book publishing industry, long the second largest in the industry. But in 1999 Bookcraft was acquired by Deseret Book, which then grouped its offerings into four imprints: Deseret Book for doctrinal, historical and biographical works; Shadow Mountain for “values-oriented” books published for the national market; Eagle Gate Press for non-book products and specialty books and Bookcraft for inspirational, self-help, youth and fiction titles.

It may seem quite easy to create an imprint–after all, its just a name, and perhaps a logo–essentially a trademark. But the real cost for an imprint is in maintaining the imprint–acquiring new titles to be published under that name, marketing the titles in the imprint together, etc. At large publishers, this often means dedicated editorial and marketing employees. At smaller publishers, it simply means a commitment on the part of management, editors and marketers to nourishing the imprint. In every case it should at least require reporting and managerial changes to make sure that the imprint continues.

In retrospect, it doesn’t appear that Deseret Book followed the theoretical division of its titles into imprints that was announced after the Bookcraft merger. Initially books that were already slated to be published under the Deseret Book imprint were still published there, even when they no longer fit. Later, the number of books published under the Bookcraft and Eagle Gate imprints slowly diminished. After 2006 the company stopped publishing under the Bookcraft and Eagle Gate imprints all together.

Part of the problem may have been the dominance of the Deseret Book name. A publisher’s most important authors sometimes have enough power to spoil a neatly-categorized group of imprints, pushing to have their books in a particular imprint, usually because of some perceived prestige or belief that sales will be better with one imprint on the cover instead of another. While the company wanted to publish fiction under the Bookcraft name, some authors may have wanted their fiction published under the Deseret Book name.

As with most marketing issues, the most important factor is the perception in the public’s mind, which often comes from its historical position. In the case of Bookcraft, that perception may have contributed to its eventual demise. Historically, Bookcraft published the same kinds of books that Deseret Book did — doctrinal, historical and biographical as well as fiction–so the public didn’t have in mind the distinctions that were created after the merger. [Nor do I think most of the public even knew that the merger had happened.] Add to this relatively little need in the LDS audience for distinguishing between imprints, and maintaining Bookcraft as a separate imprint seems (at least in hindsight) like a waste of time.

The kind of informal, unannounced phase-out of an imprint that Bookcraft went through is not uncommon at all. Because of the lack of information about dropped imprints, industry guides like Literary Market Place even carry lists of imprints, discontinued imprints and the publishing companies that used them.

But just like they don’t always start from rational analysis, these phase-outs are not always because a publisher has decided that there is no longer a marketing need for them. Often, when imprints are connected to an individual employee, the imprint can disappear when the employee leaves. In other cases, the publisher just wants to cut costs, and consolidates the work of several imprints into one employee. In such cases the demise of an imprint can even sneak up on the publisher. When an employee handles multiple, similar imprints, he may simply favor one or a few over the others. Since the decision of which imprint to use on each book is made on a case-by-case basis (often because of what titles are acquired), an imprint will often simply not get any new titles, and eventually the imprint will simply no longer exist.

For any author or publisher worried about marketing their books, this issue could be helpful or important. While most consumers can’t always tell who the publisher or  what the imprint is on a book, there are many cases when it is important, because it often effects a book’s sales. And if it doesn’t its useful to know when worrying about the imprint is a waste of time.

The nearly 40 submissions, from more than 2 dozen authors, totaled over 100,000 words, more than enough to produce a book-length anthology as planned for this fall.

Perhaps more importantly, the quality of the submissions is quite good. The best of them use rich, well-developed language and well-constructed phrasing. The stories also show great imagination, with plots varying from modern fables to poetic slices of life. Like early Mormon stories from the home literature period, many of the stories are a bit didactic or depend on Deus ex-machina plot devices, perhaps understandable given the fact that the only Mormon stories Portuguese-speaking readers are exposed to are those in the Liahona.

A three-person jury of academics, including a native speaker each from Brazil and Portugal and one familiar with the current LDS book industry, will now choose first, second and third-place winning stories and designate which stories should be included in the anthology to be published later this year. The prize-winners are scheduled to be announced on October 1st. I will translate the first-place story, and I’m seeking a venue where it can be published.

Perhaps more interesting could be the effects following this contest. I have already lined up 4 online LDS bookstores in Brazil to carry the anthology (there are a couple more, one a brick-and-mortar store, that haven’t yet responded to my queries), giving me hope of some distribution of the book beyond friends and family of the authors and whatever online audience I can contact. I expect to publish future volumes in Portuguese, and hope that some of these authors will participate.

In addition, I’m trying to figure out how to create a good forum for the group of authors this contest has attracted — a community that will encourage future writing and help authors to improve the quality of their writing. I’m sure that social media will be used, but I’m open to suggestions for further details. Perhaps some kind of online literary magazine?

Of course, given the response, the contest will likely be repeated next year (unless the sales of the anthology are so small that it isn’t financially viable). And I’m encouraged enough with the results to think that it may be a good idea to start a similar contest in other languages.

What do you think? Is there some aspect of this I’ve left out?