Bathtub Reading, Sisters-in-law, and the Big Guys
what you told us and what we're doing about it
Dear Friends,
We’ve been busy building Galiot Press.
Spreadsheets
business plan
fundraising ideas
deciding what type of legal entity to be
hiring a graphic designer for our logo
refining our mission statement.
It’s all happening! Read on to find out some of the results of our reader-habit survey, and the answer to a question that was posed to us by one of the respondents: “How do you go up against the big guys?” How indeed. We have some ideas.
The survey
We are delighted to have received 216 responses to our reader habit survey. If you are among those who took the time (and we recognize it was not a short amount of time) to answer the survey, thank you! Not surprisingly, the population that responded was largely located in the Northeast of the US, and fairly highly educated. This is not the only population we plan to serve—far from it—but it is certainly one subsection of our audience. And a good starting point for gathering data as we expand our reach. Starting small and scaling up and out is our approach.
The responses validated some of our ideas, and made us think of others. Here are some of the things we learned:
Print books still dominate respondents’ format preference. So all the doomsayers who predicted the death of the print book are for the moment wrong. Which makes us, as people who love physical books, happy, but also poses a challenge for us as a press that wishes to get books to readers in an economical and environmentally responsible way. An opportunity for some seriously creative problem solving.
Respondents do go to bookstores (as opposed to buying online, which they do as well, of course). They go to browse, but they do expect to come out with a book. This goes together with our first survey discovery to make us really think carefully about how we can collaborate with bookstores. We want to make sure our books are somehow visible there, while also trying to reduce our risk and our expenses. (Bookstore presence may mean producing large advance print runs, will likely mean offering stories the fairly standard 50% discount, and may involve the inefficiencies of shipping books from a warehouse to stores and then back to a warehouse in the event they don’t sell.)
Readers are interested in finding out more about authors, and in attending ticketed events. This confirms that we should continue to explore our idea to offer more opportunities for authors and readers to connect. Especially after the last three years, we know there’s a palpable desire for connection and engagement.
In response to where people tend to read, we got some interesting replies, including:
“Big toilet reader” (what “Big” is modifying is subject to interpretation)
“The tub. Print in the tub because we don't literally want to give our lives in support of story. Bzzz.”
There is strong interest in buying books in non-traditional venues. We have ideas bubbling for that! Stay tuned.
Word of mouth is still the most common way people receive their book recommendations. Despite all the social media, celebrity “influencers,” and review sites like Goodreads, good old word of mouth still dominates. One respondent specifically gave a shout-out to their sister-in-law: “Anything my sister in law recommends!! An excellent source every time!! May she write her own review column!!” Perhaps we need to track this sister-in-law down.
Of course some people DO rely on celebrities and best-seller lists, like this one respondent who said:
“I’m the worst sort of reader: The prestige reader. I see what’s won a fancy literary prize, and I pick that. This is why I’m spiritually and creatively bankrupt.”
You want to help us! We were humbled by the number of respondents who expressed a desire to help us through crowdfunding and our “street team” initiative. Thank you! We will be sharing opportunities, with of course absolutely no obligation.
And now, the very important reader question: HOW DO YOU GO UP AGAINST THE BIG GUYS?
Yup, it’s a key question. And it came up in our recent session with our mentors from MIT’s Venture Mentoring Service. The advice we got—which we very much agree with—is that the best way to go up against the big guys (read: the Big Five, but also the big indies) is not to go up against them at all. Or at least not exactly.
Let us explain. Rather than try to do a similar, smaller, version of what those publishers are already doing, we will survive and thrive if we emphasize what makes Galiot Press distinct. Not only would it be challenging for us to compete against large corporations, it also wouldn’t be true to the innovations we believe we can put in place to help us succeed.
For instance, the Big Five (and others) are essentially publishing the same way books have been published since the turn of the last century. But times and technologies have changed. Publishing has a long history and, thankfully, a long future. At Galiot Press, we plan to use various available technologies to allow us to be agile, nimble, and efficient, in selecting, editing, producing, marketing, and selling our books. We will be borrowing from other industries, and we’ll be employing new methods to engage our readers and authors in real connection. All this will help us support our authors in ways the Big Five typically cannot do except for the few lead titles in each season. And, rather than try to produce a big print run and incur all the (hefty) expenses associated with that—expenses that a huge corporation can better absorb—we will aim smaller. But also different. We will be revealing more about all of this soon!
For now, we plan to send out our newsletters monthly, so follow along as we continue to develop our business plan and our financial model. And . . .
Contact us!
If you are interested in opportunities to assist our press—with ideas, advice, contacts, skills, or, yes, money—or if you have any questions, please email us: galiotpress@gmail.com. And of course you can always drop a comment here. Just no writing submissions yet, please! We are not yet there.