The New Sleekness

Those of you who attended yesterday’s Publishing Point meetup, “In Conversation with John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan,” got to see a side of Sargent that wasn’t carefully scripted in a Publishers Lunch letter or blog post. Rather he continued his tradition of being accessible and personable with the publishing community and I, for one, appreciated hearing the scope of his opinions on issues beyond agency model pricing.

Sargent proved to be likeable and funny, and really seemed to get the issues that are on all of our minds. You know, stuff like, will we still have our jobs in five years? Interviewed by the Book Industry Study Group’s Michael Healy, the discussion ranged from the quality of e-book devices to the difficulty of monetizing cool imprint websites like Tor.com.

Sargent predicted digital sales will grow to represent seven to nine percent of total book sales in the next year, but also nostalgically reflected on the enduring experience of reading printed books and shopping in brick and mortar bookstores. He discussed how he could see video and social media enhanced e-books being comparable to a non-fiction paperback with a photo insert, and not necessarily interfering with the story itself. And despite publishers needing to adapt to changes in the way we provide content, Sargent predicted that very little will shift in the way we do our day-to-day jobs. Referencing the recent trend in vampire literature, Sargent pointed out that “keeping our finger on the pulse is what we [publishing professionals] do anyway.”

Twitter commentary mostly supported Sargent’s views, but some attendees questioned his optimistic foresight and flipflopping on the issue of windowing. I think others would have liked to have heard a solution or two for how to successfully replicate and monetize niche verticals like Tor.com, which at this point Sargent described as a “successful marketing vehicle.”

I caught up with publishing enthusiast Cameron Ackroyd on the way out of the talk, who went specifically to hear how Sargent was going to address recent publisher/retailer disputes. “John Sargent came across as a savvy realist, but I sort of expected as much going in,” Cameron said. “It was interesting to hear him so openly dismiss tactics, like windowing, they’d been grasping at before the whole Amazon debacle, but he seemed confident with his position now.”

Nice job, John, in continuing the discussion in an open and transparent forum and I hope some of your CEO colleagues join in the conversation in the same manner.