Could Seattle be the next literary capital of the United States? Doubtful. But New York just might be losing some power and influence to it, if you extrapolate from Book Lovers Ask, What’s Seattle’s Secret?, in the business section of today’s New York Times.
Amazon‘s presence 
isn’t the only reason. Seattle is also home to the offices of Starbucks, and the chain supposedly moves more than 100,000 copies of almost every book that its coffee shops feature. In addition, the retail chain Costco is headquartered there, and the Times says: “A forgotten older paperback, recommended and featured by the book buyer at Costco, can sell more copies in six weeks than it did in the last few years combined.” Also, Seattle is home to librarian Nancy Pearl (above photo), a book commentator on National Public Radio.
The E angle
So where does E enter the picture, or how could it?
- As the location of Microsoft and other prominent tech companies, the Seattle area is already is swarming with multimedia-savvy people ready for the next incarnation of e-books. What’s more, as shown by Microsoft’s hiring of Theresa Horner, a HarperCollins e-book executive, Seattle is drawing away some tech-minded publishing people. Oh, and by the way, amid the giants, there’s a small company making a name for itself in such areas as mass digitization of p-books, Rosetta Solutions.
- New York publishers for the most part are still fixated on paper books, and the more they trust Amazon with E, the less influence they’ll enjoy in the future. To me, that means that publishers should be open to the .epub standard rather than thinking that the Kindle and its DRMed proprietary format will save them. Otherwise, long term, Jeff Bezos and Amazon will be to the e-book business with Steve Jobs and iTunes are to the music business.
- Costco and Starbucks both rely on p-books. E is one way to reduce New York publishers’ dependence on them and other specific outlets in the P world. No, I’m not saying these companies and others like them are evil or that their gains are always New York’s losses—in fact ideally sales via both companies will increase! But it would the nice to see publishers working harder with independent Net retailers of e-books to push Long Tail books that these mass marketers can’t do justice to.
- As for Nancy Pearl, her recommendations should apply both to E and P. I suspect that as a group, heavy Net users, including e-bookers, listen more to NPR than does the public at large. Meanwhile I’d agree with a Times quote from her: “New York may publish the books, but Seattle significantly defines America’s reading list.” Of course, as Microsoft increasingly involves itself with content, we may eventually see more publishing in Seattle as well.
What I’d do in the place of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg: Realize that both E and P have a place in the book world, while encouraging New York publishers to be friendlier toward the former. Increased E sales could help revive the slowly growing book industry and boost city tax revenue. Keep in mind that the potential isn’t just national but also international.
And what I’d do in place of Seattle: Hey, you’re a city of readers (the famous rainy day factor?), and that’s the first step toward becoming one of writers and publishers. Among other authors, the Seattle area is home to Tom Robbins and a mystery writer named J. A. Jance (sales: 15 million copies in the past two decades). The area is becoming more urbanized than ever, which means more bookstores, more patrons, more local and regional publishers that could someday become national publishers.
The good news from my perspective: I suspect that as a group, Seattle residents are more environmentally minded than people elsewhere, and they are probably more liberal on economic issues as well.
