1999 - 05/1999 Meeting

Page Created: 09/25/10. Last Updated: 10/25/10. Last Google Group Page Update: 05/14/08.

PATRICK NIELSEN HAYDEN

His website is: http://nielsenhayden.com/.

MEETING SUMMARY:

Meeting Date: May 8, 1999.

Meeting Site: Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Official Attendance: 41.

Meeting Program: Talk by Science Fiction Editor.

Notes:

Meeting Memories:

Newsletter Account:

The following account is reprinted with permission from THE STARSHIP LOCAL Copyright 1999 Philip J De Parto:

Editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden of Tor Books was the featured speaker at the May 8, 1999 meeting of the Science Fiction Association of Bergen County. The meeting was held at the Bergen Highlands United Methodist Church in Upper Saddle River, New Jersey, across the street from our normal meeting site, the Saddle River Valley Cultural Center.

This could have been a problem, as it was a dark and story might, and the early arrivals found a pool of water waiting for them in the center of the Fellowship Hall. Fortunately, the wet stopped coming in when the rain died. We mopped up, leaving the pail and mop out in case it was needed. More on that later.

Charles Garofalo, William Molendyk, and several others helped Pam and Phil set up the booksale, kitchen, and so on. While this was occurring, Patrick and his wife, Teresa, were having dinner at Steak& Ale with a party organized by Ernest Lilley.

The omens were not favorable. We were not in our regular site, the weather was bad, and the newsletter got done so late that we did not even bother to mail it, handing it out to those at the meeting and posting the rest later.

As you can tell from the Attendance Roster, a surprising number of people did turn out in spite of it all.

Patrick Nielsen Hayden began by clarifying his role at Tor. He is one of three Senior Editors at Tor, as well as being the Science Fiction Manager for Tor and Orb. He compared this latter role to that of a shepherd dog who runs around the outside of herd, keeping everyone moving in the same direction. I take it that this includes things like making sure that the company does not release six books featuring cute unicorns and elves in the same month.

Most of Patrick's presentation consisted of answering questions from the audience, so there was a lot of jumping from topic to topic.

A good deal of time was spent on the history and development of the business of publishing mass market paperbacks. I'll try to reconstruct this spiel from memory and notes and hope that I'm not too far off.

When mass market paperbacks were invented, they required a completely different distribution system than the one in place for hardcover books. This is because hardcovers were targeted at a relatively small marketplace of bookstores (which were not all that commonplace, there were states which literally had only one bookstore) and libraries. Paperbacks, by contrast, could be sold at newsstands, department stores, stationary stores, and so on. Paperbacks were piggybacked onto a distribution system already in place to service that market: magazine distributors. This is why unsold paperbacks are cover strip returned like magazines rather than returned intact like hardcovers.

The changing face of retail, specifically the growth of general chain stores like Target and bookstore chains like Barnes & Noble, has destroyed the old distribution system. These national chains want to deal with only one or two venders per product, not the 100s of distributors formerly in place. But huge distributors cannot know and cater to the local niche markets that the old mom and pop distributors could. Therefore, everyone wants to stock just a small number of bestsellers in the territory.

The publishers, by and large, are not unhappy with this system. As Teresa pointed out, economies of scale work out amazingly well in publishing. A small number of large sellers is a lot more profitable than a large number of small sellers. The result is the death of the mid-list book.

This is the reason for the growth of the science fiction hardcover and trade paperback. A smaller print run allows the publisher to make money while keeping classics of niche books in print.

At one point in the proceedings, Teresa dropped her 16 oz Dunkin' Donuts coffee. Ernest leapt into action, grabbing the mop and cleaning up. When Phil arrived with paper towels, the duo became involved in an Abbott and Costello clean up routine. In disgust, Ernest pushed the metal pail away. Several people pointed out that we had witnessed Ernest kicking the bucket. The meeting broke up shortly after that. Our thanks to all who helped.