Go Where You Feel You Can Make the Biggest Difference

Last week I had the privilege of speaking with Steve Piersanti, the President of Berrett-Koehler. He told me about his experience within the Publishing Industry, beginning as a Promotional Copywriter at Jossy-Bass Publishers over 30 years ago. In 1992, after becoming the President of Jossy-Bass, Steve left and founded Berrett-Koehler. His goal in founding this company was to create a publishing company with balance among its employees, authors, stakeholder groups, and customers.

I was eager to get Steve's perspective on the industry as a whole and ask him about its uncertain future. Preparing myself for the worst, I was still surprised when his first words to me were, "There's no hope for publishing books."

He explained the basic premise of the publishing business model:

1. It's a tiny industry. The whole industry combined (trade, professional, academic, everything) is only worth $50 billion.
2. The market is saturated with new products--there were almost 200,000 books published in the US alone last year.
3. Each new product generates only $100,000 to $200,000 in its lifetime. New products in other industries are expected to gross over $1,000,000. However, the same preparation, marketing, and distribution costs factor in to creating a new book.
   
4. The barriers to entry have gone to zero. Now, anyone can write, print, market, and distribute their book themself.

After being thoroughly discouraged, though, Steve did manage to infuse some hope in me. The industry is popular. People still like books. There's something fun, interesting, even kind of sexy about them. People who write books are, at least momentarily, considered glamorous, successful. For people within the industry, the work is challenging and diverse.

Steve's final words to me were, "Do what your heart says. Go where you feel you can make the biggest difference." I asked him if he felt he had made a difference and he smiled and said, "Yes."