Reference Books

By Andrew Grabois - Oct 29 , 2007

In a category close-up on reference books last month, Publishers Weekly managed to coax guarded optimism from those they interviewed. Considering the threats from Wikipedia and other free sources of information on the Internet, they must have felt glad just to be there.DK publisher Myriam Farbey spoke for most, when she said that reference publishers must “seduce consumers back to books.” And they are doing that by producing hybrid print/electronic products like Houghton Mifflin’s The American Heritage College Dictionary (Fourth Edition), and Palgrave Macmillan’s 143-year old The Statesman’s Yearbook.

Others are publishing (or co-publishing to help defray costs) lavishly illustrated and packaged books that are indistinguishable from coffee table books. The editorial director of Barron’s Educational Series sees the long-term trend for the category as “giving people books on self-improvement and hobbies, including topics such as gardening, travel and nature.” And in a big vote of confidence, Princeton University Press is slated to launch a reference program by the end of the year.

In spite of all the challenges and uncertainty faced by publishers in this category, the market for reference books is still considerable. According to Simba Information’s Business of Consumer Book Publishing, the reference book market generated an estimated $385 million in sales in 2006, a decrease of 1.3% from 2005 and 16% from 2002.

The top five reference book publishers last year were Encyclopedia Britannica, Pearson, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin, and John Wiley. Together, the top five publishers generated sales of $201.2 million, which was 52% of total category revenues. Britannica is still the market leader, generating sales of $61 million in 2006.

About 5,000 new reference books are published each year, according to Bowker’s Books In Print database. Below is a graph representing new reference books published in the U.S. since 2002:

Of the 5,212 new reference books published last year—

• 51% were published as paperbacks
• 6% were reviewed by one of the major sources tracked by Bowker
• 0.5% appeared on at least one of the national bestseller lists tracked by Bowker
• 28% carried a suggested retail price less than $20

Perennial reference bestsellers include:

• The World Almanac and Book of Facts
• The Old Farmer’s Almanac
• J.K. Lasser’s Your Income Tax
• What Color Is Your Parachute?

The World Almanac regularly sells over 400,000 copies a year; the other three, 100-200,000. The category champ, though, is Guinness World Records. Each and every year Guinness sells over 900,000 copies and places in the Publishers Weekly top ten nonfiction bestseller list. Below are the unit sales of Guinness World Records reported to Publishers Weekly for the last four editions:

• 2007 = 975,000
• 2006 = 983,000
• 2005 = 970,000
• 2004 = 950,000

Below are some of the bestselling reference titles at Barnes & Noble stores and BN.com:

• The Intellectual Devotional: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Converse Confidently About Our Nation’s Past, David S. Kidder and Noah D. Oppenheim (Rodale Press)
• The Dangerous Book for Boys, Conn & Hal Iggulden (HarperCollins)
• The Intellectual Devotional: American History: Revive Your Mind, Complete Your Education, and Roam Confidently with the Cultured Class, David S. Kidder (Rodale Press)
• The Official SAT Study Guide, The College Board (Henry Holt)
• The Elements of Style, Strunk and White (Longman)
• Saunders Comprehensive Review for the NCLEX-RN Examination, Linda Ann Silvestri (Elsevier Health)
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, (Amer. Psych. Assoc.)
• Oxford Picture Dictionary: English/Spanish, Norma Shapiro et al (Oxford Univ Press)
• Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary: 11th Ed., (Merriam-Webster)

In 2007, publishers made deals for reference books that appealed to women, beer drinkers, Winston Churchill quotes, animal lovers, and crossword puzzle fetishists. The titles below from Michael Cadre’s deals database, are of interest to writers and are in the pipeline for future release:

• A BOOK OF AGES, by Eric Hanson . An idiosyncratic miscellany of biographical facts of the famous and infamous, including failures, rejections, dead ends, as well as early masterpieces, second chances, and lifetime achievements, organized by ages one to one hundred (Harmony)
• EVERYTHING YOU KNOW ABOUT ENGLISH IS WRONG, by William Brohaugh. Pointing out some of the “incorrect” answers to the puzzle we speak daily, from misconceptions about word histories, to specious grammatical edicts, to confusions about meanings, spellings, and quotations (Sourcebooks)
• ORDINARY GENIUS: A True & Beautiful Course in Writing Poetry, by National Book Award finalist, Pushcart winner and Guggenheim fellow Kim Addonizio. Mixing practical lessons about writing poetry with ideas about: Life & Art; Self-destruction & Self-expression; Difficulty and Pain and Heartbreaking Failure; as well as Joy & Ease in the creative process (Norton)
• THE GLAMOUR OF GRAMMAR, by Roy Peter Clark. A companion book to WRITING TOOLS, in which the author teaches readers “practical grammar” (Little, Brown)
• SHAKESPEARE FOR ALL OCCASIONS, by Shakespeare director Barry Edelstein. Gathers together the timeless Shakespearean wit and wisdom that addresses the big moments in life — and some of the not-so-big moments as well — and shows how to use these gems elegantly (and accurately) in speeches, toasts, missives, and meditations (Collins)
• YOU’VE BEEN SERVED: A writer’s guide to the courtroom, by Attorney Donna Ballman. To inform writers whose fictional characters encounter the wheels of justice (Behler)
• HOW NOT TO WRITE A NOVEL, by Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman. A smart, humorous but authoritative guide to writing (Collins)
• LAMP IN THE ROOM: A Guide to Better Language in our Pop Culture World, by Paul Yeager. An analysis and critique of our pop culture way of speaking, deconstructing such incorrectly used phrases and words as literally, empower, and the best/worst ever (Perigee)
• WHOOF!: WRITERS ON DOGS, by Lee Montgomery. An anthology of original essays featuring Ann Beattie, Denis Johnson, Mona Simpson, Antonya Nelson and Jim Shepard, among others (Viking Penguin)
• BIZ WORDS, by Gregory Bergman. A guide to 200 of today’s trendiest terms and expressions (Adams Media)