(Governor Tom's Note: On July 1 I read an article in the Washington Post about one of the best inventions I'd ever heard of. Called Bit o' Lit, it's a booklet of book excerpts distributed free of charge to D.C. Metro riders every other Monday. Its premiere issue came out the first Monday in May. What's the point, you might ask? Well for one, not a lot o' people read anymore. By letting you read excerpts of various books on the otherwise monotonous trek home, you can decide if you like anything you see, in which case you'll hopefully go out and buy the book. And then that'll snowball into your taking up reading as a new way to fill the time. If you're already a reader, then Bit o' Lit can "up your addiction," as Shannon MacDonald, the 25-year-old brain behind this ingenious idea, puts it. It was back in '04 when the idea zapped Sharon in the noodle while she was taking the Metro to her paralegal gig.
The way it works is, publishers fork over a per-page fee to have anywhere from four- to eight-page samples of their titles printed in each issue. Bit o' Lit also features articles on any and all things literary, whether it be how to make kids turn off the Wii and turn on the Boris Pasternak, or which book sites are worthy of adding to your Favorites. And there's also a regular feature called Lit to Flick, which spotlights recent films adapted from material previously published. Sharon's choices here, as with her book exerpts, are quite eclectic. In one issue she wrote about Iron Man (based on the comic book of course). In another, it was When Did You Last See Your Father? (from the memoir by English poet Blake Morrison). While naturally I've seen the former (you've seen Iron Man too....haven't you?), I should also admit here that I was fortunate enough to catch the latter just before Father's Day. I don't think I've ever dissolved into Niagara Falls so much in my life. And finally, each issue's got a game section called Word Wit.
Not only does Sharon get the credit for this awesome idea, but she gets props for getting all twenty....thousand!....issues to the Metro stops throughout our nation's capital. That makes me exhausted just thinking about it. After I read the Post article, I shot Sharon an e-mail praising her idea and saying that if and when she ever expands California way, I was just the bookworm to help her out. Are you kidding? I'd help peddle these things for nothing if it ups the literacy rate. I saw a poll last year that said something like 25% of adults didn't read a single book in 2006. And just yesterday I read in the L.A. Times that a full third (!) of L.A. Unified high school students dropped out in '07. Prozac now, please!
There's a book blog called Buzz, Balls & Hype, which posted a statement from Sharon on June 18 about what Bit o' Lit is all about. When I e-mailed her, I asked if I could reprint that statement on my blog, and she very kindly agreed. So without further ado...)
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Bit o’ Lit is a booklet-sized magazine that is handed out for free to commuters in Washington, DC as they board the bus or train on Monday evenings. The booklet’s primary contents are fiction and non-fiction book excerpts, in addition to regular features.
Bit o’ Lit grew out of a several weeks of crankiness and a general boredom with Sudoku and crossword puzzles. And probably, though I don’t remember clearly, some very poor library choices during those weeks. Needless to say, I started complaining to my friends that it was absolutely ridiculous that no one properly advertised books on the Metro. There were posters advertising books on the Metro, but they really didn’t tell you anything about the book—just a grand bunch of fluff. If there was ever a time that a person would read anything, it was on the Metro. Excerpts. Publishers should include book excerpts on the Metro. That was my solution, and I yammered on about it for some years afterward.
Then, about two years later, I accosted a nice editor from Random House in his living room over the subject. I wanted to know if he thought publishers would be interested. He thought publishers would be too cheap. Well, in February 2007, I decided to find out. I began researching and planning Bit o’ Lit.
One of the most striking articles that influenced me was a report conducted by the Author’s Guild. The report had attempted to identify whether the number of books being published by midlist authors were increasing or decreasing. What they did find to their surprise was that major publishers were publishing more books—but marketing them less and less. These books by midlist authors were called “mid-list” books: good books that rarely left the shelves.
But based upon the statistics, why should publishers put more money into marketing these books? Out of eight books six would flop, one would break even, and the final of the eight might break big, making enough money to finance the rest of the titles.
The problem at its core was word-of-mouth. A good portion of the population only buys new books based upon referrals from friends. They do not read book reviews. They do not look at book websites, yet they make up a major portion of the market. (I fall into this market.) Thus, word of mouth is what sells mid-list books, and publishers seemingly had no control over it.
Another factor that surprised me was how little book publicity had to do with the actual book. Irony upon itself, we do not have a common language to talk about written language. A restaurant can sell food on menu because all humans have the same basic salty, sweet, sour, bitter palate. There is no such thing as a reading palate. What people like about a writing style depends on their reading speed, reading comprehension, interests, and life experiences—to start the list. A good book review might convey to readers that a book has promise, but readers have little way of knowing if the reviewer’s taste aligns with theirs.
I believed that Bit o’ Lit could overcome these challenges by:
1. Reaching the public en masse
2. Putting the writing first, in the form of an excerpt
3. Creating a local marketing campaign for books with author events
Bit o’ Lit is not intended to replace book reviews, author tours, or any of the awesome digital marketing that has arrived on the scene in the past few years. The point of Bit o’ Lit is to introduce books at the right time and in the proper space. I have little doubt that word of mouth will continue to reign supreme as the ephemeral and fickle determinant, but I would also like to think that Bit o’ Lit will provide some new introductions to the court of literature.
Shannon MacDonald
Publisher
Bit o' Lit
