On Saturday, February 17, during the Savannah Book Festival, Jennifer Bergstorm discussed the future of publishing industry at the Jepson Auditorium, with Jack Romanos, previous CEO of Simon & Schuster.
After working for Simon & Schuster publishing since 1998, Jennifer Bergstorm was named Senior Vice President of the Gallery Book group in 2017. Romanos and Bergstorm previously worked together for an extended period.
“We have worked together for a long time, since 1998,” he said. “She is the only person in publishing who started in children publishing, before escaping into the world of adults.”
After a quick introduction of her work history, the former CEO asked Bergstrom how she made her way to the top of the industry. “I got in the old-fashioned way, back when you could actually get a job out of a newspaper. I responded to an ad; I remember thinking, ‘as an English major who loves to read, there are few options: I could be a teacher, or publishing,’ at the time I felt I couldn’t be a teacher,” responded Bergstorm. “I made 14,000 dollars in my first job in publishing, but once you get it, there is room for growth.”
And she certainly grew since her arrival and said it was one of the reasons she loved publishing so much because there is room for everyone.
After giving her audience some hope—some of us want to get in publishing—Romanos asked her to describe what exactly a publisher does. “I’ll give you a typical day, let’s say it’s Tuesday: I start with an editorial meeting, which is a meeting that I run, and I have a team of 12 editors, and the publicity group is in the room, our marketing group in is the room; probably 40 people.”
The team then talks about the submissions they received, manuscripts for fiction, and proposals for non –fictions. If she is interested in a particular book, Bergstorm would sit with the head of publicity and ask if this book would be easy to market, if the author is outgoing, or if he or she is active on social media. “So we discuss books and submissions every week, for two and three hours,” continued Bergstorm, “It’s a fun meeting.”
Later on this hypothetical Tuesday, Bergstorm would meet with her production director and managing editor and discuss planning the year’s catalog.
Authors might come by to chat with Bergstorm, sometimes just to say hi, other times with a heads-up about their marketing strategies or to let her know if there are any problems with a book they just published.
Then Bergstorm would have a sales meeting, which is very important to her strategy. “It’s my sales forces telling me how are we doing on sales on certain books, and if we are printing enough.”
Here, the classic question comes in: is publishing dead? “My answer is no, publishing is not dead, not by a long shot. I think that we as publishers, we are expert adapters,” Bergstorm said. “Our roles are to find the largest possible audiences for our books, so whether that means an audience is finding online or on an e-book, or on paperback, the industry already survived so much.”
Surprisingly, e-books are the most profitable format Gallery Books publishes. “It also depends on the genre too,” Bergstorm continues. “It’s a new way to look at the business, we got audiobooks now, and sales are through the roof. Audio sales are affecting e-books sales. For example the comedian Amy Schumer, with her book “The Girl with the Lower Back Tatoo,” she sold more audiobooks then she sold e-books, and that was the first time we have seen that.”
And then, Bergstorm said she would always have lunch with an agent. Later, Romanos would ask her, in the name of the audience in the room, the best way to get published. “You need an agent. Authors don’t want to hear it, but you need one. How do you get an agent? You write, and you have to work really hard. And don’t quit your day job.”
Romanos asked Bergstrom what she would call her biggest success. “I think it was “He’s Just Not That Into You.” It became part of a cultural conversation.” And even if she is proud of all the books she published, it is also the book she also the proudest of. “Because it was a book that was rejected by every publisher in town, the sales forces didn’t see, same with everyone in the room,” said Bergstorm. “Never underestimate the power of a single woman in pain. This was a book that made every woman feel good.”
By Scarlett Ruggiero.
Scarlett is a writing major, wine lover and cheese enthusiast from Paris, France. When she isn’t busy writing, she likes to wander around District’s quarter in search of new articles to write.
