The Race to the Streamers

Porter Anderson, Publishing Perspectives editor-in-chief, notes important ways that the exchange between page and screen is evolving.

For what seems like forever, book authors and their publishers have treated Hollywood as a glorified cash machine. In the long-gone days of the silver screen, Ernest Hemingway once summed up the relationship in his trademark way. “You throw them your book, they throw you the money,” he said, “then you jump into your car and drive like hell back the way you came.”

In the digital age, movie and television producers surely deserve better treatment than that. As book sales languish, especially adult fiction, authors and publishers must wonder, “If not from Hollywood, then where will the next generation of readers will come from?”

Streaming services like Netflix and Hulu may provide the answer, says Porter Anderson, editor-in-chief at Publishing Perspectives. As he surveys the bookselling landscape, Anderson sees publishers in need of bringing more digital life and profit to their content.

“The message for this year to our publishers is first, ‘Get yourself a producer. Find somebody that you like, somebody whose work you like, and get very close.’ As we know, it’s a production company that takes a property into a studio. Unless you’re in a very strong position, you don’t just walk right into 21^stCentury Fox and tell them, ‘I’ve got what you need.’ You need to get to Ridley Scott first, and then his production company walks it in, because he knows what they need.

“This is the relationship that I’m trying to encourage for our publishers,” Anderson tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally. “The need to move more deeply into the digital space is growing very fast. It is a train that we don’t want to see leave the station without the book publishing industry right on board.”