« Those job numbers | Main | That part-time work problem »
March 10, 2008
What you read may be determined in Seattle
It’s a different type of economic clustering, but three very different companies located in the same area are determining what the public is reading. From the New York Times - Book Lovers Ask, What’s Seattle’s Secret?:
Though the big publishing houses are still ensconced in New York, the Seattle area is the home of Amazon, Starbucks and Costco, three companies that increasingly influence what America reads.
Books by relatively unknown or foreign authors become best sellers by dint of their anointment at the hands of Amazon editors. A forgotten older paperback, recommended and featured by the book buyer at Costco, can sell more copies in six weeks than it did in the last few years combined. Almost every book Starbucks stocks in its coffee shops sells more than 100,000 copies in its outlets alone. That pushes most Starbucks selections into the top 1 percent of all books sold that year, without counting sales in other types of stores.
The three companies settled in Seattle for different reasons, and each had its own motivation for choosing to sell books. Together, though, their combined power in the book industry has put the city in the position of tastemaker.
Strangely, there seems to be little of the standard synergies. Each company seems to be doing its own thing. And there doesn't seem to be a lot of local spin-offs. Maybe it is just a coincidence -- but it is an interesting one none the less.
Posted by Ken Jarboe at March 10, 2008 11:52 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.athenaalliance.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1832