Print books are dead - long live books! Kindles and their ilk may have kicked the stuffing out of brick-and-mortar bookstore sales, but for now print and digital share the publishing realm.
That's good for
Above the Treeline, an Ann Arbor company that provides interactive online catalogs for publishers and their customers.
"It's a hybrid world - print and digital - and will remain that way for a long while, if not always, says John Rubin, president and CEO of Above the Treeline. "We look at Edelweiss, our main product, as being the hub publishers use to communicate with anybody who is selling their books for them."
Don't publishers already have online catalogs? Yes and no.
The American Booksellers Association, which partners with Above the Treeline, wasn't interested in every publisher fielding its own web site as much as having all the information available from a single web source, says Jeff Freisthler, director of product development.
Edelweiss launched in 2009. It put Above the Treeline in a trusted position between publishers and stores, he says.
Headquarters is an airy space above
Grizzly Peak Brewing Company in downtown Ann Arbor. Although no books are visible in the office, Freisthler says everyone on staff is an avid reader. Like many young companies, the office boasts giant white boards, big video screens and a foosball table.
Rubin is Above the Treeline's founder as well as its executive branch. He is no stranger to bookselling. His mother owned a bookstore in Chicago for 30 years. He was formerly a management consultant developing strategies for Fortune 500 companies. Now, he says, he's taking his own medicine.
"It would be hard for me to imagine going back to a traditional job at this point. I found that I liked the risk-reward profile of it even though it's been harrowing over the years," Rubin says.
Part of the harrowing times was the demise of Borders, formerly the company's biggest retail client. It left a huge hole to fill but the company has recovered nicely. It is not dependent on a few large clients or customers.
Freisthler anticipates renewed revenue growth after a good year in 2012. Prior to that, results had been flat for some time.
Rubin says revenues grew by 35 percent this year to just under $2 million. Current staffing of 10 people is set to grow by two people immediately and the company may add five or six more - mostly recruited from the Ann Arbor area, Rubin says.
Above the Treeline also offers Treeline Analytics, a subscription service that lets booksellers compare their sales anonymously with their peers, even spotlighting hot-selling titles they may have missed.
Another, more informal service is the result of insider info: "Two people in Ann Arbor are starting bookstores. We need to connect those people," Freisthler says.
The Edelweiss catalog has become an industry standard. Hundreds of publishers - industry giants, academic presses and more - and book distributors pay to be included. Users get free access - from librarians to reviewers, retailers and bloggers, according to Marketing Director Ruth Bradstreet.
Science fiction, romance and cookbook bloggers are highly influential and therefore powerful promoters of new titles, Rubin adds.
"In the U.S., in the publishing industry, everybody knows us - every independent bookstore. People know us as Edelweiss," Freisthler says. (The name comes from the Alpine flower. Rubin is an avid skier.)
Amazon has some of the information that's in Edelweiss but it isn't as comprehensive; nor is it a business-to-business company. Above the Treeline offers information that's not on Amazon - books without ISBN numbers (a unique international industry product code) or those that are not yet published, author tour information, publicity events, and more internal illustrations, Freisthler says.
Another service that's grown important in the last two years: Distributing e-books for reviews. Publishers pay for that, he adds. Edelweiss users can filter new books by publication date, a feature that's especially useful for reviewers.
The company also partners with the National Association of Independent Publishers Representatives (NAIPR) whose members represent many tiny publishers. Edelweiss recently replaced the NAIPR's bibliographic listing service which collected data for tiny publishers.
Above the Treeline has not done a lot on the consumer side. It partners with others or sells content. It packages new titles by category and allows publishers to call out a certain number of things in their section; they can buy additional call-outs.
Expansion into the United Kingdom is next, Freisthler says. "(Publisher)
Oxford UK is looking at us. We need to figure out how to display data and prices properly. Some US publishers already have global catalogs. Any that have a UK arm are interested," he says.
New Edelweiss features are added regularly. An optional publicity module allows publishers to track events in bookstores title by title.
Random House, for example, solicits indie bookstores for their publicity events. Internal publicists manage the events. Above the Treeline charges a percentage of Edelweiss fees for the service.
An order-management module functions offline. Sales reps build bookstore orders, then submit them through Edelweiss. It can be used on an iPad, in a store or in an airport without an internet connection. Another module, due out in the next couple of months, offers a design tool for bookstores that can be used for anything from a catalog to a brief title-announcement email blast.
Above the Treeline has also looked at offering author portals, but publishers sometimes don't have the right information available.
Rights management is line extension that's coming in the next few months. Currently, there is no central tool for international rights management - for what titles are Spanish-language rights available, for example. Above the Treeline would not be the clearinghouse for international rights, Freisthler notes. Like its other products, this would be an information service.
The big picture abounds with opportunities.
"Right now, we're talking about expanding into other industries. The toy space is logical. The toy industry is similar (to publishing) but it isn't seasonal like books. The model works well for both an aggregate catalog and analytics," Freisthler says.
Constance Crump is Concentrate's Senior Writer. She's also an Ann Arbor-based writer whose work has appeared in Crain's Detroit Business, The Ann Arbor News, The Detroit Free Press, and Billboard Magazine.
All photos by Doug Coombe