At a recent NYU Publishing event students had the opportunity to meet a few of the publishing program’s advisors. We’ve met Jamie Raab, Senior Vice President and Publisher at Grand Central Publishing, now on to Stephen Riggio, Chief Executive Officer and Vice Chairman of a little retail shop called Barnes & Noble.
Riggio started with a brief history of the bookselling giant, explaining that B&N started out with a single New York store, catering primarily to the NYU crowd. Now, obviously an international brand, they concentrate on three primary business segments: college, trade, and internet. B&N is an $8 billion company, so Mr. Riggio certainly has his hands full.
“I spend most of my time recruiting people,” said Riggio, who has been in the industry for 35 years. “I think that what defines us is that we’re a publisher-driven company. It’s all about the books. We take very seriously the idea that we’re almost like a public trust. There’s something very different about selling books than selling a piece of electronics.”
When it comes to the vitality of the book publishing industry, Stephen Riggio is unflappable. “For 35 years people have been predicting that the industry is dying,” he said. From television to Atari, the internet to smart phones, he's heard every doomsday declaration. Not only have these devices not killed books, he said, "a National Endowment for the Arts study released just a few months ago said that Americans are reading more than ever.”
“I think that this is a very exciting time for the industry. People are consuming more media than ever, and now there are more ways than ever to distribute it. I’m very optimistic about books, publishing. and book distribution.”
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