Print Publishing: Review and Forecast

“The print music market once again showed its resilience compared to other segments of the MI business,” notes Hal Leonard’s Larry Morton, when reflecting upon the past year. That’s good news for publishers – and good news for dealers who stock any of the top titles outlined in this report.

Though challenges remain and no one, single answer is the cure-all for the market’s woes – or for MI retail, in specific – things do seem to be looking up. As Alfred Music Publishing’s Andrew Surmani puts it, “It’s a tough economy right now and it will be a slow recovery, but we are already seeing signs that things are turning upwards.”

Hal Leonard

Top Sellers 2009

• Twilight Soundtrack & Score
• Hannah Montana – The Movie
• Taylor Swift
• Beatles Publications
• Sound of Music (40th Anniversary)
• Glee (TV show)
• Kings of Leon
• At a Glance (book/DVD series)
• Guitar for Kids
• Essential Elements for Band & Orchestra

Despite the tough economy, the print music market once again showed its resilience compared to other segments of the MI business. Our songbooks, methods, and instructional materials continued with steady sales in 2009 and we’re anticipating a growth turnaround in early 2010. Our focus for next year is to provide even more expanded services to our dealers, particularly with merchandising, and also to stay focused on new publications that encourage more people to play music.

Larry Morton
President
Hal Leonard Corp.

Alfred Music Publishing

Top Sellers 2009

• Alfred’s Adult Piano Course, Book 1
• Alfred’s Adult All-in-One, Book 1
• Alfred’s Basic Piano Library, Lesson 1A
• Alfred’s Basic Guitar Method, Book 1
• Suzuki Violin School, Book 1 Revised Edition
• Led Zeppelin Mothership – Guitar Tab
• Premier Piano Course, Lesson 1A
• Michael Jackson Number Ones – Piano/Vocal/Guitar
• Accent on Achievement, Trumpet Book 1 & CD
• Alfred’s Basic Prep Course, Lesson A

Customers want to buy books with play-along CDs or DVDs. It’s now expected that we provide audio or video and tone and tempo adjusting software along with our books. They also want to easily find information about our products online, where they can view sample pages and recordings. This is why we just launched our new Web site, which also allows a mechanism for dealers to fulfill those orders.

Social media is the buzz these days, but you have to be careful that you are providing something of value to customers or they’ll just tune you out. We are active on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and iTunes podcasts. We are seeing a great interest in digital print music sales through our TotalSheetMusic.com Web site, especially from dealers who are selling this to walk-in customers and are very happy with being able to offer this service. And for those customers who still prefer a printed book, our digital printing technology allows us to keep slower sellers in print so there is no reason for a book to go out of print anymore. It’s a tough economy right now and it will be a slow recovery, but we are already seeing signs that things turning upwards in our business.

Andrew Surmani
Senior Vice President, Marketing
Alfred Music Publishing

Mel Bay

Top Sellers 2009

• Modern Guitar Method Grade 1
• Modern Guitar Method Grade 1, Expanded Edition
• Modern Guitar Method Grade 2
• Guitar Class Method Volume 1
• First Lessons Ukulele Book/CD Set
• Mastering the Guitar Book 1A
• Electric Bass Method Volume 1
• Guitar Chords
• Ukulele Chords
• First Lessons Banjo Book/CD Set

January, 2009 brought an unwelcome, unexpected, and significant decline in sales as compared with January, 2008. While the economy precipitously declined from September onwards, our sales held steady… until January. Sales for us did not begin to recover until late spring (‘09). Since then we have been climbing steadily upwards, but not at the same rate at which sales fell. Interestingly, sales of our Modern Method series have leapt and continue to be stronger than expected. Additionally, we continue to see substantial growth in international markets.

Bryndon Bay
President
Mel Bay Publications, Inc.

Kendor Music

Top Sellers 2009

• Pink Panther – various arrangements of instrumental solos and ensembles
• Contest Series for Percussion by Murray Houllif
• Effective Etudes for Jazz (with performance/play-along CD) by Mike Carubia and Jeff Jarvis
• Kendor Concert Favorites (with full performance CD) – 10 selections for young string orchestra
• Flextrios for Brass of Woodwinds arranged by Lennie Niehaus
• Kendor Recital Solos (with performance/play-along CD) – instrumental solo collection, separate piano accompaniment book available
• Inside the Score (with full performance CD) by Rayburn Wright – analysis of classic jazz ensemble charts by Bob Brookmeyer, Thad Jones & Sammy Nestico
• Wedding Masterworks (with play-along CD) arranged by Frank Halferty – instrumental solo collection, keyboard accompaniment included
• Today’s Sound for Drumset by Murray Houllif – drum set method
• The Jazz Educator’s Handbook (with 2 CDs) – by Doug Beach and Jeff Jarvis

As an independent publisher, focusing primarily on performance works for school instrumental programs, I have seen over the past couple years a decline in the number of retail print music dealers that actually stock and promote our products. Many dealers are happy to rely on just-in-time purchasing, which is fine, but we have lost a great deal of showroom space. As in all industries, as the larger companies continue to grow through acquisitions, it becomes increasingly challenging for the smaller independents to maintain market share and remain competitive. We are continually looking at ways to streamline our operation to reduce expenses, and have additionally made the decision to reduce the number of new publications we annually produce.

There was a time, in the not too distant past, when we recouped all of our production costs with the dealer New Issue Program. This is no longer true for all product lines. So our editors are charged with being extremely selective in our search for quality new products, and we plan on re-promoting many of our standard jazz ensemble and string orchestra publications with future marketing campaigns to the educators. We started our re-promotion efforts this fall with our jazz ensemble demo CD package, and we have already realized a sizeable increase in the sales of these established titles. Last year the economy had a noticeable effect on our business, but we are optimistic as we see sales climbing this fall.

Craig Cornwall
President
Kendor Music, Inc.

Sher Music Co.

Top Sellers 2009

• The Jazz Theory Book by Mark Levine
• The Jazz Piano Book by Mark Levine
• The Real Easy Book – Vol. 1
• The New Real Book – Vol. 1
• The Standards Real Book
• The Real Easy Ear Training Book
• Jazz Piano Masterclass: The Drop 2 Book by Mark Levine
• The Serious Jazz Practice Book by Barry Finnerty
• 101 Montunos by Rebeca Mauleon
• The Latin Bass Book by Oscar Stagnaro and Chuck Sher

Of course, 2009 was greatly impacted by Wall Street’s looting of our economy. We are a bit dismayed that the Obama administration still believes that the “top-down” approach of giving more money to the already well-off will fix things, as opposed to strengthening the economy from the bottom up. Nonetheless, we’re hopeful that Sher Music Co., and the rest of our partners in the music industry, can ride out the downturn until things improve. Economizing, like dieting, is good for you, and we’ve done our share of that, but we are very grateful that people still look for Sher Music’s high quality products when they shop for music books.

Chuck Sher
Owner
Sher Music Co.

Meredith Music Publications

Top Sellers 2009

• Basics in Rhythm
• Teaching Music with Passion
• Teaching Music with Purpose
• Teaching Music with Promise
• Majoring in Music
• Primary Handbook for
• Snare Drum
• Marching Bands and Drumlines
• Teaching Instrumental Music
• Audition Etudes
• Guide to Score Study

Since we were founded in 1979, 2009 is the first year that we have not experienced aggressive growth. Although sales were down dramatically at the beginning of the year, strong sales during April, July, and October, together with several popular new titles have enabled us to return to profitability. We anticipate a strong finish to sales in 2009. With numerous new titles, aggressive marketing and a healthy back catalog, we anticipate a very positive 2010.

Garwood Whaley
President
Meredith Music Publications