Skift Q&A: The Guidebook Company That's Survived by Ignoring Everyone

It's common knowledge that 2013 is not the year of the guidebook. From BBC's massive loss on the sale of Lonely Planet, to Google discarding then handing the Frommer's brand back to its founder (after stripping it for content parts), to the continued hockey-stick decline of book sales for most publishers, it is not the best time to be selling travel guidebooks in bookstores. Unless you're Avalon. The Berkeley, CA-based group, which is part of the independent Perseus Book Group, puts out Moon Handbooks and Rick Steves' books, as well as Moon's series about outdoor travel and living abroad, and one-off titles about independent travel and pets. While other publishers have watched revenues crash, Moon's numbers have remained a straight line and captured market share from its anemic competitors. And it's done it by doing everything that digital publishing had decided was wrong: Non-standard book lengths, hand-drawn maps, limited digital rights, and lackluster websites, to name a few. Skift called Bill Newlin, Avalon's Publisher and a Vice President at Perseus, to discuss his brand's unique approach to the challenges of modern travel publishing. After sharing the winding path that brought the current list of books together, including the purchase that brought Rick Steves into the fold, Newlin explained the first thing Avalon did differently. Skift: Talk to me about how you changed the way Rick Steves publishes. Bill: When we had our first business meeting with Rick at his new publisher we said, you've got this fantastic content. You're running tours all over Europe and you've got boots on the ground like nobody else. Let's take this content engine out for a spin and see what it can do. From that point in 1990, the books have been growing steadily and Rick has often said that it is his job is to generate the content and our job is to package it. The French and Italy guides have gotten to be 1,100 and 1,200 pages. That can be a challenge but that nevertheless, it's still how we're playing it. Skift: Moon authors some of the last to retain ownership and still receive royalties for their work? Is that correct? Bill: It's absolutely correct. And it used to be more a point of pride. It's in fact emblematic of how we've viewed the authors as the partners in the relationship. And so every way that we approach the shaping of the coverage and the approach and the strategy of the destination, we do hand in glove with the authors. We do not