Grow, Big List, Grow!

The Big List here in the Bay Area has now officially topped 100 organizations, making it (we think) the largest Big List in the country! Go us. What's a Big List? Click here for more.

Five books I’m looking forward to reading after NAMP

1) The Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy by Ed Keller and Jon Berry
2) Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable by Seth Godin
3) Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t by Jim Collins
4) Good to Great and the Social Sectors: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great by Jim Collins
5) Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate About the Benefits of the Arts by Kevin McCarthy, Elizabeth Heneghan Ondaatje, Laura Zakaras, Arthur Brooks

Now, when I’ll find the time, who knows.

Free Read

We’re winding down the Free Night campaign here at Theatre Bay Area, so I figured now is as good a time as any to quickly discuss a new free-as-incentive program being developed in the for-profit world. In the November 6th podcast from the New York Times Book Review, staff writer Motoko Rich highlighted the forthcoming cookstr.com. She wrote an article about it in the Times too.

The former Editor-in-Chief of Hyperion has used his presumed clout to gather 10-20 recipes each from various cookbook authors famous and less-so, and has built this website to make them searchable and usable free (a la food.com). The twist is the introduction of a purchase button on every page linked directly to the cookbook the recipe came from – the idea (sound familiar) that people will sample a recipe, probably from someone they don’t know, and a certain percentage will be so taken they’ll buy the whole book.

The article (and, to a lesser degree, the podcast) goes into the question of whether this is ultimately a good or bad trend in bookselling, and it’s something we’re constantly discussing too. Our data seems to show that in the case of Free Night (because can we really say it enough), 13% of people nationally buy subscriptions (not just single tickets) to the theatres they attend for our shows. We like that number – if you calculate an average subscription at $75 (which is low, I would think), that’s still about $70,000 in new income generated just from the subscribers. Hot!