[OT] Future of big publishing [ Edited ]

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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Sun_Cat wrote:

They're reacting irrationally out of fear rather than searching proactively for viable paths to a new paradigm (to coin a phrase ).

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The problem is, there are no viable paths for the big publisher. Big Publishing is dying. People will never again pay anywhere near as much for books as they have in the past. The consumer's cry of "e-books must be priced below paperbacks" (where paperbacks already are the publisher's bargain product), along with the demands of authors that their royalties on e-books be dollar-wise the same as on hard-covers, plus added competition from a huge number of micro-publishers and mini-publishers selling e-books at $0.99 to $5.99, means that it's over for Big Publishing. Their income stream is becoming a dribble.

Kodak learned this in photography. With people taking pictures on their smart-phones (no camera, no film) and posting them to Twitter, FaceBook, etc. (no processing, no printing), there's no place for a Kodak to make money, especially not in the quantities that a company the size of Kodak needs to sustain itself. The world of photography today belongs to small, low-overhead operations like Twitter, Tumblr, Hipstamatic, and Instagram.

The same thing is happening to Big Publishing. The numbers that the established (US) publishers are reporting to the Association of American Publishers indicate that e-book sales have flattened out for them. From June through November of last year — the latest numbers released — e-book sales ran right around $80 million (USD, wholesale) every month, and this was in a time when new e-readers and tablets were selling in huge quantities. In the meantime, the publishers saw sales of their traditional paper-based products continue to slide, with the mass-market paperback format on the verge of disappearing.

Big Publishing has an incurable, terminal condition: diminishing revenue (the economists call this a secular decline). There is nothing they can to do stay big publishers. The best they can do is to plan an orderly transition into being small publishers. Or out of the business entirely.

[LisaK27]

I find myself reading more and more about this topic everyday. 

I do agree that things look grim for the bigger publishers, however, once they are gone, ebooks won't remain at their lower costs. Even now, some of the ebooks are the same amount as the physical paperback. What then? 

Also, I don't think that all physical books will ever disappear. I can see specific genres like fiction morphing mostly to ebooks, but what about things like art books, or computer books? Yes, some people will read these types of books electronically, but I still believe that these areas will remain steady when it comes to physical printing. 

[seacitylady]

For those who have any doubts that it is not all about the money read this. The only "security" that matters is keeping our dollars securely in the publishers' pocketshttp://www.thedigitalshift.com/2012/02/ebooks/ala-authors-guild-3m-weigh-in-on-penguin-overdrive-dis....

[Doug_Pardee Distinguished Bibliophile]

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LisaK27 wrote:

I do agree that things look grim for the bigger publishers, however, once they are gone, ebooks won't remain at their lower costs. Even now, some of the ebooks are the same amount as the physical paperback. What then?

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To understand what's going on, it's important to separate the big publishers' e-books from everybody else's e-books. The big publishers' e-books are going up in price as the publishers struggle to make up for the revenue they're losing on their printed books. Everybody else's e-books are going down in price. Today, the bulk of self-published e-books are priced between $0.99 and $2.99. For small publishers, pricing is usually in the $5-6 range.

Consumers are switching to the e-books put out by the small publishers because of the lower prices, and this trend will accelerate as those publishers get better at the job of publishing. Then once the big-name authors start playing with self-publishing (J K Rowling is already doing so), the big publishers will have even less product to sell.

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LisaK27 wrote:
Also, I don't think that all physical books will ever disappear. I can see specific genres like fiction morphing mostly to ebooks, but what about things like art books, or computer books? Yes, some people will read these types of books electronically, but I still believe that these areas will remain steady when it comes to physical printing. 

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Film won't disappear, either, but that's not enough to keep Kodak afloat. In a few years, we probably won't be seeing initial print runs of a million or more books for a guaranteed block-buster title. The business will shrink, and it will keep shrinking. In addition, if you look at art books and computer books, you'll notice that they're already being published by the small publishers.

The big publishers are big because they publish books that sell zillions of copies. Once upon a time, they did work with promising authors and they did publish "literary" works that wouldn't sell a lot of copies, but those days are past.

It's not like you're going to see the big publishers collapse overnight. It's going to be a long, slow, painful process. Kodak produced the world's first digital SLR in 1991, and the world's first consumer digital camera (marketed by Apple under the name QuickTake) in 1994. By 2000, Kodak was the technological leader in digital photography, but then refocused on becoming the market leader rather than the tech leader. By 2005, Kodak had achieved that market leadership, and then realized that the cause was lost. They were #1 in the digital camera market, and their revenues were inadequate and still dropping. Kodak decided to get out of the digital camera market and into printers, a process that they just finished.

So, it took Kodak about 15 years from the start of their digital revolution until they realized that even being #1 wasn't going to support a big company like Kodak. And another 7 years to get out of the market, by which time the company was in bankruptcy.

Also, there are six big publishing houses in the US. When one founders, there will be a temporary boost for the others. It's not like all six are going away at once. Kodak saw some big names leave the photography business during its twenty years of decline, including Polaroid and Minolta. [And I fully expect to see more names added to the list of "former camera makers" over the next couple of years; Kodak isn't the last.]

[moose_tracker]

Read the article..  Was this suppose to be a quote out of it?  "The only "security" that matters is keeping our dollars securely in the publishers' pockets".   If it was, I didn't see it.

The only thing of monetary I saw was Random House raising it price to Wholesellers.. The other things is some wanting a delay for the libraries to offer the book (which someone mentioned here, and I don't think anyone blew up over the suggestion.)  And lastly (and maybe biggest) the fact that Overdrive was suppose to control the borrowning of books, but just handed control over to Amazon..

Except for Random House maybe headed in the wrong direction, I don't see anything too out of line. And they do state that they want to come up with a solution to work with libraries, so they are not just trying to cross them off the list and kill them off.

[seacitylady]

Not a quote from the article, just my on thoughts. I think the implications of this article & many others is pretty clear. I don't think a direct quote saying "this is all about money & we are doing this to protect our self interest" is needed or would be expected. Actions speak louder then words. See also the posted reaction from Overdrive & the dandy new "buy" option in Overdrive search that coming soon to your local library. (One poster said his library has had it for 3 months.) How convenient & "frictionless" but for whom & to do what? I don't think the Big 6 have any malice toward the libraries. The are just caught in the crosshairs. The end user, the library patron, is now stuck with less current content, the continued inconvenience of sideloading & now the annoyance of the "Buy!" feature. On a personal level it is sad that we have come to the point where the free public library has been pushed into these concessions so they can continue to provide some electronic content to their users. Since our tax dollars go to support the "free" library system that is for everyone we should all be disheartened to see it being commercialized in any way. While the "buy" is currently a choice it almost seems like a bait & switch. "We don't have it here, or if we do there are 100 other people waiting, but go here to buy it now!" Not a quote,just my own thoughts on message being sent.

I don't work for the library system & have no ties to Overdrive or the publishing industry.I'm just an avid reader, frequent library patron, & probably still spend $1200 a year on books. I own both an older Kindle & a Nook Color.

[patgolfneb]

I don't think comparing publishers to kodak is really the best comparison. Publishers real economic role is closer to a NYSE floor trader acting the middle man between authors and retailers, making the market.

Much like modern computer based trading on stock exchanges this role is diminished with e books. They cannot justify their share of revenues for editing and printing services. To keep established authors they must offer large advances.

The democratization of publishing long predicted by futurists may be arriving now that e books and devices to read them on are ready for prime time. Publishers can only justify their cut in eBooks by selling direct to the public, or because an author sells enough to justify mainstream advertising, and not many do.