Publishing is Dead. Books are Dead. But it doesn't matter because no one is reading anyway. Read online

  The most fundamental problem is value. You cant have an eBook signed. Its a simple point but its a significant indicator of how little ownership there is with these new digital formats.

  Why eBooks look so Ugly (Ganapati, 2009) With no variation in binding, print, paper or cover qualities there is no variation or individuality. Theres a dearth of typographic expression in e-books today& Right now its just about taking a digital file and pushing it on to a e-book reader without much consideration for layout and flow of text. (Ganapati, 2009) This may not sound critical but it is one of the factors of printed publications is that they are released in editions. There will be no rare first edition release of an eBook, or any potential difference in cover, materials, bindings, type or layout. Layout, forewords and cover-art can change but they are only a small part of this detailed and diverse world. Collecting a personal library of these electronic formats bares no resemblance to collecting books; with a simple Internet search any eBook can be found, and in fact entire libraries can be downloaded with almost no effort.

  Therefore there can be no individuality to any eBook and with no individuality there can be no possibility of collectability. A collection is very little when the objects have no value, no sense of achievement and no physical presence. Without all of these factors, and no physical object to have and to hold there is almost no sense of ownership.

  Books are physical products. They interact with all 5 senses and have very emotional connections for many. There are many unique experiences that people have with physical objects. Ware is a sign of love and attention that increases the emotional experience of ownership. Much more than a most read list as there is for music in iTunes. A program displaying You have read this text 1.067 times. Is very unlikely to have the same effect on the owner as a careworn edition of their favorite book. The same is true of new books; it is an experience with its own set of sensory stimulations; a crisp cover and sheets combined with the smell and the crack of the spine.

  EBooks have a much lower value, both financial and emotional, there a number of reasons for this. Many of the factors here are the things that have allowed books to grow in value with some being worth significantly more than others.

  There is also the question of what happens if the collection is deleted or lost? Is all of it gone, never to be seen again and therefore have to pay to purchase everything again? Certainly its an issue that has effected many personal digital music collections. It seems unlikely that this is covered by most insurance policies.

  Books are not just for one person however; they link cultures and individuals together. Even at the most basic level of sharing a recommended or favorite novel between friends does not exist in the same way with digital content. The effects it will have on libraries, cultures and economies, is yet to be defined and is likely at some point to become significant.

  The Gideons are hardly going to leave ?120 eBook readers in every hotel in the world. Thats a lot of ebooks (Coutts, 2009)

  This leads us to cost. The price of ?4 a novel is good, and best sellers are typically ?9, but the total cost of ownership is much higher. At a minimum of ?200 for a reader and ?4 per publication, the user would have to read a very large number of books to get decent return on their investment.

  Cost leads us to one of the largest driving factors of literary intellectual property theft. Conversely, piracy is not only one of the driving factors behind the digital revolution, but it also one of the barriers. Its a catch 22 for publishers, if you dont go digital, then people will be forced to download your content illegally when they try to get it. However if a publisher does go digital their content is much more widely accessible and therefore susceptible to piracy. The confusion continues to slow the transition, as companies experiment with different protection models.

  There is a further development grey area in publication rights. Contracts drawn up before the 1990s typically made no allowance for any other form of publication other than traditionally printed. The authors are however bound not to reproduce their work in any way that competes with the publishers output. Therefore neither party has the right to produce the digital version of the text.

  There are a considerable number of obstacles that could potentially prevent further adoption of Readers and eBooks. Certainly there is enough to prevent a full digital swap over at this point in time. It is not that they do not meet the needs of readers, but that they are simply too frivolous on balance of their expense and limited range of applications.

  However on balance, the sales data and trends would suggest that this is a change that is gaining pace. If developers can increase the quality of the reading experience further  Through more attentive graphic design, Readers with broader functionality, such as web browsing or by developing entirely new stories and experiences that only digital books can offer  then there will be a broader audience to target.

  The Problems Books and Publishing are Facing

  Clearly there are huge changes within and around the publishing industry. Books are facing digital competition. Publishers are facing not only increasing piracy but also internal pressures and a poor economic climate. Books and their publishers are symbiotic. Therefore I will analyze them together at this point.

  As publishers we are facing huge Social, Technological and Economical changes and no one has one right answer for how we move forward. We must continue to experiment and develop in order to meet our readers changing needs.

  Industry

  On the 26th of November the high street bookstore Borders UK (which owns both Borders and Books etc.) went into administration. (Hall, 2009) HMV also posted half-year losses of ?24.9million due to a 5.1 drop in sales at Waterstones. (Steele, 2009) In America Borders has debts of $375m with declining sales. (MSNBC.com, 2009)

  Wider Market

  Clearly both high street and out-of-town bookstores are suffering as customers move to the web for their physical purchases as well as their digital ones. Within this shift, books face a saturated advertising market, not only from digital sales but from all other forms of entertainment and leisure. This challenge is made more acute my reducing high street presence of literature. In every industry there is so much happening and so much noise its very difficult for anybody to be heard or noticed. To be recognized in todays market You have to be the most of something: the most elegant, the most colorful, the most responsive, the most accessible.

  Are books the most of anything? I would argue that for the masses they are probably not, at least not for entertainment. It is also unlikely that simply converting existing texts into a digital release will really stand out in the competition for the attention of the modern consumer, and is enough to push sales back to printed books. Playing it safe will leave the person/company nowhere, which is colorfully put by a quote included in the article. As Jim Hightower, the colorful Texas populist, is fond of saying, Theres nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos. &We might add: companies and their leaders struggling to stand out from the crowd, as they play by the same old rules in a crowded marketplace. How can books reach out to new audiences who are used to ever more fast paced and rich media in all aspects of their life?

  Structure

  This is one of the reasons why, increasingly, the publishing business is built on blockbusters. The Wall Street Journal states that the 80:20 rule applies to the income of the big publishing houses; more than 80% of their revenue coming from less than 20% of their publications. A large percentage of books produced make a loss. (Elberse, 2009) The brand name authors such as Ian Rankin, Dan Brown, J K Rowling, Danielle Steele, carry the bulk of the revenue and profitability of the publishing houses.

  Most large media firms make outsized investments to acquire and market a small number of titles with strong hit potential, and bank on their sales to make up for middling performance in the rest of their catalogs.(Elberse, 2009)

  Outside of $1000 in depth industry reports, self-publishing or
vanity publishing figures are impossible to find, this translates to it being such a small margin of the industry that it is of insignificant consequence. It does however pose a looming threat.

  If these authors are the assets generating revenues for the publishers, then the question has to be raised. Do these big name authors need a publisher? If the brand authors were to self publish they could make significantly higher margins on their books. Without the margin of the publisher if these authors personally paid to hire a professional PR company to then promote the book, they would still make money. If this happened, the large publishers, who depend upon these authors, would be in real trouble.

  Industry Pressures

  Most industries are facing environmental pressures, and rightly so. Printing is no exception, but this pressure has started to grow now that eBooks have provided what would seem to be an alternative. Even for countries, such as China, where production is typically outsourced to, are starting to be affected by these restrictions.

  Possibly the most significant factor for established publishing houses is the lack of credit and rising costs across the board that are effecting most businesses in more economically developed nations. (Coutts, 2009) Printing, staffing, overheads, taxes, liability, distribution, carbon offsetting, software and hardware expenditures are all rising. This means reducing margins for the industry as a whole. As digital competition and piracy mounts, this compounds the financial difficulties facing the publishing houses. Digital competition isnt just eBooks: online publishing in its broadest sense is a threat e.g. blogging, twitter, social media sites, websites etc. All of these activities or sources take time that, traditionally, would have been dedicated to reading. On average people now spend more time on the Internet for leisure (not work) than reading  8.9 vs. 6.5 hours. (Gupta, 2006)

  Opportunities for Books and Publishing

  & a book gives you leverage to spread an idea and a brand far and wide. There's a worldview that's quite common that says that people who write books know what they are talking about and that a book confers some sort of authority.(Godin, 2007)

  The single greatest opportunity that lies ahead of publishers is simple, for the first time in more than quarter of a decade, reading rates are climbing. This looks like it could be the reversal of a long-standing trend that was considered tough for the industry but very damaging for society.

  Figure 1: National Endowment for the Arts. (2009) Reading on the Rise. Available from www.arts.gov

  Trends

  New technology rarely means the end of its predecessor, even if it does necessitate a change. Typewriters are a good example as they continue to increase in value. On the 5th of December 2009, Cormac McCarthys typewriter sold for $254,500. Whilst this isnt a typical example of the value of typewriters, there is an extensive market in typewrites and they regularly fetch 4 figure sums. However, a BBC report says the replacement unit has only cost $11.

  A more applicable, media based example is Radio, which has managed to utilize the Internet to reach wider audiences. The Guardians John Plunket (2009) reports that until the economic downturn of 2009 sales of digital radios were accelerating. There is also more ?100million investment going into updating the UK radio network for a digital switch over.

  I

  Integration Strategies

  Conglomerate mergers will be the survival strategy for many of the larger publishing houses says David Brown and Richard Boulderstone. This move will allow them to reduce technical costs and overheads through economies of scale and shared resourcing (p15, 2008)

  Vertical Integration is another option that is starting to be adopted by several players in the industry. Amazon now have BookSurge, a print on demand business. This means they have moved from retailers into publishers. It is a move that gives greater control over the supply chain and can hold many efficiencies for the group. (Sampson,2007)

  Printing and Distribution

  As digital content is emerging printing too is changing to adapt. The simplest but nonetheless important change is a reduction in the minimum quantity threshold. Much shorter print runs are now possible, starting from 100 copies rather than 1000. A further evolution of this trend is Print on Demand.

  Even with this reduction in thresholds, printing in bulk still carries a significant financial risk. Firstly a considerable upfront investment in printing costs. Storage facilities then have to be purchased or rented whilst the book is distributed. Stock then also needs to be protected and checked regularly. Postage and packaging has to be factored in for every order placed. On top of this there will be handling costs, not just for accepting incoming deliveries but also outgoing ones.

  Print on Demand (POD) promises to remove all these issues. Utilizing new printing software and hardware companies such as (2009) are able to offer publishers the ability to print just what they need and when they need it. To clarify; the electronic information for a book is submitted to Lighting Source who then retains the file and formatting. When an order for a book comes through to the publisher, they send the order to Lighting Source who then prints however many copies are required. The largest POD companies can also deal with the shipping and handling of the books when they are ready to send to the customer or retailer.

  The next evolution of printing is the Espresso Book Machine. On Demand Books (2009) the creators of the espresso machine is capable of printing and binding a 300page book in less than 4 minutes. What is unique about this machine is that it is installed in the bookshop and the order is placed directly by the consumer. The book is then printed, While you wait. This means that a bookstore no longer needs to have an inventory of 100,000 books, it can have a relatively small range, supplemented by this system. There is an Espresso Book Machine in Blackwells in London, which is anticipated to pay for itself ($175,000) within the year reports the Guardian (Flood, 2009b).

  Not only does this remarkable system save the store money, offer readers a huge selection and authors a great opportunity but it also addresses a major economic challenge. Most books are printed in greater quantities than they are initially ordered, in order to achieve greater economies of scale, thus reducing the unit cost. However when a book doesnt sell, the unsold copies are sent back to the publisher to be disposed off - a costly and economically unsound practice.

  "This could change bookselling fundamentally. It's giving the chance for smaller locations, independent booksellers, to have the opportunity to truly compete with big stock-holding shops and Amazon ... I like to think of it as the revitalisation of the local bookshop industry. If you could walk into a local bookshop and have access to one million titles, that's pretty compelling." (Flood, 2009a)

  Print on Demand, and the Espresso Book Machine can radically change the sales model of publishers, vastly reducing their risk. It is well illustrated in the model provided by Books on Demand:

  Supply is matched with demand at point of sale for the first time in the history of publishing. This radical new model eliminates returns and gives life to innumerable titles. Books stay in print forever.(On Demand Books, 2009)

  They can do this because all the information required is held and shared digitally. This service currently runs at a slight premium compared to the discount bulk printing offers however it entirely removes the risk of investing in printing a new book. This has enabled individuals to set up their own publishing houses with very little financial backing. It frees larger publishers from heavy investment, allowing them to take more chances in their publications.

  What the Espresso Book Machine offers to readers is a part of the digital world in the physical world; what you want, when you want it. As this system expands and becomes more widely adopted it could change the balance between printed text and digital.

  These revolutions in printing hold the promise to modernize the infrastructure of printed texts to meet the needs and demands of modern consumers, as well as the pressures of the changing publishing business.

  Developments of books


  EBooks have come to conquer the territory of printed books. This is great for books! If eBooks have lower production costs attached to them and they enable publishing houses to become more profitable. Then this means there is potentially a change in role for printed novels. If eBooks are the more practical, efficiency-orientated tool for providing literature, this could allow publishers and authors to experiment with the medium.

  Environmental improvements.

  Many of the environmental issues that face printed text can actually be addressed. From carbon offsetting, to use of soya inks, there are a variety of options now available, and using them not only helps the environment but can be a positive USP (unique selling point) for a publisher. There is a very strong offering from Eco-Libris that allows the end customer to off set the damage of the

  product they buy (Eco-Libris, 2009). See Fig.

  Content

  New business models, printing and distribution structures are not the only changes that publishers are following. Random house recently paid $300,000 for a concept book based on an unpublished blogger. (Litopia, 2008) Its an interesting indicating that the large publishing houses are investing in new book formats in this changing market.

  Authors

  No body needs expensive software or hardware to self publish anymore. Anyone who writes a novel can now type it up on any piece of desktop word processing software and by downloading a piece of conversion software, a few clicks later they can have their Word document converted, uploaded and being processed for print. They can order as many copies as they want or need. Equally our budding writer could upload to an online eBook library and with some smart utilization of social media could have thousands of hits that day. Simply put desktop publishing is advancing  becoming ever more advanced and easy to use. With the addition of online publishing, companies specializing in vanity press, change in name from vanity press to self-publishing.