Leafing through a couple issues of Publisher's Weekly, I see lots of concern for the state of publishing. Peter Olson, former head of Random House, suggests that sales will sink, pricing pressures will increase, and bookstores will increase their rate of returns to publishing houses.
How about bookstores? Amazon continues to see growth rates of 10 to 20%, but look at the brick and mortar chains: Barnes and Noble down 5% compared to the previous holiday season sales; Borders down 11%!
I'm not a publishing/bookstore person, I work in a library. Libraries are busy right now, obviously because people short on cash prefer borrowing a book to buying it. The only bad news for libraries is that many (mine for example) have a hiring freeze on. You get to keep your job, but you are going to be working harder due to staff vacancies.
Some people looking at publishing feel that trends will continue to make it harder for independent bookstores. It will be tough for chains too, due to Amazon competition. Will print have problems from Amazon's Kindle and other handheld e-book devices? Kindle made a splash here on Gather, though most of us still prefer paper. How about Kindle II- the way it usually goes is that new technologies get better. Our current recession is not to be confused with the bigger societal changes that impact publishing. The recession will fade in time; new technology however is not going away.
I always say with books it's the words that matter, not the paper. But I should add to that, it also matters for authors and publishers to continue to have a business model that provides a flow of money from the consumer to the provider. Just as it was in the music business, with an online model replacing the CD business, we need new technologies to continue to provide a livelihood to the creative people who tell stories or perform journalism. I think we will get there, but it may be a tough road for lots of people in the business. Yes, that could include libraries- if we fail to move into ebooks when it becomes the new standard.
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Comments: 4
Kathryn,
I too was anti-ebook--until I received the Kindle 2 as a gift. Now I'm a total convert. With a Kindle you can adjust the font size to what suits you, including large fonts. There are so many advantages to Kindle 2 it would take me a couple of pages to list them. It's biggest disadvantage, and one publishers should take advantage of, is that it cannot duplicate the beauty of a well-illustrated book.
You cite Amazon as doing better but even they are far more expensive than stores like ER Hamiliton. With all the competition is out there, the book companies/publishers will just adjust as they have at other tight times. People like myself who buy lots of books just do more shopping around than before.
Thanks Chris for your valid concern about publishing. I'm pulling in my horns (I'm a publisher and independent bookshop owner) and being careful not to spend more than I'm making. My recent bad news arrived today via email. BookStream, the 3 year old book distribution company (Poughkeepsie, NY) that replaced Koen Books for me when they went bellyup, just announced that it is closing. I now have about 300 titles no longer directly available to me - or 10% of my catalogue. That will hurt. BookStream offered 42% discount (vs 40%) and no shipping. And, I could combine many publisher's titles to avoid over ordering when trying to meet individual publisher's minimums. Dealing with another distributor and the individual publishers will cost me more money.
Then, the Post Office just told me that the mail cost went up over the weekend! Shipping costs will add several percentage points to my cost - or - to view it another way, they will remove several percentage points from my net. The squeeze is on!