Rise of Amazon and Ebooks Force German Publishers To Reinvent Selves

[charmian]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...-a-888679.html

Today, about 11 percent of Germans are reading digital books on devices like the Kindle and the iPad, up from only 4 percent two years ago.
.....
Online bookstores now have a market share of almost 20 percent, but the large bookstore chains have failed to come up with a convincing strategy to counter this development. An exceptional bestseller like the "Shades of Grey" trilogy, with more than 70 million copies sold worldwide, can certainly improve a company's bottom line, but such phenomena do not change the fundamental outlook: People are buying fewer printed books, and when they do buy them, they increasingly order them online.

[fjtorres]

Actually, I find this quote more telling:

"The golden era of publishing, that is, of reading, contemplation and literary education, has somehow come to an end," says Michael Krüger, the outgoing head of the Munich-based Hanser publishing house, who has the reputation of being one of Germany's last great publishing figures. Many people no longer view book publishers "as a stronghold of culture, but merely as a transshipment point for cultural products," says his successor Jo Lendle, the current head of the Cologne-based DuMont publishing house.

Even publishing executives not known for their pessimism, like Kiepenhauer & Witsch Publisher Helge Malchow, expect continued decline in the industry in the coming years. Others say that sales could even drop by more than 20 percent in the coming years. "For decades, the publishing business was pretty much the same," says Malchow. "It is now entering a crisis for the first time, and everything will look different after that."

Me: "Ya think?"

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Actually, I find this quote more telling:


Me: "Ya think?"

totally agree. Clueless best describes publishing in the digital age.

[John Carroll]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

"For decades, the publishing business was pretty much the same," says Malchow. "It is now entering a crisis for the first time, and everything will look different after that."

Viva la crisis.

[SeaKing]

The best of times, the worse of times. Someone said.

[hidari]

Funny how all the Mac and Windows Freaks like to disrespect the Chromebook.......yet people are buying it.....The only constant in life is change..... and with another OS on the landscape the better the choice for the consumer.....

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by hidari

Funny how all the Mac and Windows Freaks like to disrespect the Chromebook.......yet people are buying it.....The only constant in life is change..... and with another OS on the landscape the better the choice for the consumer.....

OT...

It's funny. I was talking to a colleague the other day - hardcore developer. I was talking about Chrome OS and he was completely shocked. He'd not only never heard of it, but he couldn't understand it at all.

I was trying to explain to him how such an OS was not developed for people like him or me, but I might as well have been telling him that people were buying laptops that could only display a screensaver.

I always find it amazing that there is always going to be a brand of person that makes no attempt to see things from different angles at all. But then I guess it's just another angle in a way, so I should try.

[hidari]

even funnier.... I put this comment in the wrong thread. My stupidity continues.... that said where is my bottle of beer???

[redcat]

Originally Posted by caleb72

OT...

It's funny. I was talking to a colleague the other day - hardcore developer. I was talking about Chrome OS and he was completely shocked. He'd not only never heard of it, but he couldn't understand it at all.

I was trying to explain to him how such an OS was not developed for people like him or me, but I might as well have been telling him that people were buying laptops that could only display a screensaver.

I always find it amazing that there is always going to be a brand of person that makes no attempt to see things from different angles at all. But then I guess it's just another angle in a way, so I should try.

As more choices come about, people are differentiating. No more the row by row of work stations with only a terminal and the mainframe in the basement.
Now also:
Desktops
Laptops
Chromebooks
Netbooks
Tablets
eReaders
Smartphones which do it all (or so their users like to think.)

The important question is what are you going to do with it.
Now days what most call a "computer" is for playing videos, listening to music, and mail.
So it is a replacement for the TV, a Radio and an paper/envelope/stamp.

Some like myself have them all. (The one with the most toys wins!)

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by hidari

even funnier.... I put this comment in the wrong thread. My stupidity continues.... that said where is my bottle of beer???

You put it in the wrong refrigerator ...it was quite good

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

You put it in the wrong refrigerator ...it was quite good

[forsooth]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Actually, I find this quote more telling:
Quote:
"The golden era of publishing, that is, of reading, contemplation and literary education, has somehow come to an end," says Michael Krüger, the outgoing head of the Munich-based Hanser publishing house, who has the reputation of being one of Germany's last great publishing figures. Many people no longer view book publishers "as a stronghold of culture, but merely as a transshipment point for cultural products," says his successor Jo Lendle, the current head of the Cologne-based DuMont publishing house.

Even publishing executives not known for their pessimism, like Kiepenhauer & Witsch Publisher Helge Malchow, expect continued decline in the industry in the coming years. Others say that sales could even drop by more than 20 percent in the coming years. "For decades, the publishing business was pretty much the same," says Malchow. "It is now entering a crisis for the first time, and everything will look different after that."

Me: "Ya think?"

my wonderful wife is German
I know German mind
they know machine, medicine, chemical, technology with best

publishers, libraries, book stores like see in old movie with drinking songs

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by caleb72

OT...

It's funny. I was talking to a colleague the other day - hardcore developer. I was talking about Chrome OS and he was completely shocked. He'd not only never heard of it, but he couldn't understand it at all.

I was trying to explain to him how such an OS was not developed for people like him or me, but I might as well have been telling him that people were buying laptops that could only display a screensaver.

I always find it amazing that there is always going to be a brand of person that makes no attempt to see things from different angles at all. But then I guess it's just another angle in a way, so I should try.

Having retired from the IT industry, my experience tells me your colleague won't BE in the IT industry much longer. He will wake up one day to find out that his skills are no longer relevant. He isn't even learning the buzz words.

That is what has happened to the book publishing industry. The quote where the official said, "For decades, the publishing business was pretty much the same," tells all. No business is EVER the same for decades. But people's ability to fool themselves seems boundless.

[frahse]

GlenBarrington
Plato's statement (only the dead have seen the end of war) has morphed, in this day and age, into:
only the dead have seen the end of change

[CommonReader]

Some of the pain is certainly self inflicted, just look at Suhrkamp and their internal squabbles.
With the Tolino the book retailers finally seem to have realized that they can't ignore ebooks any longer. The Tolino may still have some room for improvement, but it is quite good to start with and they command the shop floor in the bookshops.
I seriously dislike Amazon for the dodgy tax deal they made with Luxembourg. The price for the end customer is the same, with Amazon pocketing the 16% difference in VAT. Tax dodging seems to be one of the foundations of their business model. Apart from that Amazon is mostly creating crap jobs, poorly paid warehouse slaves and exploited delivery people. The kicking Amazon got in the national media for their poor employment conditions wasn't nearly as bad as they deserved.
I almost never buy books from them. I appreciate that my city of 300,000 still has at least a dozen bookshops, most of them independently owned. That is where I get my books; same price as Amazon + overnight delivery and maintaining decent jobs in the community.