Quote:
Originally Posted by fjtorres
The headline is missing a qualifier: the *print* book industry is, in fact, entering a death spiral.
Individual players without a viable transition plan to ebooks (Hel-lo, Borders) or too tightly bound to the high overhead of the print book supply chain and its old school business practices are in fact staring at a deadly tipping point where *their* profitability is at risk.
Doesn't mean the entire industry is at risk, though.
Some will live, some will die, but most will adapt.
The sky isn't falling.
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What fjtorres said.
The article seems to suggest that if all publishers continue to cling to their existing business models, the publishing industry is in trouble. Maybe so...and if they don't/can't change,
tant pis.
However, my take is that we're right at a point where innovation of new business models in the publishing industry could be hugely rewarded. The demand for high-quality content is not going down, and I seriously doubt it'll be going into a death spiral in the near future. I firmly believe that if the publishing industry looked at the terrain with the view of aggressively advancing (rather than cowering and attempting defense of a fixed position), they are perfectly capable of coming up with solutions that'll keep them relevant and thriving.
But if they continue to try moving the DTB model forward, charging more for the licensing of a digital artifact than the sale of a pbook, they're toast.
