Quote:
Originally Posted by Ralph Sir Edward
Apparently some of the music industry is starting to do what's necessary to survive. If only the book business could learn to think.....
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The music industry has always been aware that it's selling a non-physical product in whatever physical package works best right now. The book industry, having been around much longer and never having had a non-physical industry to compete with*, has convinced itself that its products is
books, not
writing.
Now the concept of "written information" has been divorced from the media that carries it, and they're lost. Aside from the sheer technical aspects (e.g. setting up a workflow for conversion to ebook as well as to print, security to avoid piracy), their business models don't know how to handle digital products.
There's no spot in the model for selling "the unfinished version" (which is, up until recently, what the digital version in a publishing house was). And they don't
want to sell "word-based content in various containers;" they want to sell
books. Like they have for decades, sometimes approaching centuries.
However, the publication of "books" has pushed them into being the industry responsible for "ebooks" as well. And to do it well--as customers demand, or they'll go elsewhere--they'll need a complete overhaul of their business concept.
*They competed somewhat with storytellers and bards, but those were always considered transient; writing was considered a different form of info exchange.