Quote:
Originally Posted by mrkai
My general thinking here is one of (re)-education, from the publisher/content provider side. I believe (and this can be witnessed in quite a few excerpts and transcripts of several articles, keynotes and symposia of/from the industry) that while they are "aware" of the mistakes the music, and to a degree, the movie industry has made in attempting to deal with the digital chaos, don't quite "get it"; they are doomed to fail the same way, because they are concerned about essentially the wrong group of people.
Those people are people that aren't going to buy what they are selling, under any circumstances...ever.
Sound familiar? 
*Specifically* I believe, in light of the above, they should clone The One Model That Has Worked: Apple's.
SNIP |
I agree with the above quoted, all except for one word... "Apple's."
I'm a Mac-head. A Mac fan-boy from waaaaaay back. I even think that Apple's model would probably work. But it's the wrong example for
this market.
In the book market, "The One Model That Has Worked" is... Baen's, not Apple's. In particular, it's a model that has worked for a
content provider. Apple is a
device seller. The other publishers are a
lot more like Baen than they are like Apple. Push Apple's model at them, and they'll view themselves in the role of the music labels, not in the Apple role. That's bad, 'cause it pushes them
away from what we want, not towards it.
But with Baen as an example... Here's a publisher making more off of eSales than from
all international sales combined. They don't have a piracy problem --
even with NYT best-sellers. And they're another content provider, not a device-maker/seller. That's an example that resonates the right way, not the wrong way (for publishers, that is). And it's at least as good for consumers, too.
Xenophon