FastCompany: Something Is Rotten In The State Of E-Book Publishing

[kennyc]

I think we all know this, including those who are still defending the old-guard. I would disagree with the final statement about more interactive content though. I think interactive content has a place, but it's not the traditional book market, it's an adjunct to it.

Something Is Rotten In The State Of E-Book Publishing
BY Kit Eaton | 04-25-2012 | 1:08 PM

The publishing industry has a problem. The old guard haven't innovated. And neither their business models nor their products embrace the digital books revolution.

Take the ongoing and complicated spat between Apple and the Justice Department over the agency pricing model and alleged collusion which ended up with consumers being forced to spend more than they needed to. The battle may expand internationally, in fact. Apple tried to expand its 30% revenue share model, which has done very well in the billion-dollar app economy, into books. It also pushed publishers to agree to a very different way of selling their products: Instead of buying books traditionally, at a pre-agreed wholesale price and then pricing them as Apple saw fit in the iBookstore, it would let the publishers set their own price and extract its usual fixed share of the income ... as long as the publishers wouldn't sell e-books elsewhere.

It was a bold move, and one that could and did shake up the industry a bit. Amazon, the publishers contend, had established a monopoly on e-books, and was selling their wares at overly discounted prices. With Apple's model they could choose to price e-books lower than physical books cost (appeasing consumers who expect to pay less for a non-physical product), and yet extract more money due to the cost-savings of e-publishing.

The DOJ disagreed, and says Apple's deal meant consumers ended up spending much more than they needed to, hence its action against Apple and a laundry list of the bigger U.S. publishers. Amazon is now free to renegotiate deals with these publishers and push cover prices lower, which will save consumers cash but may both eat into publisher's profits and, ultimately, author's payments.

As such, it's not a wholly well-received decision as Scott Turow, president of the Author's Guild, recently noted: "Today's low Kindle book prices will last only as long as it takes Amazon to re-establish its monopoly. It is hard to believe that the Justice Department has somehow persuaded itself that this solution fosters competition or is good for readers in the long run." Because when Amazon does re-establish its monopoly, and nudges prices upward, it'll be operating on the wholesale model--with the extra money sunk into its coffers, not the author's or the publisher's.

But as novelist Barry Eisler notes in the Guardian newspaper, there is actually a glimmer of hope in the DOJ's decision. Amazon could, by sheer pressure of business, force a breakup of the old guard of publishers in the U.S., and make them adapt to the new digital realities or face extinction. In short, they'll have to radically adjust their business models, and also embrace writers who can deliver new rich-media books, if they're to keep the book-buying public enthralled and thus make money. Amazon's quick-growing self-publishing enterprise is an example of how the publishing business may evolve without them if they don't do this.

And what do we, the book-buying public, want? Cheaper prices, as ever, but we're also all expecting books to move beyond dead text and into something much more dynamic, something loaded with rich media, something that makes use of the color and graphics of our tablet screens, and perhaps the social networking powers they also sport as apps. Because those kinds of books sure as heck aren't in Amazon's top-selling Kindle list right now.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1835391/s...ook-publishing

[fjtorres]

The problem is that ebooks reside at the intersection of the free-wheeling, entrepreneurial, consumer-focused technology world and the traditionalist-dominated publishing world which is driven by relationships and deals; a cozy parrochial world where everybody knows everybody else.

We are looking at a classic insider vs outsider culture-clash conflict.

The traditionalists are playing defense, hunkering down to protect the old ways. They want to recast the new world in the shape of the old. A lot as if they were ancien regime aristocrats arriving in the americas and expecting the natives to treat them in the ways they are accustomed to just by showing up.

The traditionalists and the technophiles see the world in very different ways; where the latter see endless opportunity, the former see nothing but danger. One camp embraces risk, the other shuns it, preferably the comfortable certainty of olden days.

The consumers, however, are used to the rules of the tech world and, faced with a choice, are lining up with the techie rabble-rousers. Not much respect for their would-be rulers.

The result is starting to look a *lot* like a revolution with the conspiracy shaping up as a metaphorical stamp act. Concord beckons, methinks.

Time to seek an accomodation with the natives before it gets to Bunker Hill.

[kennyc]

Wait, wait, are you talking about a book-burning party???

[BeccaPrice]

And what do we, the book-buying public, want? Cheaper prices, as ever, but we're also all expecting books to move beyond dead text and into something much more dynamic, something loaded with rich media, something that makes use of the color and graphics of our tablet screens, and perhaps the social networking powers they also sport as apps.

I wish people would stop telling me that I want flash and dazzle and social networking. I'm perfectly happy with long-form text on an e-ink screen. And, being something of an introvert, I hate that social networking is being pushed down my throat everywhere I look. If I want to be social, I'll go out looking for it.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Wait, wait, are you talking about a book-burning party???

Oh, you don't need to hold a party to "burn" the BPHs.
The situation isn't confrontational enough (yet) to "spark" a napsterization explosion.
But it isn't out of the question.
So far the masses aren't taking to the streets, but the longer the DOJ suit goes on, the more consumers will get educated as to the issues. And the more mainstreamers appreciate the issues, the more disaffected they will be. ("30% price hike!!! Ripoff!!!")

The next milestone I'm looking for, is when the case shows up in court for the settlement: I expect the mainstream media to rely a lot less on publisher mouthpieces and insiders in their reporting.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I wish people would stop telling me that I want flash and dazzle and social networking. I'm perfectly happy with long-form text on an e-ink screen. And, being something of an introvert, I hate that social networking is being pushed down my throat everywhere I look. If I want to be social, I'll go out looking for it.

I just want to read the damn book. My primary reason for owning an e-reader is to save space in my home.

I don't think the traditional publishers need to do anything but figure out how to deal with pricing/DRM/piracy issues without antagonizing the book-buying public.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Catlady

I don't think the traditional publishers need to do anything but figure out how to deal with pricing/DRM/piracy issues without antagonizing the book-buying public.

That would do it.
But that's isn't on their radar at all.

What they obsess about is things like preserving the "perceived value" of hardcovers, about squeezing author royalties and locking up ebook rights from pre-ebook contracts, about Amazon's 50-book publishing catalog, and pretty much everything *except* delivering a good product at an acceptable price.

Very different world views, very different priorities.

[Kali Yuga]

The author of the article is basically saying that the publishers are "old guard" because they haven't loaded up ebooks with videos and interactive whiz-bangs.

What do we see when we load up the actual article, in a medium capable of all sorts of high-tech goodieness? One static image and a bunch of text.

I think we can safely ignore such *cough* well-meaning advice.

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I wish people would stop telling me that I want flash and dazzle and social networking. I'm perfectly happy with long-form text on an e-ink screen. And, being something of an introvert, I hate that social networking is being pushed down my throat everywhere I look. If I want to be social, I'll go out looking for it.

[usuallee]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I wish people would stop telling me that I want flash and dazzle and social networking. I'm perfectly happy with long-form text on an e-ink screen. And, being something of an introvert, I hate that social networking is being pushed down my throat everywhere I look. If I want to be social, I'll go out looking for it.

Totally agree. I watch TV and go online enough and I enjoy it. However, when I read I want to read and that's it. I do not need "enhanced" ebooks.

[kennyc]

Hey, I'd suggest you guys to to the original article and post comments about the "interactive" aspect.

Others have already weighed in against "interactive"

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I wish people would stop telling me that I want flash and dazzle and social networking. I'm perfectly happy with long-form text on an e-ink screen. And, being something of an introvert, I hate that social networking is being pushed down my throat everywhere I look. If I want to be social, I'll go out looking for it.

This, so much. I really don't want any rich media in my (fiction) books, thank you. (I suppose the odd static illustration or detailed map would be nice, but for me, not even those are required.)

And yes - I don't want to share my readings on Facebook or Tweet about it, and I don't care for the Kobo social life awards. I'll blog about a book I've read if and when I feel like it, and I don't need to do it straight from the book.

[spindlegirl]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I wish people would stop telling me that I want flash and dazzle and social networking. I'm perfectly happy with long-form text on an e-ink screen. And, being something of an introvert, I hate that social networking is being pushed down my throat everywhere I look. If I want to be social, I'll go out looking for it.

Karma for this.

[ProfCrash]

I want to read books at a price that is reasonable and without DRM. It really is not all that complicated.

The BPH want me to desperatly want to buy hardback books and make them more money. Other folks want me to buy books that come with video. I want e-books with words and only words that I can easily move to different devices and pay less for then a paper book since it costs them less to produce an e-book.

That is all.

[elcreative]

Originally Posted by BeccaPrice

I wish people would stop telling me that I want flash and dazzle and social networking. I'm perfectly happy with long-form text on an e-ink screen. And, being something of an introvert, I hate that social networking is being pushed down my throat everywhere I look. If I want to be social, I'll go out looking for it.

Now, now... what makes you think that you know what you want... bit innovative...