"The book publishing industry has entered a period of long-term decline"

[RockdaMan]

Expect more anti-ebook fireworks from the big publishing houses...

“The book publishing industry has entered a period of long-term decline because of the rising sales of e-book readers,” reads an April 28 research note from IHS iSuppli, which predicted a decrease in book revenue at a compound annual rate of three percent through 2014—a reversal from the period between 2005 and 2010, when revenue rose.

For the traditional book publishing industry, the implications of the rise of the e-book and e-book reader markets are frightening, given the decline in paper book printing, distribution and sales,” Steve Mather, IHS iSuppli’s principal analyst for wireless, wrote in an April 28 statement. “The industry has entered a phase of disruption that will be as significant as the major changes impacting the music and movie business.”

The firm predicts that physical book sales will decline at a compound annual rate of 5 percent. While e-book sales will rise during that same period, the increase won’t cover the revenue gap created by the decline in the physical book market.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Desktops-an...Report-407632/

[GreenMonkey]

High MSRP DRM'd books are the solution! It worked for the record companies!

[Anke Wehner]

I have trouble taking that stuff seriously because it goes against my experience.

Big publishers sold 3 (three) print books to me in 2010. They sold 12 ebooks to me since I got my ereader in February, because I don't have to worry anymore about shelf space. I haven't tallied up the prices, but money-wise that's at least twice as much spent in 3 months on ebooks as in 12 months on paper books.

I think they should concentrate on encouraging more people to read for enjoyment, rather than anti-piracy measures that end up frustrating paying customers.

[jbcohen]

I have some questions that are related but slightly off topic, I think I can safely ask some here. EWeek is an excepted IT news source not a book publishing industry news site - what is an excepted book publishing site? Perhaps Publisher's Weekly.

Now for on topic issue. What has happened here is called a paradigm shift and it has occured many times in the past and occurs any time there is a significant advancement in technology or industry practices. The last paradigm shift in the book publishing industry ocurred when "big box" stores began to repalce smaller mal book stores back in the 1990s. Before that the paradigm shift came when book stores began to migrate from the neighborhoods to the malls.

Each time there is a paradigm shift, as we are seeing now there are some concepts that go along with it: Past Sucesses Guaranty Nothing (just becuase one company has been sucessfull at the "big box" stores and/or has established significant resources to bring products to market means nothing after the paradigm shift). We can expect to stores that do not recgonize the shift in technology and move agressively to capitolize on it to go out of business. Hence we have seen the decline in Borders Books, although the company is still very much in business. Since Barns and Nobles has agressively moved to the electronic book market with the Nook an Nook Color we can expect the company to fare a bit better but it has the liability that it still clings to the past. Amazon stands to gain most from the paradigm shift, since the company initiated the shift. We can expect many of the book publishers that don't agressively take to the new technology to be out of buisiness in a few years.

Technology will shift again in a few years beyond the electronic book reader. By 2020 or 2025 the maket will have shifted to still more advanced methods then what exists today. When the shift occurs Amazon will be at risk of going out of business at that point becuase remember Past Sucesses Guaranty Nothing. What will the technology be? Who knows.

[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.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by jbcohen

I have some questions that are related but slightly off topic, I think I can safely ask some here. EWeek is an excepted IT news source not a book publishing industry news site - what is an excepted book publishing site? Perhaps Publisher's Weekly.

What do you mean by "an excepted IT News source"? What is it "excepted" from?

[mr ploppy]

The firm predicts that physical book sales will decline at a compound annual rate of 5 percent. While e-book sales will rise during that same period, the increase won’t cover the revenue gap created by the decline in the physical book market.

What that probably means is that people will buy more indie ebooks instead of ebooks from major publishers with vastly inflated prices to pay for all the extra hangers-on.

No big deal. All the people that are actually useful will find work in providing services to writers, all the people who serve no useful purpose don't really matter.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What do you mean by "an excepted IT News source"? What is it "excepted" from?

Are you seriously having problems to understand what he's trying to say? If not, what's your point?

[J. Strnad]

Yeah, obviously the answer for print publishers is to raise prices substantially on ebooks. They might sell one for every 20 that get pirated or borrowed from a library, so the list price needs to be around $300. DRM should be applied that prevents anyone from reading the book. Then print books will be saved.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

Yeah, obviously the answer for print publishers is to raise prices substantially on ebooks. They might sell one for every 20 that get pirated or borrowed from a library, so the list price needs to be around $300. DRM should be applied that prevents anyone from reading the book. Then print books will be saved.

I appreciate the sarcasm.
But, at this point, even if *all* publishers stopped doing ebooks altogether it wouldn't make much difference. The djinn is already out of the bottle and there already is too much disintermediation and the installed base of readers and apps is too big for anybody to even dream of controlling the market.
Too much momentum.
At this point the main question is: How much market share are the old school dinos willing to sacrifice to try and prop up their obsolete batch-print business model?

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Are you seriously having problems to understand what he's trying to say?

Yes. I do not understand what exception is being referred to.

[JDK1962]

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.

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.

[Ea]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

Are you seriously having problems to understand what he's trying to say? If not, what's your point?

"excepted" doesn't seem to be the right word, but I can honestly not understand the sentence either.

[HarryT]

I'm glad I'm not the only one .

[5thWiggle]

I believe he meant "accepted"