Book people are a weird lot. They are not great businessmen and I would imagine that other media niches are much deeper in creative talent. Publishing tends to be a passion first, a consumer product business second. No MBA wielding number-crunching Harvard grad would have ever created the business model that exists today. In essence, a tweedy "gentleman's" calling has been struggling to compete with "real" businesses for too long. And today, I am announcing that book publishing as we know it is dead. Bring on the toe tag.
Now it would be way too easy to use the tablet as the catalyst for this demise. (Yes dear reader, I find it hard to write Ipad... oh Steve, didn't your wife ever send you out at midnight to find pads? sheesh...). Many in the book world will bemoan another nail in the coffin of "books"... Honestly, ever since words or images showed up on a screen, TV or Computer, book publishers have worried. And wrung their hands. And forgotten that species that adapt survive.
For the rest of this week, I am focusing on adaption. And though the name just really sucks, let's thank Apple for offering content creators the best opportunity for survival.
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No denying the iPad (name excepted) is cool. I want one. I will load lots of books on it and enjoy surfing the iBookstore and playing with the apps. Then like with my Kindle I will put it down after a few weeks to finish that book I left on the shelf I meant to wrap up. I'll pick the iPad back up after a few more weeks to find I lost the charger. It won't plug into my PC and I can't use my Blackberry charger so I go to order replacement online. I realize that the charger is the same price as a copy of Salinger's Nine Stories which I never read and really should now that he is dead. After finishing the Salinger I go back to the iPad but now I have misplaced it, it's not under the cushion as I thought. Start looking for my old Kindle, if worse comes to worse I still have a Nook...
ReplyDeleteAdaptation is the right word. We will adapt, as publishers we have to adapt. I think beyond content, consumers will adapt. I think the iPad and other WiFi and 3G enabled devices will bring is a change of how we browse. Brick and mortar stores are the ones that need to worry. The mantra against Amazon was you can't browse. Were is the serendipity of discovery and impulse buy? With full web access my iPad will let me read a blog or newspaper and then go right to a link and hit buy. Instant purchase. I can Google any topic and stumble on a book related to my interest. At our publishing company we have a shopping cart on our site. It is amazing to me the amount of sales we are generating. I am not so naive to think that our company's brand is so strong as to drive traffic to our site. For whatever reason the consumer's search didn't take them to Amazon or Google Book. It brought them to our page. They saw what they wanted and hit buy. Not for customer service or superior consumer experience (believe me our website is pre-Guttenberg) they bought because they wanted the item at that moment. If they were redirected to another "store" like Amazon or even iBook the opportunity for getting distracted by another shiny object is immense. iPad brings us one step closer to not just new content formats but new distribution models, new P&Ls, and new competition.
Of course the other side of The future is so bright I gotta wear shades is that without the shades you burn your retinas... exciting and scary times.
I agree with you on your blog:
ReplyDelete* publishing, as we know it, is dead
* books have a future, but a very different one from now on
* we adapt, we spend money on adapting, or we die
We have, as Publishers, the great benefit of hindsight - Apple has already revolutionised music and phones. Errrm, what about books, magazines and newspapers on this thing called an iPad - "anyone, Bueller, anyone???"
I am worried for any Publisher, who right now, doesn't think that the iPad is going to change EVERYTHING!
I object to the reference to businessMEN. Some of us old-fashioned luddites are women.
ReplyDelete