Romanticizing the Paper

"Though the middle ground may eventually disappear - paperback fiction, for example - the ongoing rise of ebooks should actually encourage the making of beautiful physical books. Readers want the volumes they keep on their shelves to be as striking and as sensory as possible. And so, while most publishers are racing to keep up with the conquest of the screen, the true mavericks may well be people who are doing something very old-fashioned very well."  More

When reading the passage above I feel almost a romantic atmosphere illuminating in the words. It does cause me to wonder more about the future of books than perhaps any prognostication of the future or any pontification from the many already sold on electronics publications that I've read in the past couple of years about the future of books. Could there be a resonance in hard back books around the corner?  

I’ve made it pretty clear in past blog posts that I like my books with real pages.  I do have an e-reader on my phone and I have both a Kindle for PC and Nook for PC on my laptop.  I don’t use them a lot and I suppose one reason is that I don’t like to pay the price of a book for a digital file.  It’s a hang-up, yes.  I will admit it, but it remains a fact. One that I have had since day one of my introduction to e-books and it hasn’t eroded any that I can tell.

There are plenty of people that for one reason or another have trouble accepting e-books, I run across them routinely.  I suspect that at some point many of these hold outs, myself included may soften to e-books, but for many of us e-readers are not the novelty that they are for others.  I know this because while I’ve been easily drawn to many electronic gadgets this hasn’t happened where e-readers are concerned.

If and when I do gravitate more towards acceptance, I can tell you that I am likely to find the real novelty will be in that which still has paper pages to turn.  So will there become a cottage industry for those small presses that turn out books in smaller numbers in hardback?  Will the future choice be to order an e-book or a hardback?  Will most books be published as e-books and then after being out a while the really successful ones go to hardback, a sort of reverse of the traditional publishing paradigm?

No E-Books Without Authors, Atwood Reminds Us

I actually don’t disapprove of them, but I do predict that they will only ever occupy a small percentage of the market, in the same way that audio books, airport or large-print editions do. They will become one more – not the only – platform, and I’m hugely impatient for them to be normalized so that we can get back to talking about what’s in the books, rather than the formats themselves.

It seems the train has pulled out... where are we going?

For several weeks now I have been thinking about the future of the printed word as we know it.  As the weeks have gone by I have collected in my mind a spider web of sorts of related thoughts that have attached themselves or become caught-up in in my flow of thought. Some of these thoughts have been fueled by things I've heard on NPR or read elsewhere but they all seem to collide with the issue of where the electronic age we are in is taking publication of creative material.

It stared with feeling that perhaps this latest wave of ebook apparatus has perhaps been gaining traction.  I've watched with interest the pricing of electronic books themselves seem to hover for the most part at the $10 mark. Given materials for electronic books are (paper, ink binding) are non-existent, this leaves a larger profit margin to work with up front. So a traditional publisher who has the electronic rights has nearly no production costs.  You put together the artwork and set up the file and zing!  Oh, right, it still has to be marketed. They won't be seen on traditional bookshelves in stores unless they have a companion print edition.  They will need to be marketed  (thought pause) electronically! It seems that there really is little expenditure needed in this process, so my question is, "will this be a better deal financially for the writers or the publishers/distributors?"

The ultimate cost that these books settle into like anything else will adjust themselves based upon the market demand.If ebooks become the norm of future publishing this really could change the scope of the economics associated with earning a living as a writer. It could vastly improve it, but I tend to think that will not be universal. Certainly those who've made a name for themselves could adequately market their product without a distributor and many others will have to accept what margins publishers offer or battle for attention amid what is clearly going to be an abundance material as anyone will be able to publish.

Yet where this is leading economically, epubishing that is, is not the only aspect of this that is on my mind. A recent NPR piece called to question what impact the Internet and utilizing  electronic devices is having on our reading abilities. The Shallows': This is your brain Online offers some interesting questions about our  reading habits and comprehension. Are we so accustomed to the Internet with pop ups and scrolling, throw in e-mail and searches; that we are dumbing up our reading skills and comprehension. Because we can say something in 140 words or less doesn't mean it is the best way to communicate ideas.

I have a lot of questions and concerns about the future of print in our society. Answers I'm lacking.



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Publishing & the Future

About a week ago I blogged on the the news that a major publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt had advised their editors stop acquiring books.  This news signals that the economic meltdown has come to the publishing houses as well.

Another sign is renewed talk in the industry of the pitfalls of the book return policies by publishers. Allowing book stores to return unsold books is a costly expense. It requires the books to be transported multiple times and has become a hefty drain on publishers profits. Many of these unsold books will eventually be destroyed.

Booksellers resist changes in the credit arrangements that essentially guarantee that a book sells or will be replaced with another one which has the potential to sell. Many booksellers would dramatically reduce their inventories without such credits.

Such changes in the retail sales model could have negative consequences on a growing number of new writers that will find it increasingly challenging to find their way onto bookstore shelves.

Japanese publishers may be ahead of the curve. The Japanese publishing house Shogakukan Inc. has introduced a two-tiered distribution system for retailers.  Under this plan Booksellers can take books on a consignment basis which would be returnable at no cost or they can choose a non-consignment option, which offers a better profit margin for the retailer, but carries an charge if the books are returned. Such changes may be inevitable in the U.S. as well as long as consumers continue to prefer ink on a page they can hold in their hands.

Reports that the Kindle electronic book reader is sold out for the second Christmas season in a row would be positive news for those who believe the future of publishing is e-publishing. That future may still be some distance away.

Technorati Tags: Shogakukan Inc,Publishing industry,Kindle,economy,Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

She's been to the Mountain Top

Wisdom seems to be tied to experience or at least exposure. We often say it comes with age, but there are plenty of aging people that just don't get it. And too, people who ought to have the experience sufficient to acquire the wisdom but don't.

Reading a recent post on THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS by Eileen Tabios (AKA Moi), I am taken by how clearly she seems to see the poetry publishing model as it has evolved, as well as her vision of what could be the optimum working model. Let me reiterate I'm speaking about how she sees the way it has evolved. We all know that from both perspective of the poet and the consumer, it's broken.

I don't know if it is the air Tabios is breathing atop the mountain but perhaps more publishers should get out of their offices and trek up that mountain to get a different view of the landscape.

e-publishing?

Worked on some drafts & finished up one poem this weekend. Sent out three more into the world. Also did some brainstorming. So I would say it was a productive weekend. Also read a few poems.

I was interested to see several news items crop up on e-book readers. I had thought these items were like dead on arrival. Apparently some think not. Amazon is unveiling the new Kindle e-book reader Today in New York and Sony launched an upgraded version of its Sony Reader lat month. And The Wall Street Journal quoted an executive's estimated that e-book sales range between $15 million and $25 million annually. Still, in an industry that generated $25 billion in revenues last year that seems to me pretty small. I personally have downloaded e-books rarely, and I'm not sure that having a portable reader would change that much. I realize they do have some positive points including the environmental friendly nature but is there really that much potential for e-publishing?

How to fill the gap

I read something yesterday that suggested that there was a gap between what the traditional publishing world is doing and the kind of content that people get excited about. The statement not surprisingly came from an article on self-publishing.

Of course, we would all like to believe that we are that writer yet to be noticed by mainstream publishers and are certain as the night follows day that there we are just one of many worthy writers that have been overlooked, and perhaps hang to the belief that one day this fact will be history and that both of us (the right publisher who realizes this error and of course our self) will ultimately be rewarded.

Do publishers really not know what they are doing? To be certain, publishers in their vetting process do pick many books that go nowhere. However, the bottom line is these publishers do operate as a business enterprise and they do make money or they cease to exist. They are clearly also picking winners. The person exploring this topic suggested that the rise in Internet usage will actually force even traditional publishers to find ways to enter into non-traditional publishing. In doing so, will this bring greater respectability to both the Internet and self-publishing?

There are to be sure, problems with using an Internet model for traditional publishers and keeping profitability a part of the picture. I am not implying those problems are insurmountable, but how many people actually pay to read something on the Internet? Such a model would likely have to include advertising.

Some mainline publishers are however entering the print-on-demand markets, and those are likely more promising. I believe most avid readers of literature and poetry still want something in their hand as they read and don't want to scroll down a computer screen. Such print-on-demand would still carry a brand name that is equated with some degree of professionalism. Hence, there would continue to be a gap between what such a company offers and what you or I create ourselves privately in a POD format.

If there is a big gap between what traditional publishers are putting into the market place and what the public really wants, how do writers reach those people to fill that gap? This is the challenge for private publishing.

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