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not a scary picture
I think the e-book debate is over. All those who said that paper books smelled better and were safer to read in the bath turned out to have underestimated the appeal of the new technology. Of course paper books will never die (nor would I want them too) and they won't even seriously wane in lots of areas until e-book technology greatly improves. But in the meantime e-books are taking whopping great slices of the text-only publishing pie (and that's at a time when they're still doing lots wrong and everything else badly. See my previous post.)
The ease with which it's now possible to buy a book is incredible. In fact I think I would characterise my most recent purchases as 'blithe'. You see an Amazon link to a book. Click once to go to Amazon. Click twice to select the Kindle version. Click thrice to 'Buy now with 1-Click®'. Now open your Kindle (either the app or the device) and wait for the book to load. It's rare for that whole process to take more than a minute - and despite what the reactionaries say, not only can you read e-books in the bath, it's pretty easy to buy them when you're there too. I speak from experience.
There's just one thing wrong in all of this: it's all Amazon. I thought the Kindle app was horrible until I tried the Kobo offering. It's perversely bad (I kept activating confusing features by accident and when I clicked on a footnote I lost my place in the book). Though it wouldn't make any difference if it were brilliant. Everyone has an Amazon account and when you think e-books, you probably think 'Kindle'. I saw on a friend's Twitter feed that WHSmiths are just about to start selling Kobo readers. Does anyone think this amounts to hitching your wagon to a star? I mean if WHSmiths are partnering with Kobo I take that as a bad omen for Kobo. (My personal belief is that WHSmiths are so badly run they're sometimes a danger to their suppliers.)
'Positive feedback' is that phenomenon where the more you have the more you can get and it applies to Amazon in the book arena. It's about things like economies of scale, critical mass, being the six-hundred pound gorilla at the table. Put it like this: as a reader, why wouldn't you buy your e-books from Amazon? It's the obvious - and I would say the best - choice. But pretty soon Amazon will completely dominate the e-book market - and the e-book market will dominate much of publishing (Amazon can also look forward to a rising share of the paper book market each time a conventional book chain goes bust). And that won't be good because Amazon have a history of playing rough and fighting dirty. If they achieve effective monopoly, they'll want to take the lion's share of the profits available to the book supply chain. Prepare to be squeezed.
I don't know what can be done about it because we've left it extremely late to start fighting back. Maybe Apple could do it if they got serious about their not-very-impressive iBooks platform (though, interestingly, Newsstand may well make them a force to be reckoned with in periodicals). Maybe Google could do it if they had a compelling reason to (book vending is not really where anyone's dreams of avarice lead them). But I don't know what the rest of us can achieve. Sorry to be gloomy about this, but I don't currently see a solution. Publishers refusing to sell to Amazon, or collectively negotiating terms, would only make a dent if most of us did it (and that sort of feels like fighting anti-competitive ends with anti-competitive means), plus we'd really need to get started on that in about 2006. Anyone got any differing views on whether that's where we're headed or what we might be able to do about it?
Comments: 4
Interesting post, Rob. From what I've read over the last year or so, no one really knows what to do about it - least of all the big publishers. And the matter is further complicated by the fact that more and more writers (in most cases, I use the term loosely) are self-publishing straight to Kindle and bypassing publishers altogether. Even big-name writers are doing it.
Nevertheless, publishers remain (and should remain) the gatekeepers in terms of ensuring a certain standard of quality; and even those writers (how many? Two?) who have hit the big time after self-publishing success on Kindle have been offered traditional publishing deals on the strength of it.
I think that Amazon will achieve an effective monopoly, but the question is, how long will that last before others (whether Google or Apple or whoever) decide to really get their act together and mount a serious challenge? Things look grim at the moment because this technology is still in its infancy; but further down the line, Amazon is bound to be challenged by other big players.
While we're on the subject, how's it going with Snow's plans to put their books on Kindle? As a Snowbooks author, it's of considerable interest to me.
Posted by: Alan Baker on October 16, 2011 06:28 AM
Hi Alan, the 'gatekeeper' thing is an interesting one. I mean, if there's a market for a particular author, would it really be right for us to try to stand in the way? So are we only 'gatekeepers' in the sense that we try to predict what will sell so that we don't waste money on the uncommercial stuff? And does that mean that if there was a cheaper way to release books (which, increasingly there is) we can just lob it all out there and let the market decide? Like Clay Shirky says in his very interesting book Here Comes Everybody, in some ways the internet allows you to do your filtering *after* you publish an article or what-have-you (based on feedback) not before (based on predictions).
On the Snowbooks Kindle front, there have certainly been enough hours put in to convert all our titles many times over. I think we'll have all the wrinkles ironed out very soon now.
Posted by: Rob on October 16, 2011 07:37 AM
Hi Rob. Regarding publishers as gatekeepers, I think the criterion is quality rather than commercialism. In principle, it might be OK to publish Kindle editions of anything one thinks could be popular (since the overheads are so small), but I'm pretty sure it would damage a publisher's credibility if the quality of the writing wasn't there. I've done the rounds of a few writers' networking sites, and there are some real stinkers out there (and a few absolute gems also, it must be said).
I read somewhere that, since publishers are less inclined to put time and effort into editing these days, even big name authors' books now contain typos and infelicities of style which, a few years ago, would have been caught and corrected prior to publication.
I think your question on whether it's right for publishers to "stand in the way" of an author trying to reach a particular market is a very important one. If the material is good and well-written, the answer, I guess, is no; but if it's a good story badly written (or a bad story badly written), then the publisher's reputation is at stake in putting it out there (even just to Kindle). The question then becomes: do you spend precious time working with the author to knock their material into shape (which may or may not be possible), or do you concentrate on good material that requires minimal editing?
Your point about filtering after publication, based on feedback, is also important. To me, it implies a scatter-gun approach - i.e. fire off a big bunch of stuff and see what sticks. But is that really what publishers should be doing, when the online community of unpublished writers are already doing it?
Posted by: Alan Baker on October 17, 2011 04:33 AM
Hi Rob, a thought-provoking post.
I wonder, with WHSmith about to sell Kobo readers, if they've hitched their wagon to the wrong star?
On the subject of ebooks eventually killing off traditionally published books, I rather warmed to the optimistic view of the future of printed books given by Professor Robert Darton in Episode 4 of Fry's Planet Word. if you missed it, here's the link on BBC iPlayer, his view between 43.05 and 45.13.
link
I'm sure that Alan Baker is correct when he considers that further down the line there'll be a healthy challenge to the big players, primarily Amazon.
And then surely it's a win-win situation? Even more ways to buy books and ebooks online, with more being published year on year: more choice for the reader and potentially more customers for the publisher and writer. And surely a knock-on effect with book shops…
Although a publisher's job will become more difficult than ever to wave above the crowd, I guess that's the way it's always been, having to meet each new challenge head on.
Posted by: David Griffin on October 17, 2011 09:41 PM