Book industry joins the news business on the stupid train

The Internet and technology is transforming just about every industry there is. Some at more breakneck speed than others but the change is coming. Changing as well is the consumer’s buying habits as more of our goods are obtainable as never-ending digital goods and for an almost zero distribution cost.

The creators of the goods are finding even fewer reasons each year to depend on the largess of rich and powerful middleman companies. News is finding readers on its own as more and more avenues of distribution appear leaving the paper megalith corporations with drastically shrinking revenues.

The same thing is happening to the book publishing industry as authors are finding that the stigma associated with self-publishing and marketing is quickly evaporating. The publishers are facing a future of electronic distribution that is beyond their control as e-reader, and more typical devices like smartphones and computers, gain market momentum as principal ways to read our books.

As with the newspaper industry these draconian methods of publishing and distribution are finding themselves becoming marginalized. Unfortunately they are also following in the footsteps of the news industry in their battle to maintain their centuries old status quo.

Today Simon & Schuster announced that they will be holding back any e-book versions of published books for at least 4 months. They argue this is needed in order to make a stand against the current pricing practice of e-books at $9.99 which they consider to be cut-rate pricing of their goods.

“The right place for the e-book is after the hardcover but before the paperback,” said Carolyn Reidy, CEO of Simon & Schuster, which is owned by CBS Corp. “We believe some people will be disappointed. But with new [electronic] readers coming and sales booming, we need to do this now, before the installed base of e-book reading devices gets to a size where doing it would be impossible.”

Source:Wall Street Journal Online

The problem is that companies like Simon & Schuster are fighting against the inevitable future where their closely guarded profit margins won’t matter because the consumer and the creators will go around them.

Addition the really big elephant in the room has yet to make its presence official but the word is that Apple is coming out with a tablet with designs on the e-book market. If the book publishers thought that companies like Amazon and Barnes & Noble were hard negotiator on price they would do well to take a quick lesson from the music industry – Apple doesn’t negotiate.

If Apple is coming to market with a tablet priced at a level that makes it attractive to a larger demographic than just Apple fans and geek heads the book publishing business is going to be in for a rude awakening.

Instead what we have is the same short term thinking that has been the bane of both the music and newspaper industry before them. As Frank Shaw pointed out

The fundamental question is pretty simple, if you think long term, are digital readers better for the industry overall? As in, over time will volume go up compared to print only sales? It certainly seems the answer is yes, which means the publishers are making short term profit decisions that will kill them over time. And seriously, seeing a publisher moan about protecting authors is a hoot as the guy from Hachette does here, “I can’t sit back and watch years of building authors sold off at bargain-basement prices. It’s about the future of the business.” Almost as good as the music industry talking about how they are “protecting” bands. Sheesh.

Sheesh indeed, but as the rhetoric is showing there is still plenty of room left on the stupid bus.