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The Limits of Technology

Peter KilbornInternational Supply Chain Meeting, Frankfurt 2009

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The book is dead.

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The book is dead.

Or was it just DK?

Change

• Why does it take so long?• Why does it behave irrationally?• Why does it sometimes not happen

at all?

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‘Analysts agree that a genuine mass market for consumer CD-ROM is now emerging in the US and Europe is expected to follow within the next year to eighteen months.’

- Information Market Observatory, December 1995

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'I think there is a world market for maybe five computers'

- Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943

'There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in the home'

- Ken Olsen, founder, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977

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‘Is Reed Elsevier going to be ‘the first victim of the Internet’ as the US business magazine Forbes recently suggested? The UK stock market certainly seems to be taking these reports seriously… The sharp drop in the … share price is a warning that many other publishers in the scientific field would do well to heed.’

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‘Simon & Schuster US has unveiled its first ebooks list. It is the latest in a tide of publishers to enter the US e-book market, which is believed to be on the point of explosion.’

- The Bookseller, September 2000

‘Andersen Consulting has estimated that worldwide sales of e-books could hit $2.3bn (£1.5bn) in five years.’

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Fast forward to 2010

- The Bookseller, September 1999

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‘Anything can be presented on an e-book reader or printed on demand, the two dominant delivery mechanisms for books 10 years from now.’

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‘E-book devices exist in a dizzying variety of configurations (though all are comfortably under £100 in today’s money)’.

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‘Terrestrial bookstores will offer POD capabilities.’

‘Home printing of books has become common.’

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‘Publishing technologies have evolved to suit the times. Copies of lead titles, perhaps 2000 each year, are printed centrally for visible display in stores. The majority of titles... are available only as e-books or printed books on demand.’

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‘The rights issues that prevented legacy backlist from becoming available in e-books or POD have disappeared for many titles.’

‘For authors these changes have brought some downside: most books published are written with no advance.’

‘’

What went wrong?

• Aversion to change• Lack of strategic vision• Vested interests• Lack of collaboration• Misguided opportunism• The market• Fear

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‘Publishers are "insulting" readers by expecting them to pay equivalent prices for e-books as for hardback versions.’

‘"We are kidding ourselves if we think we can charge the same for an e-book as we do for a print copy. Most ridiculous of all is charging the same as a hardback - we are insulting our audience to do that. If, and they will, e-books start to encroach on print sales, we have to find another way of dealing with that."’

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‘E-books, if successful, will sink the trade publishing industry.’

- Evan Schnittman, March 2009

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E-books are ‘effectively sold on a consignment basis. That means… that they cannot generate short-term cash flow like print books do.’

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‘…to have our Ponzi scheme and e-books too’

A world of e-books

• Reaching the consumer• No means of discovery• No way to brand or promote• Fundamental disruptive change in

the publishing business

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‘E-book readers will be introduced in the UK later this year, and have already proved popular with American users. From the Barnes & Noble web site, user comments include: ‘I don’t know how I got along without it’, ‘I will never go back to paper again; the future has arrived and it’s great.’

- Bookseller June 2000

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‘I didn’t understand all of the failings of a physical book, because I’m inured to them. But you can’t turn the page with one hand. The book is always flopping itself shut at the wrong moment.’

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Publishers will continue to depend on the printed book and the processes which accompany the publication of printed books as the bedrock of their businesses for at least another decade and probably much longer.

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Most digital content will be accessed through multi-functional devices, notably the mobile phone, or through smaller and more consumer-friendly laptops and tablets.

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POD will grow and become mainstream for backlist; but it won’t fulfil the original promise of providing true distributed print worldwide. Quality and range of options will continue to improve.

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Booksellers will struggle - but survive, and in niche areas prosper. The days of the high street book shop chains are numbered…

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The Espresso machine will remain a niche technology and may not find a role.

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Agents and authors will gradually accept that digital rights naturally belong with printed book rights and are better exploited together.

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There will be new trading partners muscling in on the book world’s traditional space; and it may not be a pretty sight.

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Publishers will see a return on investment for all the money they’ve put into digitization.

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Peter KilbornBook Industry Communication

http://www.bic.org.ukpeter@bic.org.uk