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Future of Books and Bookstores Discussion

January 24, 2009 in publishing by Kim | No comments

Recently, two terrific posts on the future of the book appeared in The Daily Beast.  Both find the foundation of literary future in downloadable content.  Another question was asked by Booksellers Blog, how are bookstores going to respond to the changing market.

Peter Osmos writes in “Who Says the Book Business is Dead?”that this round of digital readers are the beginning of a new way to receive and read  books.  He believes digital readers work for books (and will work better and cheaper with innovation), but they aren’t as effective for newspapers and magazines.  Moreover, audible reading is taking hold as people are listening to more written word content, “Earbuds are everywhere, and by no means are all of them blaring music.” 

In “An Autopsy of the Book Business” by Jason Epstein, he traces the decline of book publishing to the population shift from cities to the suburbs.  When people congregated in cities, there were independent bookstores with Read the rest of this entry »

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How an Idea becomes a Book

January 16, 2009 in publishing by Kim | 1 comment

The digital marketing team at MacmillanUSA prepared a Happy New Year message that describes how a book is published.  “From the Typewriter to to the Bookstore:  A Publishing Story” is funny.  My favorite part is when blogging, a higher art form, is described as more lucrative that writing books. 

Maybe next year these clever people will figure how to set this to music and pitch it to Schoolhouse Rock.

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A Couple of Links to Make You Think

January 12, 2009 in press, publishing, used books by Claire | No comments

Sometimes I just want to listen to what other people are saying

Over the last few weeks, I’ve come across or been sent some interesting articles about publishing and writing books, and since a lot of the issues raised are ones Kim and I have touched on in previous posts (like this one, about the demise of publishing), I wanted to share them with you all.

David Streitfeld had a piece in The New York Times over winter break that relates to the ongoing discussion Kim and I have been having about the morality of buying used books (see our previous posts about it).  In the piece, entitled Bargain Hunting for Books and Feeling Sheepish about It, Streitfeld essentially blames the decline of the independent bookstore and possibly the entire publishing industry on the habits of readers–like himself–who lazily buy the cheapest copies of books they can find on the Internet (new or used) and  also on those who resell the books they’ve read right out of their homes. Read the rest of this entry »

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Excellent Thoughts on the Demise of Book Publishing

December 31, 2008 in publishing by Kim | No comments

BookstorePeople strives to help independent bookstores, but bookstores are dependent upon the publishing industry and it’s in trouble.  We talked about these issues in the past and will continue in 2009.  I’ve come across two excellent, if lengthy, posts about the future of the publishing industry:

Tom Engelhardt surveys recent events

Tom Engelhardt, author (including the novel The Last Days of Publishing), editor, Fellow at The Nation Institute and founder of TomDispatch.com, wrote a post summarizing specifically how the publishing industry is slashing and cutting its staff and book lists, bookstores are sending an increasing percentage of book orders as “returns,” and the reading population is changing.  He offers interesting insights into why publishers have been shielded from the Internet onslaught until recently.  Primarily, books don’t promote advertising, so they were ignored and escaped the problems of competing with online alternatives to newspapers and magazines.  That could be changing with the advent of e-readers.  He does suggest that reading electronically will probably include an advertising angle sometime in the future.  The Internet has changed book reading though by offering a cheap alternative, Mr. Engelhardt notes that a month of Internet service with all it offers is about the same price as a paperback or hardback.  Reading isn’t the cheapest entertainment any longer.  Read the rest of this entry »

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The Demise of Books? Don’t Bet on It.

December 10, 2008 in bookstore, press, publishing by Kim | No comments

Publishing

There has been a flurry of stories about the demise of the book and book selling the last few weeks.  First electronic readers and digitized books, then the lay offs and salary freezes by the publishing houses, followed by the re-organization of Random House, all the events have people wondering if the recession will devastate the industry. 

A recent story on NPR listed the doom and gloom of publishing and hinted at ways it may change.  Books are the only products that can be returned for a full credit if they don’t sell. Remember the notices on books that you should never buy a book without a cover?  That’s because instead of shipping the entire book back to the publisher, only covers would be shipped with the understanding that the book would be thrown away.  The bookstore received a credit for the unsold books that were returned via the cover, to then sell such a book would be ‘double dipping.’  The return practice may die in the recession.  Read the rest of this entry »

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