In 2009 the page has turned on the book biz

The medium isn’t always the message. In his 2000 best-seller, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, the American pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell described a “tipping point” as "the moment of critical mass, the threshold, the boiling point" when change becomes unavoidable and inevitable. But Gladwell didn’t use his Tipping Point – a printed book that was mass published and sold through both traditional and online bookstores -- to either discuss or execute fundamental change within the publishing industry.

Today, almost ten years after the publication of the Tipping Point, the medium has finally caught up with the message. Till now, of course, while the Internet has savaged the newspaper and recorded industries, it has had much less impact on the book business. But in 2009, one big thing and many little things in new media have conspired to bring the traditional publishing industry to a boiling point. Writers, publishers and readers have collectively reached that moment of critical mass, at a threshold of fundamental change from which, like it or not, they can’t retreat.

That one big thing is digital book technology. Till now, the e-book has been more breathless theory than digital practice. But now with the growing popularity of the second generation Amazon Kindle (only still available in the US), the Sony Reader and persistent rumors of an imminent digital reading device from the dominant American book retailer Barnes and Noble, the idea of replacing the bulky print book with a convenient digital device is becoming increasingly attractive to more and more readers.

Digital has even begun to revolutionize the printing process itself. A couple of weeks ago, publishing industry professionals at the London Book Fair were treated to demonstration of the radical new Expresso Book Machine – a digital contraption that prints books on demand in under five minutes. This so-called “ATM for books -- the invention of ex Random House publisher Jason Epstein – changes everything about traditional retail bookstores. With the Expresso Book Machine, book retailing has suddenly gotten very flat -- the tiniest bookseller now having access to the identical inventory as the megastore.

But it’s the little changes in the publishing industry that are really making all the difference to the publishing business in 2009. Some of these changes are connected with the ecosystem of the e-book. Take Apple’s iPhone app store, for example, which is featuring more and more digital applications -- such as Scroll Motion, Short Covers and Classics -- for reading e-books on the telephone. Indeed, the Apple store has become so popular with readers that Amazon last week announced its acquisition of Lexcyle, the company behind the most popular iPhone app -- the Stanza e-reading interface. 

Then there are the increasingly innovative changes to the way in which traditional publishers are packaging and selling digital books. A couple of weeks ago, for example, Random House UK launched BookAndBeyond, an enhanced ebook initiative which provides consumers of ebooks with interactive audio and video interviews and features from popular authors like James Patterson, Lee Child and Marcus Zuzak.

And so, without huge fanfare, Gladwell’s tipping point has caught up with the book business. The age-old reality of distributing centrally published print books through retail stores is being replaced by a new reality of interactive e-books and an evolving ecosystem of supply and demand. 2009 might, therefore, be remembered as one of those rare moments when the paradigm really does shift; it’s the year that the medium seems to have finally caught up with the message.

Comments

[Tumblemoose]

This is good stuff. I know folks are afraid of change, but I think ebooks will do for the publishing industry what it did for the music industry - turn it on its head and shake it until the change falls out of the pockets.

Found you via Twitter, BTW. Thanks for the follow

Cheers

George

[Sascha]

Afraid? Of what?
I'm pretty certain by now that they won't burn books now. So even if they stop printing right now I'll still have enough to read till the day I die.
And for the rest Internet is a very nice place, full of every kind of things, funny and useful.
The problem will be with those people who'll never learn to get lost in deep reading and will be practically forced to jump continuosly from one little thing to another little thing, faster and faster and faster, dreading the idea of being left behind...
Not my problem, really.

[Jack Hutton]

People have been saying this for years, though none of them have been as naive as the writer of this post, who seems to really believe this trash, and to boot seems to think it's a new idea.

Print on demand is not a viable replacement for offset print runs. It never will be. And there are big issues with ebooks that will never be solved.

More print books are being sold now than ever before.

The points made in this post are the same bogus things said by two groups of people:

1) Writers who are frustrated with the reality of how hard it is to make a living through writing and want a shortcut around the traditional process;

2) Vanity presses and people who make a living selling this dream of being published either online or POD without having to be told by 100 agents and publishers that you suck.

Go ask Stephanie Meyer or J.K. Rowling how many of their millions they've made from digital copies and gimmicky nonsense.

I know the postmodern smugness of this age makes you want to think that everything changes, but that doesn't make it true.