Business models of traditional and new publishing

Synthetized in a single business model canvas, you can easily see the main differences between the traditional and new pusblishing industry.

Books have existed for a very long time and play an important role in people’s life. Book publishers had time to build a strong market position and to anchor their brand in readers mind. These are called “traditional book publishers”. For about two years, their position has become weaker and more and more endangered by the evolution of technology. With the success of Apple, the behaviour of people has changed and they are getting used to tactile and modern products. Following the innovative trend, a new way of book publishing was created, the whole traditional publishing process has been disrupted.

Thanks to the new way of publishing, it has become easier to publish a book. Everybody is now able to sell his book. After writing it, a simple exportation to PDF followed by an upload to a publishing platform are required. Then the sales can begin. A consequence of this process is that there is no longer quality control on the contents of books compared to traditional publishing.

Each process has its strengths and weaknesses, but for the moment, none of them outperforms the other. For example Amazon has announced in January 2010 that 6 Kindle eBook are sold for every 10 physical books when both editions are available. The association of American Publishers declared that eBooks sales have nearly quadrupled between January and August 2010 ($ 89.8 million in 2009 à $ 263 million in 2010). Even if this growth seems amazing eBooks sales represent only 9% of total consumer book sales in 2010, but they represented only 3.30 % in 2009. This shows the exponential increase of eBook sales.

The evolution from traditional to modern publishing

Here is a slideshow explaining changes in the book publishing process. Please click on the full screen mode to better see the presentation!

Publishing industry evolution

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Homemade by Gregg, member of book publishing industry!

Self-published authors find e-success

I found an interesting article talking about e-books from the authors' perspective. Some of them actually find success with the e-book format, while they had been rejected from traditional publishers for years. Konrath, a self-published author, declare:

""I am a guy who had his butt kicked by the industry for 20 years, and now I'm showing other authors what they can do so they don't have to go through the same thing," he says. "Traditional book publishers are just serving drinks on the Titanic." Konrath has seen his income from his self-published e-book sales go from $1,400 in April 2009 to $68,000 in April 2011."

Other authors began with great e-book sales but later decided to contract a traditional publisher in order to reach a larger audience. For example, Hocking who was formerly self-publishing her e-books, now decided to turn to a professional publishing house.

"Several self-published e-book superstars — most famously Amanda Hocking — have landed headline-making contracts with major publishing houses, which will be releasing their titles in print and digital formats (...).
"I wanted to reach more readers," Hocking says. She points out that most people — particularly the young teens she writes for — do not own iPads or e-readers. Hocking says it's about the story, not the device. "I wanted to write a fun book, not start a revolution."

Finally, authors simply prefer being dealing with traditional publishers so they can focus on writing. Andrew Martin, a publisher says:

"An established publishing house lets the author do what he does best — write — while the publisher offers expert marketing, editing, production and aggressive protection against e-books being illegally pirated."

Source: USA TODAY Newspaper, Deirdre Donahue
http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/story/2011-12-14/self-published-authors-ebooks/51851058/1

Ventes d'ebooks multipliées par 7 entre 2010 et 2015

Lors d'une présentation au Liberty Media's investor meeting, jeudi dernier, le libraire Barnes & Noble a fait part de ses prévisions pour le marché du livre imprimé et numérique. Des constats intéressants, tout autant que les pronostics posés par la chaîne.

Celle-ci estime en effet que le marché du livre imprimé va décroître pour passer de 21 milliards de dollars en 2010 à 14 milliards de dollars en 2015. Parallèlement à cela, le marché du livre numérique devrait passer selon le libraire de 1 milliard de dollars en 2010 à 7 milliards de dollars en 2015. L'un dans l'autre, donc, la perte en papier devrait être compensée par les ventes de numériques, si l'on suit leur projection.

En ce qui le concerne plus précisément, le libraire a prévu de gagner des parts de marché sur le secteur du livre imprimé (notamment parce que son plus gros concurrent, Borders, n'est plus là) passant de 17 % à 20 %.

Il a estimé que ses ventes de livres imprimés devraient chuter de 3,6 milliards de dollars à 2,8 milliards de dollars toujours sur la même période. Il a envisagé une augmentation de ses ventes d'ebooks qui passeraient de 250 millions de dollars en 2010 à plus de 2 milliards de dollars en 2015.

Selon Barnes & Noble, sur l'année fiscale 2012, ses ventes d'appareils Nook et de contenus numériques devraient atteindre 1,8 milliard de dollars. Sur l'année fiscale 2011, ces ventes-là s'élèvent à 880 millions de dollars.

Source : www.actualitte.com, 21 novembre 2011

Amazon and the Incredible Disruption of The Publishing Industry

Here is a great article summarizes the whole idea of the disruption of the traditional publishing industry, notably the one triggered by Amazon.

The Incredible Disruption of The Publishing Industry

Amazon.com is at the heart of the disruption and the opportunity. I first started watching Amazon closely about 5 years ago or so when I learned of CreateSpace, Amazon's "do-it-yourself" publishing site where basically anyone can upload a PDF, choose a cover (or create your own) and... publish your book into Amazon.com! The cool thing is that your book shows up in Amazon listings just like those from the traditional publishers.

1. Write your book.
2. Export to PDF.
3. Upload to CreateSpace.
4. Start Selling!

Boom!

That's the sound of the traditional publishing industry business model going up in smoke...

In the years since, CreateSpace has of course expanded into ebooks and Amazon's rolled out many other services helping authors get their content out.

Now, of course, to do it on your own is not quite that simple. Traditional publishers provide some key assistance to authors:

1. Editing - a critical piece of writing a book
2. Design - of the cover, the book, graphics, the typefaces, etc.
3. Marketing - promoting the book across many different channels, advertising, etc.
4. Distribution - getting the book out to where people will buy it

Editing, design and marketing are all areas where you can find people to help you... and the distribution is the whole point of what Amazon.com, Smashwords, Lulu and a zillion other sites will now help you with. Sure, the traditional publishers can help you with distribution out to brick-and-mortar bookstores... but how are those doing these days? (The sad subject of another blog post at some point.) For some authors those bookstores may be a market... and for them the traditional publishers may be necessary. For other authors starting out - or writing for more niche audiences, the "indie publishing" route may work better.

Some Traditional Publishers Get It

I should note that some publishers certainly "get it", have seen the disruption and are doing what they can to both survive and thrive in this new world. The primary reason why I signed with O'Reilly for my latest book was because the entire idea behind the the book was for it to be an "ebook" that could be constantly updated as we as an industry learn more about IPv6 application migration.[1] O'Reilly has long been paying attention... they brought out Safari Books Online many years ago... they have their excellent Radar blog/site that indeed includes ongoing commentary about the disruption in the industry... and they sponsor the annual excellent Tools of Change for Publishing conference. I wrote earlier about how O'Reilly makes it so easy to get ebooks onto your mobile devices.

O'Reilly is a stellar example of publishers who see the changes and are looking at how to be part of that wave. There are others, too. The smart ones are evolving.

Some Traditional Publishers Don't

Others aren't. As both the GigaOm and NYT piece mention, some of the traditional publishers are instead fighting tooth and nail to hang on to some relevance.

I loved Mathew's ending paragraph:

Here’s a hint for book publishers: take a lesson from the music industry, and don’t spend all your time suing people for misusing what you believe is your content — think instead about why they are doing this, and what it says about how your business is changing, and then try to adapt to that. Amazon is giving authors what they want, and as long as it continues to do so, you will be at a disadvantage. Wake up and smell the disruption.

Wake up and smell the disruption, indeed!

Source : www.disruptiveconversations.com, by Dan York, October 18, 2011

Local Bookstores Ask Customers To Boycott Amazon Over New Price Check App Offer

Should people boycott Amazon? Increasing numbers of retailers and publishers have been daring to ask the question, in the face of aggressive tactics by the book industry leader.

Although Amazon offers an unmatched selection of books and other products via its website, some of the Seattle-based company's recent moves, such as its book lending program and its sales tax policy, have led many retailers, publishers and politicians to turn against it. But would enough customers change their spending habits in order to force a shift in the company's behavior?

Earlier this year, a movement in California called on customers to boycott Amazon over the online store's attempts to avoid paying internet sales tax in the state.

Now an offer related to the company's new Price Check app for smartphones is causing further dissatisfaction with Amazon's aggressive policies.

Read the rest of the article here

Source : huffingtonpost.com December 9, 2011

Soupçons de cartel entre Apple et les éditeurs.

J’ai trouvé aujourd’hui cet article dans le journal suisse allemand NZZ. La commission européenne cherche à savoir si Apple a conclu des contrats avec les éditeurs tels que Hachette Livre, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin et George von Holzbrinck qui ne sont pas conformes à la loi sur les cartels en ce qui concerne les ventes de livres électroniques.

Pour le moment, Apple et les éditeurs concernés n’ont fait aucun commentaire. Cette affaire est à suivre de près.

Cliquer ici pour lire l'article (attention c'est en allemand ;-) )

Source: nzz.ch, December 6, 2011