Digital Publishing: The Grinch Who Stole Christmas?
So how many articles have we read about E-books and
Digital Publishing this year? For anyone who generally follows the book world
(rabid booklover, book-blogger, industry pro or casual reader), we’re literally
inundated with the amazing numbers—“E-book sales up 125% (again) over the 175%
they were up from last year’s 225% increase!”—and equally amazing technological
announcements—“Next Fall, the new ZimWittyZoomDitty tablet not only updates
your Facebook and Goodreads friends whenever you snort in disgust … it cooks
dinner for you at the same time!”
This leads many to take at least casual stock of what’s
going on/going to happen to the “Publishing World” as we know it. And if your friends are like my friends
(hardcore print book consumers), that stock is usually pretty morbid (sharp
Greenwich Village angst not included): “Print
books are doomed, so are brick-and-mortar stores. Goodbye literary quality. Oh and some pajama-wearing
techie living in a basement with a laptop is going to be the new Sulzburger;
we’ll all have to bow down!”
If you (or that good friend of yours) fall into the mortified
category, my take (for what it’s worth) may come as positive news: E-books are not, and will not be, the Grinch Who Stole Christmas; in this
case, the “Print World’s” bacon. Now, as the owner of a “Digital First”
publishing house (Astor + Blue Editions, www.astorandblue.com)
my opinions may easily be written off as self-serving and invalid. But bear with me for a minute… these are
fact-based observations and I might just make sense (Someone tell my mom and
dad).
We have to remember that in fact the book market is growing.
Readership always grows because population
always grows. Every year, new readers
enter the vast pool of the club that is “adult readership,” (despite Dancing
with the Stars). And every year more readers are being born and theoretically being
inspired by Ms. Crabtree’s elementary reading class. **So why the decline? Readership grows gradually, but the sheer
number of books and book vendors grow exponentially, showing an investment loss
almost every year. (Basic statistics: the widening universe makes it look like
a shrinking pie when it isn’t).
So what does this mean?
If you look at the numbers (historically), revenue for print books may
have declined, yes, but not more than “normal,” and not significantly more
than it did when there were no E-books
around. (This is arguable of course, but the long term numbers do not show
a precipitous drop-off). The yearly revenue decline, if there is one,
can just as easily be written off to economic conditions as to E-book competition. Bottom line:
Any drop in print revenue that may be caused by E-books are not
significantly sharp enough to declare that E-books are destroying print book sales. (Hence no Grinch).
What may be happening, and what I believe is happening is
that a whole new market for E-books is developing, while the print book market
growth, like Publishing as a whole, is still growing at a historically gradual
pace. (Boringly flat). Come up with your
pet anecdote here, but I believe that more new readers are entering the market (who
otherwise wouldn’t have) because of E-readers; existing readers are consuming
more books (both print and e-book) than they did before; and while it would
seem that a certain print title is losing a sale whenever readers buy it in E-book
format, this is offset, at least somewhat, by the fact that more print titles
are being bought (that otherwise wouldn’t) because of the extra marketing buzz
and added awareness produced by the E-book’s cyber presence. All of it evens out in the end, and I believe,
ultimately fosters growth industry-wide.
So take heart Print fans, E-books are not the dark
villain you think they are. And here, I
should correct my earlier analogy—that E-books are not the Grinch Who Stole
Christmas. They may actually be the
Grinch…in as much as, at the end of the story, the pear-shaped green guy ended
up not only giving all the presents back to the singing Who-villers, he created
a flash mob and started a big party as well.
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