The Key to Publisher Survival
By Cathy Macleod
IN the darkness that now grips the book trade, global publishers are stumbling blind to find the spoor of that animal called reader. And their biggest problem is not the worldwide economic downturn.
While many publishers diagnose profit slump as part of the world recession, the trouble goes deeper. It is a terminal disease that has been growing for years. Simply put, their own marketeers are to blame, because it began when celebrity mania and brand-name authors replaced good books.
Having gambled an advance in millions of dollars to secure rights, a publisher has to ensure massive sales. This means more huge outlay on printing, distribution and promotion. And, with bookchains and distributers claiming their mandatory 60 percent of the retail price, that price needs to be high to return hard cash.
So books cost more. The sturdy trade hardback has now become just an oversize paperback. Pay more get less? That’s not how to woo readers.
Readers like to read. Sounds obvious, yet in recent years the quantity of good reads has diminished while book prices soar. Sales, as a result, have decreased. Among numerous laments from publishers and booksellers, one giant reports its fiscal-quarter operating income has slid to $3 million from $36 million a year ago.
The solution has to lie with digital publishing, the promotion of ebooks, persuading traditional book readers to make the switch to new technology. A few of the big publishers are beginning to realize this. However, they have yet to learn that most people remain reluctant to tackle a lengthy on-screen read. The habit of a lifetime is hard to change.
Rather than push glamour titles, marketeers should be coaxing people to try reading on a digital appliance. A good short-story, novella, or generous free excerpt is the best bait to tempt hesitant experimenters.
For a fraction of the Highstreet price of a book, any reader these days can download it to a reading device of their choice. There are several such appliances around. Personally I use my laptop with free Mobipocket Reader software installed. This free software is available at mobipocket.com.
At first disinclined to abandon the long-loved paperback, I now find the same enjoyment by reading from a screen that is arranged to resemble one. And if I want to make a note in the margin I can do that also, using an annotation button. I can enlarge the type, change the font, and do other little things to personalize the book. This was never possible with hard-printed tomes.
The ebooks are permanently stored in my Mobipocket Reader programme, which also imports any of my self-created documents for easy perusal. I used to download and print-out texts browsed from the Internet so that I could read them at leisure. Now I save paper and ink by reading them on Mobipocket.
Next step, presumably, will be to buy one of the handheld gadgets, currently rather expensive. I am waiting for the marketeers to woo me, but, meanwhile, digital reads are the delight my reading has always been!
About the Author
Cathy Macleod is an independent critic who monitors the book world for good reads.Visit her at booktaste.com
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