Business Of Books 2018: Digital Models Favor Subscriptions and Streaming Over Purchases and Ownership

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Business of Books 2018New tunes for an old trade” explores “the underlying trends shaping the transformation [of the publishing industry] and takes a closer look at a number of case studies that show how new actors are managing to innovate in the business of books.” The paper aims to identify the principles governing “how the publishing industry is pushing back its horizons in an age of platform-based interactions, community-driven business dynamics, and cross-media exploitation of intellectual property.”

. . . .

The hybridization and simultaneous combination of new and old practices that is so characteristic of this transformation can be seen at all levels of publishing:

  • In the role and reach of authors, as well as the empowerment of the recipients, the consumers, as they define the public space – the agora – in which publishers work
  • In the very concept of “storytelling”, which no longer has a privileged connection to books, but has once again become detached from formats as the boundaries blur between different media and channels
  • Content is created across formats and media, by any participant in the community, by professionals and by amateurs, by industrial companies and by lone individuals
  • The power of digitization has been unleashed through mobile devices, bringing reading, movies, games and social interactions seamlessly and coequally to the attention of consumers

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8 thoughts on “Business Of Books 2018: Digital Models Favor Subscriptions and Streaming Over Purchases and Ownership”

  1. I only have so many dollars to go around each month. 1 or 2 subs is all I can afford and those two are Netflix and Amazon. Everyone else is out of luck. Let me buy your damn software.

  2. Companies would love a locked in steady payment to just getting a lump sum when you feel like you actually ‘need’ something. Those ‘rent to own’ stores come to mind. You pay 3-4 times what the stuff should have cost …

    On the other hand, most of us will use something until it becomes unusable (my MS Office 2000 still loads on my Windows 7 system!) and even at very low rates companies will make more having you pay by subscriptions.

    The problem for those companies is that most of us can do basic math. (‘Only $5 a month’ turns into $60 a year or $300 for five years for something I paid just $100 for one time to use until I can’t find something to run it on.) Sure, the sales drones claim you can just pay for it when you need it – but they’ll not mention the hours you’ll waste trying to cancel it for the times you don’t need it.

    Things that you are always pulling fresh content (Netflix) I can see, but not Photoshop and other programs that seldom if ever change – and sometimes it actually helps to be able to avoid their ‘upgrading’ you to something that doesn’t work as well as it once did (like ms has been doing to windows 10 …)

    YMMV as the kids say, but for most people buying will be better for them than renting.

    • “The problem for those companies is that most of us can do basic math.”

      Uh, sadly, I don’t think that’s true for the general public. Illiteracy and illnumerancy are rampant out there, as has been demonstrated over and over again.

      Yeah, TPVers can certainly do math. But we’re outliers. Just ask trad pub about their increasing mid-list author sayonaras and diminishing new author sign-ups.

      • Sad but true.

        The dumb enough to use it ones soon find they can’t afford it, while the ones that can afford it are usually smart enough not to. 😉

    • I intend to keep using Photoshop CS6 until it simply won’t work anymore. Then I’ll probably go back to GIMP.

      I’d still be using Windows XP, but my sons won’t let me. I have Windows 7 now, and hope I don’t have to upgrade. I’m using Word 2013, but I’d rather have 2007 back. Oh, well. Some progress has to be tolerated, I guess.

    • The real problem I have with programs like Photoshop and their sub-only model is that it leaves no room for people who don’t need to use the program as an integral part of their daily job. If you’re an indie author who wants to learn how to make your own professional-quality covers but doesn’t want to make other covers to sell, you’re left with either paying way too much for a monthly sub for a program you may only need to use a few times a year, or using a less than professional grade product that you can find for a single payment. While I would have been interested in investing the time to learn the professional level Photoshop if I could have gotten it for a single payment, there’s no way I’m doing a sub-only model, so I bought an older version of Elements for like $30 off eBay. I’ll never be able to do impressive stuff, cover-wise, but it does some basic stuff that I need, so it’s better than a lot of the alternatives. But it’s a concession I wish I didn’t have to make. If Adobe would have let me buy the professional level Photoshop outright for $300 or so, I probably would have. Instead, they got nothing from me (since even the Elements, I bought from a third party seller). By restricting their program to a model that leaves no room for casuals, it seems like they’re leaving a lot of money on the table. Or they would be, if they considered any sort of ethics in this sort of thing. I wouldn’t consider a sub model for a single program that didn’t get constant quality refreshes to be an ethical business model. It’s a cash-grab, pure and simple, and cash grabs drive me away quicker than almost anything else.

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