From Publishing Perspectives:
In its opening on Tuesday, the eighth annual Digital Book World conference in New York City attracted some 650 registrants.
. . . .
[I]t was interesting to hear Macmillan CEO John Sargent say as he opened his keynote that when conference attendees were asked to submit questions ahead of the event, “Oddly enough, almost none of the questions had anything to do with digital—here at Digital Book World.”
This had played into what Sargent wanted to say, however, about the abiding thrust of the industry’s work. While he sees “a bit of hand-wringing, still, on the digital dark side,” seven years into the digital disruption of publishing, “ink-and-paper books continue to be the favorite, not only the way for the population as a whole but for our kids to read.”
In terms of digital sales, Sargent said, “Ebook growth has stopped, and it has stopped before it forced book retailers out of the business, as it did music and video” retailers.
“All this doesn’t mean that we’re through the transition to digital” yet, Sargent cautioned. “And there are certainly many, many dangers ahead.”
What he called “the good news and the bad news” is the rise of the self-publishing sector . . . . It’s growing through Amazon Kindle Unlimited,” he said. “We don’t know how big it is, but we know it’s very big. And what it tells us [is that] there is plenty of reading going on out there.”
. . . .
In listing more hurdles, Sargent said “There are fewer and fewer newspapers out there, and their audiences are shrinking. Discovery is an ever-growing problem. Big titles get bigger, and everything else gets harder and harder to find and sells fewer and fewer copies. Retail power is consolidating.”
But publishing, Sargent said, is an “instinctual business” exemplified that “no algorithm could have predicted that a book by the least popular president of our time, George Bush, would outsell a book by the most popular president of our time, Ronald Reagan. That happened.”
Still, despite the importance of gut instinct, many decisions made in publishing “can be improved,” Sargent said, “by using data, in every aspect of our business from supply chain and workflows to editorial acquisitions.”
Sargent mentioned Macmillan’s acquisition of Pronoun, a self-publishing platform, as a way of getting closer to data-driven decisions and self-publishing. One reason for the acquisition, he said, is to gather data and “insights into the self-publishing model and how it works.”
In an observation on the comparative advantages the industry has over “our friends in Seattle,” he asserted that “as a community, we can do better” in terms of marketing.
But he also conceded that the smartest decisions in that regard haven’t always been on view: “We’ve pissed away millions of dollars over the years on ads on the back page of The New York Times to sell eight more books.”
Link to the rest at Publishing Perspectives
PG says a bit of tweaking around the edges won’t save Big Publishing.
Not knowing anything about self-publishing, not only the size of the market but why authors choose that market, would be an unforgivable blind spot in any reality-based industry.
Did a bit of quick research into Pronoun. It looks to be a legitimate service that won’t be around in a couple of years.
Beyond its capital investment, Pronoun’s only revenue stream is funneling authors to its traditional imprint partners. Amazon uses the same model with Amazon imprints, but Amazon also makes money on the thousands of authors it doesn’t funnel to its imprints.
To outlast its capital investment, I’d say Pronoun will either have to start skimming from vendor payments, charge flat fees, upsell aggressively, or funnel authors to vanity imprints as well as traditional imprints. The first two options are not egregious–fees paid for services rendered.
Pronoun/Macmillan can also SELL the indie author data they gather. 🙂
If you don’t have to pay for a company’s service, *you* are their product.
You don’t get something for nothing. You just don’t. Sooner or later, the bill will have to be paid.
He admits to not knowing how big indie publishing is and then claims digital growth has stopped.
Anyone else gobsmacked by the idiocy of that?
I’d like to say yes, J. R., but sadly, it’s same old, same old.
“We’ve pissed away millions of dollars over the years on ads on the back page of The New York Times to sell eight more books.”
And I’ve saved millions by not taking out any NYT ads!
And the cluelessness continues.
In terms of digital sales, Sargent said, “Ebook growth has stopped, and it has stopped before it forced book retailers out of the business, as it did music and video” retailers.
Just not true. We all knew this, and Data Guy’s stats showed it not to be true at the same event. Guess this guy was to busy to attend an “indie type” speaker. What a bunch of morons.
When I finished law school and got my license, I knew I was smart, and I figured I was going to ride high, wide, and handsome across the legal landscape. ‘Cause, you know, those other lawyers were morons. Had to be. What they were doing looked stupid.
A wonderfully short time and many scars later I thought, “Maybe these clever morons know something I don’t.”
I learned that everyone walks away from the elephant with a different perception. That perception is colored by the particular set of lenses that each one carries with him.
I do not think the people who work in the BPHs are stupid. I think they are very smart. However, I think their perceptions of the elephant are different from mine. Moreover, I think they unconsciously choose data and analyses whose results reinforce their perception. I’m sure I do, and I consciously try not to. Will their perception prevail or will mine?
We don’t go to court to find the truth. We go to court to find whose argument is stronger.
Do I know something the morons don’t? Maybe. Do they know something I don’t? I am certain they do. The question is whether their model or mine better reflects reality.
Who’s to judge?
As it was, is, and ever shall be, the Universe judges, without bias and without mercy.
Stay humble.
“Not knowing anything about self-publishing, not only the size of the market but why authors choose that market, would be an unforgivable blind spot in any reality-based industry.”
Ouch, just ouch …
Reminds me all too well of how soft Japan thought America was as they planed Pearl Harbor.
Of course trad-pub and the music/movie industry have never been ‘reality-based’, more of a ‘hype-based’ industry.