|
"How do we Cross the Digital Divide?"
Martyn Daniels,
The presentation to the Norwegian Book Congress
Oslo, Norway, June 2011
The Brave New World report was published five years ago, in
November 2006. Its aim was to identify the opportunities and
challenges for booksellers in this new emerging digital market.
I did not write the report and walk away and undertook the
task of updating it through the Brave New World Blog and have
now written some 2000 blog articles on digital publishing.
Many of the opportunities I envisaged 5 years ago have
happened albeit slowly, there were some surprises, but even
today, some in the industry have still failed to grasp the
issues and opportunities.
The one thing that was certain back then and has happened, is
the emergence and dominance of the technology gorillas; Apple,
Goggle, and Amazon.
Today I would like to start by offering four observations
which I believe help forge the future of ‘the book’ and with it
our digital future.
I will then look at how these are reshaping the author, the
publisher, the book channels and bookstore and are starting to
determine the winners, survivors and the losers.
The first observation is that we now live in a YouTube
society. One, where self expression and opinion can now be,
heard, seen and shared in a click.
Yesterday we listened, watched and read media. Today we make
it and instantly share it. Today is less about quality and more
about the width.
At the start YouTube looked bad quality, with cameras often
out of focus and juddering. But YouTube today has redefined
video and even influenced film. It has created a new genre of
film, created new stars, launched musicians and given us all
very funny moments. With social networking it has redefined
communication and expression.
This explosion of creativity means that Publishing must now
learn to embrace the author, whose English and grammar may not
be old school, but who has a story to tell and often a new
language to tell it in.
Self publishing is no longer the grubby slush pile of sad
unwanted titles, but a vibrant market which is increasingly
engaging more and more people. This is not bad, this is not to
be looked down on, but is something exciting, new and to be
celebrated.
We may not have more readers today but we certainly have more
writers!
We must now celebrate and learn to accommodate a new dawn of
creative expression which the YouTube world has created.
The second observation is that digital is different.
This may sound silly and somewhat obvious but many publishers
by their actions obviously don’t think so. Many see digital as
merely replacing the physical jacket with a digital one. Same
text, same blurb same stuff.
Some want to enrich it by adding more media and make it in
effect ‘fatter’, but it remains the same story, same stuff.
It isn’t about stuffing the unsuspecting book with multi
media, gizmos and delivering digital stuff. It is about
understanding how digital makes things different and creates new
opportunities.
The challenge is to recognise that digital offers a
fundamental change in the development and delivery of content
and how it is read.
Ask yourself why do we still continue to produce books with
around 300 pages, or the optimum print economic model?
Why does the work even have to be complete on initial
publication?
After all the serialised story is not new, Dickens did it in
the 19th century. The Japanese Keitai style of novel may now be
more appropriate for the new mobile technology and lifestyle
than today’s all or nothing 300 page tome?
Another issue is the assumption that digital rights are just
an extension of print rights. Why do we continue to combine
digital and print rights and surely its like combining film and
print rights – sometimes relevant but far more the case it’s
not.
Digital is different.
The third observation is about marketing and promoting works.
The book industry appears still locked in a 20th century time
warp and in denial over the 21st century. As an industry we have
failed to deliver anything but an ISBN to identify a work and
now are use it to identify everything and every part of
everything.
We failed to understand the need to group renditions of the
same or similar works and fragments were unheard of!
The International Standard Text Code (ISTC) has long missed
its opportunity and one that is not coming back again and lies
buried deep in the industry labyrinth of standards. Industry
standards bodies which achieved so much to improve the print
supply chain appear to be standing transfixed like rabbits in
the digital headlights. They also remain focused on business to
business but it is business to consumer that presents the
challenge and these bodies where never set up with that focus.
Today the line between content and context is blurred.
We used to use jackets, blurbs, search inside widgets to
promote and market books. However, today we live in a YouTube
world of visual real time promotion and social and viral
marketing.
Its ironic that everyday all of us find stuff via search
engines and these often care little about structured metadata
and ISBNs.
We talk a lot about watching and learning from other media
sectors yet we appear to have not even seen or understood
music’s MTV moment.
The forth and final observation is that media in a digital
form; music, film, news , games, books are moving from a world
in which we bought and ‘owned’ media to one where we subscribe
and licence it on demand.
Cloud computing and mobile technology is changing how we
access and utilise media. Pandora, Spotify and the likes of Last
FM are starting to supply whatever music we want to hear,
whenever we want to hear it and wherever we want to listen to
it.
Online gaming is proving that many want to play and compete
with others online. TV on demand’s growth is proving that we
don’t want to be scheduled but to watch at our convenience. The
on demand world changes not only how we distribute and consume
media but also how we licence it.
In reality we now no longer own an ebook but merely licence
it. This obviously impacts how we price it and what people are
willing to pay for it.
So what do we draw from these brief observations and is there
a way in which we should respond?
The challenge with rapid and fundamental change is that it is
disruptive.
Anything that takes time to adapt is probably dead before it is
born.
Development by committees was once needed and consensus was
seen as the goal but moving at the pace of the slowest and
accommodating all could now be a recipe for disaster today.
Collaboration and consensus is always best, but these are no
longer acceptable if it takes too long.
What is becoming increasingly clear is that the roles and
value of those between the author and the reader are
increasingly being questioned and are blurring.
There is no divine right to survive and some will not make it
across the digital divide.
I would now like to look the roles we thought we understood
so well and would last forever.
I want to give you my insight into: authors, publishers,
channels and bookstores. The players in today’s trade Value
Chain from the Author to the Reader.
The Author
These authors all have something in common
• Stieg Larsson
• John Steinbeck
• Ian Fleming
• JD Salinger
• Roald Dahl
• Jane Austen
• John Buchan
• Ernest Hemingway
• Catherine Cookson
• Raymond Chandler
• James Joyce
• Enid Blyton
• Joseph Heller
• Agatha Christie
• Douglas Adams
• Joseph Conrad
• Henry James
• George Orwell
• Philip K Dick
• Graham Greene
• EM Forster
• Kurt Vonnegut
• Vladimir Nabokov
• William Golding
• Aldous Huxley
• F Scott Fitzgerald
– They are all dead.
Many of their works are in the public domain and are termed
classics, others works remain in copyright but are out of print
and some are still in print.
I’ll give you a test.
Walk into any bookshop anywhere in the world and I will bet
you that less than one in a thousand buyers turn first to the
copyright page to see when the book was published and if it’s
new.
Obviously, the exception are those who seek first editions
but in the main readers care less about the age of the work than
its content. However some would say that publishers appear to
care more about the new than the old.
Authors are for life not just for Christmas.
In the digital world an author doesn’t go out of print, do
not get forgotten and filed away under ‘reprint under
consideration’ and importantly can find a second audience.
Digital may not generate the unit sales of print but can
offer a perpetual bookshelf for all to enjoy.
Digital is just as much about rediscovery as it is about
creation.
The Bloomsbury Reader programme is one example of the digital
opportunity to rediscover past modern classics. There are many
more now being initiated by authors themselves, by literary
estates, agents as well as publishers.
Rewarding authors in a digital model is a challenge and
merely replicating the old royalty system with different digital
rates, is at best questionable and worst plain stupid.
Its ironic that in an on line world of instant sales, cash
transfers, real time information and where digital sales are
sold effectively on consignment, it still take months for an
author to be paid their digital royalty and they can’t they see
their digital sales in real time?
It’s as if everyone has forgotten about real time sales and
still want to force digital sales through old print royalty
systems.
Is it any surprise that many authors and agents are now
taking their digital opportunities more seriously than some
would suggest their publishers are?
In a Youtube world we must also respect that some authors may
just want their works to be available. I love this quote from
music legend and folk singer Woodie Guthrie ‘This song is
copyrighted in the US, under Seal of Copyright 154085, for a
period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without
permission, will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don’t
give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel
it, that’s all we wanted to do.’
The Publisher
A good friend and US publishing consultant and thinker Jim
Lichtenberg once related that publishing was similar to two
frogs mating. They produce thousands of spawn, which turns into
hundreds of tadpoles, who eventually become tens of baby frogs
swimming around avoiding their many predators. Finally, a mere
handful make it to the bank and came ashore. One is kissed by
Oprah Winfrey and book is turned into a ‘Prince’ and a
bestseller.
The moral being that you needed the thousands to get to the
one best seller and predicting that is often very difficult.
Today that still prevails in printworld but in digital the
stakes are somewhat lower and the returns even less predictable
and more baby frogs can now make it to the bank.
However we must realise that publishing is not one industry
but several that have been merely joined by a common format the
book.
As digital starts to explode the book spine, then these
different sectors will move often in different digital
directions and at different speeds.
Academic and professional is digitally different to education
and they are both different to trade. Even within sectors such
as trade genre will diversify.
It is interesting to observe sectors such as academic and
professional consolidating into more vertical units and trying
to move increasingly direct, whilst their institutional buyers
are trying to take control themselves and break them up.
Education publishers are now creating learning platforms
where curriculum content is only part of the solution.
We see Trade publishers trying to create niche and brand
verticals. What is interesting is that the economies of scale
and scope that prevailed in print don’t always transfer to
digital where there are now newer and bigger gorillas. Nimble
and agile are words that should count in digital publishing.
All too often we still see digital books being produced last
as if they are an afterthought they are not seen as integral or
even the primary production driver of a work. This just
perpetuates yesterday and that may not be appropriate tomorrow.
Publishing should be digital and Digital publishing is
publishing
The Channels
Digital and network technology together with a global economy
have changed the channels we once knew. The wholesalers and
distributors who thrived in the print world are increasingly
finding it though against the new digital aggregators of the
virtual world.
My company’s technology underpins the Gardner Books digital
platform in the UK, KNV/O in Germany, Centraal Boekhuis in
Holland, the Bloomsbury online library shelf and the ebog public
library system in Denmark and others, so giving me some good
insights to digital channels.
The US trade ebook market share today is different according
to who you listen to but the general consensus is that Amazon
has between 55 and 60%, Barnes and Noble between 15 and 20%,
Apple 10%, Kobo between 5 and 10% with Google has to make it
mark and around 2 to 5%.
The rest are not worth writing about.
Do you see an opportunity for others to achieve these levels
or even double digits?
Will Amazon’s number continue to fall as others grow?
Are the US market shares like to prevail across all trade
markets?
Interestingly I refer to these players as channels but they
are increasingly vertical aggregators, providing digital
platforms and selling direct or through affiliates.
The market share figures will change between countries and
some US centric offers such as Barnes and Noble may find it
tough where their brand is not known.
The global brands such as Amazon, Google and Apple will
however find it easy to use their brands and reach to dominate
all markets. But will they remain focused on English language
titles and other major languages, or take on all books in all
languages?
Just like Barnes and Noble have demonstrated the strength of
a localised brand opportunity in the US, I believe the same is
true in many other markets.
Countries that have their own language and an indigenous
publishing heritage and industry could focus on that and learn
to compliment the English language books and channels as they
have with print.
However, fixed price markets that supported print may not
work well with highly reactive and free markets and the lack of
VAT harmony can also present a negative consumer issue.
Amazon has all the bases covered from author to reader and
their recent announcement of the establishment of a full
publishing division under the leadership of Larry Kirshbaum is
not one to be ignored.
Barnes and Noble have long published and bought into print
runs. They have also acquired Sterling Publishing and also have
now launched their self publishing ebook venture Pubit.
Channels are no longer just about distributing books.
The Bookstores
So where does this leave the Bookstore?
This is an interesting picture I took of a beautiful
storefront in Lille, France. The shop once was a bookstore and
over the window it still says Livers modern and Livers Ancient –
new books and old books but under this somewhat iconic façade is
now a mobile phone shop advertising the iPad2 in its window.
Is this the future of the bookstore?
We have seen the dramatic downfall of the bookchains in the
US with Borders, Angus & Robertson and Borders bookstore chains
in Australia, and Whitcoulls stores in New Zealand and the UK
with Waterstones being sold for chump change.
Independents continue to suffer with some making headway
whilst many in the US and UK find it harder to survive against
the discounting wars and their alienation from the digital
world. Some believe that fixed price markets are the answer
others that they often just perpetuate inefficiency and over
production and we now live in a global economy that can expose
localised price differences in a click.
The US ABA’s Indie Bound service may offer a digital hope for
some bookstores but remember the bookstore that enters affiliate
deals will be effectively handing over their brand and even
clients to others. This after all is just another white label
affiliate store.
The UK trade, just this month, awarded Sainsbury’s, the UK’s
second largest supermarket the accolade of Best Book Chain.
Sainsbury were not alone and Asda who are owned by WalMart were
also in the running. This speaks volumes for the state of UK
bookchains and the challenges now facing Waterstones.
This picture is of a book section within Asda early this year
where they were selling books at £1 each and not a few thousand
but hundreds of thousands. Interestingly they were cheaper than
the gift cards in the next aisle.
I recently also wrote about Carrefour supermarket book
selling in France. Due to the fixed price market they are unable
to offer deep discounts or the ridiculous prices of Asda. But
they can enjoy high margin sales protected by the fixed pricing
and high income driven by a focused range and their large
footfall.
Whichever way you look at it the result is the same on the
traditional bookstore.
Waterstones today may have challenges in stores but they also
have an equally dire digital and online proposition. Earlier
this year I wrote two articles, one of which is my second
largest read of all time, entitled ‘Would You Buy an eBook
Reader off this man?’
A recommended read for anyone wishing to see how not to do
it.
All Bookstores are being squeezed by the new channels, new
retailers and even the threat of Libraries loaning the ebooks
for free over the internet. Amazon and Barnes and Noble also now
have launched ebook loan services and Google wants to be a
friend to both libraries and bookstores.
Bookstores now need to think outside of their comfort zone
and into the digital one.
They may not sell digital over the counter but have to start
to think of their business in a digital world.
I learnt a lot about the booktrade from my wife Annie Quigley
who owns Bibliophile, the largest independent mail order bargain
book club in the UK.
I don’t wish to embarrass her as she in sitting in front of
me today, but many of the initiatives she is now doing are
driving her business forward. She has just received a royal
warrant for bookselling to Buckingham Palace and to the Duke of
Edinburgh and she is one of only two booksellers to achieve this
distinction.
She has some 80,000 members which she sends a 36 page tabloid
newpaper catalogue every 5 weeks, offering some 1300 titles,
many of which will sell through on that catalogue. She buys firm
and operates out of a warehouse in London’s East End.
This month she has just gone live with an ecatalogue.
This will go to over 50% of her members who can now order in
a click off the ecatalogue and can also share it with anyone.
Not only does it mimic her physical catalogue, include her
unique reviews of every book, it offers annotations, bookmarks,
send to a friend and much more. You can also text search across
the ecatalogue.
It also now holds her unique and personal Youtube book review
videos and plays these within the catalogue.
Best of all she now knows everyone who opened that catalogue
and what pages and videos they viewed, and their orders are
automatically captured within her back office.
Today the YouTube videos are of high end art or specialist
and collectable books where the buyer wants to experience the
book being handled and see more than just flat dry pages.
They not only provide her members with a great experience but
they put Annie’s enthusiasm and passion right in front of all
her customers.
Forget meet the author this is a sort of, ‘meet the
bookseller’.
In less than a couple of months she now has some 70 plus
videos up on Facebook, YouTube and her blog and these numbers
are growing every week as she buys, reviews and sells more
books.
Annie is no ordinary bookseller, she is an editor and a
marketer and also a publisher.
Bibliophile is digitally bringing back books she knows sell
and have been forgotten.
She has just published, on the Kindle platform, her father’s
‘Lost For Words’ and ‘Diana’s Story’ which were also made into
Emmy and Bafta award wining films and after a few years were
forgotten by his publisher.
Next she plans to epublish her mother’s 30 historic novels
and much more.
So I believe that booksellers do have a real future in the
digital world.
I am pleased that here in Norway you thinking outside of the
box and are working as one on your The Norwegian Bookdatabase.
It provides Norwegian Publishers and Booksellers the perfect
platform to co-operate. It will also provide a viable platform
to support Norwegian literature. Some may say that Norway is a
small market but it supports hundreds of publishers, 650
bookstores and some 800 libraries and I don’t call that small.
Importantly, the repository is yours and you should keep it
that way.
We all now live in a Brave New World and learning to compete,
survive and flourish is all about ‘How we Cross the Digital
Divide?’
Today I have given you four observations which I believe are
things we must all take into consideration when planning our way
forward. Today’s YouTube world is here, Digital is different,
Digital marketing has to be consumer centric and we are from
owning media to now licensing it on demand.
I have also given you some insights as how these may impact
authors, publishers, channels and bookstores.
Finally a word of warning.
These are perilous and unchartered digital seas and although
I may be able to teach you how to swim, I can’t stop you from
drowning.
|
