$3.2 billion in revenue/2011: Tablets, e-readers closing book on ink-and-paper era

Topics: BISG ♦ digital books ♦ electronic readers

Tablet computers and electronic readers promise to close the book on the ink-and-paper era as they transform the way people browse magazines, check news or lose themselves in novels.

“It is only a matter of time before we stop killing trees and all publications become digital,” Creative Strategies president and principal analyst Tim Bajarin told AFP.

Online retail giant Amazon has made electronic readers mainstream with Kindle devices, and Apple ignited insatiable demand for tablets ideal for devouring online content ranging from films to magazines and books.

In 2011, digital books earned about $3.2 billion in revenue, an amount that the combined momentum of e-readers and tablets is expected to triple to $9.7 billion by the year 2016, according to a Juniper Research report.

Readers are showing increased loyalty to digital books, according to the US Book Industry Study Group (BISG).

Nearly half of print book buyers who also got digital works said they would skip getting an ink-and-paper release by a favorite author if an electronic version could be had within three months, a BISG survey showed.

“The e-book market is developing very fast, with consumer attitudes and behaviors changing over the course of months, rather than years,” said BISG deputy executive director Angela Bole.

Concerns about ebook reading are diminishing, with people mainly wishing for lower device prices, according to the survey.

Owning e-readers tended to ramp up the amount of money people spent on titles in what BISG described as a promising sign for publishers.

Major US book seller Barnes & Noble responded to the trend by launching an ereader, the Nook, and other chains are picking up on the strategy, according to Juniper.

“I’m among those who believe that the new e-book craze expands a person’s interest in reading overall,” said Gartner analyst Allen Weiner.

“When you can get someone excited about reading in any way, you turn on the reading ignition and it leads to all content,” Weiner said, adding that ink-and-paper works will continue to hold a place in the mix.

Bajarin believes it will be at least a decade before print is obsolete.

“For one thing, there is a generation of people above 45 who grew up with this reading format and for many this will remain the most comfortable way for them to consume content for quite a while,” he said.

“However, younger generations are already moving rapidly to digital representations of publications and, over time, they will be using e-books and tablets to consume all of their publications.”

Weiner expected hardback or paperback books to be preferred in some situations, such as home reading, even as digital dominates publishing.

“I think it is a myth that it is going to kill the print book business,” Weiner said.
“Will it force publishers to think differently?” he asked rhetorically. “Absolutely, but it doesn’t spell the demise of print (book) publishing.”

Newspapers and magazines, however, should read the digital writing on the wall, according to analysts.

“Newspapers and magazines have different issues,” Weiner said.

“Print will wind up extinct for newspapers, while magazines will need to figure out the balance between print and digital,” he contended.

Newspapers spend a lot of money printing and distributing daily editions that can’t be kept as fresh as stories on the Internet.

Meanwhile, advertising has been moving online where audiences can be better targeted and advertisers pay when people actually click on ads.

In 2011, media colossus News Corp. launched an iPad only publication, The Daily, as newspapers big and small improved mobile websites and invested in applications to get their publications on tablets.

Struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! has been recreating itself as a platform for “premier digital content” and in November it launched a Livestand news magazine tailored for the iPad.

Livestand weaves video, pictures and text in easily navigated presentations in a challenge to popular iPad social magazine application Flipboard.

Time Inc. last month brought in digital advertising veteran Laura Lang to run what is the largest magazine publisher in the United States.

“Magazines are still figuring it out,” Weiner said of adapting to the smart tablet age. “I think they are in evolution.”

As if online competition weren’t enough for the print magazine business, the US Postal Service is proposing to do away with weekend deliveries in a move that could make weeklies seem like even older news by the time they arrive.

Agence France-Presse

AFP journalists cover wars, conflicts, politics, science, health, the environment, technology, fashion, entertainment, the offbeat, sports and a whole lot more in text, photographs, video, graphics and online.

The Future Role of Agents

September 29, 2009
by Jane Friedman

[more before]

1. KEEPING PACE WITH DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES AND BUILDING NEW CONTRACTS AND RIGHTS STRUCTURES

...today’s boilerplate contract is inflexible and outdated. One idea put forth by Nash is that contracts become time-based, with potential for renewal, which dodges the sticky “in print” or “out of print” question that now determines the termination of most book contracts.

[more]

2. ESTABLISHING AND GROWING EMPOWERING PARTNERSHIPS AND ONLINE PRESENCES FAR BEYOND BOOK PUBLICATION

...For anyone in this publishing game for the long run, it can’t be about the sale of one book—and this is where sometimes I see a lack of vision across the board. People get so focused on selling a title or in how that title is (or isn’t) supported by a publisher, that they lose sight of the much larger goal of an author’s career.

[more]

...publishers aren’t in the business of producing books, but in the business of building authors’ careers—and connecting writers to readers.

[more]

3. DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESS MODELS FOR HOW AUTHORS PAY AGENTS FOR THEIR EXPERTISE AND PARTNERSHIP

...One agency has quietly come out with a new model that requires authors to pay a minimum commission—i.e., the agent must earn a minimum amount on a sale no matter what advance the publisher pays, which means authors would “share” a larger part of the advance upfront (or even pay out of pocket in the case of very low advances).

[more]

But, Agents may take projects knowing they will ultimately be paid by authors rather than by publishers.

[more]

...agents, like publishers, will have to survive by specializing, by being distinctive in some way.

[more]

-----
Well, if it's specialization, niche craft is right for writers then it's right for agents, too.

Best selling author on length/process to physical publishing.

http://www.dianagabaldon.com/

Diana Gabaldon is the New York Times best-selling author of the Outlander series, which tells the story of Jamie Fraser, a Scottish Highlander from the 18th century, and his time-traveling wife, Claire. The latest book in the series, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, is available everywhere.

Excerpted From Diana Gabaldon site letter:

OK, -- on to An Echo in the Bone, which is probably what most people want to know about.

1) An Echo in the Bone is the seventh volume in the main Outlander series.

2) An Echo in the Bone is not the last book in this series!!

3) I am still writing An Echo in the Bone!!!

A) I get a certain amount of idiotic email accusing me of having already finished the book, but “hiding” it from the readers, or keeping it off the market “just to be mean” or (of all insane notions) “to drive the price up.” (It ain’t pork bellies, people; the cover price is the same whenever it comes out, and I don’t set it.) I don’t mean to be impolite here, but…geez, guys.

i) Look. Books are

a) written in order to be read, and

b) published in order to make money.

ii) Publishers do not make money from books that are not in bookstores. Ergo….

iii) Publishers want to sell books as soon as the books are ready.

iv) So do authors. What do you think I live on, while I’m supposedly keeping a book off the market to be mean? And why do you think I’d want to be mean to the people who read my books? Sheesh.

4) Right. Now, I hope to finish writing An Echo in the Bone around the end of this year.

OK, pay close attention now….

5) The book will not—repeat not—REPEAT NOT!!!—be published on December 31st, even if I finish writing it on December 30th. Why not? Well, because…

A) Books don’t go directly from the author to the bookstore.

B) Books go from the author to the Editor, who

i) reads the manuscript

ii) discusses the manuscript with the author, and

iii) suggests minor revisions that may improve the book

C) The book goes back to the author, who

i) re-reads the manuscript

ii) considers the editor’s comments, and

iii) makes whatever revisions, emendments, or clarifications seem right.

D) The book goes back to the editor, who

i) reads it again

ii) asks any questions that seem necessary, and

iii) sends it to

E) The copy-editor. This is a person whose thankless job is to

i) read the manuscript one…word…at…a…time

ii) find typos or errors in grammar, punctuation, or continuity (one heck of a job, considering the size not only of the individual books, but of the overall series), and

iii) write queries to the author regarding anything questionable, whereupon

F) The book comes back to the author—yes, again—who

i) re-reads the manuscript

ii) answers the copy-editor’s queries, and

iii) alters anything that the copy-editor has changed that the author disagrees with. After which, the author sends it back to

G) The editor—yes, again!—who

i) re-re-reads it

ii) checks that all the copy-editor’s queries have been answered, and sends it to

H) The Typesetter, who sets the manuscript in type, according to the format laid out by

I) The Book-Designer, who

i) decides on the layout of the pages (margins, gutters, headers or footers, page number placement)

ii) chooses a suitable and attractive typeface

iii) decides on the size of the font

iv) chooses or commissions any incidental artwork (endpapers, maps, dingbats—these are the little gizmos that divide chunks of text, but that aren’t chapter or section headings)

v) Designs chapter and Section headings, with artwork, and consults with the

J) Cover Artist, who (reasonably enough) designs or draws or paints the cover art, which is then sent to

K) The Printer, who prints the dust-jackets--which include not only the cover art and the author’s photograph and bio, but also “flap copy,” which may be written by either the editor or the author, but is then usually messed about with by

L) The Marketing Department, whose thankless task is to try to figure out how best to sell a book that can’t reasonably be described in terms of any known genre [g], to which end, they

i) try to provide seductive and appealing cover copy to the book

ii) compose advertisements for the book

iii) decide where such advertisements might be most effective (periodicals, newspapers, book-review sections, radio, TV)

iv) try to think up novel and entertaining means of promotion, such as having the author appear on Second Life to do a virtual reading, or sending copies of the book to the armed troops in Iraq, or booking the author to appear on Martha Stewart or Emiril Lagasse’s cooking show to demonstrate recipes for unusual foods mentioned in the book.

vi) kill a pigeon in Times Square and examine the entrails in order to determine the most advantageous publishing date for the book.

M) OK. The manuscript itself comes back from the typesetter, is looked at (again) by the editor, and sent back to the author (again! As my husband says, “to a writer, ‘finished’ is a relative concept.”), who anxiously proof-reads the galleys (these are the typeset sheets of the book; they look just like the printed book’s pages, but are not bound), because this is the very last chance to change anything. Meanwhile

N) A number of copies of the galley-proofs are bound—in very cheap plain covers—and sent to


O) The Reviewers. i.e., the bound galleys are sent (by the marketing people, the editor, and/or the author) to the book editors of all major newspapers and periodicals, and to any specialty publication to whom this book might possibly appeal, in hopes of getting preliminary reviews, from which cover quotes can be culled, and/or drumming up name recognition and excitement prior to publication.

Frankly, they don’t always bother with this step with my books, because they are in a rush to get them into the bookstores, and it takes several months’ lead-time to get reviews sufficiently prior to publication that they can be quoted on the cover.

P) With luck, the author finds 99.99% of all errors in the galleys (you’re never going to find all of them; the process is asymptotic), and returns the corrected manuscript (for the last time, [pant, puff, gasp, wheeze]) to the editor, who sends it to

Q) The Printer, who prints lots of copies (“the print-run” means how many copies) of the “guts” of the book—the actual inside text. These are then shipped to

R) The Bindery, where the guts are bound into their covers, equipped with dust-jackets, and shipped to

S) The Distributors. There are a number of companies—Ingram, and Baker and Taylor, are the largest, but there are a number of smaller ones—whose business is shipping, distributing, and warehousing books. The publisher also ships directly to

T) The Bookstores, but bookstores can only house a limited number of books. Therefore, they draw on distributors’ warehouses to resupply a title that’s selling briskly, because it takes much longer to order directly from the publisher. And at this point, [sigh]…the book finally reaches

U) You, the reader.

And we do hope you like it when you get it—because we sure-God went to a lot of trouble to make it for you. [g]

6) As it happens, Random House (who publishes my books in the US and Canada) prefers to publish my titles in the Fall quarter (between September 1 and December 31). That’s because this is traditionally the biggest sales period in the year, what with the run-up to Christmas, and therefore all the publishers normally release their “big” titles in the Fall. I’m flattered to be among them.

If I do finish the manuscript around the end of this year, Random House (and the UK publisher, Orion, and the German publisher, Blanvalet) will have just about the right amount of time to do all the production steps described above, in order to release the book in Fall of 2009

(The other foreign editions—I think we’re now up to 24 countries, including Israel, Croatia, Russia, and Greece, which is pretty cool—will be out whenever their respective editors and translators finish their production processes, but I’m afraid I can’t predict that at all.)

So—that’s why the English and German-speaking readers will almost certainly get An Echo in the Bone in Fall of 2009.

When I have a specific publication date, rest assured—I’ll tell you.

That’s probably enough information to be dealing with in one go, so I’ll come back a little later and tell you about graphic novels, anthologies, and Other Weird Stuff.

http://www.dianagabaldon.com/

I write for the delicious "feel" of it, how about you?

It is our Independence Day, or at least mine. And this is my official declaration of intent to remain independent, of all the negative dross which can drag a creative writer down. [Oh, yeah, and "Pan's Labyrinth" is paused on the DVD.]

This is the thing.

It really settled on me the other day while revisiting the past at the Cleveland Art Museum's reopening, and after asking myself a bunch of silly questions of why I should continue to write and publish--why me, what is my importance.

And simply, the true basics of it all is that I write for the delicious feel of it. It takes my emotions everywhere, making me happy, or sad, or whatever "they," "my" characters, are emoting about. I actually "feel" it within me. It's as profound as time travel, teleporting, being in love, being in hate, or being indifferent. Whether I'm experiencing it in space, in Victorian England, or as an African vampire.

It's on the page, simple paper and ink, tiny pixels of daydreams and nightmares, but it makes, causes an actual "shift" within me, that is tangible. Not unlike the peculiar and shocking feeling I once had when a certain person looked at me at a party, and I "fell" inside. I had the distinctive feel of falling through soft space, which I remember all too clearly.

So, why is love for a person easier to remember than love personified in the body of a novel, script, or short story? Because it's easier to explain, probably.

But the feeling, THAT feeling. I take if for granted, and have pooh-poohed it to some extent because it is such an inherent part of me. But if I can craft this and have it make me feel this way, I should remember that others have told me so in their own way, or that even more others will feel it too, just by reading what I've written.

So then, who the heck am I to be so bourgeois and forgetful of this and to pooh anything? True feelings are precious and shared ones even more so, so those of us who write naked.

Don't lose the feeling my friends, and don't ever forget it, neglect it, or push it aside to die in hiding. Write and publish.

This is my official testimony. Do you feel it too?
__________________
Neale Sourna

www.Neale-Sourna.com
www.PIE-Percept.com / Remember--PIE: Perception Is Everything
www.ProjectKeanu.com
www.Writing-Naked.com