Oh, no, you're kidding

[petronia]

So... ebooks have advanced to the point that pro writers and the publishing industry are suddenly discovering and rehashing the exactly same moral/legal/technical/etc issues that pro musicians and the music industry have been publically tying themselves into knots over FOR THE PAST DOZEN YEARS, are they? And... not showing any signs of having paid attention, learnt lessons, or examined what hard data exists (as opposed to simply making assumptions about who downloaders are, why they do what they do, and what the knock-on effect really is)?

Just checking.

The last person I talked to seriously about this stuff was of the opinion that publishing would figure it out faster, because they have less to lose than music and film, even so. I should have been more cynical and pointed out that publishing is both WAY more conservative and WAY less technically proficient.

Comments

[charmian]

IIRC something like 8-9% of the sales are now ebooks. This combined with the financial woes of Borders (admittedly, most of Borders's financial woes are due to mismanagement and poor decisions that have nothing to do directly with ebooks, even though some articles want to pin most of the blame on ebooks) is causing a lot of anxiety among publishing people.

However, in some ways I think publishers have more cause to be worried, because unlike music, there is no concert revenue stream. They can't rely on touring to make it up.

What do you mean that they have "less to lose"?

[petronia]

As you say, even now the music industry can rely on older CD buyers, live music, licensing/placement, and other such revenue streams. Publishing has less to lose by experimenting because they've only got one revenue stream right now and it's declining, so the worst they can do is find another. XD;

[charmian]

Eh? To me I think that means they have more to lose, because they have more fear of cannibalization and are going to try more desperately to protect that remaining stream.

See, for example, posts like this, where a consultant talks about how "if you are for the rapid adoption of ebooks, you are for killing bookstores faster."

[petronia]

Yeah, I know - that's why I was speaking of an optimistic and a pessimistic way of viewing the situation. >_>

In essence, what other media has proven over the past decade is that this is unstoppable change, so do you want to manage it or yell at the incoming tide?

[charmian]

In the long term, it's unstoppable, in the short term, it seems to be to some extent possible to slow it. I figure a lot of people are slowing to milk the profits from the old model as long as possible.

On the other hand, some of the postponement is destructive in the longer term, and if they managed it, they'd probably have more control over it later.

[credoimprobus]

I've been having immense lulz over this. XD

[petronia]

It turns out that I do have a breaking point, and that breaking point is "fantasy novel authors making the same points as Lars Ulrich out of Metallica ELEVEN YEARS AGO."

[credoimprobus]

It is rather thoroughly ridiculous! Way to keep up to date with shit there, guys. *dying*

[ex_ayalesca554]

Curious now XD is there a link to that point? Or somewhere I can read the summary?