After speaking to the D&C Production Manager I have a newfound appreciation for the complexity of the logistics involved in publishing. The cost and timing of everything is precisely calculated and coordinated so that all parties involved are able to do their jobs and make money. The many blogs and sites that have been commenting on how the media is likely to react to the long tail have at times suggested that the paper publishing trade is too old-fashioned and technophobic to adapt to these developments. The truth is slightly more complicated.
Although the quality of POD digital printing is climbing, it still is not to the standard that litho can deliver, and is not good enough for illustrated full colour volumes. When the quality does reach that level, it is still likely to be a while until the per unit digital printing costs drop sufficiently for publishers to make enough profit on their book printing shorter runs. It is true that under the long tail publishers will save money on storage, distribution and marketing of individual titles, but until the digital printing costs come down “printing less of more” will not be cost effective.
The other option is for publishers to sell electronic versions of their books through a website. In contrast to POD, the margins on an e-book are much more attractive to a publisher. This side of the issue is sort of ‘chicken and egg’; the publishers have already committed a certain amount of resources into making and promoting ebooks, but the public just haven’t taken to them in the way that they had hoped. Whether it is due to the lack of a familiar distribution channel, poor handheld technology, the discomfort of reading from the screen, the enduring popularity of the book, poor promotion or a combination of these is hard to say, but publishers are being cagey about committing further to it until they understand more about it.
Experiments in releasing books both in print and in e-formats have shown that there does not seem to be an impact on book sales when free electronic content is released. Nevertheless book publishers are very aware of the impact on CD sales that free music downloads had, and to date have opted to stay out of the race rather than take a risk. At any rate, publishers are right now keeping an eye on developments in new technology with a view to exploiting them if and when they can offer a better solution than what they have.
There are certain steps that publishers can take right now to make their business more LT friendly, eg S&S’s move towards contracting authors without rights reversions. Some think that this move was on the foolish side of brave. Another LT characteristic to be found in the book trade is Amazon’s extensive customer recommendation system. Similar models are being adopted by publishers’ websites.
For example, D&C have an affiliate links system, which rewards web masters for displaying links to the D&C online bookshop. This is related to the LT in that it represents a marketing effort aimed at a very narrow band of consumers, namely the traffic of that particular site. The web master chooses a book that he believes his visitors will be interested in (with his expert knowledge of them) for the ad, as his reward is relative to how many books are sold through his link.
I’ll develop this topic, and those on earlier posts further over the next couple of weeks when I have time off. Bye for now!
