A few articles recently on the future of publishing have caught my attention: John Sutherland’s Long live the codex in the London Review of Books; Colin Robinson’s (recently redundant editor) Diary from the same worthy journal; and In Defense of Readers from A List Apart.
What struck me about the first two of these articles is how the publishing industry has been caught up and swept away in the debt bubble against perhaps its own better judgement. But the sheer scale of changes that were foisted upon the financial institutions of the world were the same changes that arrived for the publishing world. There is only a small step from the innovation of new financial instruments promoting investment banking over traditional banks to the innovations publishing instruments giving Amazon and major booksellers power over publishers. It is little wonder then that after the failed sustainability of these financial instruments, Jason Epstein in his book Publishing Past, Present and Future predicts the unsustainability of the Amazon business model:
‘the structural problems of online retailers . . . are intrinsic and cannot be outgrown. Online commerce rewards unmediated transactions between producer and consumer. It abhors middlemen, a vestige of earlier and obsolete technologies, and devours their cash.’
He forsees publishers eventually taking over the retailing side of the books business, acting as brokers of literary value between readers and authors.
What has also struck me about the publishing industry’s suction into the financial bubble is that much like the earlier dot.com bubble, eyes have been taken off the ball and lifted to above long on where an imaginary ball sails for six. In this case, the imaginary ball is imaginary profits arising from new publishing innovations given to booksellers; the ball is the audience – the readers – for whom publishers are meant to finding for their products – those trusty codexes more commonly called books. The booksellers however have to a degree forced publishers eyes off the ball.Now there is coming the sickening dead clunk of the ball striking the wickets. Colin Robinson writes
“A visit to a chain bookstore these days is often depressing. The deep stock and intelligent service of just a few years ago are increasingly giving way to display areas that look more like ‘Books and Mags’ emporia, with dump bins of assorted bargains and jarring juxtapositions of titles. Promoting books overwhelmingly on the basis of reduced price is never going to bolster their perceived value…In order to cope with their frail position, the chains are reducing stock levels and ‘passing’ on – i.e. failing to order – an ever widening range of new titles, even from large publishing houses. This will accentuate an already marked feature of the business, the so-called ‘crisis of the mid-list’, with the paring away to practically nothing of promotion expenditure on all books except the lead titles.”
Robinson very aptly notes that an industry “that spends all its money on bookseller discounts and very little on finding an audience is getting things the wrong way round.” Fortunately in a cricket team there are eleven batsmen, and in a good old fashioned test match, two innings. So there is a chance again for the publishing industry to refocus its eyes on the ball by utilising developments in technologies that perhaps benefit them better than they do booksellers.
Surely there is encouragement for publishers to be found in a website for website designers advancing the virtues of readers. Mandy Brown writes:
“Despite the ubiquity of reading on the web, readers remain a neglected audience. Much of our talk about web design revolves around a sense of movement: users are thought to be finding, searching, skimming, looking. We measure how frequently they click but not how long they stay on the page. We concern ourselves with their travel and participation—how they move from page to page, who they talk to when they get there—but forget the needs of those whose purpose is to be still. Readers flourish when they have space—some distance from the hubbub of the crowds—and as web designers, there is yet much we can do to help them carve out that space.”
If website designers are beginning to think along these lines, it is encouraging indeed.
