Traditional print publishing is dying

I was at FantasyCon a couple of weekends ago, and got to meet up and chat with writers such as Neil Gaiman, Raymond E. Fiest, Ramsey Campbell, Amanda Hemmingway, and Storm Constantine.

One of the most interesting conversations I had was with some very charming marketing staff from HarperCollins.

In conversation we mentioned Amazon, and that HarperCollins was pleased with Amazon dominating their online distribution.

I pointed out to them that by relying on Amazon, HarperCollins are killing their own profits.

Point is, the technology exists for HarperCollins to take charge of their own online distribution and sales - but they don’t.

And in not doing so, they immediately hand over 40-55% of their revenues to third party distributors - such as Amazon. And sometimes more.

And they’re not the only publisher to fail to do so.

Let’s put that into perspective.

1 million copies of the Harry Potter book “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” were pre-ordered from Amazon online.

The book has a recommended retail price of £16.95.

1 million copies sold for the RRP would generate almost £17 million ($28 million).

Of which publisher Bloomsbury - who do not sell their own books online - immediately loses over 55%.

In fact, because of the sharp marketing at Amazon, they’ve been able to demand a discount in excess of 55%.

The figure isn’t public, but even presuming the 55% retail discount figure, this means that Bloomsbury effectively lost a minimum of £9.5 million ($16 million).

And all because they’re too scared or traditional to embrace new digital markets.

Let’s underline the fact that developing, managing, and marketing an online shopping facility on the Bloomsbury website would never cost anything approaching £10 million.

Some publishers are trying, albeit, half-heartedly. Orbit books have begun offering books for sale online. But no significant market associates the Orbit website with book sales.

Trouble is, it’s too little too late. By failing to embrace new technology - ie, the internet - until the last minute, book publishers have allowed Amazon to dominate online distribution.

To the point where consumer minds think “online books = Amazon*”

* Except the minority who think “online books = Barnes & Noble”.

Any sane and forward-thinking book publishing CEO should understand these figures and already have implemented a solution.

After all, Harry Potter books are only one part of a much larger market, and Bloomsbury is already losing tens of millions on a single book title.

However, it seems to be a general trend in the wider publishing world.

Already at Platinax I’ve reported in the news about how teen market magazines are having to move online - or close down.

But the traditional print departments are still running the publishers.

Time Magazine runs an article titled Do Newspapers Have A Future?. Even still, the issue is being completely overlooked - it’s not an issue of local ownership, or simply adding blogs to a newspaper publishing site.

It’s an endemic failure to embrace - let alone even try to understand - the impact the internet has had not simply on people as people, readers, and consumers.

Steve Outing at Editors & Publishers answers the problem - simply put, it’s the men from the print rooms who are still running these companies.

Much as they try to look sympathetically at the internet, these are people who understand the world in terms of print runs and inks, not websites and links.

In the face of the destruction of small and independent book publishers, there’s only one clear resolution - the commoditisation of the publishing markets is going to continue to strangle publishers.

Publishers are going to fight for ever limited shelf-space on Wal-Mart shelves, until one day, they will finally realise just how badly they went wrong.

The simple truth is, the internet is the future of consumerism, whatever business vertical or market segment you’re involved with.

And that goes especially for online shopping for books.

At FantasyCon, I met some of the great traditional print authors of science fiction and fantasy.

The way the world is changing, they could well be the last of a generation.