The Limits of Technology

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The Limits of Technology

• Peter Kilborn
• International Supply Chain Meeting, Frankfurt 2009

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The book is dead.
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The book is dead. Or was it just DK?
__________________________________________________
_____Book Industry Communication
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Change

• Why does it take so long?
• Why does it behave irrationally?
• Why does it sometimes not happen at all?

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Analysts agree that a genuine mass market for
consumer CD-ROM is now emerging in the US and
Europe is expected to follow within the next year
to eighteen months. - Information Market
Observatory, December 1995
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'I think there is a world market for maybe five
computers' - Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM,
1943 'There is no reason for any individual to
have a computer in the home' - Ken Olsen,
founder, Digital Equipment Corporation, 1977
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Is Reed Elsevier going to be the first victim
of the Internet as the US business magazine
Forbes recently suggested? The UK stock market
certainly seems to be taking these reports
seriously The sharp drop in the share price is
a warning that many other publishers in the
scientific field would do well to heed.
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Simon Schuster US has unveiled its first
ebooks list. It is the latest in a tide of
publishers to enter the US e-book market, which
is believed to be on the point of explosion. -
The Bookseller, September 2000 Andersen
Consulting has estimated that worldwide sales of
e-books could hit 2.3bn (1.5bn) in five years.
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Fast forward to 2010 - The Bookseller, September
1999
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Anything can be presented on an e-book reader or
printed on demand, the two dominant delivery
mechanisms for books 10 years from now.
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E-book devices exist in a dizzying variety of
configurations (though all are comfortably under
100 in todays money).
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Terrestrial bookstores will offer POD
capabilities. Home printing of books has
become common.
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Publishing technologies have evolved to suit the
times. Copies of lead titles, perhaps 2000 each
year, are printed centrally for visible display
in stores. The majority of titles... are
available only as e-books or printed books on
demand.
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The rights issues that prevented legacy backlist
from becoming available in e-books or POD have
disappeared for many titles. For authors these
changes have brought some downside most books
published are written with no advance.
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What went wrong?

• Aversion to change
• Lack of strategic vision
• Vested interests
• Lack of collaboration
• Misguided opportunism
• The market
• Fear

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Publishers are "insulting" readers by expecting
them to pay equivalent prices for e-books as for
hardback versions. "We are kidding ourselves
if we think we can charge the same for an e-book
as we do for a print copy. Most ridiculous of all
is charging the same as a hardback - we are
insulting our audience to do that. If, and they
will, e-books start to encroach on print sales,
we have to find another way of dealing with
that."
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E-books, if successful, will sink the trade
publishing industry. - Evan Schnittman, March
2009
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E-books are effectively sold on a consignment
basis. That means that they cannot generate
short-term cash flow like print books do.
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to have our Ponzi scheme and e-books too
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A world of e-books

• Reaching the consumer
• No means of discovery
• No way to brand or promote
• Fundamental disruptive change in the publishing
  business

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E-book readers will be introduced in the UK
later this year, and have already proved popular
with American users. From the Barnes Noble web
site, user comments include I dont know how I
got along without it, I will never go back to
paper again the future has arrived and its
great. - Bookseller June 2000
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I didnt understand all of the failings of a
physical book, because Im inured to them. But
you cant turn the page with one hand. The book
is always flopping itself shut at the wrong
moment.
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Publishers will continue to depend on the printed
book and the processes which accompany the
publication of printed books as the bedrock of
their businesses for at least another decade and
probably much longer.
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Most digital content will be accessed through
multi-functional devices, notably the mobile
phone, or through smaller and more
consumer-friendly laptops and tablets.
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POD will grow and become mainstream for backlist
but it wont fulfil the original promise of
providing true distributed print worldwide.
Quality and range of options will continue to
improve.
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Booksellers will struggle - but survive, and in
niche areas prosper. The days of the high street
book shop chains are numbered
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The Espresso machine will remain a niche
technology and may not find a role.
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Agents and authors will gradually accept that
digital rights naturally belong with printed book
rights and are better exploited together.
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There will be new trading partners muscling in on
the book worlds traditional space and it may
not be a pretty sight.
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Publishers will see a return on investment for
all the money theyve put into digitization.
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Peter Kilborn Book Industry Communication http//
www.bic.org.uk peter_at_bic.org.uk