Monday
Aug242009
Note to Book People: We're Back
Monday, August 24, 2009 at 8:40PM | in Articles I just wrote a little piece for Publishers Weekly on why publishing is on the way back:
The corporate consolidation of publishing over the past two decades has finally maxed out. Borders is verging on bankruptcy; Barnes & Noble is closing stores; and major media conglomerates are closing imprints and ejecting talent faster than they gobbled it up in the 1990s. While this makes for some bleak headlines in the short term, it bodes well for the future of a publishing industry that operates on a scale more appropriate to the medium we're all creating and selling.
Publishing is a sustainable industry—and a great one at that. The book business, however, was never a good fit for today's corporate behemoths. The corporations that went on spending sprees in the 1980s and '90s were not truly interested in the art of publishing. These conglomerates, from Time Warner to Vivendi, are really just holding companies. They service their shareholders by servicing debt more rapidly than they accrue it. Their businesses are really just the stories they use to garner more investment capital. In order to continue leveraging debt, they need to demonstrate growth. The problem is that media, especially books, can't offer enough organic growth—people can only read so many books from so many authors.
Reader Comments (5)
True enough.
I know I have sold at least one of your Life, Inc books for you via Twitter. @cindythroop
glad to hear it with a book looming! thanks for the optimism (as ever) doug! :-))
Honestly... this may be the greatest piece you've ever written. It speaks volumes to the pitfalls of a corporatism that has rotted away the quality of the industry. Yet you leave us with a great sense of optimism in an industry that I love.
I think your right, and I certainly hope so. What Borders is currently doing in it's last gasp of desperation-after being run into the ground by corporate sheep-is a new low. They are forcing stringent upsell deadlines for "particular titles" onto their employees and if a quota isn't met the store and it's employees are punished. The CEO has stated something to the degree that he will show the publishing houses that "we make bestsellers."
This in turn forces management and the it's employees to covertly buy the books out of their own pocket just to make quota's so they won't have some wank District Manager down there throat. Sure, they're not supposed to buy the books, but they do just to keep their job as human nature would obvously dictate.
In the larger scheme this of course horrible for the diversity of the industry itself. The retailers are then essentially making certain authors incredibly rich, not by the merits of their work, but because they have someone making just over minimum wage shilling for them under a program of fear. Meanwhile many authors, even in larger publishing houses, do not have the luxury of a retail drone army because the whole "supply and demand" game has been completely manufactured.
I feel a similar optimism with music retailers. As the big guys exit, I am seeing more small independent dealers spring up in my hometown. These are great places run by knowledgeable entrepreneurs who really LOVE music, each with interesting and diverse selections. Sometimes a CD may cost a dollar or two more than an online price, but so what? Nothing like an independent music store to add to neighbourhood's culture.