Trapdoor Books

Tremors in the Publishing Establishment?

Posted on 21. Jul, 2009 by Chris Matney in Book Publishing, Front Page Posts

It has been a busy week already, as I am working on finishing up a number of partially-read manuscripts and trying to find the virtual bottom of my email box. Thanks to one of our readers for passing along an interesting article about Barnes & Noble. They announced yesterday a new mega e-bookstore with 700,000 books for the Apple iPhone, BlackBerry and various computer platforms. Now, most of the titles are free public domain books (already available for Sony’s e-reader), but it is a stab at Amazon’s Kindle – still the leader for new content.

The good news for us is that new books are $9.99 each – matching the de facto price set by Amazon. This is a HUGE shift for an industry that is famous for releasing $24.95 hardbacks and making consumers wait a year for paperbacks to come out. Will this cut publisher margins? Not in my estimation – as the profile for consumers of hardbacks and e-books is not necessarily the same. Also, the cost of producing an e-book is much less than a hardback, so the margin is still there. It’s a changing paradigm for publishers.

While I am predicting that Barnes & Noble will eventually offer their own reader (Vegas odds favor Plastic Logic right now), this isn’t the death knell for Sony or Amazon. But, it is another step forward.

One thing that seems to be sliding in the wrong direction is the shelf life of books. I’m not sure that e-books are going to impact this trend, but it is an interesting one to understand. In a very old series of articles from 2003, the Oligopoly Watch discusses how long books stay on the shelf. The answer is that the average shelf life of a book (on display at a store) has shrunk from 6-8 months to less than six weeks. Since publishers have to swallow the cost of unsold books, this means that small, niche presses cannot really afford to play the game.

So where’s the silver lining? Apparently at Target. The NY Times reported today that Target is embracing the niche publisher, allowing new authors to at least get a shot at hitting the big time with its Bookmarked Club Pick – putting books on display in their small, but well-purchased book aisle. Selling 50,000 – 150,000 titles through Target seems like a win for everybody and certainly brings the small players back into the retail brick-and-mortar space. It would be great to see other chain booksellers following suit.