Do Not Adjust Your Set. We Control the Transmission…

Posted on 14. Aug, 2009 by Chris Matney in Book Publishing, Front Page Posts

TechCruch posted an interesting story about the movie industry that made me sigh – in that frustrated why-does-the-consumer-always-have-to-lose sort of way – and then it got me thinking about how books are released to the public. The article is entitled, The Movie Studios Have A Great Idea To Ramp Up Piracy. And Blockbuster Wants To Help., and it presents the newest brainchild of 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner Brothers. The idea is simple. They will delay movie releases to Redbox and Netflix by 30 days and force consumers to go to Blockbuster to get recently-released DVDs.

Now, I spent a lovely flight from Denver to Los Angeles next to the CEO (now ex-CEO) of Blockbuster. I remember our discussion vividly – partly because I usually sit next to less-than-interesting passengers, but mostly because the then-CEO of Blockbuster was clueless. He claimed that DVDs were a fad. This was long after I had bought a new player for myself and my parents. What?!? I presented my case about superior sound, picture, search, etc. I told him that I had already ejected all VCR tapes and players from the house. But, he was steadfast at digging in his heels – “do you know what it would cost to redo our shelving?”

Given the less-than-stellar brainpower behind Blockbuster, I can see why they have managed to miss all the technology advances and changes in customer habits for the last several decades. I can also see why their business model is tanking. However, I can’t possibly see the movie studios lining up for this mistake.

For print books, the challenges are the same. You need the right number of books in the right stores/libraries at the right time. One idea that intrigues me is the print-on-demand kiosk for books. You want a book? Go to the kiosk, type in the title (or author or ISBN) and five minutes later, your bound book pops out. The NY Times archives have an old 2007 article entitled And Now, Folks, Behold the 15-Minute Publisher. It discusses the Espresso Book Machine – a German invention to do just this. Now, the columnist envisions this for out-of-print and less popular titles. But, my thought is that this would be a perfect solution for any titles – give readers the books they want, in the format they want, when they want them. Hmmm.

In an updated 2009 feature, the InstaBook III is reviewed. The cost has come down, the quality has gone up. Traditional publishers are still shying away. According to the author, there is “reluctance on the part of publishers to abandon older distribution models, which Neller says is sometimes driven by a fear of cannibalizing existing inventory.” Insert here another sigh in that consumer-is-losing sort of way. I hope the book publishing industry can learn from the mistakes of Blockbuster.