iPods and iPhones: death for the book trade
By Gareth Powell
The Apple iPod Touch and the Apple iPhone will all but destroy traditional publishing. It is already very sick. The days of the major sales when you would print a million of a book and know you would be OK are now well over.
The death of book publishing in the middle levels may not happen tomorrow. The relatives have been informed. It is awaiting the last rites. Probably within ten years.
This is written in the first person for there is no other way to write it. John Owen is one of the savviest publishers I know. He owned Weldon Owen — he bought out the Australian Kevin Weldon — and from his headquarters in San Francisco and Sydney built up, in partnership with his wife, Dawn, a major publishing empire. Which he recently sold.
He is visiting Sydney and last night took me to dinner.
The conversation was all about the death of publishing in the middle levels. It survives in other areas but the glory days are well past.
The easiest way to see why and how it is happening is iPod the Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer and David Pogue.
At the bookseller Dymocks in Sydney it is US$27 although in the United States it is US$20. It is 278 pages long, has a laminated cover, is professionally laid out. Not great value for money but OK.
It was also available as a download on the official Apple site as:
iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd. Ed.
Thoroughly updated and teeming with high-quality color graphics, humor, tips, tricks, and surprises, iPhone: The Missing Manual quickly teaches you how to set up, accessorize, and troubleshoot your iPhone 3G.
Price was US$3.50 on special.
It seems to have been pulled from the site now because David Pogue, who is not stupid and runs the technical section of the New York Times, will have worked out he was killing his own sales.
Still it will do as an example. Although the book was printed in Canada and looks to me like printing on demand by the time it gets to the bookseller the price is, frankly, damn silly.
And the price it was being offered on the Internet was, perhaps, a little too low – $5 would have been more like it.
Tomorrow I am going to Bangkok and my iPod Touch is loaded with books for me to read on the flight. I am meeting my offsiders and there will be a book swapping fest.
Note that I publish books and have done for a very long time.
There will always, I think, be a market for superbly produced books which are a pleasure to read. But for the bottom and middle end of the market the iPod Touch and the iPhone are standing ready. They are, indeed, the Smiler with the Knyf.
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January 19th, 2009
“David Pogue, who is not stupid and runs the technical section of the New York Times, will have worked out he was killing his own sales”
Actually, I didn’t pull that e-book. No idea who did.
Besides, it’s not my decision to offer these things electronically; that’s the publisher’s call, and they’re VERY excited about it. (Much more than I am.)
Anyway, that’s the point–it may be killing my sales, but it’s out of my hands!
–Pogue
January 19th, 2009
Thanks for the instant reply. As it happens I bought the book and have it in front of me as I write. I am now working on converting it into a Skype-type machine so that I can make free calls in Thailand.
The book, like all of your writing, is clean, precise and has a subtle charm.
January 20th, 2009
Reading on portable electronic devices is an expanding niche market that provides an additional revenue stream for publishing houses and authors. It is nothing more. It is certainly not the death of print publishing…
Proportionally very few readers will choose to read from an electronic screen – particularly a small backlit one like the iPhone.
Non-backlit eReaders will grab a larger slice of the market as the technology improves and prices fall but this will still be a niche revenue stream for publishers whose primary business will remain the commissioning, distribution and sale of texts for print publication.
The economics to a purchaser are clear – initial outlay on device plus cost of eBooks published must be less than the cost of the printed works alone, before the next required upgrade of the device.
i.e $200 + (25 x $5) (that’s five-times the annual book purchases for a so-called ‘heavy reader’) = $325. Or simply buy the 25 books at $12 each and save $25 – and again I’m being generous to the eReader argument by slashing its prices. Given that the majority of people only buy a few books a year the device is useless to most folk anyway – even in the affluent West.
With no DRM the books can be given to friends, swapped, donated to charity or resold. The eBooks on a memory stick don’t do this nearly so well, although if they come without DRM they can kill the publishing revenue stream, and royalties to the hard-grafting author, stone cold dead.
The books will not break down, be liable to theft and loss, run out of battery or lose me $200 if I drop them in the bath. They also won’t strain my eyes (although granted they might strain my back if I chose to take them all on a long-haul flight).
Oh, and they’re also useless for purchases of things like coffee table books, gift books, childrens non-chapter books, books as gifts and books as souvenirs.
With an aging Western population the best niche for eReaders might be in their ability to increase font size.
I wish David all the best with his sales – across all formats and devices.
January 20th, 2009
As a representative of David Pogue’s publisher (and the person responsible for the iPhone App), I can say that the data is clear: David’s print sales are *not* negatively affected by the iPhone App (and may actually be higher). See http://toc.oreilly.com/2009/01/iphone-app-outperforms-most-pr.html for more details.
Your concerns are only warranted if you assume that a $4.99 app sale means a lost $24.99 print sale — our data suggests the opposite: that $24.99 print sales are unaffected or increase, and that a $4.99 app sale is instead of no sale at all.
It’s true that we and David both make less money on an iPhone App than on a print sale, but again the data suggests those app sales are in addition to, not in lieu of, print sales.
Andrew Savikas
VP, Digital Initiatives
O’Reilly Media
January 20th, 2009
Thank you for that. It is the most encouraging news I have read, as a publisher and an author, for some time.
However, I think the area of lost sales is going to come down, in the end, to subject. I read a lot of books on my iPod and iPhone and I simply do not buy the hard cover version.
Your data, at the moment, suggests app sales are in addition to, not in lieu of, print sales.
Possibly the record companies thought the same about music online. In the long run it simply does not make a lot of logical sense.
Finally, may I congratulate you on an excellently produced book — I bought it full price in Sydney — and, yes, confirming your point of view I have it both electronically and in print.
January 28th, 2009
When I followed the link to this site, I saw an ad for the iPhone available here in Belgium – for €429. It’s just not worth it – and the battery life if I start reading books on iTouch/iPhone is too short. Also, I have had students using both in class when they have left the edition of the classic we are reading at home. This means they can’t take proper notes, they stumble when they read aloud and they moan because the print does weird things to their eyes. E-books are definitely going to expand, but I think reports of the death of the book, let alone funeral rites, are premature.
January 28th, 2009
First, I am in Thailand and all the advertisements are in Thai and I cannot comment on the prices but here they are very reasonable. I will concede the battery life problem. Let us hope it is fixed in the next version. I also agree on the inability to take notes which drives me quietly frantic. I am not young but my eyes have never watered from reading on these machines. It would make a good excuse to the teacher.
You may well be right about funeral rites being premature. In this area I was always a pessimist and I still publish printed books myself.
But, honest, Madeleine Conway, while all of your points are well made and taken, the move is inevitable. You will see newspapers die, magazines will shuffle off this mortal coil, the middle range of books will be in serious danger. Possibly I am a little premature but, most sadly, I do not think I am wrong. I see the figures every day. They do not augur well. Indeed, the bode ill.
October 5th, 2009
Great post and comments. I navigated to this post from a live link in the book I’m reading on my Android powered smart phone.