The publishing industry news is all abuzz with word that several major publishing houses have announced that they will be delaying the release of their eBook versions until four months after the release of hardcover books. I don’t think I’m alone in thinking this: What are they smoking?
Seriously, do they really hate their customers so much that they’ll thumb their noses at the fastest-growing segment of the book industry? I’m truly dumbfounded that they would adopt such a dinosaur-like stance to an unstoppable trend. Yes, hardcover sales are still number one. But where hardcover sales are levelling off, eBook sales show only an upward trend.
GalleyCat, in the article “How Will We Remember the Publishers Who Delayed eBooks?” by Ron Hogan, uses a baseball analogy to explain:
We get why these big publishers who have made their eBook decisions public want to keep the hardcover on the mound for at least another inning, and we could even foresee outcomes where things work out in their favor—although those outcomes only come about after a slew of follow-up decisions, including but not limited to rethinking the way frontlist titles are marketed to readers from pre-publication through the hardcover release and hence to the digital release.
I, too, understand that publishers naturally want to cater to their most profitable market; however, this can be done without rejecting future markets. It’s short-sighted of them to alienate an up-and-coming segment of highly-motivated and avid readers. James McQuivey of Forrester Research agrees and makes the following interesting suggestions:
Offer a premium digital version to coincide with hardback release. Worried that $25 can’t compete with $9.99? It can’t, frankly, and 10 years from now, it won’t have to, but for now, manage that gap by offering digital content in windows: premium and basic.
The dead tree publishing industry needs to step forward into the future – the digital age is here to stay. There’s no harm keeping one foot in the still-profitable past, but ignoring trends will not preserve their industry. As in the world of photography and many other industries of the past, book publishers, too, need to adapt or die. Extinction is only inevitable if they choose to ignore the advantages presented by this new paradigm of publishing.
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