Can book publishers survive?

The digitization of the book is occurring in many forms, but the two formats that are grabbing all the attention are fully-authored e-books and e-books compiled from "chunks" of other books. With non-fiction works, the market is increasingly moving towards the chunking of information. Going to Morocco? Why not access 10 different books and magazines to compile the perfect travel book for your interests? Pull together sections on history, culture, language, local restaurants, shopping opportunities, hotels (complete with offers) and so on? Download it to your PC, smartphone, or iPod. Access what you want, when you want, wherever you are. Information on the run – can book publishers be a part of this revolution?

Build-your-own Books

The ability to access limited sections or "chunks" of books for use in multi-media applications calls many established publishing concepts and traditions into question. As customers increasingly build their own "books", who is the "author"? This avid compiler, or the many original writers? Who would hold the copyright in such a work? Do terms such as "original" and "copies" still mean anything? Do the recognized geographical territories for rights hold good? Is the "original" the final, user-customized book - or its sources? Should such one-copy print runs be eligible to unique identifiers such as unique ISBN's? And does any of this matter?

Restructuring the Market

With authored e-books and self-built e-books, the questions seem never-ending. What can and should be protected? Who will aggregate the information, and handle the convergence across multi-platform devices? Even after reassigning rights, redistributing revenues, reconsidering contractual relationships, and solving all the logistical questions, of hardware, software and retailing, the question is: is it worth it? Is there money to be made?

The answer of course, is yes. But how?

Books Are Like Baked Beans After All

The answer lies in partnerships. A business model that has long been successful in other industries, but largely shunned by book publishers beyond magazine or newspaper serialization rights. Books have always been glorious, stand-alone products, seemingly representing the opposite of commercialism. The business side of publishing is largely untold, while the books themselves – those small islands of culture – are endlessly discussed. But the great potential of e-books lies with their interactivity – to other books, other readers, other products related to the content, other markets and more. In order to enter the next phase of publishing, book publishers will need to be seen as very much part of the commericial world, not standing apart from it.

In his essay, "The Processed Book", Joseph Esposito notes five important capabilities of e-books: as portals or front ends to other sources of information (pointers); as self-referencing texts; as platforms being "fingered" by other resources; as input processed by machines; and as nodes in networks.

E-books offer endless repackaging opportunities and the opportunity for strategic, lucrative partnerships. Consider their potential:

• multimedia capabilities
• hyperlinks within the e-book to Web content and reference tools (yours and others)
• automatically or periodically updated content (the book need never become out of date)
• automatic and embedded audio conversion and translation capabilities (you no longer have to sell foreign rights – you can "publish" straight to any market)
• embedded instant shopping and ordering (of further information or products)
• divergent, user-interactive, decision-driven plotlines

• community-built non-fiction books, with reader-contributed projects
• interaction with other e-books using Bluetooth or the cloud
• collaborative authoring and community activities
• market information: databases of bookmarks, records of reading habits and shopping habits.

Potential Pitfalls
What are the drawbacks? E-texts are device-dependent (e-book readers or computer drives). They are format-specific; changes in technology - both in hardware and software - may initially render many e-books unreadable after a short space of time. Tagging and all forms of digital management are critical. Portability is hampered by battery life, lighting conditions, or the availability of appropriate infrastructure (such as electricity). But do they constitute the future of publishing? Only as the printing press defeated the hand-written manuscript.

Publishing 2010
By the end of 2010, the pundits are predicting that e-book sales for fiction will constitute at least 20% of the units moved for midlist and the lower tier of bestsellers, and at least 10% of the units for the really big bestsellers (illustrated books and children’s picture books will be slower to build). The recent experiment with “windowing” e-books — withholding them from release until several months after hardcover publication — will end, as publishers and agents realise that e-book sales (at any price) will spur print book sales (at any price), not cannibalize or discourage them. All business = more business.

 
Joining the Party
Book publishers simply cannot afford to do nothing – because the merchandising challenge for e-books will be met by websites, building them page by page, and offering the kind of value – both in original content and add-on services – that customers expect. These non-book publishers will cobble together products that would look absurdly amateurish in comparison with those produced by traditional publishers, who are the experts in structuring useable information. 
But where are they?