A French Publisher Now Understands the Disruptive Force of eBooks
September 2, 2009
This Web log does not do news. I have hinted that publishers are in a flow that leads over Niagara Falls. Happily a “real journalist” has published a “real” article on this situation. “Book Publisher: e-Books Will Be Our Downfall”. Jordan Golsan is recycling some information, but that is the way in which information moves around the datasphere. For me, the most interesting comment in the write up was:
Regardless, Nourry [French publishing executive] has a point. He claims that retailers like Amazon are paying more than $9.99 for each e-book, thus selling them at a loss. He goes on: “That cannot last…Amazon is not in the business of losing money. So, one day, they are going to come to the publishers and say: By the way, we are cutting the price we pay. If that happens, after paying the authors, there will be nothing left for the publishers.” It’s not clear if that is true or not, but we do know that Amazon takes 70 percent of newspaper and blog subscriptions on the Kindle, with only 30 percent going to the content maker. Further, is it really a bad thing if the publisher is left out in the cold? Reading the rejection letters of hit authors makes one wonder what need there is for publishing houses at all, in the age of the Internet. That’s what Mr. Nourry is so worried about. He is terrified that authors (and Amazon) will realize that they don’t really need his industry to get things done.
In my opinion, the river of red ink is rushing forward. I wonder what global company offers a full service “digital Gutenberg” for authors to use—no traditional publisher required, of course?
Stephen Arnold, September 2, 2009
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