Friday, June 20, 2014

Grub Street Printing Newsletter #62, June, 2014

Happy 20th birthday Amazon!
Next month marks a milestone for the folks at Amazon.com.
And while I've sold books through Amazon, I can't bring myself to say, “God bless Amazon” (unless we're talking about a rainforest).
Look, twenty years ago there was no storm cloud that could have foretold the disruption that could be wrought on the publishing industry by a nerd from Princeton.
There were no rules then. Thousands of hopeful e-entrepreneurs tried to make a buck any way they could in the wild west that was gloriously described as ecommerce. Everything from Pampers to Purina was available online, and services from licit match making to illicit rendezvous promised a brave new world, Y2K be damned.
In that spirit, Jeff Bezos realized that book retailing was one of the more moribund retail sectors with the newest rules written sixty years earlier when publishers, desperate to sell books during the depression, instituted “return” privileges to book stores in a valiant attempt to keep the presses rolling.
And forty years later Borders and Barnes & Noble learned to game the system by lining their walls with enough titles to fill a 5,000 square foot showroom. The problem for publishers was, their books were wall paper that changed every ninety days when the books were returned for credit and perhaps then immediately reordered.
Bezos saw a way to streamline book selling that concentrated on deep discounts and cheap and fast shipping. And every book that was available would be available, either through his warehouse network or directly, shipped from the publisher. And that worked so well he expanded into Pampers and Purina after the first wave of start-ups crashed and burned.
And it was fun and exciting, especially because there were no rules. After the tech bubble burst in 2000, legislators seemed especially receptive to keep ecommerce growing, even though the local communities the legislators represented were beginning to falter as Main Street saw dollars floating away to other cities in other states.
As you read the attached newsletter, the portrait of a company that believes it has an obligation to further disrupt the industry by dictating business practices to its suppliers emerges. Now I suppose if you're building cars, suppliers come and go and if you lose one, another will take its place producing an identical part to identical specs. That's not really possible with books, although it seems Bezos would like the industry to approximate such a scenario.
Another article explains that some government lackey issued a patent to Amazon for photographing objects against a white back ground. The stupidity of some government employees is surpassed only by the chutzpah of a company like Amazon that would file such an application, perhaps with hopes that all photographic techniques might be patented with royalties collected each year on April 15.
Amazon is tax averse and drops some money here and there in an attempt to alter the perception that they're bad neighbors, but Amazon executives are asked not to visit certain states lest their presence trigger local tax opportunities.
And how could Amazon be bad? President Obama has twice visited their warehouses, a seeming nod to today's youth that their future lies in the services arena, supervised and judged by computers that will eventually replace them and owned by companies that let their employees pay the taxes that the companies themselves could otherwise owe.
 
Sixty Largest Publishers
Are you curious about who the real heavy-hitters in publishing are by sales rank? You'll find the list here (hint: Pearson wins handily).
Amazon Tries to Bully Hachette...
Apparently the feud between Amazon and Hachette has escalated to the point that Amazon has dropped some Hachette titles, dragged their feet on shipping their titles, and now it seems won't even be offering JK Rowling's newest, The Silkworm, as a conventional book, although ebook and audible versions can be ordered. The roots of the conflict aren't clear yet.
...and Bonnier
Flexing one's monopolistic muscle seems to be addictive as Amazon attempts to also dictate terms to Bonnier, a Swedish publishing conglomerate. The debate over the heft and scope of Amazon's influence has re-ignited.
Backlist eBook Rights
The question about ownership of rights to produce ebooks will apparently be debated in federal court as HarperCollins sues to block Open Roads release of an ebook of the 1972 children's title, Julie of the Wolves.
Out-Amazoning Amazon
An extremely ambitious entrepreneur makes some telling statements on the demise of Borders and starts an enterprise to compete with Amazon...on price!
Book Business or eBook Business?
I get that ebooks are here to stay. But readers prefer ink and paper books 60% to 40% and publishers prefer conventional books overwhelmingly ($). So why does this email edition of Book Business have seven out of nine articles focusing on ebooks?
Amazon! Really?
I'm guessing that somewhere in your house you have a photograph of someone or something in front of a white background. Henceforth, all such pictures will be covered by a newly granted patent owned by Amazon. Stephen Colbert comments on the idiocy of it all.
Mass Market Paperback Pioneer Dies
Mass market paperbacks appeared in the late 1930's and were as disruptive to the industry as ebooks were over a half century later. Their sales didn't surpass hardcover sales until 1960, possibly with the help of Oscar Dystel who introduced Catcher in the Rye, East of Eden and many more classics for Bantam Books. Mr Dystel died at the age of 101 on May 28.
Do the Graphic Arts Include Printing?
Every printer I work with (and myself) has horror stories about working with a clueless designer whose knowledge begins and ends at a Mac Pro screen. The trouble is, after twenty some years of digital design advances, many of the instructors remain as clueless as their students about the leap from RGB to CMYK. Does it matter? Is print THAT important.? Check this out. (Hint: If your designer knows what rubylith is, they're okay.)
Which Cities Read the Most?
Data collected between April 2013 and April 2014 (based on book and magazine sales) ranks Ann Arbor 6th in book purchases in America. The top twenty cities are listed here. But it's been pointed out that if you factor in the community's library circulation, the rankings are pure bs. They simply rank per capita online book spending which may not correlate to book reading.
Warning: This Novel is Rated G With Objectionable Language
In an effort to protect people from dealing with some of the more distasteful life experiences, certain colleges want to put warning labels on literature so readers aren't confronted with the more painful episodes that life presents. But isn't that the point of reading literature, to be challenged?
Final Thought
One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures.”



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