Perhaps the US should follow the lead of one of its allies, the U.K. that is proposing the creation of a new agency on digital rights. Such an agency would look into the relations of authors, commercial interests, rights and consumers. Given the catastrophe of newspapers in recent months, lawmakers in our nation ought to be noticing another looming information crisis.
This may be a stretch for the Obama administration, given its full plate and the recent cries against its attempts to regulate healthcare and financial markets. And yet, what a relief to be looking into something before a full scale crisis in publishing is upon us. Who knows? Perhaps the crisis in the infrastructure of trade book publishing that the e-book presents could be averted.
Ashling, Jim. “Comments Sought on Digital Rights Proposals” Information Today May 2008 p. 24.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
E-Publishing Business Model
Publishing and Business Plans for the Age of Digital Books
“Microsoft Gives up Scan Plan” Library Journal July 2008, p. 16
In a very short feature within Library Journal last year, we see that Microsoft has decided to drop a plan to digitize books and scholarly articles. Microsoft explained saying: “We believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer, and content partner.”
"Sustainable business model"--get that?
Microsoft suggests in this decision to drop out of the e-book business--a decision made and reported a year ago--and they tell us that the traditional costs of book publishing are faltering, that we do not have a model to replace this traditional business structure. Microsoft suggests that the traditional infrastructure for the creation and dissemination of knowledge and books is obsolete. Microsoft also suggests that a new model is yet to have been built.
This is a fascinating admission from one of the most lucrative organizations in history. And prescient given the news about newspapers that we have had in the last six months. I want to draw an analogy here, once again. The problem in the newspaper industry since the internet is that newspapers no longer have a sustainable business model. The cost of reporting was traditionally borne somewhat by advertising and somewhat by readership. Today, both readership and advertising revenues are way down. We do not have a way to pay for reporting in our e-world. This is a crisis that cuts to the heart of a democratic society.
Trade publishing houses are trying to hang on to the remnants of the old business model system even as they are moving into e-books. For example, over and over again we see reported that one of the stumbling blocks for libraries with e-books is that publishing houses want licenses to restrict the use of the e-book, allowing libraries only one reader for each e-book at a time, as if it were a print book.
While I am sympathetic with the financial difficulties of publishing houses, this seems an odd and untenable prohibition in the long term.
This seems too big a problem to be left to the free hand of the market. Because ideas are central to a democratic nation and ideas require discipline and cultivation, we need to plan for this transition.
“Microsoft Gives up Scan Plan” Library Journal July 2008, p. 16
In a very short feature within Library Journal last year, we see that Microsoft has decided to drop a plan to digitize books and scholarly articles. Microsoft explained saying: “We believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer, and content partner.”
"Sustainable business model"--get that?
Microsoft suggests in this decision to drop out of the e-book business--a decision made and reported a year ago--and they tell us that the traditional costs of book publishing are faltering, that we do not have a model to replace this traditional business structure. Microsoft suggests that the traditional infrastructure for the creation and dissemination of knowledge and books is obsolete. Microsoft also suggests that a new model is yet to have been built.
This is a fascinating admission from one of the most lucrative organizations in history. And prescient given the news about newspapers that we have had in the last six months. I want to draw an analogy here, once again. The problem in the newspaper industry since the internet is that newspapers no longer have a sustainable business model. The cost of reporting was traditionally borne somewhat by advertising and somewhat by readership. Today, both readership and advertising revenues are way down. We do not have a way to pay for reporting in our e-world. This is a crisis that cuts to the heart of a democratic society.
Trade publishing houses are trying to hang on to the remnants of the old business model system even as they are moving into e-books. For example, over and over again we see reported that one of the stumbling blocks for libraries with e-books is that publishing houses want licenses to restrict the use of the e-book, allowing libraries only one reader for each e-book at a time, as if it were a print book.
While I am sympathetic with the financial difficulties of publishing houses, this seems an odd and untenable prohibition in the long term.
This seems too big a problem to be left to the free hand of the market. Because ideas are central to a democratic nation and ideas require discipline and cultivation, we need to plan for this transition.
Libraries and Ebooks, a Kindle version
There are a number of copyright issues around e-books that libraries have faced before in the move from print journals to e-journals. Some of these issues may not have been anticipated. But having now years of experience with aggregators and subscription licenses that provide access rather than ownership, with no absolute certainty of preservation, libraries are in a position today to negotiate the shift more carefully than the shift from print journals to e-journals.
When a library originally subscribed to an e-journal rather than a print journal it may not have seemed much of a change because libraries have always subscribed to journals. And even if to subscribe to an e-journal was only to gain access to these journals rather than to buy them, there was a sense of paying for the journals that were yet to come. But that shift has left libraries in many ways at the mercy of the journal aggregators in terms of which journals libraries have access to, the cost of access, and most important for this class, the terms of access. Terms of access as expressed by license contracts have deployed and re-interpreted copyright law in ways unimaginable fifty years ago. But if the licenses used for subscribing to e-journals become the models for e-books, libraries and the public will have lost more ground to those who control copyright on issues of resale and multiple readers. Libraries must tread carefully as they shift to e-books.
What are the issues libraries face with e-books? First, there is the question of paying for access to the book rather than buying the book. E-books will turn out to be dramatically more costly than traditional books if libraries pay for them year after year. A second issue of concern to libraries is aggregation. Librarians would need to order groups of books, rather than choosing individual titles to buy for e-books to be cost effective for publishers. But this aggregation would be a burden to libraries who are interested in tailoring their collections to their clientele. It would also further encourage a centralized, mass production of books within publishing which is not good for creating a truly diverse body of knowledge.
Another issue for libraries and e-books are the devices on which they will be read. Some devices, like the Kindle, will accept only one publisher’s, Amazon’s, digital format. This, of course, creates a monopoly for Amazon. It also makes it almost imperative that libraries carry these readers. And no doubt, if the library carries such devices, the devices will be improved and libraries will need to be regularly replacing them. They will also need to interact with patrons who are borrowing this hardware. What happens when the hardware malfunctions? Do librarians want to deal with these issues?
All these issues must be faced and understood before any library makes a mad dash toward the future and e-books. Technology for its own sake is perhaps not the best policy.
Sources
Overview of e-books "E-Publishing: A Rapidly Maturing Industry”, Library Technology Reports, 40(6), 5-39.
“Book Expo America Comes to LA” Library News July 2008 14-16.
When a library originally subscribed to an e-journal rather than a print journal it may not have seemed much of a change because libraries have always subscribed to journals. And even if to subscribe to an e-journal was only to gain access to these journals rather than to buy them, there was a sense of paying for the journals that were yet to come. But that shift has left libraries in many ways at the mercy of the journal aggregators in terms of which journals libraries have access to, the cost of access, and most important for this class, the terms of access. Terms of access as expressed by license contracts have deployed and re-interpreted copyright law in ways unimaginable fifty years ago. But if the licenses used for subscribing to e-journals become the models for e-books, libraries and the public will have lost more ground to those who control copyright on issues of resale and multiple readers. Libraries must tread carefully as they shift to e-books.
What are the issues libraries face with e-books? First, there is the question of paying for access to the book rather than buying the book. E-books will turn out to be dramatically more costly than traditional books if libraries pay for them year after year. A second issue of concern to libraries is aggregation. Librarians would need to order groups of books, rather than choosing individual titles to buy for e-books to be cost effective for publishers. But this aggregation would be a burden to libraries who are interested in tailoring their collections to their clientele. It would also further encourage a centralized, mass production of books within publishing which is not good for creating a truly diverse body of knowledge.
Another issue for libraries and e-books are the devices on which they will be read. Some devices, like the Kindle, will accept only one publisher’s, Amazon’s, digital format. This, of course, creates a monopoly for Amazon. It also makes it almost imperative that libraries carry these readers. And no doubt, if the library carries such devices, the devices will be improved and libraries will need to be regularly replacing them. They will also need to interact with patrons who are borrowing this hardware. What happens when the hardware malfunctions? Do librarians want to deal with these issues?
All these issues must be faced and understood before any library makes a mad dash toward the future and e-books. Technology for its own sake is perhaps not the best policy.
Sources
Overview of e-books "E-Publishing: A Rapidly Maturing Industry”, Library Technology Reports, 40(6), 5-39.
“Book Expo America Comes to LA” Library News July 2008 14-16.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Annotated Bibliography on the ebook,
Here is a bit more research, just begun, on ebooks from the popular press. What I have here is an annotated bibliography.
1. Blount, Roy Jr. "The Kindle Swindle" The New York Times February 25, 2009.
This article first defines and then discusses functions of the Kindle. The Kindle, it seems, not only provides the text of a book, it also always provides an audio version of the book. Blount argues that the problem with the Kindle is that it is refusing to pay writers for the audio form of their books. Authors and publishers have long foregone royalties for audio books for the blind, but the audio version available to everyone is another matter.
This is one of the question about copyright that the Kindle raises. Generally the Kindle makes copyright law much more prone to favor the publisher of the electronic version of the text over those who do lion's share of creation--i.e., authors and publishers. This will raise issues about lending practices. It may be that Kindle will require to be paid each time a patron uses an item, rather than buying the item once for as many uses as the book would bear.
2. Darlin, Damon. ”First Impression of the New Kindle DX" The New York Times May 6, 2009.
Darlin suggests that the new Kindle is still small and so it is not yet able to replicate the full page of a newspaper, but that experience of use is generally pleasant. He notes that the Post, Times and Globe are available on the Kindle. It also makes it easy to read sheet music and look up words.
This moves the Kindle merely from questions of books and publishing issues to the questions facing the newspapers. How will librarians begin to incorporate this technology into the library? It most certainly will be arriving there. It seems that we will need to avoid the kind of monopoly of the digital academic journals that we face.
3. Darnton, Robert. "Google and the Future of Books" New York Review of Books 56:2 February 12, 2009.
In this essay, Darnton reflects upon the court settlement between Google and others about copyright. Darnton argues that while Google's present leadership means well, the company now has an effective monopoly over all books that it has digitized from research libraries across the country. He argues that while librarians at Library of Congress missed the boat to create the universal library, that universal library is now in the hands of a for profit organization. He suggests that is certainly possible that this monopoly will go the way of academic journals--benefitting neither the producers of the knowledge, i.e. professors, nor users, the public. Primarily the way this academic journal publishing is set up, benefits publishers.
I believe that Darnton's fears may indeed be well-founded. After all, many slaves had great masters only to be replaced by less scrupulous ones later. There is no reason to trust a profit driven monopoly. What I wonder, is whether or not anti-trust laws might come into play here. After all, copyright is not the only law that can have an effect.
Darnton also doubts that there is much to be done now. Well, there is a great deal still that has not been digitized. And Google doesn't own it. It seems to me that it is not too late to be thinking about that great Library in the Sky here and creating a publically held version of it.
4. Florin, Hector. "Podcasting your Novel: Publishing's Next Wave?" Time Saturday January 31, 2009.
This essay follows the successful launching of podcasts of novels by J.C. Hutchins and Scott Sigler. Both of these writers, unable to land a book deal, arranged to have their works recorded and made available for free on the internet. Their success on the podcasts has led to book contracts. They argue that nay sayers just don't want things to change, while others argue that this is a very small group that can have success in this way.
5. Grossman, Lev. "Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature" Time January 21, 2009.
Grossman discusses the history of the novel, suggesting that its rise was in business and that as business changes, so will the novel. While publishing is meant to be the gatekeeper, perhaps its gates are too and audiences are not being served. Furthermore, the way publishing is being done is too costly. Paper and shipping and editing and advances are too expensive. Authors can publish their own work for virtually nothing. He points to Kindle, Sony Reader, cell phones and Google as part of the future. Publishing is changing: Grossman expects it to be much less orderly, less careful of copyright, of longer and more mutable texts. He suggests that medium the novel comes in will not be stable, may be digital, may be paper.
The differences Grossman suggests that will take place in publishing will change dramatically the standard resources that we will use to choose books. The publishing world has in many ways created the structure by which librarians review and choose books. We will need to find new resources to make choices. Cottage industries are harder to keep abreast of.
6. Rich, Motoko. "Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab" The New York Times January 28, 2009.
This is an article about self-publishing. Rich reports that the only segment of the publishing industry that is growing is the self-publishing segment. This segment is growing because author who want to see their writing in print can now do so at a fraction of the cost that it would have cost in the past because there is a print on demand technology that allows only one or two copies of a book to be published. Occasionally, one of these books makes it big. But says an industry insider, "For every thousand titles that get self-published, maybe there's two that should have been published."
Reading this essay makes one feel that until something dramatic changes, librarians may still rely on traditional collection tools.
8. Stone, Brad. "Is this the Future of the Digital Book?" The New York Times April 5, 2009.
This article tries to imagine what is going to happen to books in the future. Bradley Inman suggests that with Kindle and the Sony Reader, laptops and Iphones, reading in the future will be seamlessly mixed with video and music. All of which will need to avoid looking contrived.
1. Blount, Roy Jr. "The Kindle Swindle" The New York Times February 25, 2009.
This article first defines and then discusses functions of the Kindle. The Kindle, it seems, not only provides the text of a book, it also always provides an audio version of the book. Blount argues that the problem with the Kindle is that it is refusing to pay writers for the audio form of their books. Authors and publishers have long foregone royalties for audio books for the blind, but the audio version available to everyone is another matter.
This is one of the question about copyright that the Kindle raises. Generally the Kindle makes copyright law much more prone to favor the publisher of the electronic version of the text over those who do lion's share of creation--i.e., authors and publishers. This will raise issues about lending practices. It may be that Kindle will require to be paid each time a patron uses an item, rather than buying the item once for as many uses as the book would bear.
2. Darlin, Damon. ”First Impression of the New Kindle DX" The New York Times May 6, 2009.
Darlin suggests that the new Kindle is still small and so it is not yet able to replicate the full page of a newspaper, but that experience of use is generally pleasant. He notes that the Post, Times and Globe are available on the Kindle. It also makes it easy to read sheet music and look up words.
This moves the Kindle merely from questions of books and publishing issues to the questions facing the newspapers. How will librarians begin to incorporate this technology into the library? It most certainly will be arriving there. It seems that we will need to avoid the kind of monopoly of the digital academic journals that we face.
3. Darnton, Robert. "Google and the Future of Books" New York Review of Books 56:2 February 12, 2009.
In this essay, Darnton reflects upon the court settlement between Google and others about copyright. Darnton argues that while Google's present leadership means well, the company now has an effective monopoly over all books that it has digitized from research libraries across the country. He argues that while librarians at Library of Congress missed the boat to create the universal library, that universal library is now in the hands of a for profit organization. He suggests that is certainly possible that this monopoly will go the way of academic journals--benefitting neither the producers of the knowledge, i.e. professors, nor users, the public. Primarily the way this academic journal publishing is set up, benefits publishers.
I believe that Darnton's fears may indeed be well-founded. After all, many slaves had great masters only to be replaced by less scrupulous ones later. There is no reason to trust a profit driven monopoly. What I wonder, is whether or not anti-trust laws might come into play here. After all, copyright is not the only law that can have an effect.
Darnton also doubts that there is much to be done now. Well, there is a great deal still that has not been digitized. And Google doesn't own it. It seems to me that it is not too late to be thinking about that great Library in the Sky here and creating a publically held version of it.
4. Florin, Hector. "Podcasting your Novel: Publishing's Next Wave?" Time Saturday January 31, 2009.
This essay follows the successful launching of podcasts of novels by J.C. Hutchins and Scott Sigler. Both of these writers, unable to land a book deal, arranged to have their works recorded and made available for free on the internet. Their success on the podcasts has led to book contracts. They argue that nay sayers just don't want things to change, while others argue that this is a very small group that can have success in this way.
5. Grossman, Lev. "Books Gone Wild: The Digital Age Reshapes Literature" Time January 21, 2009.
Grossman discusses the history of the novel, suggesting that its rise was in business and that as business changes, so will the novel. While publishing is meant to be the gatekeeper, perhaps its gates are too and audiences are not being served. Furthermore, the way publishing is being done is too costly. Paper and shipping and editing and advances are too expensive. Authors can publish their own work for virtually nothing. He points to Kindle, Sony Reader, cell phones and Google as part of the future. Publishing is changing: Grossman expects it to be much less orderly, less careful of copyright, of longer and more mutable texts. He suggests that medium the novel comes in will not be stable, may be digital, may be paper.
The differences Grossman suggests that will take place in publishing will change dramatically the standard resources that we will use to choose books. The publishing world has in many ways created the structure by which librarians review and choose books. We will need to find new resources to make choices. Cottage industries are harder to keep abreast of.
6. Rich, Motoko. "Self-Publishers Flourish as Writers Pay the Tab" The New York Times January 28, 2009.
This is an article about self-publishing. Rich reports that the only segment of the publishing industry that is growing is the self-publishing segment. This segment is growing because author who want to see their writing in print can now do so at a fraction of the cost that it would have cost in the past because there is a print on demand technology that allows only one or two copies of a book to be published. Occasionally, one of these books makes it big. But says an industry insider, "For every thousand titles that get self-published, maybe there's two that should have been published."
Reading this essay makes one feel that until something dramatic changes, librarians may still rely on traditional collection tools.
8. Stone, Brad. "Is this the Future of the Digital Book?" The New York Times April 5, 2009.
This article tries to imagine what is going to happen to books in the future. Bradley Inman suggests that with Kindle and the Sony Reader, laptops and Iphones, reading in the future will be seamlessly mixed with video and music. All of which will need to avoid looking contrived.
Introduction: Manjoo says " Fear the Kindle" and I wonder, should we?
I begin this blog with questions raised by Farhad Manjoo's essay: "Fear the Kindle: Amazon's amazing e-book reader is bad news for the publishing industry." Slate Posted Thursday, Feb. 26, 2009, at 5:14 PM ET
Manjoo's article raises the major questions that this blog will address. The crisis of news production created by the for profit economic model of newspapers may just be a harbinger of the future of book publishing. I don't want books to undergo the same curtailment that local, national, and international news reporting have. In the midst of this information revolution, we are on the verge of losing an infrastructure that has endured 500 years--that of book publishing. What does e-publishing offer us? Threaten?
Here Manjoo, book lover, discusses the Kindle (retail $359.00) that is new from Amazon. He says that it is really beautiful to use, that if you never thought that you could curl up with an electronic reading device, you would find yourself convinced by this machine, that it is a joy to use.
Manjoo then discusses issues of monopoly and copyright. He reports that Amazon will control the sales of all books and a good deal of other print material because the only way to use the Kindle is to buy the digital material compatible with it. The licensing that is part of the Amazon agreement vastly expands the reach of copyright because it limits the ability to lend and to resell books.
These resale and lending issues have already dramatically limited these sharing practices in music. Think of the court cases we have been discussing in the news discussion section of our class. But the Kindle and its licenses threatens to extend these restrictions to print matter.
Amazon’s monopoly would undermine the competition in the market place. It could become an almost single supplier for electronic printed matter--much as Microsoft is the monopoly holder in pc software.
Amazon may have no reason to publish new books, it makes the same, nay more money republishing. Traditional publishing houses receive much less of the revenue from the sales of books and so would progressively trim their operations.
Would this lead to less critical reading of new books, and less editing, in some ways creating a lack of incentive in the book business, thus leading to fewer and fewer books being published?
Something indeed to look into.
Manjoo's article raises the major questions that this blog will address. The crisis of news production created by the for profit economic model of newspapers may just be a harbinger of the future of book publishing. I don't want books to undergo the same curtailment that local, national, and international news reporting have. In the midst of this information revolution, we are on the verge of losing an infrastructure that has endured 500 years--that of book publishing. What does e-publishing offer us? Threaten?
Here Manjoo, book lover, discusses the Kindle (retail $359.00) that is new from Amazon. He says that it is really beautiful to use, that if you never thought that you could curl up with an electronic reading device, you would find yourself convinced by this machine, that it is a joy to use.
Manjoo then discusses issues of monopoly and copyright. He reports that Amazon will control the sales of all books and a good deal of other print material because the only way to use the Kindle is to buy the digital material compatible with it. The licensing that is part of the Amazon agreement vastly expands the reach of copyright because it limits the ability to lend and to resell books.
These resale and lending issues have already dramatically limited these sharing practices in music. Think of the court cases we have been discussing in the news discussion section of our class. But the Kindle and its licenses threatens to extend these restrictions to print matter.
Amazon’s monopoly would undermine the competition in the market place. It could become an almost single supplier for electronic printed matter--much as Microsoft is the monopoly holder in pc software.
Amazon may have no reason to publish new books, it makes the same, nay more money republishing. Traditional publishing houses receive much less of the revenue from the sales of books and so would progressively trim their operations.
Would this lead to less critical reading of new books, and less editing, in some ways creating a lack of incentive in the book business, thus leading to fewer and fewer books being published?
Something indeed to look into.
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