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Deer in headlights
A couple of years ago, I presented a print-on-demand workshop at what turned out to be the last iteration of BookExpo Canada. At the end of the trip, severe thunderstorms stranded me in Toronto.
After weighing my options, perhaps poorly, I decided to drive home rather than wait at the airport for another 24 hours (or more). Most of the drive would take place at night, but I wasn’t tired and traffic was light.
By 12:30 a.m., I had made it around the lake and was just outside Rochester, NY on the New York Thruway (their spelling, not mine). I looked down to pick up a cup of coffee I had bought at the last rest stop, and I looked up to see a deer in headlights.
Things got worse after that – I swerved, caught a guardrail, bounced off the road and landed deep in a marsh – but I missed the deer. As I passed it (on my way to a date with the guardrail), the deer was frozen in the same spot, either uncertain what to do or hoping for the best.
It’s the end of a year, so we’re waist-deep in retrospectives and prognostications. Reading them, I’m reminded of the way that deer looked.
A Mashable thought piece, “5 E-Book Trends That Will Change the Future of Publishing”, started me down the path. Predictions like “The $9.99 e-book won’t last forever” (he didn’t think the price was high) and “Publishers will be more important than ever” were enough to make me swear off end-of-year reading.
Unfortunately, I didn’t stop. When the New York Times ran an obligatory roundup that might have been better titled “Big Trade Publishers Realize E-Books Are Popular”, this stopped me in my tracks:
“My No. 1 concern is the survival of the physical bookstore,” said Carolyn Reidy, the chief executive of Simon & Schuster. “We need that physical environment, because it’s still the place of discovery. People need to see books that they didn’t know they wanted.”
Yes, this is the same Carolyn Reidy who stood with Jeff Bezos at BookExpo in 2008, announcing the digitization of the S&S backlist.
That took place before publishers realized that you don’t need a publisher to sell a book on the internet. Apparently publishers haven’t yet learned that people can also use the web to see books they didn’t know they wanted (they can even sample them!).
Of course, only people with trade relationships can get books on shelves at major retailers. That’s what things look like at the end of being proud.
Over the last two years, we’ve seen two U.S. car companies fail (“people will always drive cars”) and several major banks collapse (“people will always need money”) . TimeWarner, which less than ten years ago was twice the size of its largest media competitor, now ranks behind the likes of Comcast and DirectTV.
You can swing a cat at a New Year’s Eve party and not hit anyone who thinks “people will always want news in print”. Per-capita newspaper consumption has been declining for 63 years. The newsweekly Time reaches less than 70% of the circulation it had two decades ago, and its last remaining competitor has had three owners this year.
Market structures change. The competitive mix shifts. New technologies support and even encourage new entrants. Sure, I may always drive a car, but that doesn’t mean I buy your car. Companies saddled with infrastructure and overhead costs can hope that consumers will pay higher prices, but that’s just hope.
For a few days after my accident, whenever the phone rang, I’d say it was probably the deer calling to thank me for avoiding him. The deer never called, and I doubt that it learned a lesson watching me careen into the marsh. Deer are like that. We don’t have to be.
Posted by Julieta Lionetti
Thank you for a splendid Christmas carol.
My gift:
“And when he woke up, the dinosaur was still standing there.” (flash fiction by Augusto Monterroso, Latin American writer - Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico)
Posted by Tod Shuttleworth
Excellent blog, Brian. This change creates so many opportunities. It is more exciting than scary.
Posted by DonLinn
I would postulate that in your story, some publishers could play the role of either the deer or the driver crashing in the marsh equally well.
Posted by Brian O'Leary
@Julietta - thank you; best wishes in the new year!
@Tod - A while back, Harvard Business Review interviewed Jeff Bezos, who said in part that in ten years, Amazon’s customers would still want wide selection, low prices and speedy delivery. The opportunities for publishers may not align directly with those that work for Amazon, but there are many untapped options that aren’t business as usual. We just need to try them on for size.
@Don - Neither role is appealing, but I can attest that it was no fun in that marsh 
Posted by fairuse
Did somebody call for a cat? I am here so let us swing-a-cat.
I like this essay. Why? Well, maybe, it triggered some introspection. More accurately an inventory of how I go about reading and procuring my reading material.[1]
From December to this date I have bought; hard bound & mass market books, a limited run self-published book, audiobooks and one Kindle e-book for Android (still unread due to 25 hr long audible book playing). What is missing from the list? Newspapers and magazines hardcopy or online.
Why haven’t I bought newspapers or magazines?
The long answer is a Journal post as soon as I sleep on it and correct the errors so the grammar nazis don’t hang me. However, I leave the notes here to keep everyone guessing.
Notes:
1. Reading Material - Can be printed, such as a book or newspaper. Can be audio, as in Audiobook. Can even be an e-book; words displayed on a screen of a mobile device with or without a phone, it can also be a audio visual. Lastly, all those words displayed in a browser, be it plain text, a web page or even an interactive video. Your imagination is the limit.
2. Brian O’Leary - “In our evolving, networked world – the world of “books in browsers” – we are no longer selling content, or at least not content alone. We compete on context.” [ http://www.magellanmediapartners.com/index.php/mmcp/article/context_first/ ]
3. Fearmongering: Kindle Lending Feature Will Lead To ‘Lost’ Book Sales? - ” … libraries did not kill book sales. At all. Separately, one of the reasons why I still haven’t joined the ebook parade is that I like being able to actually lend out books to others. So, by the argument above, it’s the DRM feature on ebooks today that has meant “lost sales.” So perhaps we should just get rid of that? Limiting the usefulness of ebooks with crazy restrictions makes them a lot less valuable, meaning decreased sales.” [ http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110103/07333112498/fearmongering-kindle-lending-feature-will-lead-to-lost-book-sales.shtml ]
4. http://www.magellanmediapartners.com/index.php/mmcp/article/a_privilege_to_be_objects/
Posted by fairuse
I’m back!
I must have written complete short stories trying to make a simple point about why I don’t buy newspapers or magazines. Then with crystal clear vision the answer is simple - You have become boring.
Not only that. You have become hard to use; iPad this, special reader that and all I have is my super duper mobile. if I need a photo reference on another starving model ( give that girl a cup cake ), click. Copy/paste some quote by a fat butt politician ( give him a diet cola please ), click. You mr.news.magazine hinder or just don’t link. And as you scream Grammar Terrorist! I smile find what I want on page 23 of Google.
All notes still apply so read them.