An Ebook Wing for every Independent Bookshop/ Posterise the Ebook

This article in The Globe and Mail, made me nod in agreement and familiarity, and so I present an excerpt:

"The reimagined independent bookshop is not really a money-making outfit. While these shops might break even, in some cases turn a small profit, it is only because their customers override their instinct to act like consumers and act like good citizens instead, paying full price when they could get a discount by crossing the street or just clicking a mouse. "

I have been this 'good citizen' for far too long, this new year's resolution for me was to stop buying physical books; I want to normalise ebook culture.

For such bookstores as in the article, digital is the only way forward. Ebooks can only become the profit making wing of such independent bookstores, and something that these bookstores should ambitiously capitalise on. There should be book hubs, where all kinds of ereaders are sold along with ebooks. Gadgets should complement the e/books. In house customer service would create employment in  these ehubs within bookstores at the very least. Where do you find such pools of technically skilled workers? Everywhere, in mobile shops, SIM card booths, internet cafes, telephone service providers/kiosks, everywhere. Even technology could never rob a bookstore of its pristine charm, if that's our cultural memory/fear of it. The idea is to commodify/'make live' the ebook as much as its print counterpart has been all these years. Seperate the ebook from the internet; the ebook is as physical as it gets and not just a virtual entity in clouds. What better place to clarify this than at a bookstore, the shopfront? Whatever happened to the good old USB stick stocked with all the latest bestsellers?  

Every retailer is going to sell this differently. But if publishers are beginning to have their own 'digital agenda', I don't see why bookstores should lag behind on this front. This begs collaboration of course. 

Questions that bother me:

How many people are buying ebooks from retailers websites? (Landmark, Crosswords, etc.) Worldwide?

How many are buying ebooks from Amazon in certain countries? Worldwide? 

How are local online retailers doing with ebook sales? (What about publishers' online sales? minimal, I know, but still)

Isn't there a better marketing strategy (or market) for PDF format (non-ereader specific) ebooks?

And this one is not a question really, but how many independent bookshops are there in the country? (There are a ton of online retailers, but what about physical bookshops). 

Post script: An amazing analysis of the ebooks industry in India can be found here

Cattle gazing, Ewe teasing and Book selling at the Royal highland show '12

Cattle Gazing, Ewe teasing and lots of Book selling (at the Royal Highland Show) on Flickr.

'The buffalo ate my homework, Miss,' moaned an eight year old.

'What do you mean?' boomed his teacher.

'It looked hungry, so I offered my en-cy-clo-pe-di-ya.'

Years later, he would die in his own plane crash; but he was the only one his classmates would remember as the kindest boy in class who fed his cattle books.

* * *

I spent this past weekend selling books at Publishing Scotland's stall in the Royal Highland Show 2012, Europe's largest agricultural show held in Ingliston each year at the draw of June. We were stall 837, in the corner between Silver Pride Jewellary and a pianist and organ seller who provided complete 10 hour live musical entertainment with his symphony and orchestra each day. This was the first time that Scotland's trade association for publishers decided to enter the trade fair as an exhibitor, to spread awareness about Scottish publishing, Scottish books and the importance of such a trade and knowledge resource at hand. The point was not necessarily commercial hard-sell, but a PR initiative, we were oriented. (For purely commercial activities Publishing Scotland already had a big presence at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August each year, where the point is hard selling, and buyers overwhelming).

Footfalls at the Highland shop nevertheless increased by the day, as did sales pick up from a lean Thursday up into a frenzied Sunday. Katie's Ferm and Katie's Moose (Waverly) were probably top favourites on the books' list, nudged closely by Maisie's Activity Book for children and Animal Farm (the Scottish alphabet) as well as books on learning Gaelic, and books about the local wild and managing the native pinewood revealing a hitherto hidden demand for books by the Forest Commission. In between shifts, one experienced attractions like cooking demonstrations including by celebrities like Nick Nairn, horse racing, show jumps, sheep shearing, tug of wars, fleece shows, poultry paegants and caraways.

Yay, it's A PIG WORLD!!

Book Cultures and Book Events 2012

The book is 4D. Live events support the book. Books point us to authors, and authors are becoming transcultural to keep up with better books and new media; different branches of industry are connecting to make publishing work, whether as a oneman job or an everyman's job throughout the contagion of business models. Academics congregated to discuss the state of the industry and book culture, and some expressed that professionals (particularly publishers) should take the time out to think like academics even as they go on about their business.  

Few things struck me as memorable from the two days: 

Informal chatter from formal personnas in the p'ig (publishing)world.

Live events being great marketing opportunities, but also revolving around the book, book theater, not thankfully being simply booksy ( I'm not at all convinced by the link-article in how it judges book aesthetics) were other aspects of the two day cultural theory program.

All kinds of speakers enriched the occasion. From Slovenia's Miha Kovic to scholars from the University of Paris, Peggy Hughes, Crime Novelist and Bloody Scotland's Lin Anderson, and several well known scholars from universities and publishing houses in England and abroad, there were diverse observations on the book, facts  opinion and practices, predating the sixteenth century up into the present with predictions for the future, including Martian musings on what publishing might look like in 2025. On the other hand, ambiance and the opportunity for souvenirs were cited important factors while thinking about the future of the bookshop as a cultural venue. 

Student? Writer? Reader? Publisher? App admirer? Mixed generation

Peggy Hughes from the UNESCO City of Literature, Edinburgh, with Lumphanan press' Duncan Lockerbie

An academic pondering the future of bookshops and striking a benevolent pose  

Despite the rise of social networks, and power shift from editorial to consumer-editorial, good editors should be informed by data and consumer behaviour, rather than be driven by it. Amazon is not a bookseller, but a market grabber, a giant retailer of all things, and is certainly not a brand with a mission for books and better reading. What was especially heartening was that social media marketing took only the backdrop, as an accessory, a tool to the actual discussions on the book that took place.  In fact, budget and marketing strategy will always only wrap itself around vibrant editorial concepts. Alastair Horne discussed some extremely interesting facts about ebooks, apps and digital pricing models.

But the secret to a successful book festival is a book festival with a heart added, Lin Anderson. Authors should float about like in a bar, not glued to a high chair.

Puzzling question of the day: what is the point of a website for Damian Horner?! 

There are more cities I would like to see in the UNESCO Creative Cities list. If small countries can save the festival, independent publishers can save the industry. Bookshops  could strive to become destinations for the wealthy, offering boutique experiences for local folk. But I mean, if saving the bookshop was about saving a Crosswords or a Waterstones (how unambitious!), I don't think i really care to visit one, ever. I'd rather shop for clothes in the mall and continue buying new books on Amazon and borrowing older stock from the library.  

The utterly lucid event was held on its second day in the lovely Iris Murdoch center with stunning views of the city from this home of Dementia Studies. Of course, being bilingual is a whole other cure. 

Book Publishing in Small Markets

Mija Kovac came to class wearing two hats. One as digital strategist and publisher at the Mladinska knjiga Group, the other as the chairman of the Department of Information Science at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. He gave us a well rounded insight into book publishing in small markets like his native Slovenia, where 16% of all books sold are in the English language. Slovenia he said, is the perfect example of an average nation in the EU reflective of average patterns in everything but reading habits (higher than average). 

By Dr. Miha Kovac

Problems in the Slovenian book market include the universal ones of competitive retailers and rise of ebooks, the decay of brick and mortar, apps over illustrated books, and the uncertain future of the library. More local problems that he pointed to included the fast growth of reading in English and competition from USA and UK retailers and small markets having not enough resources for R and D and investments in digital infrastructure. 

However, people are buying 3 times more electronically, and the threat is not so much to protect copyright as it must to protect the buyer, he suggested. The MKG owns over 57 bookstores with about 454 employees, ploughing back a turnover of over 25.5 million Euros each year, closer to a third of the Slovenian market. The company (conglomerate) enjoys strong warehousing and distribution services, and publishes on a principle of low print runs with a high number of reprints, a functional successful mechanism in a small market like Slovenia where good content is sought, regardless of the price (despite the absence of a Net Book Agreement). Though there is a high penetration of English language ebooks in Slovenia, there is no data to support the increased circulation in the years. In fact, it is his dream to create metadata crawlers that effectively tag information about books and publishers, as a book's metadata influences best what we buy as it algorithmically makes some appear more often than others.


 'Ebooks are changing the landscape even in those countries which pretend they don't have an ebook market.' 

Problems faced in the Slovenian book market include competition from ebooks and etailers, breakdown of brick and mortar, apps as competitors to illustrated books, and the uncertain future of libraries. 'Ebooks are changing the landscape even in those countries which pretend they don't have an ebook market,' he opined. Will libraries exist in a climate where books are being sold for about 1-2 Euros? And if libraries and brick and mortar bookstores disappear, the entire book will disappear from the urban landscape altogether, even as book organisations increasingly latch on to technology companies. Ebooks and apps should be treated as a spin off enterprise, and when combined with more European Union and local funding, could make better headway. Whether Apps and ereading are a distraction or an accelerator to the educational experience, remains a much debated topic. For the future, as information continues to digitise, he offers that publishers should have more links with technology companies and universities, and learn from other branches in the industry.    

He talked about the importance of the appearance and semantic web of the author in times where certain authors may sell well only within a certain cultural context, and remain unnoticed in others. And, Amazon is evil not just because it is killing the book market, but because it lacks a genuine interest in dealing books, 'all it wants is more customers', he reflected, embodying the emotion of a true blue publisher. 

Dr. Kovac's ongoing two day talk is a power-prelude to the weekend's much anticipated Book History and Book Cultures Conferences at University of Stirling. 

Watch this space for more.