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

Love's Labour Gained?

We are sitting in a course, reevaluating our career paths (if we had already begun one), understanding the trends, and looking into the future with a wizened gaze, scouring The Bookseller  with a lofty  advantage over those without a degree in publishing. They could be law students, confused little undergraduates, postgraduates or even doctoral students in search of a living. We got there first! This is an entertaining time to be in the industry we are told. We should savour the fear of loss, the hell of rejection. At every turning point is another turning point.

Marion Sinclair repeated that the walls have been breached. The media knows its un-limits. We are living in a time when information is staring each other in clouds, and we are misting over with fondness, fear and even preparation. The vision of gentlemanly publishing is over. Long lunches a rarity, and digitisation has changed complete processes, and the publishing workflow, bottom up. Relationships with authors have changed. Bookselling has changed. Nobody visits high street bookstores in as many numbers as they did in the past. Browse became an online experience, done in the multiple windows of phones, tablets and computers. Authors are no more linear, and writing has been coined 'content', be it books, ebooks, apps or mobile entertainment. Transmedia rights,  are being talked about in every rung of industry, and so is convergence and every other C in the alphabet. (Collaboration, especially). 

The Annual Toast!  image courtesy Ellen Cheng 2012

Collaboration begins with deep knowledge and effort while digitisation penetrates the globe differently. 

If Amazon is awe shaking, so is the volume of books being bought per minute on it. Marion Sinclair, the chief executive of Publishing Scotland talked about the good shades of grey as much as the worse, and said that if Amazon is commodifying books, it has also evangelized bookbuying, and one might think, reading has become a compulsive activity in zones powered by e-commerce. Will high street bookselling die? Chances are they won't, voiced literary agent and Portfolio careerist Bob McDewitt who himself came with a pot load of experience in bookselling, literary agenting and looking after the annual Dundee Prize. Katy Holmes talked about the traditional markets she catered to, who she was confident would never convert to digital or apps anytime soon. A publisher with immense sales and marketing experience, she has witnessed both the pre-internet and post Amazon days of the industry in the US and now in UK.

Best way for a noob to understand publishing? WORK IN A BOOKSTORE! I would second that. And even though my experience was limited to some six months with an online ecommerce book retailer, there were so many opportunities to talk to authors, publishers, wholesalers and customers over a wide range of issues, and above all, it helped me understand better the real market for books! 

Like many of my peers, I would love stay on and fork a bit of a future in London, a city teeming with life, much like Mumbai or Glasgow. Plus, skills acquired in the trade, are often specific to  its cultural environment, and would take years of practice and nuance before they could become truly transferable across contexts. But, the good news might just be in the adage of, once a publisher, always a publisher! It is an industry after all, that sees one of the highest retention levels and lowest attrition rates.

With so much e-buzz, and appventuring everywhere, were our skills going to fade into obsolescence? No, opine many. At least not in an eighty years. And after that, nobody wants to live.

Yes, I left my devices homes that night, because yes there was a need for a technology upgrade, but no, it's not the biggest lesson I took (despite creating a travel app for the iPad as my final project) from being in the company of these professional academics and academic professionals over the past nine months. ( Yes, 'labour-ious' to lavish all metaphors in a trade with a long skewed sex ratio! And, you can actually prove this when you count the number of boys in all the 'publicity' departments of UK's publishing). Reality considered, I learned how to package and sell content all over again. It was a pleasure, relief and a turning point, participating in the final publishing showcase at the end of a taught postgraduate masters at the Stirling Center for International Publishing and Communication this year, and on their '30th birthday'!

To view the entire set on slide show, click here.

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. 

Technology is electricity, and writers are not entrepreneurs

Technology always existed, in the way, opinions always did. Talking of digital conventions replacing the old, is like saying there is more electricity in the house. Technology cannot work in isolation of Media, and good (profitable) publishing is becoming increasingly data driven, than we care to know. 

As ebooks compete for recognition and visibility, worldwide, they have gained traction with users in huge numbers. I am very ready to give up the physical book completely (I remember trudging long distances as a schoolgirl in sweltering summers burdened by at least five kilograms of weight of my bookbag everyday) , as long as the culture and values of books continue. The convenience and ease of the internet, and its hardly social nature, is what tempts me as a reader. The omniscience of the book, in a digital world is here to stay. No more recycling paper, but washing eyeballs. Hail oculist. 

Writers are not risk takers, but helpless creatures born out of desperation. An urgency, that has clearly nothing to do with risk but survival. Writers write, regularly, with nothing at stake but their own poor selves. They could hardly be called entrepreneurial for breathing. Significant people have tried putting this across to me at varying junctures with varying degrees of politeness/kindness and sympathy. 

The most exciting news this Valentines Day was of Bloomsbury's entry into India, following Simon & Schuster, Lonely Planet, agent Aitken Alexander and the Hay festival. Bloomsbury India will first be looking at taking on marketing and sales people and editors will follow in due course. The new MD for Bloomsbury will be Rajiv Bedi, who is also ex MD of Pan Macmillan India. In such a climate, it would indeed be worth exploring what UK publishers are doing to maximize their profits by entering global markets. It could be the topic for my Masters dissertation, at least.