They’re killing the book business…
The old guard – the ones married to paper and indie bookstores, the publishers afraid of big bad Amazon – have achieved their goal; they’ve killed the e-book.
That’s right, e-book sales are down by 21.8%.
The entire book business has declined by 2.7%. This is what happens when Luddites living in the past refuse to enter the future. This is what would be happening in music if the insane artists screaming about streaming were able to get their way.
Alas, music is far ahead of the book business. With everything available for one low price, with streaming burgeoning, sales are up by 8.1%.
Daniel Ek single-handedly saved the music business.
And for that he is Public Enemy Number One.
What has happened to our country? Is everyone so afraid of moving backward, losing what little they have, that they refuse to enter the future and cling to the past? Is this about income inequality, where there’s always an enemy and change is anathema? Or is this just fat cat Baby Boomer businessmen who are riding out their contracts and want to receive their bonuses and are holding back the future.
But not in the music business…
Universal Music might be home to Taylor Swift, but it’s Lucian Grainge who’s spearheaded Spotify, who decried Swift’s anti-Apple, anti-free-tier comments. There’s no one as ignorant as an artist, never forget that. And I’d worry they’d be offended, then again, I’d have to ignore the venom directed at myself every single day online.
We’ve come so far in the music business. The means of production are in the hands of the proletariat, distribution is nearly free. Yet somehow the vocal minority which controls the airwaves cannot stop bitching.
Probably, you wouldn’t have been able to play in the old system. You would have never gotten a deal, never mind get your indie album into the record store. Never mind coming up with the money to record to begin with.
And if you made a record, good luck getting it on the radio; gatekeepers ruled.
Streaming playlists are the new gatekeepers but they’re much broader in scope than radio playlists. That’s the dirty little secret of the major label world. Everybody pays fealty to radio, even though it means so much less and is out of touch with today’s times.
The future’s so bright you gotta wear shades.
But it’s not gonna be bright for everyone.
If you don’t have fans streaming your music you’re out of luck. Maybe you can play live and more power to you. But please stop complaining that no one wants to buy your overpriced CD or vinyl. Those are souvenirs. Many people have neither a disk drive nor a turntable. Sell these tchotchkes at your gig, your fans can keep you alive – I’ve got no problem with that.
But, please stop complaining., because if things went your way they’d be so much worse.
E-books used to be under ten bucks.
Now, in some cases, they cost more than the physical iteration. That makes no sense, with no printing and shipping. The book business is making the same mistake the record business once did. Believing it was entitled to profits. That it was all right to sell an overpriced CD with one good cut – that the public didn’t mind – but that proved untrue.
At least people wanted to steal music. However they don’t seem to want to steal books, they just want to ignore them and that’s the real disaster; that’s how the book business has marginalized itself.
As for the film and TV businesses… Tell me once again where you can get everything for one low price? YOU CAN’T!
So piracy reigns.
And it’s dying in the music business.
But somehow YouTube is the enemy. An antiquated system that will be surpassed in time. The history of the world is people paying for convenience, and YouTube is mighty inconvenient. Spotify is not. As for Apple Music, if it ever gets its user interface right it might have a chance.
So the book business defeated the techies.
The supposed rapists and pillagers who cared not a whit about the value of content. They brought Jeff Bezos to his knees.
But Bezos doesn’t really care, because books are a de minimis part of Amazon’s overall market.
The supposedly smart people, standing up for the lowly artist, did a disservice to everybody involved. E-books were the future, priced to reflect the advancement of digital distribution. But they couldn’t survive, because the writers and publishers were afraid of change. And you wonder why so few people read novels…
That’s right, so much of the vaunted literature is unreadable.
There, I said it. It’s a small tent and they don’t want any of THOSE PEOPLE!
And the same thing is happening in music. There’s hatred towards successful pop, especially if it’s laden with EDM touches. That’s not music those with a megaphone say. But it’s fresh and new and it’s what the people want. Major Lazer and Justin Bieber are making better tunes than all the old fogey and special interest groups. They’re hovering up money. You don’t hear Drake complaining he can’t get paid.
But that’s not real music.
Why does everybody have contempt for that which they do not understand – which is new and different – both tech and art?
We’ve built the platform in music. We’ve leveled the playing field. The next step is to anoint winners, to add comprehension to the chaos, and with the tech issues resolved we can focus on art.
HALLELUJAH!
so if i prefer turning real paper pages, while holding a ream of them bound together along one edge, i’m clinging to the past?
i think i’d hate to be you lefsetz. you sound as if you worry more about keeping up, being “in”, and not getting left behind, than you do about just enjoying things.
+1
I agree with miket and stomper.
But this is the prevalent attitude on this blog.
The comments are made by bitter old men….men who have lost their
vision.
They jumped on the story about the white single woman and her
son having their “home” spray painted. But what type of man would
even let that family consider moving into that area of the city tht
wislon said was saturated with “murderers” and rapists…..
This lefty dude is crying about e-books. I don’t read much besides
news and information filled sites. Haven’t probably read a book
thru in years. Not my bag.
Yet lefty here is all upset about everything….just like wislon.
He’s mad at the world.
I suggest lefty get a shrink or something to relieve his depression.
It’s sad and it’s creepy at the same time.
This dude ain’t playing with a full deck.
You can see it in his writing.
He’s like a lost bird who fell out of his nest.
He and the writer would make a great team.
Two lost people in the world…always mad at someone….and nowhere
to go…lonely and trying to be something as the world passed them
by.
Good luck lefty.
Harley loves life. It’s beautiful. It’s exhilarating. It’s fun. and yes I’ve
seen old guys like the ones on kcc lose interest in life because their
lives are mundane and they’ve lost their way.
But smile….it’s a beautiful world.
Vaunted literature is only unreadable for people who can’t comprehend words very well.
It is not just the book business. It is small business, the employers employing some 60% of America’s employees, from the small family restaurant, to the cobbler in the mall. We are just slow to see it. McDonalds, the MCD of the New York stock exchange, is actually small business, as each franchise holder is the front line of the $15 an hour movement, a survivor of the ACA requirement, and facing the regulations of the giants on Wall Street. Pick up a couple of Big Mac meals and kiss that $20 good bye. So fewer people are buying from McDonalds, economic flux at its finest. At least McDonalds is a voluntary activity. According to the Commerce Department, Bureau of Census, there is no inflation. Tell that to the County Assessor getting ready to send you your tax bill, or your health insurance company getting ready to determine next year’s rates. You can even tell it to KCP&L. Looking at the combination, aren’t you glad that the increases in your KCP&L bills are being offset by better health and lower health insurance rates? There are a lot of businesses under siege, Kansas City Star to New York Times, to small time publishers, to fast food, to the Mom and Pop stores, all having to meet the regulations aimed at curbing big business. Really? Do you actually think Mr. Stumpf at Wells Fargo cares about you if he doesn’t care about the 5300 employees he let go, after granting the retail banking head a severance larger than the fine? Could a small business have survived that? Hardly! Some of the losses are due to technology, and most of the complaint is misdirected. We are upset at Ford for relocating production to Mexico, despite GM using its hard fought tax paid bailout to look into China, years after Ford built the most efficient plant in the world in Brazil (Computer Augmented Manufacturing, suppliers’ assembly lines under the same roof, and in a port city to ship around the world). Boeing, last week, won permission from the government to sell planes to Iran. I have to wonder what the lobbying effort cost, and why is the US acting as a full partner in a deal that did not involve military aircraft? We are in an era where business, big or little, is the big bad wolf, despite wages paid to employees being the source of government tax receipts. Are CEOs paid too much? In some cases yes; while in others no. There are some publishers that are not being hurt, like McGraw Hill, that have a myriad of other interests, the S&P, etc. to fall back on, but the smaller publishers have no such depth. Publishing, trademark, and patents are extremely hard to enforce. Open up the hood, and the world knows how you did it.
It’s going to cost me a little to publish hard, with paper and ink, but as soon as the prequel is finished, we’re going to move both books to Amazon. With all that is going on, I want someone else helping with marketing.
Brilliant.
However, I think that the K.C. Star manages quite well with tax payer funds arrogated by way of “tax abatement” at their printing facility.
The obvious unspoken quid pro quo, is support for liberal causes, legislation and initiatives under the laughable guise of objectivity, financed by those whose political beliefs are antithetical to those same causes, legislation and initiatives.
yes…a printing facility is a huge liberal cause.
You’re a ditch digging fool chuckles the sad clown.
seriously….how can one old man complain so much?
what a terrible life you lead. I would hate to be you.
cowboy’s wrong again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
when your business plan has not changed for decades…and you have
failed to see what competitors are doing….you fail.
5 guys burgers….exploding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wendys….doing well…..
Sonic: off the wall sales and expanding…..
It’s just like the guys on kcc…mcdonalds plan is old/bitter/worn out….
They still try to sell the same old crap. But if you read recently their business
has taken an upturn since serving breakfast all day.
It’s not paying $15 an hour….aca…or any of the other excuses someone
like yourself without any business expertise mentions….mcdonalds has
been stuck in the 70/80/90 mode.
Where’s the fresh food….where’s the tasty salads. Look at chic fil a…..
on the move…and just started moving away from the cows to a more
updated theme in their ads!!!!!
People don’t need books…information is so fast changing that once
the book comes out it’s outdated.
People don’t have time to read 300 page books anymore. Or so they
think.
Gotta be on facebook/isntagram/and the other sites……
Then you say business is under siege….but profits are at record levels.
For those with vision.
Yes…we’re selling planes to iran….congress approved that. Creates job
in Kansas!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes businesses are seeing increased costs. But if we had listened to
Obama and made the investment in new energy we wouldn’t be paying
kcpl those high rates.
If congress (republicans) wouldn’t have stifled the dems our meds would
cost less.
If we had listened to Obama and passed infrastructure bills we wouldn;t
be seeing our bridges and highways in disarray…but I travel the highways
in kc and every highway has work being done on it somewhere….
our roads are in great shape throughtout the city or work is being done
on them.
Stop whining cowboy. The strong survive. All you old guys just
complain…complain…complain…..
get a life sir!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Harley, somehow it doesn’t surprise me that you haven’t read a book in years.
To paraphrase Charlie Munger (look him up), I don’t know any wise people that aren’t reading all of the time.
As I understand it, e-book sales are down only for trade publishers, but not for the industry as a whole. Amazon has made it easier for authors, established and fledgling alike, to self-publish using their Kindle Direct format. Authors choosing this route do much of their own promotion and keep a much higher percentage of their books’ profits. It’s a great avenue for niche authors who would never get shelf space in B&N or independent book stores to get their work into readers’ hands. Readers go to Amazon and choose either the e-version or the hard copy.
I’m publishing my first book in November. It’s in a sub-genre not popular to the masses, but with its own strong following. I had interest from a large publishing house, but they made no promises as to when it would be released and how much promotion it would receive. Following the lead of several author friends, I chose to take on the work of publishing it myself. Ten years ago this was unthinkable, except through a vanity press. Today its not unheard of for self-published books to have huge sales. I’m hopeful!
Book case in my home office with about 150 books, new and old, ranging from bios to journalism and writing guides.
Shelves in living room with 300 classics, first editions and various topics.
Proud to say I never joined the ebook world. There’s nothing like reading a 100 year old copy of one of the great classics!
I Claudius on ebook loses something in the translation…