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Back in October 09, Tim O'Reilly ( someone that I really admire for his cutting-edge and very wise thinking on the future of content and technology) published a very important piece on ebook publishing, on the occasion of the Safari eBook portal relaunch.
I think that most of us working in the content industries can learn a lot from this post, no matter if it's about books, magazines, news, music, film or software. I will therefore summarize his most important bottom lines, below, and provide some comments and context where needed.
- "Recent releases of O'Reilly ebooks as iPhone applications have even outsold the same books in print" Comment: in my view, this trend will happen with most business books, and text books, in the next 2-3 years (beyond the iPhone, of course, i.e. for all kinds of mobile devices)
- "Most people thinking about ebooks are focused on creating an electronic recreation of print books, complete with downloadable files and devices that look and feel like books. This is a bit like pointing a camera at a stage play and concluding that was the essence of filmmaking" Comment: this is a crucial point - publishers and distributors urgently need to let go of the idea of merely recreating offline sales models online.
- "Everything is always in sync because your library is in the cloud; an ebook cloud works the same way the web itself works. It provides ubiquitous access and shared experience" Comment: amen. indeed.
- "One of our mottos at O’Reilly is to "create more value than you capture."
And from Tim's 1995 (!) piece Publishing Models for Internet Commerce, here are some more morsels:
"Some of the characteristics of the print publishing market:
Barriers to entry are low. Especially with the advent of desktop publishing, almost anyone can produce a book, a magazine, a newsletter.
Niches abound. Over 50,000 books are published each year in the U.S. alone. A major bookselling chain such as Borders keeps literally hundreds of thousands of unique titles in inventory. And despite major industry consolidation,and focus on a small number of bestsellers, there are still thousands of publishers, ranging in size from those who publish only a single book to those who publish thousands. What's more, there are about 3500 general circulation magazines and tens of thousands of newsletters and other limited circulation publications.
So do business models. Books are sold "by the piece." They are also available for free in the library, though in limited circulation. Magazines and newspapers may be had for free (perhaps subsidized by advertising or membership), for a single-copy newsstand price, or for a recurring subscription fee. Prices range from a few dollars to hundreds or even thousands of dollars for specialized newsletters.
No one "owns" the market, or needs to. A bestselling book might sell a million copies or so. The largest circulation magazine in the country, the AARP's membership magazine, has a circulation of about 7 million, Reader's Digest about 5 million. No one else comes close. It's possible to have a successful book selling only a few thousand copies, a newsletter a few hundred, and a four color magazine a few tens of thousands.
The same technology is available to everyone...
There is a rich ecology of mutually successful players. Authors sell to publishers. Publishers screen material, edit and produce it to add value, develop a marketing campaign, and build a network of distribution relationships to get the book to the ultimate consumer. Publishers may sell books directly to the consumer, through major retailers, and through wholesalers to smaller retailers whom they don't serve directly....
Access is universal and non-exclusive..."
If you are in the content business, be sure to read his entire post, and watch his 2009 Web2.0 video, here. There sure is a ton of stuff to chew on. Enjoy.
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