There was an article in the Sunday Times today by Bryan Appleyard. It was about the impact of new technologies on the publishing industry. Among several predictions, his strongest was that publishers - who are privately at the end of their patience with the big retailers - will start to move into POD in a big way. At the moment the production costs per book are much higher with POD, but once mass market economics come into play, the price per book could be dramatically reduced. Another prediction of his was that in a few years you will be able to choose a book in an on-line catalogue in, say Starbucks, and have a copy printed printed out - or downloaded to your e-reader - while your coffee is being prepared.
Tony

I read the same article Tony,

Appleyard's view is that publishers are under the retail thumb - Amazon don't hold stock - Waterstones are adopting a Jst In Time system - this means that the publishers are carrying all the costs and have much less control.

this is also why 'new' authors find it increasingly difficult to be published if there work is off the mainstream and the publisher can't guarantee success. Hence the current vogue/model/format novel is pretty much the only 'type' that they will publish.

With POD machines in every Starb's you should be able to buy your coffee stick your Credit Card into the machine, which could hold the text (literally) to every book ever published. Push the right buttons and your paper book is printed and bound and presented to you as your coffee arrives.

Appleyard also suggests that this could represent the downfall of the Department Chain Bookshop.

Kev.

Interesting, isn't it. Grumpy Old Bookman's been going on about this for years.

It does depend on you wanting to buy a book without picking it up first, and I think the number of people and books of which that's true will always be finite. Will the bookshop have samples of each title you can buy? They've never really cracked online clothes selling for that reason, compared to electricals, say.

But there's no denying POD technology has lots of potential. I needed a Virago paperback which has gone over to POD, and ordered it through my bookshop. It was a bit more expensive - £10, where I'd have expected £7.99 or £8.99. I could tell the difference between it and an equivalent produced by conventional printing - the format wasn't quite a correct fit for the design and typography - but I'm not sure a non-book person would be able to tell. And some of those format issues would go as the system because increasingly sophisticated.

It could be a fantastic way of keeping 'long-tail' books in print. But there's a real issue for authors here: all contracts specify that if a publisher makes a book go out-of-print, then all rights in it revert to the author, who can if s/he likes try to sell them elsewhere. If they just don't get round to reprinting it, rather than making it OP, the author can demand that they do so or again give the rights back. The danger for authors of POD is that it means a publisher can keep a book technically 'in print', while having no incentive to keep promoting it since it costs them virtually nothing to keep it on a vast list on a computer file somewhere.

Emma

This sounds like using a hammer to crack a wallnut when e-books are finally coming into their own (see this thread). Wouldn't it be better to go into Starbucks and be able to download a novel onto your e-reader.

Actually, wouldn't it be better to not go into Starbucks. Then you could afford a hardback.

Colin

Doh!!!

Wrong thread - this is the one I meant - the sony e-book thread

Actually, wouldn't it be better to not go into Starbucks. Then you could afford a hardback.

So true!

Emma

Colin,

Yeah, you wouldn’t catch me in a Starbucks either, but I think one of the significant conclusions from the article is that the current unit costs prevent many publishers from using POD. If the publishers make a strategic decision to invest in POD, then the economics could be transformed. If POD becomes the default means of producing a book, I don't see any reason why it couldn't be cheaper than the conventional method, which is always going to be hampered by the fact that someone - somewhere in the supply chain - has to cover the costs of warehousing and distribution. Of course, if you are right and people start to use e-reader devices, then the debate about POD does become rather academic. Someone needs to convince the 15 - 30 age group that e-readers are a desirable accessory and that market could take off. I'm not sure what I think about that; whether we are on the cusp of a shift from paper to electronics or whether it is some years away. It depends on the fickle finger of consumer fad fate.

The Internet has shown its potential to disrupt established supply chains in so many other industries and publishing is ripe for a shake-up. If I was a medium-to-large publisher, I would employ a whole department dedicated to monitoring and responding to changes in relevant technologies. We are definitely living through 'interesting times' in the book world.

Tony

If POD becomes the default means of producing a book, I don't see any reason why it couldn't be cheaper than the conventional method

Tony, this is interesting. At the moment the unit cost of a POD book is £2-3, of a conventional print-run book 20-30p. Which bits of the POD system would change as it became more widespread, that would bring the unit cost down? Or is it simply that there are fewer people in the supply chain to need their cut? Not that many fewer though, thinking about it: the warehouse goes, of course, but the whole publishing part's still there - author, editorial/sales/marketing/most of production, and the raw materials for the book are much the same.

Emma

As in favour of technology as I am I hope that the e-reader dies a death (again). Once such devices become common then pirated copies of books will appear and you can say goodbye to that tiny slice of royalties. Right now you can already download just about any book you care to choose but most people don't like reading them from a computer screen. That all changes with a paperlike e-book display.

I'm all in favour of the POD option though.

Geoff

Hi Emma,

I’m thinking on my feet here (well, on my arse, actually), but I think that there are several effects in play. There is the general effect of mass market economics, which tends to drive down production costs; the role of the printer is abolished (shifted to a POD machine); the warehousing goes (as you say); the physical distribution goes. All of these add their mark-up to the current unit cost. The role of the publisher changes to that of content provider, so all of the editing and marketing functions remain, but the sales function is drastically diminished, because you don’t need anyone to persuade the retailer to stock your titles. On the retail side, all of the functions of the traditional book shop are hoovered up into the book-box (pronounced to rhyme with juke-box). OK, maybe I exaggerated when I said POD could actually be cheaper, but even if it was only comparable in costs, I suspect many publishers would be interested because it would help their cash flow and reduce their dependence on the high-street retailers.

Tony

Yes, that makes sense, though I remain to be convinced that the distribution would be significantly less - you've got to ship the raw materials for the books hither and yon, and the shop's got to store them, and the shop needs a very sturdy internet connection to get the cover and full text of seventeen latte-drinkers' latest orders downloaded and printed out before they get bored.

And the marketing wouldn't be less, because it's even harder to persuade people to buy a book they can't actually pick up.

Of course, there's no rule that says the POD machine couldn't be in the corner of Waterstone's rather than Starbucks. Now that would be a good combination - they stock high-turnover new stuff, but have much more scope than they have now for selling midlist and backlist they don't have physical room for. How often have you gone in and found the title you want of a favourite author is the only one that's out of stock or - worse - reprinting, date unknown? Half the time you don't order it, you just wander out.

Emma

I guess there's two different futures being examined here.

Firstly, POD. Sooner or later the technology is going to be available on the High Street, ie laser printers the size of houses in back rooms with internet connections that can download the entire Bodleian library in a nanosecond. I vividly remember one of my university Electronics lecturers explaining to me in the mid-1980s that it was always going to be impossible to get more than a few seconds of CD-quality music onto a silicon chip. Since then I have never believed anyone that tries to tell me why technology won't be able to do something one day.

I don't really have a problem with POD, although I am one of those people who likes my books to be a thing of beauty as well as a good read, if possible. I'm not going to join the Folio Society but I don't mind buying some of their beautiful editions on Ebay if the price is right (slipcased hardback Rumpole collection for under a fiver anyone ?) Obviously given the choice between a dog-eared copy of Wodehouse and a beautiful shiny Jeffrey Archer hardback I'd take the former. But you know what I mean.

So unless I'm in a desperate hurry for a book (which is rare given the ludicrous mountain of unread books I already possess), I'd probably rather wait for a "nice" edition to come from the publisher than buy a cheaper-looking POD edition on the spot. Also, browsing in a bookstore is one of life's great pleasures for me. If an Argos-style POD bookstore suddenly appeared offering only catalogues, even if the catalogues were as nice as (say) the Waterstones Books Quarterly, I probably would never want to go there. I might as well go home and shop at Amazon.

Secondly, e-books. I agree 100% with Geoff about the business with e-readers and royalties. I don't know if e-readers will ever take off (they are definitely not for me). But looking at some of the people who get on my train every day festooned from head to foot with laptops, Ipods, Satnavs and Bluetooth headgear, nothing would surprise me. (I thought one of the few good bits of the new Doctor Who series was the idea that the first step towards turning humans into Cybermen was fitting them with Bluetooth headsets...).

But I'm pretty sure that if e-readers do take off, writers are going to be in a more precarious position than ever. Enormous numbers of people now seem to accept that it is OK to download all their music/videos/games electronically and never pay for any of it. I am certain the same would be true of e-books.

Just realised - I wonder, is it equally immoral to buy all my nice editions of books second-hand, knowing that neither the publisher or the author will see any of the money ? Perhaps the publishers derive some economic benefit from there being a strong secondhand market for their books ? And it's environmentally friendly I suppose. Anyway I spend a bloody fortune on books both new and old, so maybe that is something for my conscience to content itself with.

But there's a real issue for authors here: all contracts specify that if a publisher makes a book go out-of-print, then all rights in it revert to the author, who can if s/he likes try to sell them elsewhere. If they just don't get round to reprinting it, rather than making it OP, the author can demand that they do so or again give the rights back. The danger for authors of POD is that it means a publisher can keep a book technically 'in print', while having no incentive to keep promoting it since it costs them virtually nothing to keep it on a vast list on a computer file somewhere.

Perhaps contracts will have to be modified to take account of this development - i.e., when publishers acquire books, they will negotiate how long they have the right to publish that book for before it has to be re-negotiated?? Maybe this is done already in some cases?

Yes, Roger, I agree that under those circumstances authors will want to put a time limit on the publisher's right to sell the book. In fact, I did this myself with a non-fiction work. The publisher sold most of the copies as PDF files on CDs, so the standard contract term, which allows the rights to revert after the book goes out of print, no longer applied. I gave the publisher the right to sell for three years, after which the rights reverted to me.
Tony

I think most contracts are beginning to have these sorts of clauses in them - I know it's something the Association of Agents team up with the Society of Authors on.

is it equally immoral to buy all my nice editions of books second-hand, knowing that neither the publisher or the author will see any of the money ?

It's a nice question. Once there was a natural limit on it, because you could only get hold of the 2nd hand ones by a completely different route. It is a worry that second-hand books are sold next door to new ones on Amazon, because reduces the sale of new books directly and immediately, rather than when they filter through second hand. Though yes, no doubt the trees are pleased...

The difference with electronic versions is that with physical books there's a physical limit to how many places a single book can go to be sold in the place of another new one, so that they only reduce, not eliminate, sales of new books. Electronic versions can be downloaded and copied by the million, as the music companies know to their cost.

Emma