This week at The Millions, we’re attempting to gather some of our thoughts about the transformation of book coverage in the digital age. On Wednesday, Garth looked at the death of the newspaper book review section. Yesterday, Max considered the revenue problems facing literary websites… and the vices and virtues of one of the solutions. And in today’s final installment, Max will hazard some early guesses about the next possible upheaval in the economy of literary journalism: the e-book reader.
I.
Yesterday, we looked at some of the revenue sources available for literary sites and why Amazon’s affiliate program, despite its flaws, is often a better option than standard advertising and affiliate programs run by other booksellers. But Amazon links – and the implied endorsement that comes with them – present new problems, making Amazon ever bigger and more central to a book industry that for readers and writers may be better off fragmented. What’s now known as #Amazonfail offers a perfect example of what readers and writers have to lose from an Amazon-dominated book industry. Patrick recently outlined on his Vroman’s Blog why the threat that Amazon poses is one of control and not censorship per se. Ultimately, the Amazon experiment may prove unsustainable, and the viability of online book coverage may come to rest on a more robust and more serious advertising model than is currently available.
In the world of books, Amazon has a massive footprint. Even as other book retailers – chain and indie – have struggled to stay afloat, Amazon has used its heft in other product categories to treat books as a loss leader and consolidate its hold on that market. A pair of surveys in 2008 put online book sales at between 21%-30% of total U.S. book sales, with the assumption being that the lion’s share of those online sales belonged to Amazon. In a market as fragmented as books, that’s a big number. And as Patrick points out, monoculture (or as we used to call it in econ class, monopoly) can cause problems for those stakeholders we discussed yesterday. The NYTBR’s stakeholders can publicize, read about, and review books elsewhere, but amid tough times for bookstore chains and many indies, Amazon may be the only viable option for many readers. For authors, readers, and publishers of the books impacted by the recent “glitch,” the potential dangers of Amazon’s outsized position became glaringly obvious. Regardless of whether the “glitch” was intentional, the result of a poorly constructed classification system, or just plain bad luck, it is the sort of thing that can all too easily waylay stakeholders in a market controlled by a single giant.
II.
From the standpoint of readers and those concerned with freedom of expression, last week’s “glitch” was alarming, but from the standpoint of someone tracking the role played by Amazon’s Associates Program in the business model of book- and culture-focused sites, another effect of Amazon’s large footprint has become a source of even more consternation.
We’ve written at length about the Kindle here at The Millions over the last two years. To the extent that there is a debate about the experience the device offers, we haven’t taken sides, but as we have observed how Amazon has treated the device within the Associates program, we have come to understand the huge land-grab the Kindle represents.
In short, by making it possible for Kindle users to buy Kindle ebooks via the device itself, Amazon has cut middlemen out of the picture. The Associate’s commission depends on a click in a browser. For ebooks bought via Kindle, there is no click. And, just to be certain that intermediaries are cut out of the Kindle food chain, Amazon recently made another, symptomatic adjustment to its Associates Program. In February, the same month that Amazon launched the Kindle 2, Amazon quietly stopped paying Associates commissions on Kindle ebooks bought via the web. (Unsurprisingly, Amazon still pays a healthy bounty on Kindles sold. The calculus is clear. Sell more Kindles and sell more books via a vertically integrated system that only Amazon controls.) Like Apple’s iTunes ecosystem in the era of digital rights management, Amazon’s Kindle represents a bid to control distribution of a new and closed digital format that is only compatible with Amazon-approved devices. If, as has largely been the case with music, books are increasingly distributed digitally, Amazon’s position in that market could become huge. [Update: Subsequent to the publication of this piece, Amazon resumed paying commissions on Kindle books bought through the website, though commissions are not earned on ebooks bought through the Kindle device.]
The company’s early move to lock Associates out of commissions on ebooks is just a taste of what Amazon could do with a dominant position in the emerging ebook market. (Consider, for example, the recent news that a banned Amazon account also disables the Kindle. And separately, after cornering the market on ebooks, Amazon can set the prices it wants to charge for them.) For book sites pursuing affiliation as a revenue option, it also offers a scary prospect: that the revenue earned from Amazon’s program will slowly dwindle in inverse proportion to the popularity of Kindle ebooks.
Some will argue that the Kindle ebook market is currently too small to matter, but the Kindle may be rapidly gaining steam. We recently observed the massive ramp up in Kindle ebooks bought by readers of The Millions since the launch of the Kindle 2. And TechCrunch recently reported that Amazon may have sold 300,000 Kindle 2s in a little over two months since the Kindle 2 was unveiled – a stunning rate in comparison to the 400,000 Kindles sold during the 15-month lifespan of the first generation device.
As all of this has come into focus for us, it’s become easier to envision a time when it would no longer make sense for The Millions to link to Amazon. If it comes to pass that people who shop at Amazon for books tend to prefer Kindle ebooks, it would be pretty silly for us to keep linking to the Amazon pages for the physical copies of books. And why link to the Kindle ebook page when we could link to a commission-generating page at Powell’s or IndieBound? Even considering the point we made yesterday about big-ticket items, we are a site that covers books and appeals to avid readers, and most of the commissions The Millions earns via the Amazon program are earned on books. There are many other literary and culture-oriented sites that fit this same profile and link to Amazon. If Amazon’s evolution closes the door on these sites, it will make it all the more difficult for these sites to become economically viable and it will be a blow to literary and culture discussion on the web. On the other hand, it will be an opportunity for indies to compete with Amazon.
III.
One of the key points tucked away in yesterday’s installment was that, even as the business model of book coverage in print fails and online coverage rushes to fill the void, there’s nothing keeping online coverage from the fate that has beset print coverage.
In light of everything that’s going on with the Kindle, a decentralized alternative to Amazon’s Associates program, like the one that IndieBound has been ramping up, becomes more intriguing, but such alternatives have a long way to go before they can offer a value proposition that can compete with the incumbent.
A better, far more realistic, and completely obvious solution for supporting book coverage online is advertising – whose current inefficacy, you may remember, was what made Amazon attractive in the first place. In theory, two factors recommend online advertising to potential advertisers and marketers. The infrastructure is already there – building an affiliate program from scratch is no easy task nor is it a sensible option for many advertisers – and it’s much cheaper than trying to reach a similar audience via print advertising.
If the email inboxes of Millions contributors are any indication, there is currently plenty of interest in reaching a readership like that of The Millions, but not much interest in paying for it. There are always going to be books that don’t jibe with our editorial focus, but we have no such restrictions on advertisements. (This isn’t to say that any serious book journalist doesn’t welcome a well-targeted email.)
In his part one of this series, Garth noted how the conglomerated publishing industry has shelled out less and less money for the advertisements that support The New York Times Book Review and other, now defunct, book review sections. Perhaps part of that same cash-saving strategy has been to make scattershot pitches to bloggers in order generate some free publicity. But as Garth also discussed, the quality and readership of book coverage offered by the top bloggers and a number of impressive new online magazines is only increasing. Meanwhile, no longer the new kids on the block, as these sites professionalize further and their own editorial voices mature, they rely less on these pitches to shape coverage. The publishing industry can either try to reach the readers of these sites through advertising, or it can allocate money and time trying to cajole coverage out of increasingly inundated writers and editors. (Our own biggest advertiser, via the blogads at right, is Xlibris, the self-publishing outfit.) By getting serious about supporting book coverage online as it once did in print, publishers can hope to enjoy the same symbiotic relationship that Amazon now has with thousands of small sites.
However, we shouldn’t expect an increasingly struggling publishing industry to shoulder the load. When I worked with Bud Parr on the short-lived literary blog ad network Brainiads, the holy grail was securing advertisers from outside the publishing industry. Brainiads wasn’t able to meet this goal. So far, this development hasn’t materialized elsewhere and, in all likelihood, will be delayed by the current economic downturn. This isn’t to say it can’t happen, however. The audience for online book coverage is actually quite attractive for many advertisers, generally well educated and well off, and in the most likely scenario, some enterprise will make good on what Brainiads hoped to do (it occurs to me that the NYT would be an intriguing candidate), and, with a dedicated sales force, will reach out to companies to offer ads on a basket of book- and culture-focused sites with an attractive readership.
Until that day, book coverage online will remain rather precarious, for better as well as for worse. For smaller blogs, it is often largely a labor of love. For mid-sized, independent sites, the business model rests on flawed options like Amazon’s program and piecemeal revenue via existing ad networks. At the largest sites, including the online arms of venerable institutions like the NYTBR, book coverage depends on the dwindling profitability of news corporations as a whole.
Even 15 years in, the web is still the wild west. There aren’t a lot of rules, and literary sites have adapted and experimented in order to find a model that works. Now, even as much of the literary ecosystem endures a period of severe distress, one of the sustaining revenue sources, Amazon, is big enough to make a huge play, opening a whole new market, but raising plenty of red flags along the way. In many ways, this is representative of the historically uneasy relationship between commerce and culture. The hope is that book coverage, struggling mightily in print, can enact a land grab of its own online and find a niche that may ultimately prove secure.
Part 1: Garth looks at the death of the newspaper book review section.
Part 2: Max considers revenue options for literary websites.
[Image credits: Matt Garrett, Peter Clark, Ken Lund]
But perhaps the pendulum will swing back towards pocket editions again. HarperPerennial recently introduced the Olive Editions collection. According to the marketing material, “they fit in your back pocket and only cost ten bucks each.” (And eight bucks on Amazon). So far the line includes three titles, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera, and Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. At 7 inches by 4 1/2 inches, they are a touch larger than the pocket paperbacks you see in used bookstores, and while their cover design is smart looking, they are not as inviting as the pulpy art that used to emblazon even the classics. Nonetheless, they represent a smart move by HarperCollins, and one hopes that they will announce more titles in this format and that other publishers will follow suit.
Great blog entry! Ties in nicely with my recent post, The E-Book Revolution.
-Warren
I always thought the Penguin Great Ideas Series was a nice start, even if it focused on classic and not modern lit.
Ironically, I just wrote a post before seeing this one about how I find these small-sized editions so annoying.
I see editions of literary fiction in this format occasionally here in Buenos Aires under the label "export" or "open market" edition.
It's better than nothing, but I certainly am willing to pay a few more dollars for the trade paperback edition. (BTW, abroad the editions are not necessarily any cheaper than the trade editions).
Interesting post indeed, though the question of quality arises: are consumers who are used to the space and cleanliness of trade paperbacks going to go for smaller type and lesser production typically found in these cheaper editions? The question of production and design is ever present in forecasts for e-books too, of course. Haven't readers become savvy about how books are presented to them visually?
Interesting post. As for the Kindle, alas, three months on, mine is still sitting in its box. The whole hook-it-up-to Whisper Net thing… One day…
In Australia we seem to get TPB very quickly as the overseas hardbacks are priced so ridiculously. It's cheaper to personally import titles from Amazon US than to buy the same edition from a local bookstore (even with airmail costs factored in).
I find the mass market-size paperback a handy size to hold, but usually much too bulky to put in any pocket.
In order to cut down on bulk, the publisher has to reduce the size of the type face and spec very lightweight, cheap paper. I prefer a 6" x 9" trade paperback, which, after a lot of indecision, was the size I chose for my first book as an independent publisher this summer. The Cure for Jet Lag was originally published by Berkley Publishing Group in a 4.25" x 8" format with print so tiny it was barely readable. Page count 160. THAT edition could fit into your breast pocket and it did sell hundreds of thousands of copies. My new edition is still 160 pages, but in a 6 x 9 trade paperback format. Nice, colorful cover on good paper stock. Still slim enough to slip into a case beside a laptop, and not falling apart and difficult to read.
So, sure, if you want a disposable book and to wear your strongest prescription reading glasses, go for the "mass market" size.
Lynne W. Scanlon
PS I have a kindle and I love it, even though the back panel is always falling off. My big disappointment came, however, when I wanted to pass a great read on to a friend. That's not going to happen with a Kindle! Of course, perhaps the friend went to the bookstore and bought it! That's good for the author and the publisher and the bookstore.
Ultimately, the size of the book matters less than the quality of the words inside. I think we'd all do well to remember that and focus less on how we're sending those words out to the world. If the story warrants a good read, readers will find it.
That being said, nothing helps a product more than being portable. I suppose the question is one of preference. Do you want a book that's short, squat, and fits in your pocket (though not your back pocket unless you want sciatic nerve damage) or would you prefer a thin, lanky edition that could slide into a briefcase, laptop, or messenger bag? Either way, I support the end of the hardcover. I read them from libraries, but haven't bought one in years.
And as for the Kindle…
Thanks for this post.
Ironic, isn't it, that Allen Lane founded Penguin Books to provide pocket-sized quality books for train commuters?
Since Penguin is run these days by accountants with little regard for literature, or their own history, you now need a dedicated backpack to carry around their 'product'.
I did this when I published my first novel four years ago and it was a big success for me. People indeed responded positively to the smaller size, and many bookstores that offered to carry it said it was specifically because they loved the form factor. If financial constraints hadn't forced me to use POD/trade paperback for my later titles I'd have used the mass market size for all of them.
I grew up on the pocket paperback and was sorry when it died. For the past five years I've been trying to convince an editor that now is the time to return to it. Some books won't work as pocket editions (too unwieldly) but the vast majority will.
All I know is that I'd love to see a return to the pocket size paperback; nothing beats it for cheapness and portability.
Only 42 percent more expensive than the books that Hard Case Crime has been putting out for about four years now. But then, that's just genre fiction.
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Detectives Beyond Borders
“Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home”
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
Wonderful article you have written here.
Personally, I find myself satisfied with the size of all of my pocket paperbacks. They easily fit inside of my purse so I find it very easy to read on-the-go.
Also, environmentally speaking, these books are a much better option all around.
One of my easiest reading experiences ever (even while standing in a moving subway car) was with a truly portable edition of Vanity Fair published in Thomas Nelson and Sons’ New Century Library. Dimensions: 6 1/4 by 4 1/4 by a half-inch thickness. The pages are Oxford India Paper—opaque, thin, and durable. The entire book fit in the palm of my hand and was lightweight, even at 784 pages. The type size wasn’t reduced and there are still margins. This is a true pocket book.
Postscript on the Nelson m: the book is c. 1909.