I’ve been travelling and a bit busy with one thing or another. But returning I find this excellent little video. Words from the ever wonderful and far-sighted Douglas Adams (in 1993), animation by competition winner Eleanor Stokes and the whole thing was put together by the people at The Literary Platform.
http://competition.theliteraryplatform.com/embed11
Seems like its been a long couple of weeks. Much to catch up on.
To the great interest of book industry watchers the Pottermore shop has gone live. This is, like almost anything related to Harry Potter, very big news indeed. Not so much even for the phenomenon of Potter this time but for the effect it may have on the ecosystem. Excellent appraisals from Mike Shatzkin and Eoin Purcell and the Daily Telegraph here. Mike is convincing on the potential for a change in DRM policy to alter again the balance of the marketplace and I think Eoin is absolutely on the money about the increasing importance of community (and by extension therefore branding) in publishing.
I’ve been busy this past few weeks but I’m now coming up for air. I’ve had much to think about this past couple of months and therefore I suspect also that there are some things in the offing which will make for an interesting rest of year. I’ve no doubt I’ll be sharing them here, when they become real. Anyway, I’ve haven’t been entirely idle on the internet which you may have seen if you follow me on twitter (@MrGatsby) and the little feed to right has been quite busy.
Featuring heavily on that was the PANZ conference in Auckland last week (Lisa Buchan’s report on Publishing Perspectives here) which was a hugely useful and enjoyable experience that slotted many things into place for me. Highlights for me were Mark Higginson from HarperCollins Australia on social media, the excellent Elizabeth Weiss from Allen and Unwin on their digital publishing experiences and David Shelley from Little Brown UK on why publishers remain relevant in the digital revolution.
Sadly Shelley didn’t reveal much about his day job as JK Rowling’s new publisher.
The whole thing was smart, upbeat and from my perspective at least, very uplifting about the possibilities for publishers who embrace a more vibrantly creative and innovative approach.
Mind you the antidote to that is possibly to read Mike Shatzkin’s latest, which looks at the seemingly inexorable rise of Amazon’s market dominance by asking two questions:
When will the growth in Amazon’s share of the consumer book business stop?
Who will be left standing when it does?
It’s certainly a must read, and while as a consumer I’m always impressed by Amazon I cannot but find the potential monopolisation of the book industry by them (or anyone for that matter) a concern. Joe Wikert clearly thinks so.
But back to innovation, John Lanchester’s Capital appears to be book with its finger on the pulse of contemporary London (Claire Tomalin’s review here) and while I’ve not yet read, I’m hearing great things from those who have. It seems also that Lanchester’s publisher Faber wanted to capture the book visually in its promotion and have created this (this blog is a big fan of book promos):
And they’ve also put up an interview with John:
It’s a good combination of intriguing and contextual and I’d be interested to see its results in promoting the book.
If you’re in Wellington, you’ll know that the NZ International Arts Festival is in town and its Writers and Readers Week starts this Friday with a keynote from Tim Flannery. I am lucky enough to interviewing author and Dr Who screen writer Robert Shearman on Monday at the Embassy Cinema. Interview comes with a full showing of the Dalek episode. Apparently, a cyberman came along to his appearance in Adelaide. I’m hoping for the Master myself or a Dalek of course.
The NZBC’s latest viral made by our friends at Colenso (Warning: a book absolutely was harmed in the making of this video):
Whatever you think about the book, there is no denying the power they have to shape lives both for good and ill. And that’s the point of such dramatic illustration both in the choice of book and the nature of the ad.
Amazing what you can do with a drill and a computer these days.
You can follow the New Zealand Book Council on @nzbookcouncil and you can see our previous gratuitous destruction of books here.
Following on from his response to Jonathan Franzen, Sullivan expounds his views on ebooks:
And his reader’s responses to Franzen here.
Also this piece by Ewan Morrison is a fascinating, and well worth reading, follow-up to his Edinburgh Festival lecture of last year, entitled: Are Books Dead and will the Author Survive?
Still busy and thinking through my ‘authors’ post, but there’s a good deal going on that warrants comment albeit by necessity too briefly.
First up, I think this potential alliance between Barnes and Noble and Waterstones to internationalise the Nook is very exciting. Amazon will be tough to beat and Kobo have done some smart work as the insurgent start-up but to make this market work and continue the innovation there’s got to be more players in the game. Elsewhere you can see Eoin Purcell’s take on Barnes and Noble’s corporate culture here (with the NYT article he references here). The American Editor blog volunteers an idea about franchising the B&N brand (and idea I’d be very wary of, brand dilution alert). I suspect B&N (with added Waterstones?) vs Amazon will be a major theme for 2012. Update: even more on B&N. (HT Graham Beattie.)
The ebook reader advance looks to have moved forward substantially again over the Christmas period though perhaps not quite as quickly as was imagined before Christmas. Mike Shatzkin looks at some of the initial data. PW looks at the adoption of ereaders here and the rapid advance of the Kindle Fire here. Six million units sold in the final quarter of 2011. As I said, tough to beat.
Finally, I retweeted this over the holidays, but reading it again there’s much food for thought in an article by Stephen Page on the Guardian that looks at the history of publishing and segues that into a view of the future for 2012. Two money quotes:
There’s a riot of cross-dressing going on; a scramble as roles are redefined by usefulness, not legacy.
And
The demonstrable creation of value and the fair sharing of it. Publishers exist to create value and audience for writers, and this needs to be at the centre of all publishing endeavours.
Which will lead me on nicely to a future post.
I’m tremendously charmed by this grass roots Little Free Libraries innovation and if nothing else it makes you realise that the digital age can go hand in hand with a much more analogue brand of creativity.
Unless of course, you are Jonathan Franzen. Franzen’s views on the pernicious threat to democracy that is digital reading here, takedown by Andrew Sullivan here.
(Little Free Libraries HT Library Stuff)
At this time of year, I tend to get a bit more homesick than usual. There is much to miss in personal terms but professionally, I’ve always loved the exhausting cut and thrust of the book trade at Christmas. So watching the Futurebook conference through the keyhole of twitter made me wish I was in London to experience it. While twitter is great for capturing the headlines, I would love to have seen and heard more of the meat of the discussion.
One element from the reports that has leapt out for me is how publishers are now defining themselves. Dominique Raccah from Sourcebooks says that ‘we are no longer a book publisher, we are a publisher’. Stephen Page from Faber went further saying that they are now a business ‘about reading and writing’. This second formulation interests me greatly. I like it because it maintains a continuity with the past, (in my opinion, good publishers have always been in the ‘enhancing the writing and encouraging the reading’ business as opposed to the ‘making paper things’ business), but it allows scope to widen and develop that concept.
This is, I think, an enormously liberating moment for the talented people in publishing businesses to unleash some new ideas that connect writer and reader. If we’ve always been in that business, why not find new ways to excel at it?
Phil Downer from Front of Store was there and he reports here. One further link to share from Michael Wolf at Gigaom. The pace of change would appear to be accelerating.
What I find most interesting about James Daunt’s Independent interview is the real bookshop versus internet behemoth narrative. He chose, I’m sure deliberately, to set his comments almost as if it were a morality play with Waterstones as David, Amazon as Goliath. Now of course morality doesn’t really enter into it because neither company is good or bad, they’re just economic actors trying to secure customers.
Over the past decade Amazon has quietly played its hand brilliantly and positioned itself astutely in first the bookselling and now the publishing arena. It has developed a situation (in no small degree through its own action) where the momentum of the market now lies almost overwhelmingly to its advantage. It spotted the digital zeitgeist and has exploited its insights to huge effect.
The crucial step it took was right at the beginning, it seduced its customers and delivered to them with maximum efficiency with a year in, year out consistency at a handy price. So to change the narrative, this has been more about love than morality and Amazon has been an attentive lover, who never forgets a birthday or Christmas.
Waterstone’s is now trying to re-position itself to its core market and I suspect that the purpose of Daunt’s remarks is add a little tribalism back into the Waterstones culture by clearly identifying the target of their endeavour, the ‘serious reader’. These were, of course, Waterstone’s first loves upon which was built the original brand (the romantically described ‘inner-directed heavy book buyer’ as they were known in the mid nineties). It may well be the most effective strategy on offer to them and much as Waterstone’s has tried to appeal to a wider market, it has never felt like a brand designed to do that.
I’m all for a bit of tribalism in a company, it makes you realise that it has a culture and a set of values common to the entire organisation. I also suspect that there may be a touch of the Alex Ferguson brand of gamesmanship in James Daunt, stirring the troops and the pot. He clearly knows how to use publicity to support a brand image and most of the interview demonstrates that he has an instinctive understanding of how to play to an upmarket and locally driven clientele. Creating a kind of insurgent narrative about the enterprise is probably no bad place to begin in terms of winning back a place in the hearts of your customers.
My hunch though is that Amazon successfully wooed this segment long ago and has had a decade to cement its position in Waterstone’s old heartland. It’s infinite, consistent and convenient offer will be hard to beat. So if it is to recapture its once native ground, Waterstone’s will have to re-learn the art of seducing its customers, on price, range, service and even more importantly, sheer coolness. Relying on telling them that they ‘should’ may just simply get a ‘they’re just not that into you’.
Also on this, the technology editor at the Telegraph pushes back and you can see a number of comments over at the Bookseller site.
Update: Having said all that, I’m not sure that this is really cricket.
And here are two more articles just to continue today’s theme:
Joe Esposito on what the fall of Borders can tell you about the world of business relationships (they are way more transient than you should ever assume). And Mike Shatzkin with his, as usual well-informed, take on the Makinson interview.
Green Light 