Brendan Foster

What do Newton Bookshop in Newton, Pennsylvania, Blue Elephant Bookshop in Decatur. Georgia, Edgartown Books in Edgartown, Massachusetts, Mystery Lovers Bookstore in Oakmont, Pennsylvania, and Outwrite Booksellers in Atlanta, Georgia, have in common? They have all closed or been put up for sale in recent months. It's a hard time to be an independent, bricks and mortar bookstore trying to make it in the Amazon and e-book era. Authors fear it will be harder and harder to secure local promotion for their new books and that coveted spot in the front window display. Publishers fear Amazon's apparently successful grab at being all things to all people in the world of books - from publisher to distributor, review source and perhaps even local store. But was there ever a golden age of booksellers and if so, when was it? Was there a time when readers in almost any town in America could go to a fine, local, independent bookstore and browse through an endless supply of classics, children's books, mysteries, romances, non-fiction, history, art books, cookbooks, newly released best sellers, etc. Or is that just a piece of well constructed nostalgia?

In 1931 only 500 bookstores existed in the United States. By 1940 almost 95 percent of Americans could read, but bookstores were only located in one third of U. S. counties. Mostly they were located in large cities. And the vast majority of book buyers purchased their books in stationery stores and supermarkets where the selection was very limited. These stores mostly carried a selection of bestsellers, celebrity memoirs, and self-help books.

By the 1970s superstores and chains were dominating the bookstore business, threatening independent bookstores with their discount prices and merchandizing know-how. But again the floor space was carefully allotted to the most popular books, and people complained that older titles, classics, and more niche titles were missing. Coffee became a popular staple of such stores, and now most of them are extinct. So the question is was there ever a wonderful thriving, independent bookstore industry in this county, or was it just a myth?

Today the legacy publishing industry, some authors, and some book buyers fear that the internet and e-books, Amazon.com and its Kindle reader in particular, will be responsible for the death of the local bookstore. If that happens, we have only ourselves to blame. My husband worked in the book publishing business for many years - in the area of marketing. He tells of going to a school in New York City to call upon the school's bookstore manager and noting that in the school mail room, located across from the bookstore, the mailboxes were utterly filled with boxes from Amazon.com. That store has since closed. Whether the store was not carrying the stock the students wanted or the students just liked the convenience of shopping from their laptops is not really relevant. The point is something better that fills more needs has come along, and when we immortalize the good old days and those quaint and wonderful stores, we leave something out of the picture - reality. Moreover we forget about how many more books customers now have at their fingertips; how many more authors can get their books into print and distributed; how convenient it is to shop for a book from bed or your beach chair; and how truly democratic it all is.

I have recently read an estimate that by next year there may be 1 billion e-books sold in the world. just how many e-books are sold is extremely difficult to state because Amazon.com, the world's largest retailer of e-books, does not provide sales figures. Amazon did announce one month in the spring of 2011 that e-book sales had exceeded mass-market paperback and hardbound sales combined, and we do know that the number and percentage of e-books sold continues to increase exponentially each year. But the exact number sold is still a secret. Hardbound books remain preferred for reading to children. And in some cases text books have been difficult to convert to the digital format because of all the graphics, charts, tables, etc. Nevertheless e-books are here to stay and on the rise. And one of the major factors in the increase of e-books sold and read is the burgeoning number of authors who are self-publishing their books.

A recent article in the Christian Science Monitor stated that readers' appetites to consume e-books are so robust that in certain genres authors are finding it difficult to keep up with demand. In what it termed an e-revolution, the paper noted that, in particular, mysteries, thrillers, and romance have become increasingly popular for downloading onto e-readers. To some degree, they seem to imply that because others cannot tell from the e-reader in the hand the title of the book being read by an individual, this newfound privacy has led to guilty pleasures - reading more of what might be considered pulp fiction or even smut. An example of this phenomenon is the success of 50 Shades of Gray by E. L James, now a New York Times best-selling book, which was originally posted on the author's web site and later self-published in e-book and print-on-demand form by an Australian virtual publisher. Critics call it mommy porn, and it is phenomenally successful. The Monitor article goes on to say that veteran author James Patterson's mysteries are so highly in demand that he has had to commit to writing 13 novels this year alone. Self-publishing authors should take note.

And yet the publishing establishment continues to fret about the phenomenon of e-books and its relationship to self-publishing. An article in the most recent issue of the Columbia Journalism Review worries about the pricing of e-books, stating that it is not about the cost of making the book or even what the audience is willing to pay, but rather the price must be set to pay for the publisher's investment in the next project. Such thinking seems very outdated and impractical for an industry in the kind of flux that publishing now finds itself.

And Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Michael Dirda of The Washington Post, in a recent interview, while grudgingly admitting that Gertrude Stein self-published and allowing for the fact that he had contributed the foreword to a self-published memoir written by one of his teacher's, made the statement that, in the avalanche of self-published books being released, bad drives out good. I find it highly ironic then that, in the same interview, he identifies the worst novel he has ever read to be Dazzle by best-selling commercial author Judith Krantz, published by legacy publishers Crown and Bantam.

To his credit Dirda seems to be keeping an open mind. He asks, who knows what publishing will be like in 20 years? It's a legitimate question, but it seems clear that it will be less like what it was in the previous century and more open, more democratic, more entrepreneurial, and more digital.

I think it's wonderful how things are expanding in the publishing and writing world. Technology is helping to shape and market the publishing industry and other industries as well with their many different types of distributions. I hope the publishing industries in self-publishing and traditional publishing will continue to grow.

Publishing, technology, and business publications are all abuzz with the news that Microsoft has purchased 17 percent of a newly formed unit of Barnes and Noble (consisting of the Nook and college bookstore markets). Microsoft is investing 605 million of its cash over five years ostensibly to compete with Amazon, Google, and Apple in the e-book world.

Microsoft is coming very late to the tablet, e-reader, e-book industry. But the timing of its entry undoubtedly has much to do with the fact that the giant software company will launch its new Microsoft 8 Operating System this fall, which features touch screen technology, the kind of technology now used on the iPad. It is also a time when downloadable college textbooks are coming into their own, and it seems the general shift in publishing continues increasingly towards e-books. "We are at a cusp of a revolution in reading," says Andy Lees, president of Microsoft. Actually the revolution has been off and running for some time, but it is good they are paying attention now.

At one time Amazon controlled 90 percent of the e-book market. Google and Apple, with
Android tablets, Nooks, and iPads, have bitten into that monopoly, and now Amazon controls just 60 percent and Barnes and Noble controls 27 percent, with Apple coming in third. But Apple offers so much more on its iPad than just e-books - music, films, TV, games, and a myriad of applications, so that their dominance or lack thereof in the e-book market is not of great importance to the corporation. Now with Microsoft getting into the tablet game, it may be that the Nook will offer much more varied possibilities for entertainment and education than it currently does.

Also of note is the fact that, given the ruling against Apple and the agency model publishers for setting e-book prices, it has been feared by publishers that Amazon was about to heat up the e-book pricing wars. With its infusion of cash and prospects of offering better technology, Barnes and Noble may provide more competition for Amazon than has been the case until now so that it may not feel it has quite the free reign as was expected.

The partnership makes a great amount of sense and has plenty to recommend it for both companies. Barnes and Noble will become a more well funded competitor and will have access to global markets currently beyond its reach. It will produce Nook applications for all smartphones and tablets that will use the new Microsoft Windows 8 Touch Screen Operating System. A touch screen version of Microsoft 8 will become available on all Nooks going forward. As for Microsoft, it will now have an ally in the area of technology, retail, and media that it has not previously been able to establish. It will also be able to develop stores such as Apple has within the Barnes and Noble stores scattered throughout the nation, a brick and mortar advantage Amazon does not have to date.

Hopefully for authors, publishers, and readers, all this will lead to more varied and less expensive alternatives in e-reading devices and in e-books so that, in the end, more and more people will be reading more and more books and other publications.

The end result of the Department of Justice's anti-trust law suit against five major publishers for what amounts to price fixing will be, at least in the short run, lower prices on e-books for customers. As soon as the suit was announced, Amazon.com stated they would push down the prices on e-books they sell.

A few years ago when Amazon was trying to assure its place as controller of the e-book market, especially by dominating the e-book reader market with its Kindle, the giant internet retailer assigned very low prices, usually $9.99, for almost all new and best-selling e-books it was offering, regardless of the publisher's price. In almost all instances, Amazon was selling these e-books at a loss in order to maintain its tight grip on the market for both e-readers and e-books. Publishers and authors, fearful of both the monopolistic aspects of this move and the manipulation of prices which, to their thinking, were too low for publishers to sustain, were very concerned about what they saw as dangerous precedents being set.

Five major publishers (Hachette, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Macmillan and Penguin) got together with Apple's Steve Jobs, who at the time was getting reading to launch the first iPad, and colluded in creating what they called the agency model for e-book pricing. Under this model, the publishers set the book price and the retailer retained 30 percent. E-book prices rose from $9.99 to $14.99 and $16.99 almost immediately because part of the agency model agreement stated that no retailer could sell the e-books for a lower price than the agency model price publishers had agreed upon with Apple (as a most favored distributor). Of course, this was considered by Amazon and the government to be price fixing and restraint of trade, and the suit was under way.

Prior to the entry of Apple into the e-reader market through the launch of the iPad, Amazon.com controlled 90 percent of the e-reader market. Today that percentage has decreased to 60 percent. But with Amazon's plan to lower prices, the retailer may once again take control of a greater share of the e-reader and e-book market.

Three of the publishers sued have reached a settlement with the Department of Justice and have abandoned the agency model. But two have not - Macmillan and Penguin. One in particular, Macmillan, made a statement to the effect that it cannot agree to the terms of the settlement because it would, in fact, put Amazon back in the position of having a monopolistic hold on the e-book market, which was the reason the publishers felt forced to create the agency model in the first place.

It is ironic that a monopolistic strategy created a climate in which, in reaction, a price-fixing strategy emerged, only to be struck down as illegal, making way for the monopolistic model to come back into dominance. In my opinion, monopolies are never good for authors or, in the long run, for customers. But in the short run, e-book prices will come down which may be good for sales. Stay tuned for further developments in the ongoing battle between Amazon and traditional publishers.

'Selecting publishing formats for books' may help the authors for publication of their books. I do agree with the publication of book in e-book format first because it may help the author for its publicity through medium of social media.

I greatly admire those who are willing to step out of the safety of their inter santum sanatoriums and stand alone to fight for what they believe is their right and just cause for free expressions and beliefs no matter the cost or consequencies.

Thank you for the analysis on modern publication problems and new developments in the field of publication. It is very inlighting and revealing.

I'm very pleased with this post  and I want to see more. I am currently working on a book, and Dorrance Publishers have helped me with great advise. I thank them. Cant' wait to get done with my manuscript. Respects to David Braun.

The New York Times and other news sources announced this week that the last print edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica had been published and that when the 4000 volumes currently in sock are sold, there will be no more created. Many of the articles appearing at the time of the announcement made it seem as though the venerable institution was now on the trash heap of civilization, to be heard of no more. One writer even commented, "And no one will miss it." Reading further into the announcement and researching Encyclopaedia Britannica's own web site yields a very different picture. It would appear Britannica has managed the conversion from the world of print to the digital age successfully, despite very real threats and stiff competition.

Going all the way back to 1981. Encyclopaedia Britannica created a digital version of its 32 volumes for Lexus Nexus, the international database publisher. In 1961 Britannica purchased one of its major competitors, Compton's Encyclopedia, and they turned it into the first multi-media CD Rom encyclopedia in 1981. During the 80s and later, many home computers came with Compton's pre-loaded.

Since the company sold the greatest number of sets in a year in 1990, 120,000, and before, it has been preparing for the digital age. The sales figures for the last print edition, only 8,000 sets in 2010, made up less than 1 percent of the company's total annual sales volume, with curriculum materials, films, language arts tools, and other educational aids making up 85 percent of its sales, and the rest, almost 15 percent of revenues, coming from its online version. Approximately 500,000 subscriptions are sold annually. Schools and libraries purchase the bulk for $70 a year, but individual consumers also purchase the online encyclopedia, which is available for download at the itunes store as an app for $1.99 a month. As a result, the company has converted entirely to digital products and has maintained revenues and increased profitability, according to its CEO.

Its internet competition is, of course, Wikipedia, the online, open, social, submissions-based, self-correcting, free encyclopedia. A study by Nature, the magazine, a few years ago found, in articles they compared in both Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, an average of 4 mistakes in Wikipedia, but an average of 3 mistakes were found in Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica strongly objected to the accuracy of the study, but Nature did not change their findings. Still Britannica claims Wikipedia is no competition for them since they have trust, scholarship, quality, accuracy, and a pool of experts, some Nobel Prize winners, writing for them on their side. And while Google searches prefer Wikipedia, you can browse your subject and add ", Encyclopaedia Britannica," and the Britannica article will come up first, and it's also free.

I grew up in the time when door-to-door salesmen sold sets of encyclopedias to parents convinced that education was the way for their children to have a life better than the one they had. And we had two encyclopedias in the living room bookcase - both Compton's and Britannica - the red and the blue. This was only right for a family composed of what would later be known as factoids. We looked up everything. I remember having papers assigned at school and knowing, as I began writing them, that Compton's would give me a good overview and then Britannica would provide more background and additional sources for primary reference and additional research. They were an essential part of my education, and I imagine most authors and writers have spent a great deal of the