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"Well this year sales are down 17.1% for the top 400 publishing houses over last year"

Um, that's just plain wrong. The Association of American Publishers even says so right here. In fact, even just print books alone have been doing quite well, and ebooks have significantly added to that.

The newspaper market has NOT gotten smaller. It's actually stayed very steady (please see here). Yes, the ad avenues have dropped as advertising mostly goes to the online and television mediums - is that a surprise? Newspapers make their revenue in other ways, including through online subscriptions.

Agreed, but most of those will already have been hired for the regular books (you can't bill twice for what you've already paid for and already have), it is only reasonable to charge for new costs. I've already looked up the costs of editors ($80,000 seems average) - link elsewhere as a reply to the post that started this thread - and it shouldn't be hard to look up the costs of the other positions.

http://www.publishers.org/bookstats/formats/

This link gives you the net income from e-books. From that, it should be possible to figure the total number of -extra- e-book staff that can be afforded across all publishers whilst maintaining a respectable profit margin AND paying reasonable royalties to authors.

Perhaps, but people generally buy their HQ once. Unless the analyst can find a publisher that relocates every time they publish (other than ones on terror hit lists), the cost of the building is covered. The employees - ok, that's a reasonable claim, but you obviously don't need to hire any more printers, just editors, to cover e-books. How many new editors do they need to hire? Let's say 10 to cover all the additional books they're publishing. How much does an editor earn?

http://www.indeed.com/q-Editor-jobs.html

I'd say $80,000 is a good estimate. That means 10 will cost $800,000 per year. Allowing for taxes, and the limitations of my brain, I'll increase the cost to the company to a round million.

http://www.publishers.org/bookstats/formats/

114 million e-books were sold in 2010. How much does that actually equate to, given the current costs of e-books? From the publishers.org link above, we can see that publishers earned $878 million from e-book sales (net).

This means you'd need to have 878 publishers of e-books at 2010 level of sales before you eliminate all the profits, assuming each publisher has 10 editors.

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out how many publishers the market can support without ANY increase in costs AND with reasonable profit margins being maintained for publisher and author.

I laughed. I cried. Then I just laughed.

http://publishers.org/researchworksFAQ/

Well, first off, you've raised some very good points, but you shouldn't have included authors in your list for a couple of reasons. Number one, authors don't get usually paid for book signings; and number two, most people still consume books as paper objects - the printed book occupies around 95% of the market, with the e-book and audiobook fighting over the remainder - so the original business model still actually holds true.

(And, the 2009 figures are in - the e-book made a lot of gains in 2009, reaching 3.31% of the total market. Source: http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Archicves/2010_February/SalesUp4.1in2009Release.htm )

That said, there will be adjustments in the market. The way I figure it will play out is as follows:

1. Advertising-based sites lose revenue from ad-blockers, and content quality goes down.
2. Those sites either move to a subscription or corporate sponsorship-based revenue stream (or something else that works) or die out.
3. Something new happens.

Ultimately, somebody has to pay for the content - whether it's paying the writers (always a good thing!), or just for the bandwidth, the money has to come from somewhere. So, with online advertising having become somewhat toxic (as has been pointed out, a lot of these ads carry malware), that particular business model is on its way out. Eventually, a new one will come in, and it will last as long as the market allows.

So, it's not really a matter of deserving anything. The business plan either survives contact with reality or it doesn't.

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you're wrong here.

One of the things that I have to do as a publisher is keep track of the e-book market, so that if it does move to a point where I should be supporting it, I can do so in a reasonable time. Such a move has not happened, nor are there any signs it will.

Now, you said that an e-book market would reasonably be 5-10% of the printed book market today, and that just isn't where it's sitting. As of November 2009 (the December figures aren't out yet), it was at 2.26% of the total book market. Even if you remove the audiobook (which was just marginally larger), it's still less than 5%. What we have here is a very slow arithmetic growth. Compare that to a market such as the DVD, which did supplant the VHS, and you see exponential growth as one supplants the other.

If you don't believe me, crunch the numbers for yourself. The source is here: http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Archicves/2010_January/November10StatsRelease.htm

Sorry, but it's a niche market, and it's showing every indication that it will stay that way.

Well, I own and run a small publishing company. And one of the things that I always find very amusing is when people call the print book outdated, and those of us who focus on them "dinosaurs." It's not, and we're not.

What I am, however, is connected to reality.

There is a basic business truth: your customer base dictates to you - not the other way around. If your customer base demands e-books, you give them e-books. If they demand printed books, you give them printed books.

So, what does the customer base demand here? Well, the Association of American Publishers tracks the book market based on net sales, and on a month-to-month basis, we can thus tell just what formats the market is demanding. The most recent month's figures available is November 2009.

In November 2009, the total net book market was $808.5 million. Of that, the e-book occupied $18.3 million ($.1 million below the audiobook). This makes the e-book a grand total of 2.26% of the entire book market.

That's right - 2.26%. Any general publisher who abandoned the printed book in favour of the e-book at this time would be endangering their business' survival. Should the e-book one day represent 65% of the market, then anybody not supporting it would indeed be a dinosaur. But, right now, putting the printed book ahead of the e-book simply means that one has a realistic view of the market.

Source: http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Archicves/2010_January/November10StatsRelease.htm

Pal, I've heard this "being slow to release legitimate downloadable versions of their product while bemoaning the demand for a product they refuse to produce" before, and it's bullshit. There was a massive push to make e-books work between 2000 and 2002. I know - I was there. In fact, I even was the author of one of the front runners. I had the Diablo game franchise behind me, advertisement on Battle.net, and a tech-savvy audience that should have generated thousands of sales. Everything was going for me except the fact that I'm not Stephen King.

Guess what - the e-book tanked. For that matter, so did every single e-book that was released across the board. The major publishing companies did everything they could short of shoving the e-books down the readers' throats for two years to get these things to work, and the only thing that happened was that a lot of money was spent for a result of very few sales. Almost ten years later, e-books are being regularly tracked by the Association of American Publishers. The latest figures they have are for the month of February 2009...and in the last ten years, with at least one major push behind them, do you know how much of the book market the e-book currently occupies? In February it peaked...at 1.5%. And it only got that high because e-book sales dropped less respectively than regular books sales from the month before.

Don't take my word for it...do the math yourself - the link is here: http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Archicves/2009_April/Feb09stats.htm

The simple fact is that people do not consume books in such a way that an e-book is anything more than a niche market. Books are not like newspapers, and while newspapers are becoming close to an endangered species - having to maintain a web presence for survival - books haven't even been touched by e-books. They're just consumed in a different way. The demand is minuscule, and that's not unfounded perception - that's up-to-date market figures, and a failed push that lasted at least two years.

The publishing industry is not a world of behind-the-times publishers ignoring technology. Publishers jumped on Amazon.com, and it revolutionized the industry. Something called an Expresso Book Machine is coming down the line, and it's going to cause a revolution too. Print on Demand caused a revolution as well. Things like editing and manuscript drafts are now been done by email rather than by regular post. But with the exception of the EBM, these were mainly revolutions taking place behind the scenes. Whether you like it or not, the publishing industry is an industry of early adapters...but they also aren't stupid. If something proves to be nothing more than a money sink, like the e-book, it gets treated like the niche it is.

"Sorry, it's more like a desperate attempt to cling to the old sales model. You have to switch gears to accommodate the future - electronic books. That means no paper printing at all. Anyone who plans to build a long-lasting business by clinging to the past in the face of a technological revolution will have an uphill battle ahead of them."

I always love this argument...particularly since not only was I there and an active participant for the first e-book revolution, but I also make a point of keeping up with how e-books are doing (that is, in fact, tracked by the Association of American Publishers).

Publishers tried to make the e-book work between 2000-2002, but there just wasn't a big enough market. And, almost ten years later, with a decade of development and the Kindle and the Sony reader out, do you know how much of the book market the e-book has taken over? Well, in January e-book sales represented 1.1% of total book sales for that month in the United States, and in February they rose to 1.5% (although, in that case, there was a decrease in book and e-book sales from January to February, and the e-book sales decreased less than the total book sales did). This is the first time I've ever seen e-book sales get to over 1% of the book market - and it took over ten years to get there. The total e-book sales for 2008 was $113 million out of total book market of $24.3 billion, or 0.5%.

Source: http://www.publishers.org/

Believe me, the printed book is not in any danger - and any publisher who abandons the printed book for e-books right now would be asking to go out of business.

"Print is dead, but ePrint replaced it."

"So in theory, a media company putting their content on files, instead of a physical container, would save a lot of money by just selling files instead of audio CDs, Video DVDs, Paper Books, Paper Newspapers, etc."

Well spoken, but wrong. In the case of books, a company going all e-book would go out of business very quickly. And here's why:

Just because a technology is new, it doesn't make it better. Laserdisc came before the DVD, but it didn't usurp the videotape - unlike DVDs, it was bigger, and more difficult to use than VHS. The idea that new = better, or even that new = successful is a fallacy; it depends on the product in question.

Take the e-book, for example. You talked about how ePrint has replaced it, but let's look at the figures. The e-book "revolution" started in 2000 (I know - I was one of the authors in it). Eight or nine years later, how is it doing? Has it taken the book industry by storm?

Well, in December 2008, American domestic net books sales totaled $1.5 billion. Of those, e-books represented $6.5 million. So, the e-book sales represented a grand total of 0.43% of the total book market for the month of December. In fact, if you look at e-book sales per month, about the highest they get is to 0.8% of total net book sales, and that is on months when total book sales take a nose dive. There is a steady climb, but at the rate it's going, it will be two or three decades before e-books reach the 10% mark, much less something higher.

Sources: http://www.publishers.org/Dec08stats.htm
http://www.publishers.org/

So, close to a decade in, and the e-book has made so small an impact on book sales that it is close to non-existent. Any publisher abandoning the printed book to go after less than 1% of the total market would be an idiot to do so, and would go out of business as a result.

It is important to adapt, but one has to adapt to the right changes. Just because a technology is new it doesn't mean that it's going to replace the market that is already there. One has to look at what the market is doing - how are readers consuming the product? In some cases, such as tech manuals, which involve a lot of searching for isolated "word bites," an online offering will fare better than a printed book. But for a novel or history book, far from it.

Print is not dead, and what media distributors have to adapt to is not technology, but reality.

"Print is dead, but ePrint replaced it."

"So in theory, a media company putting their content on files, instead of a physical container, would save a lot of money by just selling files instead of audio CDs, Video DVDs, Paper Books, Paper Newspapers, etc."

Well spoken, but wrong. In the case of books, a company going all e-book would go out of business very quickly. And here's why:

Just because a technology is new, it doesn't make it better. Laserdisc came before the DVD, but it didn't usurp the videotape - unlike DVDs, it was bigger, and more difficult to use than VHS. The idea that new = better, or even that new = successful is a fallacy; it depends on the product in question.

Take the e-book, for example. You talked about how ePrint has replaced it, but let's look at the figures. The e-book "revolution" started in 2000 (I know - I was one of the authors in it). Eight or nine years later, how is it doing? Has it taken the book industry by storm?

Well, in December 2008, American domestic net books sales totaled $1.5 billion. Of those, e-books represented $6.5 million. So, the e-book sales represented a grand total of 0.43% of the total book market for the month of December. In fact, if you look at e-book sales per month, about the highest they get is to 0.8% of total net book sales, and that is on months when total book sales take a nose dive. There is a steady climb, but at the rate it's going, it will be two or three decades before e-books reach the 10% mark, much less something higher.

Sources: http://www.publishers.org/Dec08stats.htm
http://www.publishers.org/

So, close to a decade in, and the e-book has made so small an impact on book sales that it is close to non-existent. Any publisher abandoning the printed book to go after less than 1% of the total market would be an idiot to do so, and would go out of business as a result.

It is important to adapt, but one has to adapt to the right changes. Just because a technology is new it doesn't mean that it's going to replace the market that is already there. One has to look at what the market is doing - how are readers consuming the product? In some cases, such as tech manuals, which involve a lot of searching for isolated "word bites," an online offering will fare better than a printed book. But for a novel or history book, far from it.

Print is not dead, and what media distributors have to adapt to is not technology, but reality.

Unfortunately, e-books aren't doing enough business to be worth it right now as anything other than free advertising.

Sorry, but the figures just came in for November 2008 from the Association of American Publishers - e-books brought in all of 0.69% of the book market.

(Source: http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/IndStats/2008/Nov08stats.htm )

Well, as the owner of a small publishing company, I can put in a couple of cents worth on this one...

The Internet can be very effectively used as a sort of radio for getting exposure for a book. When it comes to my company, the first 50 pages or so of each new release is made available as a free PDF and placed in a couple of spots where it can be freely shared - for public domain reprints, the entire book is made freely available online.

I do it this way for a couple of reasons (besides my company being brand-new and therefore having dick-all of an advertising budget). A large part of it is that people will download just about anything that catches their eye that is free, even if it is something they'll only ever glance at once and then forget it. This means that the average net surfer's "ferret brain," if you want to call it that, can be used for marketing purposes. That being said, most people do not want to read books on a computer or an e-book reader.

(If you don't believe me, check out the Association of American Publishers - they put out American domestic book sales figures, and they just released the figures for the month of November, 2008. The total net book sales were $743 million, with the e-book taking $5.1 million of that. This means that the e-book for November represented 0.69% of the total domestic American book market. Source: http://www.publishers.org/main/IndustryStats/IndStats/2008/Nov08stats.htm )

People tend to use computers and electronic readers for quick and easy consumption - hence the large number of newspapers that are being forced to expand online to survive. When it comes to books (which are not consumed quickly), as far as I can tell a reader will decide if they want to buy it within about 20 pages or so - so even 50 pages is more than strictly necessary for marketing purposes. Essentially, I go with whatever will get the reader far enough into the book that if they can get hooked, they will.

You don't ever want to act like you're holding something back unnecessarily, though. I do something different for the public domain reprints, as I said. The main reason is that those tend to be available off something like Project Gutenberg anyway, and holding back on the rest of the book can only make you look greedy - sort of a "who do you think you're kidding, publisher boy?" situation.

When it comes down to it, a free online sample on a file sharing service just can't hurt you. It doesn't take long to put together a PDF, and since people don't tend to consume full books online anyway, you don't have to worry about piracy taking away your sales in any great way - if somebody likes your book enough to read it all the way through, odds are they'll buy a paper copy so long as the price is reasonable. Aside from which, people who otherwise wouldn't have had your book cross their radar will now become aware of it, and that will raise your sales.

Sorry Bruce, but as somebody who runs a publishing company, and was an e-book author back in 2000 with what was at the time a high-profile e-book, I have to disagree with this statement: "Folks, dead-tree publishing is hardly the wave of the future." Dead-tree books are going to be the standard for the foreseeable future.

I've been tracking this for some time. While there is a downturn in book sales - which is hardly surprising, considering the economy - e-books are not making any serious headway in the market. The AAP (Association of American Publishers) recently published the statistics for domestic book sales in the United States for October 2008 (they track it on a monthly basis, and there is around a two-three month lag on results), and had the following numbers (all numbers are net sales):

Total book sales for the month: $644 million
E-book sales for the month: $5.2 million
Audiobook sales for the month: $18.4 million

(Source: http://www.publishers.org/main/PressCenter/Archicves/2008_December/StatsOct08.htm )

E-book sales are about as high as I've ever seen them, but after eight years, they have only achieved 0.8% of the book market. Compare that to audiobooks, which are sitting at 2.9% of the book market.

Now, I'm not saying that the market hasn't shifted when it comes to computer reference books - indeed, I think your observations about how people are dealing with troubleshooting issues and computer reference materials are spot-on. It is far easier to google a specific problem than to buy a compendium for reference purposes. But, a shift there does not translate into a shift across the board, and at the rate e-book sales are climbing we are probably looking at around twenty to thirty years before they occupy any respectable share of the book market.

For that matter, considering the technical issues involved with e-books compared to the ease with which one can deal with a printed book, even if the e-book does manage to get 30% of the book market in about 30 years, I can't really see a way for it to supplant the printed book.

I didn't realize downloading music was illegal in the US... I thought it was only uploading and making copies. If downloading is illegal, wouldn't that mean that a group like the AAP could swoop down upon students, point to their collection of photocopied handouts, and say, "Ahah! THIS person is guilty of copyright infringement!"?!? I thought it was the teacher who made the copies who was guilty in such a case.

I'll get excited when I see the collective realization that just the technology we currently have enables the defeat of many entrenched, obsolete social constructs.

It's the withering away of the state; Lenin forsaw it but mistook it. It turns marxism and capitalism both ass-over-teakettle.

Why not use these techniques to defeat fearful democratic and republican governments, as well? They are equally egregious, just the authoritarian regimes are less duplicitous and a damn sight rougher.

Patricia Scott Schroeder

Uh, maybe the part about her being the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association of American Publishers is creeping in on her opinion of this... Google really needs to get a better PR firm. :(

They kinda agree with this viewpoint on their own website!

Sure they have!

According to Association of American Publishers publishers don't have a problem with Google indexing their books but they have do a problem with Google making "mak[ing] millions of dollars by freeloading on the talent and property of authors and publishers". Sure, it's great that Google are indexing books but you'll see that Google Print includes sponsored links, why should Google make money in advertising without giving the authors a cut?

The American Association of Publishers has a special section about Ebooks, and an interresting document about their view of how DRM in Ebooks should be here.

Apparently there are currently about a hunderd commercial DRM technics available, none of them good enough.

The American Association of Publishers has a special section about Ebooks, and an interresting document about their view of how DRM in Ebooks should be here.

Apparently there are currently about a hunderd commercial DRM technics available, none of them good enough.

The American Association of Publishers has a special section about Ebooks, and an interresting document about their view of how DRM in Ebooks should be here.

Apparently there are currently about a hunderd commercial DRM technics available, none of them good enough.

As I understand it, the iPod's DRM cannot be used as long as Apple refuses to license it's DRM technologie.

But of course you are right: there are many DRM provider. Sony has it's own, The publisher McGraw Hill uses something called Zinio. The US libraries could have used more than one DRM type, maybe depending on user request, instead of forcing people to use just MS.

But Interestingly the American Association of Publishers (AAP) provides a document here about what they believe DRM for Ebooks should be.

Interresting read (I didn't finish it, maybe it gets boring later on). Apparently there are about a hunderd different commercial DRM technics available, none of them good enough.

The bad part is that they relied on Andersen Consulting (Accidenture, for those who know) to research this.

As I understand it, the iPod's DRM cannot be used as long as Apple refuses to license it's DRM technologie.

But of course you are right: there are many DRM provider. Sony has it's own, The publisher McGraw Hill uses something called Zinio. The US libraries could have used more than one DRM type, maybe depending on user request, instead of forcing people to use just MS.

But Interestingly the American Association of Publishers (AAP) provides a document here about what they believe DRM for Ebooks should be.

Interresting read (I didn't finish it, maybe it gets boring later on). Apparently there are about a hunderd different commercial DRM technics available, none of them good enough.

The bad part is that they relied on Andersen Consulting (Accidenture, for those who know) to research this.

The Book Industry garnered $23.4 billion in 2003 - and that was a flat recession year. When video games pass books in dollar volume, then we will know the end of civilisation is at hand.

I think you've misunderstood my points.

I've said the government seems unwilling to blatantly violate the first amendment in the name of preventing terrorism. I suspect this is due to people being mmore familiar with this amendment than with the other amendments, and therefore are more likely to stand up and say no. It doesn't justify violating any part of the Constitution. My point was that I think the government is content with violating other parts of the Constitution for now, and the first amendment is safe for the time being.

The only line the first amendment draws concerning freedom of assembly is that it must be peaceful. In other words, unless there's a very good reason to suspect that a demonstration won't be peaceful, denying anyone the right to demonstrate would be a first amendment violation.

All you need is a scanner and now you have Association of American Publishers going after P2P networks. Now if I can only bittorrent me a box of cup-o-noodles then that will be sweet. :-)

Well, there's a general consensus that mainstream reference sources have been going down in quality over the past decade (not really the advanced stuff, I'm thinking more like grade school textbooks).

It's gotten so bad that the publishing trade group has a report textbook error link.

But of course, those errors won't be fixed until next year (if ever). Collaborative effort has that kind of thing beat cold.

Though it will take time...

Former AAP (Association of American Publishers) changes its name to BPAA. An AAP spokesman said, "we IP bullying trusts have to standardize on naming conventions".

Who Is Eligible?

Regular Membership in the Association is open to all U.S. companies actively engaged in the publication of books, journals, looseleaf services, computer software, audiovisual materials, databases and other electronic products such as CD-ROM and CD-I, and similar products for educational, business and personal use . This includes producers, packagers, and co-publishers who coordinate or manage most of the publishing process involved in creating copyrightable educational materials for distribution by another organization.

"Actively engaged" means that the candidate must give evidence of conducting an ongoing publishing business with a significant investment in the business.

Each Regular Member firm has one vote, which is cast by an official representative or alternate designated by the member company.

Associate Membership (non-voting) is available to U.S. not-for-profit organizations that otherwise meet the qualifications for regular membership. A special category of associate membership is open to non-profit university presses.

Affiliate Membership is a non-voting membership open to paper manufacturers, suppliers, consultants, and other non-publishers directly involved in the industry.

Boston write-up and pictures, Wired article on the protests, On-line petition, IDG story, CNN copy of the original Reuters story (better late than never!), ironic page on the AAP website (the AAP issued a press release defending Adobe and the DMCA).

-Renard

(Revving up Adobe PR machine...)

These are the key points that will be developed in the FAQ below:

• Adobe's goal is the receive assurance from Elcomsoft that they will not sell or distribute their illegal digital lock pick.
• To protect the intellectual property of eBook authors and publishers, Adobe asked the Department of Justice to help stop the sale of this security cracking code.
• Adobe welcomes the input of "White Hat" security experts that inform us of possible security weaknesses. Dmitri Sklyarov was not arrested for presenting a scholarly paper.
• The Department of Justice made the decision to arrest Sklyarov.

Adobe's goal in the Elcomsoft case is to help protect the copyrighted works of authors, artists, developers and publishers. Adobe reported this suspected eBook authors' copyright violation to the U.S. Attorney's office. Based on the information gathered in the investigation (see affidavit ), the U.S. Government chose to take legal action to stop the sale of the for-profit security cracking code, and unilaterally decided to arrest Dmitry Sklyarov.

Elcomsoft found a security weakness and made no effort to communicate what it found to Adobe. Instead, the company distributed a software product for profit that can be used to compromise copyrighted works in the United States, violating U.S. law. Adobe took every measure likely to be successful to get Elcomsoft to cease and desist. Adobe's legal department sent letters to Elcomsoft, their ISP and their credit card clearing house used to offer these products for sale. Adobe forwarded the case to the U.S. Attorney's office only after Elcomsoft failed to respond and/or cease and desist. Our goal has been to stop the sale of the program in the U.S.

Contrary to some reports, the issue is not that Adobe alerted the U.S. government about an expert exposing security weaknesses. In fact, Adobe encourages its customers and the software community, including White Hat security experts, to provide feedback on the performance of its software in order to make improvements. Adobe's concern is that a "digital lock pick" is being distributed to enable others to compromise the copyrighted works of authors, artists, developers and publishers, which is why Adobe alerted the U.S. Attorney's office.

Corporate

Q: How are your customers, the publishing community, responding to this?
A: The Electronic Frontier Foundation considers themselves a leading civil liberties organization that works to protect right in the digital world. We are in constant communication with our customers who are also concerned about issues of privacy and protection of digital property. There is strong support from the publishing community, as evidenced by the statement from the American Association of Publishers. While the laws to enforce the protection of digital media are in their infancy, we believe they are based on the same principles as traditional media--protect the copyrights of authors, artists, developers and publishers while balancing the right to fair use.

Q: What's going on with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)?
A: We are engaged in discussions with the EFF to work together to address this situation. We believe a mutual frank discussion of how best to resolve the current issues will benefit Adobe and EFF.

Q: As a result of this case, what is Adobe doing to strengthen the security of its products?

1) Microsoft president Steve Balmer claims that the biggest threat to his company is an alternative operating system that is given away for free, and which (due to the nature of its copyright) will always be given away for free.

2) the majority of web servers on the internet run on Apache web servers, which are given away for free. For an example, point out that her organization's web site is running Apache

3) the email you send to her probably goes through a sendmail box on the way to her, and sendmail is opensource

4) 90% of the internet's DNS servers run on BIND

The entire internet is dependant upon software that technology people are giving away for free, and that has been true since the 70's. The internet never would have been able to grow to become what it is today if technologists didn't give software away for free.