This is worth a look also:
"Print books are never going to go away; but the current distribution model will. 2012 could be a year of disaster, not because of the Mayan calendar, but because of traditional publishing's inability to deal with the impact of technology, and their arrogant refusal to adapt. As long as publishers cling to the belief that they're the only game in town--employing a business model that has not significantly changed since the early 1800s--it's a matter of when, not if; and that when fast approaches."
www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-a-stackpole/publishing-crashes-in-201_b_532795.htmlAnd this is what Hal C F Astell said when I put this up on Friendface:
"Mike knows what he's talking about, so he's worth listening to on this. He's the programmer for the science fiction side of our local horror/scifi film festival, which Dee and I help filter submissions for. I've talked to him a few times, though briefly, and he always seems to have his head screwed on right. That said, I have no clue if he's right or not because there are competing paradigm shifts.
It's obvious that a revolution is happening in print, just as it is with music and film, but I doubt anyone's going to work out what we're going to until a year after it all falls into place. I think the only change in all three media that we can be sure of is a redress in favour of smaller names. David Byrne called peer to peer filesharing a tax on popularity: the top few hundred artists lose money and sales because of it, everyone else benefits from the distribution. We're going back to a lot of small artists, not a few big ones.
The net, as well as other changing technology, has meant that people can produce their work cheaper, distribute it cheaper and publicise it cheaper. Why would we pay people to do that for us, and let them have our rights in the process, when we can do it ourselves? That's the key question, whether we're talking about you and I or someone like Trent Reznor. What added value can the traditional companies give us? They haven't worked that out yet, but print is going to be the last one to change. Printing a book costs money in the way that burning a CD or DVD doesn't.... See More
Print is an odd one though. Music and film can go digital across the board without it really affecting how the consumer interacts with it. Changing books to ebooks requires the consumer to change too, and many of them are simply not going to do it because they don't like the feel, they don't like the restrictions, they don't get a product. Readers are more serious than listeners, for the most part. Losing their library is going to be far more of an impact than losing their collection of odd songs.
I read a lot of ebooks six or seven years ago on an HP Jornada because it was convenient wherever I was (in bed, on the train, even on the toilet). It got me back into the habit of reading all the time. Yet, for all that ebooks gave me, they led me to buy more print books not more ebooks, and the ebooks I read were free anyway (Baen, Black Mask, Project Gutenberg). When my Jornada died, I didn't replace it because that model was no longer available and nothing else felt the same when I tried it out in the store. The screens were wrong, the scrolling was in the wrong place, they didn't feel right in my hand. I got out of the habit again.
Am I just old school? I don't think so. I'm not even on the mainstream's radar. When I buy books or comics or music, it tends to be either second hand, heavily discounted end of life stuff or new material from the artists themselves. I don't buy what the commercials tell me to, I buy from people who care about what they create. The biggest change I'm seeing isn't technological, it's in their expectations.
Back in the 80s, the people I bought albums from at gigs were mostly on the road to stardom. They wanted to be rock stars, to be famous, to make a million. Nowadays that's not what I'm seeing. Of course they want to make money, but most want to feed their creative urge first. They don't expect to be stars or millionaires, they just want to succeed enough that they can keep doing what they love doing, to create.
Now I'm coming up to publish my own books (six this year coming out of Cinematic Heaven and Hell at Apocalypse Later), I'm in the same vein. I want physical books, so I'm looking into the details of small press, small print runs, small costs. Given that everything I've written, however many million words it is now, is available for free on my blog, why would anyone want to pay money for it in a different electronic format? Because it's organised differently? Nah.
So I'll print books. I won't go to a publisher and try to sell them my work, I'll just shell out a little and do it myself. I'm comfortable with the idea of sales in the three digits, mostly in person at events, perhaps a little through volume (the longer the also by list, the more inviting you become). I don't expect to get rich, leave my day job or become famous. And that's fine. That's the biggest change that's coming. To a pretty large degree it's already here. It's just that not everyone has adjusted to it yet."
Thanks for the input, Hal! Consider yourself Karma'd.
By the way, many writers have said that they make more money on eBooks than print ones - the lower price may be a reason, $2-$3 is a lot less money to shell out on a work or author you're not sure of.
And I've heard many folk say that they buy the eBook to 'try it out' and that if they enjoy it they'll go ahead and order the print book. So far from being a replacement, the electronic version can in theory
improve your sales of print.