There's this big meeting going on called Digital Book World in NYC right now. Publishers are still trying to figure out this whole “electronic” thing.
But, maybe just maybe, the biggies are starting to listen to consumers and it's good news! How crazy is that! From the very esteemed Jacket Copy:
What's interesting about this is that publishers are now moving into the
role of selling to readers. Publishers have predominantly been in the
business of selling books wholesale to retailers — in other words,
they're a B-to-B business. With e-books, they are moving closer to a
B-to-C model; increasingly, as there are more online e-book retailers,
publishers need to build new models of marketing books directly to
consumers.
Caring about readers? Caring about people that read books? Not caring about corporations moving numbers on a spreadsheet? What a revolution! Sounds similar to some suggestions made at The Nervous Breakdown a few weeks ago.
Of course one question lingered:
And yet with more and more e-books on the way, and more than a billion
dollars in sales coming this year, the question remains: How will
readers get what they want, and how will publishers best get it to them?
Oh, I don't know–maybe readers will talk to one another. Maybe readers will talk to authors. Maybe authors will talk to readers. Anyone heard of the media? Interviews? Advertisements, even? You know, the way movies and music and other cultural items are sold and discussed.
Book people are always re-inventing the wheel, rather than just seeing what works in other similar industries.
BTW–this isn't a criticism on JacketCopy, just on what was reported, not who reported it.
