Failure to Adapt: The Agonizing Death of the Publishing World

[photo by Valeriana Solaris]

I should clarify, when I say “publishing world” I mean old school publishers who rely on the outdated model of publishing described below. I’m not predicting the end of printed books just yet.

There are publishers who have adapted to modern times and operate under a new model of publisher/author collaboration. Their idea of publishing is fairly limited in scope compared to the totalitarian regimes of yesteryear.

Old school publishers on the other hand need to make some serious changes to their business model or step aside. Technology is changing and the old model doesn’t work anymore.

The old model of publishing

In the past publishers owned the bookselling process from beginning to end. Well, almost from the beginning. The authors still had to do the writing. But after that it was all publisher.

Way back when (I don’t know, before 1980), people only bought books in bookstores. The only way to get your book into a bookstore was through a publisher.

This is because the bookstores and publishers had a mutually beneficial reason to work together. The publisher needed a place to sell their books and bookstores needed something to sell. If bookstore owners didn’t give publishers the shelf space they asked for, the bookstore wouldn’t have access to that publisher’s next bestseller.

The publishers could control the book world because printing equipment was very expensive to purchase, house and operate. This meant only those with deep pockets could afford to own this equipment.

And while it was fairly inexpensive to print the books themselves, it was expensive to set up so publishers had to print a large run to make it cost effective. This led them to publish only authors they believed could sell a lot of copies.

This meant a highly selective screening process in which only the best authors were published.

Getting published was a badge of honor, an achievement worthy of praise. It meant an experienced and highly discriminating editor had been so impressed with your work he or she was willing to invest the large amount of money necessary to get it produced.

Controlling the printing process also meant they were the only place editors, proofreaders, fact checkers and other literary support staff could find employment. Publicists and marketing units specializing in literature were also beholden to the publishing houses for a job.

How things have changed

Several things have changed in the last thirty years but the most significant has been the development of low cost printing equipment with low set up costs. This is the game changer.

Lower overall equipment costs mean there are more independent printers who can produce a book. There were companies that would do this throughout history but the cost to the author was high and without the marketing and distribution support of an established publisher the author was unlikely to recoup the expense. Hence the term “vanity press.”

Not only is there more printing equipment around now but because of the low set up costs they can do very short runs cost effectively. This not only works in favor of self-publishing authors but smaller publishers as well.

As consumers have looked to the internet for bargains, bookstores began to lose their monopoly as “the place to go” for books. Booksellers were one of the first online retailers to really take off. Given the nature of books there really was no need to physically handle the product to gauge its value and shipping was easy and inexpensive.

With authors now having the ability to publish their own books and sell them through online retailers at the same price point as traditional publishers, a market was created for freelance literary professionals.

Everyone from editors and proofreaders to fact checkers and layout design specialists could find freelance jobs working directly for authors or doing piecework for small independent publishers.

Remaining advantages for traditional publishers

With two exceptions, every advantage of old school publishing is gone. Those two exceptions are prestige and access to brick and mortar booksellers.

The number of books self published by authors or by “micro-niche publishers” was over 764,000 titles in 2009 alone. Traditional publishers put out about 288,000 titles.

What does that mean? Well, for one thing it means a lot more authors are getting published. Today being a published author is no harder than being the CEO of your own company. Sure you’ve got the title, but does it mean anything.

So, for a while anyway, being published by a major publisher is still a significant accomplishment and an indicator of quality. (Even though publishers are no better at picking winners than anyone else.)

And while more and more people are shopping online there still is a lot of book-buying traffic in brick and mortar stores. For the time being, big name publishers still have that market sewn up.

Where things are going

Both of these factors will change however. As more authors turn to non-traditional publishers, either self-publishers like Lulu and Xlibris or collaborative arrangements like Greenleaf and O’Reilly, there will be more successes.

With more successful authors coming from alternative publishers the stigma of using these services will diminish and authors will feel comfortable having their names associated with these less well known services.

As shopping turns to online retailers, big name publishers’ access to brick and mortar stores will be less significant. So this advantage will also go away.

This leaves big name publishers without much to look forward to. There are ways to adapt their model however, and they do have some time. The majority of publishers’ revenue comes from their extensive catalog of past best sellers which will continue to provide revenue far into the future.

The only way big publishers can adapt though, is to recognize they no longer have the power they used to have and to reach out to authors in collaborative partnerships both parties can benefit from.