In parts I & II we have discovered that some publishers of e-books charge more for an e-book than a paperback copy even though their e-book expenses are practically zero. This has resulted in people attempting to get the e-book for free in various ways. These include downloading the book from dubious sites or buying a single copy, breaking the protection and sharing. When an estimated 60-80% of the population is engaged in these activities I wonder if the word legal has any meaning. Sound familiar?
Of
course it does: The music industry. In fact the music industry faced
the same problems the book industry is facing today. They too had
exorbitant prices (like $20 for 12 songs.) They too paid little to
the creator (10-15%). The customer's money funded a feast for an army
of middle men. Then the average Joe, armed with a computer and a CD
drive made copies of his CDs for his friends and before you know it
no one was buying CDs from record stores. It might have been wise for
these guys to lower their prices, to make it a burden to copy a cheap
CD when you can have the original with the jacket notes.
But I can
tell you one thing about the music guys: wise they weren't. They
thought they could tackle a whole nation of illegal copiers and
before they knew what was happening they were swept off their feet.
Some people still buy CDs so there must be some music stores
somewhere. I suppose every major city has one!
So
with the downfall of the music industry, you'd think that book
publishers would know better, right? Since e-books are beginning to
replace printed books and expenses have spiralled, prices would go
tumbling down. You'd think that they'd be smart enough to realize
that if a reader is given a book at a reasonable price, say up to
five dollars, he might actually buy it rather than try a dark side
road? Wrong. They raised prices instead. Why? To make a fast buck
before the ship sinks, I guess. The result? It isn't hard to guess.
In a few years, bookstores will follow music stores. Every major city
might
have one!
Of
course you can't be shocked by that statement. If you were, then you
must be out of touch with what is happening in the book industry or
in your own town. You haven't read that in mid 2010 Amazon was
selling more e-books than hardcovers and in the beginning of 2011
e-books surpassed paperbacks. You haven't noticed that large brick
and mortar bookstores are losing more and more every year and that
bookstores in your vicinity are disappearing or moving into smaller
premises. Why? Because people are reading more and more from e-book
readers or tablets and to fill them they don't need a physical store
to download their books. They just access the Internet from their
reading device. Of course there are some “oldies” who love the
smell of a book and the feel of paper and will always buy paper
books. But since die, they must, demand for paper books will quickly
drop. Face it: bookstores are doomed, come what may.
The
question is will book publishers follow them? With the premium price
policy they are following, they are quickly pricing themselves out of
the market. An average novel has a digital volume which is a hundred
times smaller than your average CD. If people in stupendous numbers
copy CDs or even entire movies, they will also copy books. The bad
OCR copies that are circulating today, will be soon replaced by
perfect copies from decoded e-books. In terms of megabyte volume, the
world's yearly output of books might equal that of a movie. Even if
governments manage to completely control the Internet, all it will
take is one person who will buy a DVD (with all the world's major
works) in a dark alley. Sharing it by making copies for his friends
will do the rest. By raising e-book prices, publishers will easily
manage a difficult task: They will nail themselves into their own
coffins. Mark my words: The next generation will not know what a
publisher is. They will have to look it up in a dictionary.
But
if brick and mortar bookstores and publishers disappear, will books
and authors survive? The answer to this question will be examined in
the final part of this series.
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