While Jules Verne was pretty good at predicting the future, I usually dismiss modern-day prognosticators. They don’t seem to get it right when it comes to politics, stocks, or bestsellers. On the other hand, since this is my blog—and I’m not going to write about politics, stocks, or bestsellers—what the hell. We live in an age of technological wonders. It seems that breakthroughs in the field of digital electronics occur every selling season like clockwork. I have now discovered that the television I currently have hooked up to cable at my home will shortly need another electronic gizmo to work. All of this has got me thinking about where the book publishing business will be in about twenty years. I use the period of twenty years because that usually connotes the space between generations.

As a baby boomer, I grew up reading books printed on paper—not unlike the last hundreds of generations before me. However, I now find myself living in the “digital” age—an age in which I keep missing all those seminars on “Publishing in the Digital Age.” I know it’s coming, but I don’t think it’s just around the corner. Let me tell you why.

When I was growing up, I used to listen to AM stations—that is, until FM started playing rock ’n roll (in stereo, no less!). From there, it was on to 8-track players (and some really interesting wardrobe choices) and then cassette tapes. This was followed by CDs, which were followed by  MP3 players, iPods and downloads—and this was all happening just in my car. And you wonder why the music business is in such a mess.

As my generation grew up, music was such an integral part of our lives that we were always looking for that perfect sound. If the equipment we were listening to became obsolete in a few years—or until the car’s lease was up—that was perfectly okay; we’d accept the change and move on. As a generation, we were trained to accept change in order to keep up with the latest musical-producing device.

Yet as much as our musical equipment changed, books remained an unchanged product, allowing only for the development of “books-on-tape.” My generation and then Generation X simply did not have any other choices to select from. Today, however, things have changed. We have e-books, downloads, and handheld reading devices; none of which seem to excite my generation and the X-ers. Of course, paying $299 to $399 for a device that needs to be constantly recharged, is easily broken, lost, or stolen also doesn’t seem like a big plus. The fact is that the generations not raised on GameBoy is not likely to give up their paper books now or perhaps even later—unless the technology begins to encompass a whole lot more than books and drops its price to below $99.

On the other hand, the younger generation out there who were raised on electronic games may absolutely embrace these advancements. However, since they still need to graduate high school and get jobs (good luck to them.), we will not see any dramatic acceptance of these products for at least the next ten years. I therefore predict that our use of traditional paperbound books will continue to remain steady for as long as the Boomers and the Gen X-ers continue to buy books.

What will change dramatically over the next few years, in my opinion, is how that “paper” book will be produced and delivered to its readers. This will change the publishing industry as we know it and impact greatly on retailers of all printed matter. Am I starting to sound like Nostradamus yet? With the development of digital printing a few years back, the printing industry went through a great deal of change and upheaval trying to keep up with the new emerging technologies. Today, we have POD (print-on-demand) presses that can produce one book at a time. This has produced an enormous amount of new books to become available (if not actually sold) online. And as this technology is refined, the machines producing the books will become smaller and more sophisticated. What we will have is a single machine capable of printing and collating the interior text in black and white; printing a color cover; and binding the interior to the cover to produce one commercial-looking, single bound paperback. And that future is already here in the form of the Espresso Book Machine, a complete one-stop printer capable of storing thousands of titles in its memory bank—and that will eventually change everything.

While the bookstore still has its share of bestsellers and perennial backlist titles on its shelves, it will also have several machines capable of printing almost every book ever published in any language requested. Should any of the bookstores’ shelved stock sell out, the manager simply prints out what’s ever needed. Libraries will have the machines available for its patrons--as will supermarkets, health food stores, drug stores, toy shops, or any other retailers that cater to any niche market(s). Publishers themselves will have these machines to produce review copies whenever needed.

The economic model for publishers should improve as well. As a book is electronically purchased, a percentage will be paid directly into a publisher’s and/or author’s account. While this amount may be smaller than the traditional revenue made, the savings for the publishers will more than offset the smaller profit.  No longer will publishers have to spend money maintaining stocked inventory, warehousing, or shipping. Nor will they have to contend with returns, damaged books, or overstocks. The system of distribution will become completely electronic. No book will ever be out of stock. For the first time, smaller independent publishers will be able to compete with mega-publishers on an even playing fair.

And of course, as with the coming of the automobile and its impact on the horse carriage trade, there will be changes in the industry that rely on the old book publishing model. The need for distributors and wholesalers will be greatly reduced, as will the need for traditional book printers. Online booksellers will take a beating—unless Amazon chooses to buy Borders (but we’ll leave that for a future blog). And as these industries may devolve or evolve, new ones will emerge to meet the new economic models to come.

The fact is we are definitely living in a time of great change. However, we still have a long way to go to get to that future. And, of course, I could always be wrong. But hey, that’s what happens when you make predictions.  

Posted by: Rudy Shur

My introduction to Charles Bukowski occurred via the display cases inside the Boston University library lobby, and I was drawn to them because I happened to be working in the library’s special collections department at the time. The special collections department at BU is quite renowned and was established by Dr. Howard Gotlieb who recently died. (Gotlieb actually wrote one of my recommendations for business school). My job was less intellectual than hired muscle since the library was becoming so overwhelmed with boxed submissions they needed someone to unload the stuff and place the materials in uniform boxes on shelves. I didn’t have too much time to peruse the material in some of these boxes but I do recall a wealth of material from Herbert Swope and Fletcher Knebel, who’s boxes were filled with photos of JFK and his family while they were all in the White House.

Some of the material deposited wasn’t quite so moving or important (at least to my eyes) and in many cases it was clear that entire desk drawers had been upended into a box and sent off to BU. These boxes often included things like gum, blank paper, pens, pennies, paper clips and other detritus which had minimal residual value to scholars. BU did have several archivists responsible for cataloging the vast amount of stuff that was deposited. They seemed to work fairly methodically (slowly) to identify the important material and provide tables of content for scholars. Increasingly, the material in formal special collections libraries like BU and in local libraries is being digitized and there is little doubt that this will accelerate. Books constitute some of this material and are included in scanning projects but the bulk of material in these collections would be non-book format material such as documents, letters, posters, art work, banners, etc.

Displaying this material is regarded as an important activity at libraries. After all, they have expended the effort to collect and catalog the material and they want people to know they have it. Hence the display cases at BU and in the lobbies of many other libraries. On a sales call to a small public library in Redlands CA a number of years ago, our meeting was held in the special collections room which contained their collection of local southern Californian historical material. Much of this material probably doesn’t exist anywhere else and sadly patrons had to ask for permission to enter the room. With the glacial progression towards digitization of this material it does mean that patrons will eventually have more access to this material online but it will take some time.

Digitization will enable more opportunities for the library to benefit commercially from this material and I am curious why more libraries are not recognizing these opportunities. Two of these include the electronic version of the traditional display case and traditional publishing. Both of these require the touch of the archivist/curator to prioritize, explain and make relevant the chosen material. Not everything in a collection will be important or interesting enough for the average patron and the editing function remains important to ensure that the interest of the patron is held through the presentation. The electronic version of the display cases are computer terminals and/or online access that enable some self-directed exploration of the material and these are showing up in some libraries. In an electronic collection, this material should be available to other institutions that want to access it where the material could add to or enhance material they may be also be featuring. The network aspects of intermingling collections and expertise is nascent in the library world but could become a very exciting area of study. Increasingly, much like museums, libraries will be able to develop programs and special events that feature their special collections content not only at a reasonable cost but also as a revenue generator.

Traditional publishing can also support and enhance the display and exploitation of library special collections. Many of us are familiar with the Museum shop experience which can be irritating because it often appears overly commercial; however, the reason these shops exist is basic economics. The products sold are a material support to the institutions. In the case of virtually all museums the institutions retain extensive publishing programs for everything from books and exhibition catalogs, to greeting cards, postcards and posters. Digitization will allow even small libraries to leverage their content in revenue producing ways. Ideally, the most savvy library administrators are going to realize that the opportunity for revenue could actually pay for the digitization. After I graduated from BU, I became the book buyer at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and that experience showed me the intense focus on leveraging their collection in all commercial aspects is critical to retail revenues, special events and shows and donor participation. Obviously, the correlation with your typical local library and the MFA is tenuous but the lessons are there to be learned in how to build new and recurring revenue streams that can be channeled back into the library.

Once in digital (leverageable) format it is no slam dunk that your typical librarian is going to be able to produce a printed book but today there are more readily available options for print production. All of the “photo book” providers such as Blurb.com, picaboo.com, etc. offer templates and functionality that could provide that basis for a publishing program. At least something they could test without too much downside. The downside of these providers is that the retail price point for these products would probably be too high to create much demand. On the other hand, the self-publishing programs offered by lulu.com, Xlibris and iUniverse may be the answer especially as they become more sophisticated about format and color. Even now, quality from these vendors is high enough that patrons would pay for the books. As any Museum publisher will tell you, the popularity of their in-house titles published to support both specific events and to show case their collection would amaze in the number of annual units sold. I am convinced that there is a business opportunity or consulting practice here for someone to help libraries build publishing programs or digital collections that will enhance their revenue base.

Not every library is going to have a collection worthy of digitization, but those that do will increasingly see revenue opportunities from catalogs or a publishing program. Who knows perhaps BU will get around to publishing their Charles Bukowski collection.

Posted by: Michael Cairns, Information Media Partners