Consider the following tweet from a delegate attending the inaugural Australian Publishers Association the digital revolution: publishing in the 21st century conference in Sydney yesterday.

@kate_elthamThe idea of an author that writes, produces and distributes their own content draws a big laugh from the audience. Interesting. #DRP21stC.

What exactly engenders such a schoolyard response (from the audience)?

In a word: hubris.

Here’s the most frequently cited justification for the illegal file-sharing of music by those engaged in the practice: “Record labels screw musicians. So what if I screw a record label?”

A room full of publishers laughing at the notion that an author is not competent enough to write, produce and distribute their own content is exactly the kind of attitude that leads to consumers thinking, “so what if I download this book, publishers don’t give sh*t about authors …”

And don’t think it won’t happen.

I can’t say I regularly agree with Peter Donoughue, but this from his analysis of the recently announced Book Industry Strategy Group is pure gold:

“It (the Book Industry Strategy Group) will simply pool all the trade’s current obsessions and delusions which have been articulated to the point of exquisite tedium over the last awful year.”

And then:

“After a breathless appreciation of the government’s wisdom in retaining the parallel importation restrictions, the central recommendation will undoubtedly be to impose the GST on Amazon. Then to empower the Australia Council with more money for literature and ‘industry development’. Then all sorts of ‘facilitation’ stuff that bureaucrats love.”

Now, I’m all for a fantastic snout in the trough kind of government funded global junket — surely there will have to be overseas study trips to investigate global best practice, particularly a visit to the perhaps coincidentally named Book Industry Study Group in the United States? — but (t)his is what we in the retail biz would call WOFTAM.

All cynicism aside, the notion that an advisory group tasked to develop a response to the digital environment — an environment in which change is measured in weeks and months rather than years — will report to government after a 12-month study is preposterous by every conceivable measure.

I can’t claim to have invented the word ‘transitionist’, but I’m going to try to make its usage more common.

I’m tired of so-called futurists espousing how the creative industries need to conduct their business in the 21st century, rather than actually explaining the means by which gigantic corporations should transition their businesses from offline to online models.

This is a big step for me. I used to consider myself a futurist. I even successfully predicted a range of music industry trends well ahead of the curve:

• Major record labels moving to all-inclusive investment models (they call them 360° deals) — predicted in 2002. The majors started moving in this direction around 2006/07 and made public pronouncements in 2008.
• Apple controlling digital distribution, exercising pricing control and unbundling the album format, precipitating a consumer move to buying singles — predicted in 2002. The majors realised too late that their business model had been fundamentally undone, and then waged a public PR campaign against Apple in an attempt to introduce variable pricing, which occurred in (get this) 2009. The sale of singles on iTunes has been on a per unit decline since …
• Talent managers, if they played their cards right, would inherit the music business — predicted in 2003. This one is yet to play out fully as most managers still look to record labels to finance their deals. However, it is safe to say Irving Azoff (via Front Line Management and Ticketmaster) exercises significant control in the North American music biz (lots of people will disagree, but they’re in denial).

And that’s just three of many …

Let me tell you, working out what was going to happen was easy. But my predictions don’t include transitional solutions: that’s difficult.

Yes, book publishers need to move to new distribution methodologies, production workflows and pricing models. Yes, authors need to integrate collaborative technologies into their writing ‘workflow’. But how do we as an industry achieve this without destroying 99% of our current revenues? The answer is that we don’t. We can’t. We need to transition our industry from a model that worked for a very long time to a new one that will undoubtedly serve us well into the future.

That’s why I say ‘futurists be damned’. It’s easy — if I can do it, anyone can. We need transitionists. Count me in!

Dan Agin argues on The Huffington Post that the publishing industry is slitting its collective (and proverbial) throat and that “the big print publishers need to understand the reality of the 21st century”.

The publishing industry is in transition and I expect every major publishing house executive is fully aware of the fact. It is patently absurd to suggest big print publishers are anywhere other than the 21st century; not that they need me to be defending them (they’re big boys and girls).

Yes, some terrible errors of judgement are being made: the pricing debate is but one example. Publishers ought to focus on their value proposition, not price.

But they are also getting some things very right: discussions around ‘books as a service’ are incredibly encouraging.

If anyone out there knows how to transition a monolithic industry like publishing from print to bytes then get to it ‘cos you’ll make a stupid amount of money.

Actually, I think I’ll stick my hand up for that very job.

Publetariat ran an interesting post from New York times Bestselling author Michael A. Stackpole, titled Authors Can Be Stupid: Doing the Ebook Math. Apropos of nothing, I know lots of people who can ‘be’ stupid …

Anyhow, I want to discuss two points raised by Michael:

“The base cost of a book, of course, determines its final price.”

This is simply incorrect and I’m not aware of any publisher that applies a cost plus pricing model; this is a model you’ll find in widget manufacturing industries. Books as widgets? I don’t think so, particularly as the industry is moving towards a ‘books as a service’ model. More on that another day.

“The digital model, however, removes costs … Warehousing is no longer a cost. Transportation is no longer a cost. Typesetting is no longer a cost. Art direction is still a cost, but the cost of cover art goes way down. Digital books work well with iconic images, not the sweeping cover illustrations found on books.”

This is true, digital models do change book production economics, significantly. But typesetting not a cost? Art direction costs go ‘way down’?

Ebooks do not need to be typeset in the traditional sense, but they do need to be formatted. Have you ever looked at an ebook and thought, ‘wow, that’s ugly’? Or worse still, decided not to read an ebook because its formatting made reading nigh on impossible? Although ebooks are, as a rule, simple HTML, formatting is a skill and doing the job well takes time, and money.

And this of course assumes ebooks are simply ‘dumb’, digital versions of their paper counterparts. Ebook development from a book publishing perspective is it in infancy and developments, such as the creation of additional audio, video and community driven content, will come at a cost.

On ebook art. Creating great ebook art is an art. Because the display images that appear beside ebook listings can be small, creation of ebook art needs extra thought and care. If anything, this will add to the cost of book production, not reduce it. If the ebook is the only edition, costs could easily parallel physical edition art costs.

As for the use of ‘iconic images’, try to avoid doing so unless of course you’re happy with your ebook looking like every other book using iconic imagery. There’s a reason iconic images are, well, iconic.

Ebooks not having paper pages is no excuse for throwing formatting and art design out the window. Indeed, those who spend the time and money creating beautiful ebooks will profit more than those who don’t; currently too many ebooks are plain ugly and our customers deserve better.

‘Like no other human activity reading opens up our imagination.’ So says the non-profit New Zealand Book Council, which has a mission ‘to inspire more New Zealanders to read more’.

If this quite amazing stop-motion animation can inspire those of us who love books, there may well be hope in connecting with those who read little.

The project was produced by Colenso BBDO and animated by Andersen M Studio.

New Zealand Book Council: Going West from Kreatif360 on Vimeo.