The unparalleled advantages of Amazon—and recently Apple has entered this arena, too—is that they have risen to control online book sales in a way that no publisher or even bookstore chain could. To add to the anxiety brought on by the increasing profits in e-book sales, Amazon believes that the digital world may not need any publishers at all.

While unfortunate for those in the publishing house business, not all of what is happening in this process is entirely bad for those who own the original content—the authors—or the publishers. Getting past the idea that publishers, as we understand their role, become wiped out due to declining need for hard copies, more opportunities may well be created for the authors and publishers alike (this, of course, assuming that short and long-term incentives are set correctly). According to editor and published Jason Epstein, Publishers will be selling digital books directly to the iPad. They are using the iPad as a kind of universal warehouse. By doing so, they create opportunities to cut payroll and overhead costs, thus restructuring their business models to operate more efficiently and profitably at a time when everything is becoming converted into digital media.

In December, the author Stephen Covey sold Amazon the exclusive digital rights to two of his best-sellers, “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and “Principle-Centered Leadership.” The books were sold on Amazon by RosettaBooks, and Covey got more than half the net proceeds.

The book publication business is moving into new dimensions, which is not necessarily something that publishers like to see. And as much as they try to say that Amazon somehow cheats the authors out of receiving any significant profits, if we eliminate the publisher from the equation, these profits in fact become more, as in Stephen Covey’s case.

Upon the revealing of the iPad earlier this year, Steve Jobs had pointed out that Apple, through its iTunes and Apple stores, had access to a hundred and twenty-five million credit cards, which would make it easy for consumers to buy books on impulse. Indeed, having the convenience of accessing books that are only a click away without the need to provide credit card information each time makes the process so easy that it will likely generate more sales than hard-copies ever could, resulting in more profits for authors and perhaps even publishers, granted they find a smart way to adjust to the changes.


[This entry is in response to chapter 6 of Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget.]

The New Yorker - The iPad, the Kindle, and the future of books