Content, Choice and Confusion

By Bob Hughes - Oct 17 , 2011

There’s a lot of content out there. Sometimes too much. But at least people are still reading. They’re just spreading out the media.

Choices can be confusing, for authors and for publishers. Maybe less so for consumers, who are calling the shots now that they can opt to receive content in a variety of ways. Consider movies. The American box office just had another dismal weekend, as a highly marketed remake, Footloose, flopped, and The Big Year, a movie starring three highly paid actors – Steve Martin, Jack Black and Owen Wilson – bombed miserably, pulling in about $3 million. When was the last time you actually went to the movies? When was the last time you were actually interested in going to the movies?

It’s too easy to download at home. It’s too easy to choose another form of entertainment.

The same is true for books. Now, books offer a lot more options, in terms of content, quality and variety, than do movies. But the old forms of books are continuing to be replaced by new forms.

Hardcover books are slipping, paperbacks are falling and e-books are soaring.

According to the American Association of Publishers, hardcover sales rose a surprising 34% in July, compared to the same period last year. But while for the month of July those hardcover sales were up, for the year, they were down nearly 18%.

And sales of e-books rose more than 30%. For the first time, downloads of audio books outsold audio books on CD for the first time. Interestingly, sales of e-books increased year over year, by 150%, for sales of $560.5 million vs. $221.7 million.

Paperbacks Plummet

Paperbacks are suffering, however, declining almost 30%. Readers seem to be eschewing paperbacks and physical audio books for electronic versions.

Good news, right? Well, if you’re a publisher, you’re caught in a muddle – how to package and attract readers, how to choose the right format, how to compete against the growing strength of Amazon which, as we wrote about last week, continues to arm itself against traditional publishers by starting its own imprints. (The New York Times also wrote about that trend in today’s paper.

If you’re an author, you’ve got options. But what do you do with them? Self-publish with Barnes & Noble or on Amazon, ask your agent to consider signing with Amazon, try the traditional publisher route (good luck with that, considering so many are reluctant to sign anyone – they live in fear of making the wrong choice).

I don’t have the answers. No one does. Change is rapid and everyone is trying to figure out what to do. (And the bookstore? Let’s hope it continues, despite a move to electronics.) The thing is, it won’t be any one thing – it will be several. Choices can be confusing. But also exciting.