Editor’s note: Actually the generation gap between Ficbot and Dad isn’t quite as wide as in The Flower Drum Song, source of the above quote. But, yes, he has his own thoughts on e-books vs. p-books. How about your parents or kids? What E/P generation gaps do you notice? – D.R.
I’ve spent all of my e-book years as a 100% reader except for my online writings.
During my previous career, I dabbled in the dying journalism industry but have not maintained any contacts there, and my sole “connection” in publishing is my father, who is involved in a media empire aimed at baby boomers.
He has listened with moderate interest to my updates on life as an e-book customer, but the recent publication of his own book has made him a little more receptive, and I recently learned that he has forwarded some of our correspondence to his agent.
Question #1: Do they get it?
I was intrigued by this chance to get a glimpse into how someone in the “publishing industry” really thinks. My first question was, “Why on earth don’t they get it?”
Dad’s answer surprised me. The smart ones, he said, do get it. His own agent spoke of how he sees the market as split. Older readers buy paper books and younger ones prefer e-books. So, as an agent, he would perhaps work harder on an e-book angle if the book he was marketing was aimed at a younger-skewing crowd. But if he feels the book is older-skewing, he is less concerned. He deals primarily with non-fiction, so it’s easy for him to segregate his titles this way. Certainly, a thirty-something like me would be much less likely to buy my father’s book unless they were a marketing executive or unless their father wrote it.
Question #2: Who they think the audience is
I suggested that perhaps part of the mistake is thinking that e-books and print books are an either/or issue. I buy both kinds of books, depending on what it is. Fiction, I always buy in e-form. Cookbooks, fitness books or anything involving pretty pictures and complex layouts, I always buy in print. I still buy print books as gifts, and I would never buy a picture book for a small child in anything but paper.
Both Dad and his agent seemed a little stuck on this part and didn’t seem quite prepared to deal with what Dad called “divisions within the e-book market.” It’s either “e-book people” or “not e-book people” and they have enough to deal with just with these two concepts that I suppose introducing greater complexities is beyond the current debate. Dad seemed pretty clear that the vast majority of “readers” are either young people who may read e-books, or old people who probably don’t. I’m not sure that’s fair—just as an example, I had a hair appointment last week where no less than three “old people” approached me about my Sony Reader. One outright asked, “Is that a Sony or a Kindle?’ Another told me her husband planned to buy her one for Christmas. And my totally luddite step-father, who typically scoffs at my gadgets, has admitted that he can see the appeal of a device like this for people with arthritic hands who can’t carry a heavy book or who will ache at the thought of going out in snow to buy the new Tom Clancy. But I’ll give them this one for now as it seems the thought has at least crossed their minds that there is a market to cater to.
Question #3: Short-term pain, long-term gain?
We spoke about the recent Hachette/Simon & Schuster decision, and Dad agreed it was stupid. But he could see why they might want to try it, and suggested that there is no harm in seeing if they could make it play. He felt that publishers may be taking a short-term view because they know that if they are wrong, it will be easy enough to change their minds later. Say, you are a fan of John Smith, and Hachette is his publisher. Say. Hachette decides, as they recently did, to delay publication of the e-version unnecessarily. Will you be annoyed? Yes. Will you perhaps get the book elsewhere and Hachette will lose that sale? Most likely. But ten years later, will you still want to punish them for it? Probably not. If they later come to their senses and start selling stuff you want, they’re betting that you’ll forgive them and buy it.
Again, I am not sure it’s quite that simple. If they discover an alternative channel during this period of experimentation, it may be hard to wean them off it. I am not even speaking of the “darknet” here. My public library had a stagnant selection of out-of-date e-books and I had all but given up on them, until I went poking around on impulse one day and discovered that they had just taken a pause for a format shift. They are back to adding e-books regularly and have several hundred ePubs ready to go for my Sony reader. My new strategy has been to add best-sellers to my wish list and wait a month. If they show up at the library during my little cooling off, I get them there and take them off my wishlist. If they are still in my wishlist after a month, they’re fair game to buy. Why should I buy it now if I can get it free later? If all of these customers get turned away and find somewhere else to get their books, will it be so easy to woo them back once the publishers see the light?
I remain totally convinced that the “publishing industry” is totally missing the boat on this one, failing to learn from what happened to the music people, and just in general making a huge mistake by turning away paying customers with money in their hands just because they own this device instead of that one or live here instead of there. But it’s heartening to see that those lower down on the chain such as agents and publicists are starting to see the light a little.
Image credit: CC-licensed photo from Quinn Anya—who, yep, has contributed to the TeleRead blog. Found her photos by coincidence when I was searching for the right image to accompany Ficbot’s latest essay. By the way, that’s a cellphone the little girl is showing her grandmother’s boyfriend. – D.R.
