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Kassia Krozser looks at the digital publishing business model
September 15, 2009 | 9:03 am
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By Paul Biba
In her second major posting related to the closure of the publishing venture she was involved with, Kassia now takes a look a the business model for digital publishing:
As you might imagine, I am still dissecting the past few months, and today I want to focus on business model. Some of this might seem antithetical to how publishing does business (I actually don’t think so, not if you think about it). It will definitely make some people uncomfortable because it links the actual success of a book to aspects of compensation. Not every part of the model needs to be applied in every instance, but it’s worth considering the merits and possibilities, even if you ultimately choose another path.
Successful digital publishers have been largely limited to genre fiction, romance in particular (to the best of my knowledge, and I know I’ll be corrected on this point!) because there is a significant portion of the readership that is comfortable being an early adopter of technology. The business model has worked because the participants involved understand the risks and rewards. As I’ve noted more than a few times, this model has been evolving for well over a decade, and will continue to evolve. And, as you’ll see when you get to my final point, it’s undergoing the same sea change the rest of the industry faces
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PS: I think that she’s got some of the best illustrations on the web. Molly Crabapple, who did them, should win some sort of award.
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Comments:
It would help to include a link to her article:
http://booksquare.com/digital-publishing-looking-at-the-business-model/
(Unless of course, I’m just missing the link)
While I’m not keen about waiting ages for revenue, I might feel more open to the idea if *everyone* in the publishing process were to share in the same pain authors have to. Everyone else at a publishing house (and at the printer) gets paid up front, but authors often have to sit around and wait for years for money. But if editors, marketing people, artists, etc. had to wait for royalties as authors do, well, that might solve some of the industry’s major problems.
Thought-provoking!