Skip Prichard, President and CEO of Ingram Content Group. Today’s ebooks are warmed over print books and will be changed into something very different in the next five years.
There is no fundamental right for a business to survive and that included publishers. Publishers must stay focused in marketing creative and innovative content. Print and digital are going to merge and this is how the next generation of consumers will think. Kids spend 7.5 hours a day in front of a digital device and industry must recognize this.
Industry must simplify – find mission and strategy and focus on it. The days of doing everything are over. Find something to make your company unique.
Industry must connect with customers, must know them inside and out. Know who controls your destiny.
Industry must break out the traditional models and find new way to serve up literature and content. Too many self-imposed limitations. New players don’t care about the way things were done in the past and so they will overtake those that do.
The headline writer was asleep at the wheel here. Saying “ebooks are warmed over print books and will be changed into something very different in the next five years,” isn’t addressing the question of the death of ebooks at all. Saying a 2 year old will be very different in 5 years when he’s 7 is almost the opposite of saying he’ll die.