The Future of Publishing

Legendary book editor Daniel Menaker says, “I think that in 10-15 years at least 50% of book-length texts will be read digitally, probably more, and printed book will shrink down to a special, almost boutique market.”
The top two headlines of a recent PW Daily were “Amazon Has Blockbuster Year” and “Borders Eliminates 164 Positions.”
Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson, recently tweeted that he was thinking about selling his iPhone now because no one will care about iPhones when Apple launches the iPad.
And have you seen the iPad? It is revolutionary.
I see two big changes. One has already knocked down our door, stormed us, and is now standing on our chest breathing in our face. The other is on the near horizon.
The change that has already happened is a major shift in the way books are purchased. Seth Godin is right. Bookstores, it’s over.
The near change is a major shift in how people read books. This has already happened to some extent. According to Jeff Bezos, Amazon has sold millions of Kindles (2–3 million, most likely). But the Kindle is nothing compared to the iPad; a better comparison would be the iPhone. Apple has sold over 40 million iPhones in three years. I predict Apple will sell more iPads in the same timeframe. The total population of the U.S. is about 300 million, so in the next three years it’s safe to say 15 to 20 percent of Americans will own a device that enables comfortable digital book reading. This 15 to 20 percent are the people who matter to the book industry—the people who purchase the vast majority of books.
In my next post I’ll discuss what I think publishers need to do to survive these massive and exciting shifts.
2 Comments:
At February 03, 2010 ,
Pam Hogeweide said...
Hey Chad, so your tweet on Twitter about this post and here I am! This is a topic I am following carefully.
I blogged about it today, and gave you a shout out.
We do indeed live in fascinating times. Imagine what our children will be reading ON as they grow up!
At February 05, 2010 ,
Anonymous said...
You're assuming people will still be reading BOOKS, albeit in a different format. Sadly, that may be too optimistic. I worry that young people (high school & college age) only read when they have to for school, but not for pleasure.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home