Many booksellers, bookstore owners, publisher reps, editors and agents landed back at their desks this week a little disheveled, excited, confused, optimistic and pessimistic all at the same time. We were so glad to have John and Joe back at the store this week. As they decompress everything they observed last week, they’re gradually sharing some of their thoughts on the book industry based on their New York impressions.
Above right: A bunch of book nerds hit the show floor.
John told me that contemplating the 2011 book expo is like contemplating a Zen Kōan. Essential to a Kōan is a paradox, a question or statement is beyond reason. Instead, the only way to deal with the Kōan is through intuition, a leap to another level of comprehension. Indeed.
Last week, while thousands of book industry professionals came together in New York, Amazon announced, with obvious calculation on timing, its plans to become a major book publisher. Here are Joe and John’s reactions, observations and questions.
JOHN: Amazon hires Larry Kirshbaum to establish and direct the “Big A” to be a major publishing competitor, to compete with Random House, Simon & Schuster, etc.
The buzz on one side was that Amazon has bit off more than they can chew. On the other side was “oh boy, look who we have to compete with now.”
Above: Larry Kirshbaum spent 10 years as CEO and Chairman of the Time-Warner Book Group. He says: “Publishers to some extent are beating back the waves here. They haven’t accepted that digital content is going to be a major factor.”
I presume this means the “Big A” bucks will be bidding for top notch authors to live in the “Big A” House. Do the traditional houses have the money to compete in bidding wars with Amazon? Can the advertising advantage of Amazon lure the cash cow authors away from the traditional big houses? Can Amazon manage the publishing headaches and still make cash dealing with the extensive array of dilemmas traditional publishing deals with? Personally, I was surprised by Amazon’s move but it will be great fun to watch for answers as we tune into the publishing game show network.
JOE: This news broke just as we got to New York. It was such new news that I don’t think people had any idea what to think. At first everyone was saying that Kirshbaum is “such a nice guy”–I guess so, wouldn’t know. Then, after a day or so, we started to hear the scoffers: “He didn’t do such a great job at Time Warner”–I wouldn’t really know about that either. I do know that Time Warner isn’t really even around anymore.
My question is whether or not Lemuria will be buying books from Amazon as a publisher. And I guess we’ll wait and see if they offer wholesale terms to bookstores. If they do, I don’t think we’ll be able to avoid stocking their books. I imagine they’ll want us to do that, but if they don’t, it will be a pretty big message about what they think about the future of the indies– i.e., do they or don’t they think the indies have a future?
I do know they’ve already signed their first author–Barry Eisler–an author whose books sell moderately at Lemuria. There have been some funny lines floating around the publishing world like “He’ll be running through the industry trade show begging traditional publishers to publish his books in just a few years time.” Again, we’ll see.
Above right: Barry Eisler spent three years in a covert position with the CIA’s Directorate of Operations, then worked as a technology lawyer and startup executive in Silicon Valley and Japan, earning his black belt at the Kodokan International Judo Center along the way. When he’s not writing best-selling thriller novels, Eisler blogs about torture, civil liberties, and the rule of law.
Lemuria’s Bookstore Keys Series on the Changing Book Industry
BEA Roundup (May 19) Lemuria’s Headed for NYC (May17) Barnes & Noble Bankrupt? (April 28) Decluttering the Book Market: Ads on the latest Kindle (April 14) Independents on the Exposed End of the Titantic? (April 6th) Border’s Bonuses (March 30) The Experience of Holding a Book (March15) Finding “Deep Time” in a Bookstore (March 8th) Reading The New Rules of Retail by Lewis & Dart (March 3) The Future Price of the Physical Book (Feb 18) Borders Declares Bankruptcy (Feb 16) How Great Things Happen at Lemuria (Feb 8th) The Jackson Area Book Market (Jan 25) What’s in Store for Local Bookselling Markets? (Jan 18) Selling Books Is a People Business (Jan 14) A Shift in Southern Bookselling? (Jan 13) The Changing Book Industry (Jan 11)
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