Thursday 8 April 2010

PULPED

There's an interesting article from the pulp and paper industry that shows how eBooks are making an impact -The digital media already has built in efficiencies – no warehouse costs, no make ready, cost effective small runs, no need to repulp the unsold books, and zero inventory, to name a few. Other advantages include quick turnarounds as well as provide the ability for unknown authors to publish and distribute a book. FULL ARTICLE

2 comments:

David Cranmer said...

Heading over to check it out...

Unknown said...

I see much around of a similar nature. Here's some from a "comment & analysis" page in the New Zealand Herald, which I guess not many Archive readers will have seen. The author is Andrew Gawith, director of a major investment company.

"Distribution and logistics operators for books will be hit hard. Books are big, heavy and require careful packing. The industry that exists around this can reasonably expect their throughput to be halved over coming years."

What this will mean for traditional publishers, especially the smaller and family-owned independents, can only be guessed at this stage. But for operations already allegedly on a knife's edge, I can't see the implications being good.

Gawith also says: "Even the most conservative of soothsayers would also suggest that it's likely that the physical premises of booksellers will shrink and more and more people will never visit a physical store because they don't have to. Commercial property companies take note. . . On the other hand, electronic direct mail for bookreaders will become big business . . . the ability to buy immediately online will change the way books are marketed."

Elsewhere, I see similar reports of local authorities reassessing the way public money (taxes, rates) is consumed by bricks-and-mortar libraries. How easy/cheap might it soon become to supply all borrowers with an e-reader device? Then a battery of servers can store a database of books that never wear out, get lost or need to be withdrawn. Hundreds of square metres of valuable real estate will be freed up for sale or other use.

Gawith also repeated the report that when Amazon has a title as both an ebook and a physical book, then they sell six Kindle books for every 10 physical books. "When you consider that the Kindle hardly existed two years ago, this is a gob-smacking figure."

For books, it does seem as if the writing is on the wall. Or the screen.

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