Do Publishers Fear Napster for Books?
An interesting article in the NYTimes from October 3rd: Will Books Be Napsterized?
The premise being, as the consumer public migrates from paper to Kindles and e-book readers, there will be a growing temptation to skip the low-cost Amazon digital purchase, and run to the free alternative – sites like RapidShare, Megaupload, and Hotfile.
In the larger sense, we can certainly see this issue adding to the commodification of commercial content – a downward force on pricing. And while we frequently view legal publishing as somewhat insulated, Publishers will need to see this as a risk on the horizon. If there’s a saving grace, they do have the opportunity to learn from those that go before. There are more than a few tactical lessons to be taken from the music industry, and soon from non-legal publishers. Both in the column of what works, and more importantly what doesn’t.
Mitch Joel, marketing guru at Twist Image in Montreal, spoke to this question at BookCamp Toronto held in June. Mitch has experience in the music industry, represents clients in the publishing industry, and is a new author in his own right, so has given a lot of thought to this. I recommend his blog post “On Selling (and Marketing) Books” for his take on how publishers and authors should prepare.