Publishers Have Hangups About E-books

It has become clear to me by day that publishers are unable to think clearly about the economics of e-books because they are caught up i comparing it directly with its printed versions. Patrick Kingsley of the Guardian cites  an instance in which one of the largest publishers has insisted that e-books made available to libraries would have to be replaced after being lent out 26 times. The reason given is that print editions have often been replaced after that number.

Now, one does not have to be partial to e-books or particularly like Amazon to see that this is an unbelievably preposterous argument. To start with, e-books are e-books and therefore not printed books and so to try and market them or calculate profitability based on that which is being replaced is laughable. What is clear here is that this publishing house has not made time to think carefully about how e-books will alter their marketing posture and have tried to graft the lives of e-books o that which they know; print versions. And as the story states, two librarians have already proved that the number 26 was arbitrarily determined and is therefore unjustifiable.

I must sympathize with an industry whose leading paradigm is changing rapidly and whose future is uncertain. Still, this is no reason to maintain such woolly thinking by holding on to the familiar. E-books are now going to reduce margins but they have the advantage that they are easily reproducible. A more reasonable approach to how libraries lend out e-books requires rethinking but should not be based on such a poor premise and hangups with paper versions of publications.