Kindle mention on Marketplace

[Alisa]

Today, Jill Barshay of American Public Media's radio show Marketplace opined that ebook readers may be the death of the publishing business. She mentions the Kindle specifically. A full transcript can be found here.

Most of the segment talks about the issues the publishers have with bookstores ordering massive numbers of books and returning them. Bookstores are trying to compete with internet retailers so they don't want to lose sales by being out of a given title and it costs them nothing to over-order. However, they conclude with this from John Rose who advises publishers at the Boston Consulting Group:

Rose says the biggest problem publishers face is from new electronic book readers that are starting to sell, like Amazon's Kindle.

Rose: The crazy thing about the book industry is that most of the people in the book industry think about books.

In other words, Rose says the threat to book publishing isn't about returns and refunds of printed paper. It's that new technology can bypass publishing companies altogether. Rose says publishers should think about a world where any writer can publish a book cheaply online and any reader can download it freely.

A bit alarmist, maybe, but I don't think many people would doubt that publishers will need to adapt to stay relevant in this market.

[Ervserver]

Nothing is forever, if a business isn't diversified they become vulnerable over time

[TallMomof2]

Originally Posted by Alisa

Most of the segment talks about the issues the publishers have with bookstores ordering massive numbers of books and returning them.

What an unusual business practice to be able to return unsold goods. DH and I have a small home business selling collectible toy soldiers and we've run into no wholesaler who would allow us to return goods simply because they don't sell. Even when damaged goods arrive they'd rather give us a partial to full credit then to have us ship the stuff back.

Maybe this is the practice that needs to change. Not allowing returns from bookstores would cut down on publisher's warehouse costs and would reduce the cost of the product to the booksellers which should ultimately reduce the cost to the consumer.

[honeybunny]

If you like Marketplace, check out On The Media as well. Just last week they re-ran a segment that came out when the Kindle was first released. They interview the CEO (I think) of eInk and talk about the Kindle in great detail. The segment before the Kindle / eInk one is about the publishing industry, and is interesting as well.

[daffy4u]

Originally Posted by TallMomof2

What an unusual business practice to be able to return unsold goods.

Record stores used to return unsold product as well. Now that the number of retailers has dropped due to digital music, I would guess that's not much of an issue any more.

[MaggieScratch]

Bookstores, especially small independent bookstores, need to be able to return books to offer customers an attractively large selection. This is established wisdom.

However, I believe the abuse of the policy as described in the article (returning the books before 90 days is up so they don't have to pay, and then reordering the books a few days later; in other words, gaming the system to keep the books for free until they sell) started with the big chains, which is why they can maintain selections that are not merely attractively but astonishingly large, putting smaller bookstores out of business and making the practice even more widespread.

Publishers and booksellers need to take a long, hard look at their retail model and make changes. That includes provisions for selling ebooks.