Reply to ChrisKubica on ebooks and entrepreneurialism

Rather than blog this discussion, I thought I'd put it here, where other people can join in, if they want.

Background:

1. Chris proposed I should do a lightening talk at Tools of Change, the hot ebook conference.

2. My tweets:

ChrisKubica Honestly, I don't give a crap anymore. LibraryThing is so clearly out of step for being about books—not vooks or whatever. And I find ebook-olatry a threat to things I hold dear, advocated by people without taste, sense or morals. Fuck 'em. Lastly, it's a soap bubble. Ebooks are inherently non-entrepreneurial and destructive of publishing people who flock to such. Like you. You've got interesting dreams, but you're doing market research for Amazon or Google. It's not up to you, or me.

3. Chris' reply:
http://chriskubica.posterous.com/librarythingtim-my-response-is-too-big-for-a

4. My reply:

Thanks for the response to my interperate tweets.

Don't worry. I'm not giving up on LibraryThing. LibraryThing is about books. I'm not losing interest in them. Nor do I mean merely paper books.

But I remain invested in some unfashionable ideas about books, especially ideas about ownership, choice, autonomy, privacy and the value of books to culture generally. It seems increasingly clear an ebook world will be one of rental and piracy, not ownership, killing bookstores and bleeding much of the value from libraries. It will be a world of a small number of companies controlling 95% of the market, of disintermediation producing fewer, weaker publishers, of authors brought down by piracy or made defenders of the worst sorts of software restrictions, It will be a world of devices that track everything you do and serve you up dating ads or prison sentences depending on your country. It's a world of readers who don't care about any of this and willingly undermine much of what is good in book culture for the ability to order a book while on the toilet.

I am not a book fetishist. I don't care about rare books. I don't smell my books. I have no leather bookmarks. I use scraps of paper or pennies. I write in my books—with a pen. I am not "comforted" by books. To be perfectly honest, I don't get those people. If you're comforted by your books, you're not reading the right ones. And just as I focus my erotic energies on women, not feet, my bookish energies are focused on books, not their spines. :)

And I have nothing against ebooks per se. Indeed, I like many of the things they can add, and the convenience they offer. They could certainly make it easier to engage in the social reading LibraryThing in some ways started. It's not for nothing that LibraryThing started out as a marginalia app--I needed to write the cataloging part to make the marginalia part work. I think that's extremely exciting. Whether we can somehow graft these features onto ereaders or not they're always going to be a key part of what LibraryThing does.

But digital media has rules and tendencies, and I don't think we can stop the bad stuff from coming. To that future, its breathless proponents and its enablers I say "fuck you." Someone needs to. I hope that, as someone who keeps up with this stuff as well as I do, and someone who works in technology, it's not as easy to call me a luddite.

As a fellow entrepreneur, I sympathize with what you're doing. Of course, we both know most startups fail. (As Paul Graham has written, the odds are commonly exaggerated.) But I think eBook startups face particular obstacles, obstacles of a height not seen since the apex of Microsoft's power. Ebook platforms have huge advantages--devices, network effects, scale sufficient to deal with all the publishers, etc. It's no coincidence that the ebook stores of even top publishers have been closed down, or that companies like Blio aren't making headway.

So you invent some new ebook idea? There are a lot of them out there. Yours. The guys who are developing a reader with really great marginalia, etc. Unless you control a platform it can never be used by more than a few people. And the platforms can take it over easily. As happened with Microsoft, smart people in ebooks now are just doing market research for Amazon or Google. The best you can hope for is probably to be bought by them for your talent--purchase as recruitment. You could be Stanza, although I suspect Amazon doesn't have the same needs now.

That doesn't mean I'm down on entrepreneurship. Dream big. Do what you love. Etc. But there are always going to be dead zones. I wouldn't recommend designing a new operating system either.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Thanks for listening.

Best,
Tim

I think I'm mostly in your camp, Tim. Since I grew up, so to speak, in the indie bookselling industry, I can't help but approve of their efforts to look at, rather than away from, the implications of ebooks and where they fit in their brave new world of bookselling.

But as a reader, I find I can't disentangle my love of reading and the physical reality (or lack thereof) of books. I am not one of those people who thinks reading an electronic file is the same as reading a physical ("real"?) book. It certainly isn't the same for me, anyway. And it has everything to do with the actual, corporeal presence a book has. It's mere existence makes me take it more seriously.

And truly, I am not a luddite either. And I "own" (as much as it's possible to!) ebooks and use several apps to read them. But the thing about reading is that it makes me look up from the pages to see a wider world. But when I "look up" from a computer screen, a device display, a smart phone app, it is merely to take a break before returning to get sucked in to all things Internet. Just as social networking will always be a pale imitation of real face to face human interaction, so reading ebooks feel entirely one-dimensional to me, and are a pale imitation of the physical experience of reading a book.

"It seems increasingly clear an ebook world will be one of rental and piracy, not ownership, killing bookstores and bleeding much of the value from libraries. It will be a world of a small number of companies controlling 95% of the market"

Whiel the first half of the statement may be right, the 2nd doesn't follow. The ebook world will be of a vast number of tiny companies, authors and gorups of authors, only distributing their own content in a huge variety of business models. This is a good thing allowing a wider market, a longer tail and a richer variety of literary expression. Of course the pbook market will decline.

Who is C.Kubica?

Well, you're a fellow-traveller anyway. I am concerned, however, that most of the objections to ebooks still come from your angle. It's easy to dismiss those objections, and paint opposition to ebooks as just nostalgia.

Meanwhile, people are only just starting to wake up to the cultural implications of a single cloud-based ebookstore, the loss of bookstores, the danger to libraries and of devices that know everything about your reading and even where you're located right now.

>3 reading_fox:

Look at music and movies. There was a big upsurge in companies that would sell MP3, and a smaller one for movies. Of course, some such companies continue to exist, but at least 95% of the market is through the top few sellers. This isn't going to change any time soon. When I want music, I go to Amazon. I don't search the web for some secondary seller. The logic of aggregation is just too strong.

Of course a lower level will continue to be diverse. Amazon's not going to write the books. But such mechanisms do disintermediate. Publishers are being stripped of their raison d'etre. They may remain, but they will be much thiner, optional layer between authors and Amazons.

#5"Publishers are being stripped of their raison d'etre. They may remain, but they will be much thiner, optional layer between authors and Amazons"

Shouldn't this be celebrated? (Providing editors still manage to enter the process). Why do you think this is bad?

I think it's a mixed thing. Here's the argument:

Negative

1. Publishers get a cut of author money. So, in theory, kill the publishers and the authors get more.

2. Publishers can make mistakes--betting on the wrong authors. The flickering attention of millions will more successfully find great books.

3. Publishers are a gateway function. It's hard to get a bookstore to take your book if you can't convince one of the 10,000+ publishers out there to carry it. Now everyone can imagine that an unpublishable book is in fact a great work of art.

Positive

1. Publishers aggregate author power. Publishers successfully resisted Amazon's pricing model, although it was a very close thing. For a while there Amazon systematically removed the buy button from all the books of one of the world's largest publishers in order to make them cave. Only the expected addition of another publisher, the largest, to the protest stopped Amazon. Of course publishers did that to protect themselves, but I'd like you to imagine how well individual authors would be able to resist. Once there's nothing between Amazon and authors there's no reason Amazon's cut of the proceeds won't rise to the level the market will bear. In an effective monopoly that level is high.

2. Publishers provide a financing function--both paying you before you sell and making long-term bets. This function can either remain, be replaced by a more "VC"-like process for books, be replaced by mechanisms that favor authors with a certain sort of following (ie., the ones who can raise funds on KickStarter for the next installment of their Sci-Fi series), or not be replaced. My guess is that the death of publishing will fatten the head and lengthen the tail.

3. There are lots of other functions that could be distributed around. I suspect that they will, but only in part. Editing is simply more efficient when its part of a process, and a core team of people are following a book from start to finish. Left to their own devices, I'm betting fewer authors will get a good edit. Marketing too can be done by anyone, but a publisher's marketing department is probably more efficient than whatever company you hire--or don't. Social media may help here--obviously marketing declines as customers can react to books instantly and spread their feelings. But I think social media tools have their own weird biases and problems when it comes to discovery.

4. Publishers, like bookstores and libraries, are institutions that employ a lot of people with interesting, productive lives. These people tend to move around within book culture, and enrich culture generally. The Amazon world threatens to be a much simpler, sharper one. Ultimately I'm not sure why a world that has a king, dukes, lords, bishops, knights, townsmen and serfs is better than one with just a king and his serfs, but that's what I think it amounts to.

>5 timspalding: Publishers are being stripped of their raison d'etre. They may remain, but they will be much thiner, optional layer between authors and Amazons"

Not necessarily. Ebook creates an opportunity for small publishers to thrive. If they market well . . . a real possibility in the book blog era, they can offer their ebooks directly to their readers without having to use Amazon as an intermediary (a good thing in my opinion). Small Beer Press is already doing this with Weightless books and its prices are excellent. The University of Chicago Press is now offering ebooks directly to readers. One can still purchase them at Amazon or purchase directly from the press - for small presses and academic presses this is the next best thing to buying local.

>8 urania1:

Again, that something is possible doesn't mean it's significant. The same has been true for a while in music. And it amounts to a rounding error. How many musicians make significant money selling MP3s on their site or on some tiny label? Very few.

Sure, some tiny publishers will do better. But how many? The internet is full of non-replicable success stories--the Million-Dollar Homepage problem. How many publishers are there across my books? Hundreds. I might choose to be a special fan of one or two, and visit their website and trust them with my information. I'm not going to do it with many more than that.

>9 timspalding: Ani Di Franco in Music. Almost all of my international folk and global fusion music comes from small indy labels. Thus far they do not show signs of going under. For that matter, how many top forty musicians who go platinum, make much money? Many make much less than indy artists like Ani di Franco.

As for non-replicable success stories, yes there are some, but we are still in the early days of ebooks. People have really not begun to think outside the box. I think the possibilities for excellent books are there. As for print books, please see my comment here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/104903#2372825.

This article, published an hour ago, has some nice stats and observations:
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/12/apple-owns-66-of-online-music-market-a...

* iTunes actually increased it's share this year--to 63.2%. Amazon is second with 13.3%, followed by Walmart, etc.
* As you might expect, iTunes uses its bulk. Labels that partake of Amazon deals are being told they won't be featured on Amazon.
* Total online sales increased 0.3%—Yay!
* CD sales, which are still far larger than online sales, fell 20%.

That should scare the pants off anyone in the publishing world.

Ha! maybe we should cheer on iTunes. What % do they need to hit in order by be busted up for a monopoly?

And is it not the case that until platform independence is assured, the customer is limited in which eBook sources they can use, and therefore in which eBooks they can buy? Are the potential small ePublishers cut out of the running at that point?

I'll admit that this lack of platform independence is a deal-breaker for me and any interest I might have in including eBooks in my reading. Or am I behind the times on this point?

It seems there are multiple issues here (of course). For the consumer: "reading" and "books - tangible." For the business: "publisher," "author," and "platform."

Tim's comments have laid out important perspectives to be thinking about as the book industry (which in my term includes authors, publishers large and small, bookstores physical and online, consumers and reviewers/bloggers) goes through some major changes.

As long as these changes happen slowly, we're all well-served. I don't think small online publishers will be forever kept from making a profitable business in either ebooks or physical books, because of the services they provide to both authors and consumers.

The Internet of Things (including social medias) allows me to learn of popular as well as fairly obscure authors and publishers, as well as musicians. When I research that artist, I may be presented with one or multiple ways of purchasing/licensing that product. The artist can choose his/her path to the consumer and the consumer can choose his/her purchase method.

I choose to find all kinds of artists based on reviewer and blog comments. When I choose music, it's sometimes physical (CD) and sometimes electronic -iTunes and occasionally electronic from the artist's site.

I choose to purchase physical books from mostly Indie booksellers, but sometimes online for convenience. I choose to support university presses and small publishers. I look forward to authoring and having the option to use major publisher support (if they'll have me) or self-publish (and expect more production and marketing hassles to fall on my own shoulders).

As long as change supports my consumer choice and convenience and supports artist opportunities - I'm for non-traditional growth in this industry.

13> There are starting to be some standards - most of the current ereaders support ePub, for one. And most of the book distributors (especially the free ones - Project Gutenberg for one) do. So that's a win-win. There are programs that can modify one standard version into another - Calibre is among the best - so that you can read it on whatever you use. And there are apps that 'replicate' various ereaders on other devices.

I read a lot of ebooks, and have for years. Until recently, it was on my Palm; I would get an HTML or .txt version of the book and modify it (with InterParse) into a Palm doc, then read it on Weasel or one of the other Palm doc readers. Now I have an Android phone; I'm still working out what my main ereader will be, so I have Kindle and Nook apps plus iReader and FBReader, with Calibre on my PC. Between those, I can read just about any book offered - aside from the effects of DRM (which I think is really truly stupid, blah blah).

2> For most of my books, I agree with you. I have quite a few in both e- and paper versions, and I prefer to read the paper - it's easier to immerse myself in the story. However, I have found a few where it takes a moment of concentration, every time I think of wanting to read it, to remember that I have it only in ebook form - so I need to go to my phone and not my shelves for a re-read. I have quite a few books that I bought first as ebooks and only afterward as paper, so it's not 'first exposure'; and I do think of paper as the default and ebooks as the oddity. Still, it is possible to immerse oneself (well, it's possible for me to immerse myself, at least) in a story presented electronically. And it fits on the shelves a heck of a lot better (shelves full, boxes on the floor, stacks on top of boxes...it's hard to _find_ some of my paper books when I want to read them!)

No opinion on how things are going to shake out. Truly. I've made some serious predictions on things in the tech world before, and been totally, totally wrong - not that I picked the wrong choice, but that what actually happened wasn't on my slate of alternatives. I'm just going to wait and watch and see. And buy books in both forms, and grumble about DRM, and cheer for standards (both platforms and formats), and stuff like that - try to nudge things towards maximum choice and minimum hassle and corporate control - but I'm just not making any guesses about how things will be when everything settles down (and the next big question comes up!).

I remember ago reading about when libraries were fighting the government (patriot act) because they did not want to track books that patrons had borrowed. With e-readers they have it all.

I was looking into buying an e-reader of some sort until the other day when I read this:

"And it's not just what pages you read; it may also monitor where you read them. Kindles, iPads and other e-readers have geo-location abilities; using GPS or data from Wi-Fi and cell phone towers, it wouldn't be difficult for the devices to track their own locations in the physical world."
A quote from this article: http://www.npr.org/2010/12/15/132058735/is-your-e-book-reading-up-on-you

I changed my mind. I will never own one.

At first I was worried about a monopoly. Then I worried that a time might come that books might be mass altered, with all the different lobby groups out there you never know anymore. How easy it would be if all books were digital to add/delete information.

It just didn't cross my mind that I would be monitored while reading. What next? Where do we draw the line?

I remember ago reading about when libraries were fighting the government (patriot act) because they did not want to track books that patrons had borrowed. With e-readers they have it all.

Exactly. Librarians were UP IN ARMS over the notion that the government might in a small number of individual cases get legal permission to find out what books someone borrowed. Now they're absolutely prostrate before a device which records not just what you borrowed but what you read, what you said about it and where you were when you did it.

It just didn't cross my mind that I would be monitored while reading. What next? Where do we draw the line?

The line will keep moving. Nobody would have signed on to what Facebook does with its information either. But bit by bit, particularly once you have Facebook-level dominance, you can do almost anything.

Now that CD sales aren't as lucrative, musicians still make money. It's just that now their money comes from concert tours, merchandise, and selling songs to TV show and ad producers.

Honest question - If you aren't J.K. Rowling, is there an equivalent for authors?

>18 scollyp:

Sure. But those sources don't make up the difference.

is there an equivalent for authors

At this point it's conventional to talk about how Dickens made money criss-crossing the United States giving readings, and how the death of being paid for your content will usher in a new golden age of that. But, as you say, it's not something many can do.

>18 scollyp:, >19 timspalding:

Cory Doctorow????

?

If you google Cory Doctorow you will see that he is a published SF author who makes all his novels and short stories available for free download under a Creative Commons license. He is a unique case, but in SF publishing generally, there has been for a while now usage of free content, typically short stories, to allow readers to 'discover' authors and buy their work.

>19 timspalding: The other thing Dickens did was to publish in serial form. The time lag between his publishing a new chapter and the unauthorised copying gave a window of opportunity for profit. Similarly, it was common from the 17th Century for authors to start publishing Collected Works in middle age, so that updated new editions could be issued and sold to subscribers every few years.

No, I know him and his work. I met him at BEA too. He's familiar with my work, fighting OCLC's intellectual property hubris.

I think he doesn't offer a way forward for the following reasons:

First, he is Cory Doctorow, not just some guy. His success has been deeply intertwined with his advocacy on this and related topics, and this has been as much of a factor in his rise than the work itself. Google him and you'll see he's better represented online for that, and for BoingBoing, than for the success of his novels. As such he's a Million-Dollar Homepage, not a reproduceable template for success.

Second, Doctorow made his mark before ebooks, when releasing your novel simultaneously in both paper (for money) and free digital form effectiely meant giving people the opportunity to sample it, for, before ereaders, reading digitial files meant being tethered to a computer screen. It was great for getting people interested, but most readers who wanted to read the whole story would buy the paper version to have a true "reading" experience. He offered what amounted to a fremium--a free product with limitations that got you interested enough to pay more.

As ereaders take over, this approach loses its effect. If you can navigate to Google and pay money for a book or to another site and pay nothing, the sales price turns into a tip-jar. It would be nice to imagine that tip jars could substitute for selling intellectual property, but we have ample evidence in music and DVDs, not to mention the verities of human nature, to believe this won't work out. A few big writers could survive that way, but most simply could not.

>24 timspalding: Second, Doctorow made his mark before ebooks, when releasing your novel simultaneously in both paper (for money) and free digital form effectiely meant giving people the opportunity to sample it, for, before ereaders, reading digitial files meant being tethered to a computer screen.

The other writer who is on record about the success of his ebook career (albeit, via Kindle, so not DRM free) is JA Konrath. And the thing that bugs me about his proselytizing is that he doesn't acknowledge that the success of his "brand" online is built on the success of his in print brand, which was built over years of work not just by him, but by all the editors, book designers, sales and marketing people who made his books so recognizable on the shelf.

So his leap from print to ebook was relatively painless, but the guy in my writing group who thinks Konrath's success can be duplicated by himself and his iPhone and his twitter account? no way.