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Hen81
Regular Poster
Username: Hen81
Post Number: 66
Registered: 09-2007
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Sunday, May 25, 2008 - 03:30 pm: | 
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The book world is very different. Barnes & Noble has had 8 months to digest and bring their acquisition of Borders into line with company goals. Duplicate locations have been closed and Waldenbooks are gone. Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Target expand their book departments to take advantage of the void. Idependent book stores are under more pressure than ever.
Established authors flourish but new authors find lower advances and more of a push to print on demand for new book deals. Publishers expand their online efforts. Publishers pursue low risk books from proven authors with high profit star driven releases as a compliment. The fight for shelf space is brutal as one true national book retailer remains.
Small publishers and self-publishers find it very difficult to get retail shelf space. The internet and book fairs become one of the main avenues for new authors as publishers slow their acquistion of new titles.
Reading rates among U.S. adults continue to drop.
Some bright spots emerge as some self-published and small publisher titles start to break through the wall of resistance of the mianstream retailing, media, publishing and distribution system. The price of fuel is helping internet sales and is giving some well reviewed indie titles relative parity with major publisher issued books. These titles have aggressive internet marketing and start to make inroads.
www.DTPollard.com |
Troy
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Troy
Post Number: 1315
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, June 06, 2008 - 03:37 pm: |
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Hen81, book sales in non-traditional venues will continue ot expand. The internet and book fairs sales as you suggest, continue to grow; but don't forget about book sales on street corners, hair salons, and other areas we buy books.
Also it is not clear to me that publishers are slowing their aquistion of new title: indeed indications are that this is expanding as the number of new books published, according to bookspan, continues to increase year after year.
The Black book market, in particular, continues to grow as does the our readership. Seems like a new Black imprint is being launched every other month.
And it is probably obvious to even the most causal of observers, that independently published books are only gaining momentum with no end in sight.
Even the superstores like B&N will need to adapt to remain competitive. They really f'ed up on the internet side, and they better do something on the brick and mortar side as well or they days will be numbered. |
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