Book Publishing in the Digital Age
The digital revolution has brought about disruptive changes to the book publishing industry. Several book publishing companies have either closed down or trimmed their business drastically due to the changing face of the book industry brought about by information technology. For instance, Borders Group, an international book-selling chain that helped define the age of the book superstore, filed for bankruptcy in 2011, almost 40 years after dominating the industry. The company has since gone out of business. Ebooks have brought about creative destruction of book selling and publishing traditions is changing the face of the book industry. This has lead to, for instance, Amazon’s rise, and the decline of the independent bookstore.
Writing on how technology has impacted the book industry, popular humorist and writer Garrison Keillor in the New York Times wrote: “Call me a pessimist, call me Ishmael, but I think that book publishing is about to slide into the sea…. If you want to write a book, you just write it, send it to Lulu.com or BookSurge at Amazon or PubIt or ExLibris and you’ve got yourself an e-book. No problem. And that is the future of publishing….” (Keillor, 2010, 1). This underscores the dynamism brought about by technology in book publishing and selling industry.
Despite the gloomy picture painted about the book industry especially as it affects traditional hardcopy bookstores, book publishing is still one of the economic pillars of any nation. Several people still go into book publishing and selling by the day. The industry is not shutting down any time soon. Big publishers such as RELX Group, Pearson, Thomson Reuters, Penguin, Hachette Books Group, Harper Collins, Simon and Schuster, Macmillan, Heinemann, among others, are still in business and doing well too.
Understanding the economics of the book industry will help anyone navigate the industry safely and successfully. The economics of the book industry consists of application of economic principles in the operations of the book business. It deals with understanding the dynamics of book industry as a business and the economic decisions that guide successful operation of book business.
