In this blog, we will discuss two examples of innovations in the book industry. You might think that the book industry didn’t change a lot over time but books have made a remarkable evolution in the past thousand years.
It started in Mesopotamia with symbols etched into clay tablets, went on to papyrus in Egypt and to wax tablets in Roman and Greek times. The first book was printed on paper in China in 868. In 1439, Johannes Gutenberg, a German goldsmith, developed the “hand mould”, which made it possible to produce cheap copies of printed books. This is often regarded as the most important invention of the second millennium.
At the end of the 20th century, Amazon became the first online bookseller and in the beginning of the 21st century, ebooks became available (SF Book, n.d.).
The ebook
An ebook is a book distributed in digital form. It can be read on for instance an e-reader, a small-hand electronic device used to store and read books. A well known example being Amazon’s Kindle. The consumer experience of reading books was now no longer limited to paperbacks and hardcovers. Ebooks provided a new, environmentally friendly and often less expensive way to read books (Bookmasters, n.d.).
From 2008 until 2010, remarkable improvement were made in e-readers, which led to a 1160% increase in sales (Nuska, 2015). Although the forecast predicted that ebooks would have taken over traditional books by 2015, this didn’t happen. In fact, the sales of ebooks declined in 2015 and consumers are shifting away from ebooks back to print (Graham, 2016).
Printing on demand
Instead of traditional printing – printing a huge number of books published by major players in the industry – printing on demand offers a new approach. Authors distribute their work through designated online platforms at little cost or even for free. An example is Amazon’s CreateSpace. Having to find a publisher or an investor is unnecessary and the initial risks of publishing are diminished. POD is a great way for unknown or independent authors to publish their work.
With POD, books are only printed upon order. Instead of ending up with remaining unsold copies that have wasted paper and contribute to other production- and transportation-related pollution, POD won’t waste any paper because of the on-demand nature of this innovation.
Comparing ebooks to POD
From a retailer’s point-of-view, ebooks have higher fixed costs, but low variable costs. The cost of production is clearly dominated by “first-copy costs”; additional copies cost essentially nothing. For POD, fixed cost are turned into variable costs, only incurred upon sale.
Both ebooks and POD save room in your warehouses, saving money and providing the retailer with the option to possibly store and sell other goods. A big upside of ebooks, is that there are no shipping costs incurred for the product.
Both ebooks and POD reduce the environmental footprint, because of less or even no printing of books. Another important factor, is that both ebooks and POD can reach niche markets. The costs of producing and reproducing a book are reduced in both cases and therefore it is easier to enter the market, even for unknown authors or books that belong in niche markets.
From a consumer’s point-of-view, other factors are involved. An ebook has the clear advantage of being able to carry any book on one e-reader, which is highly convenient. Also, when an ebook is purchased, it is directly at the consumer’s disposal, without any shipping costs.
For some people however, reading a book is just not the same on an e-reader. Going to a bookstore, experiencing the mass of the book shifting from left to right as you get closer to the end, building up a personal library and yes, smelling books to some people are experiences that are essential to reading books.
The future
For the first time in four years, book sales have gone up by 0.4% as ebooks sales fell by 1.6% (Sweney, 2016). “Digital continues to be an incredibly important part of the industry, but it would appear there remains a special place in the consumer’s heart for aesthetic pleasure that only printed books can bring” (Steve Lotinga, Pusblishers Association chief executive). All this might be an indication that we are moving to a bi-literate society and will continue to read both digital and in print.
Group 43
Vishal Ganpat
Anouk Maaskant
Arezoo Taghi Poor
Bas Vos
Watch the video
References
Image
Bookmasters (n.d.). Print book vs. Ebook
Graham, L. (2016). Book sales are in decline but audio books are thriving, CNBC
Nuska, A. (2015). Print books are far from dead. But they’re definitely on the decline, Fortune
Shapiro, C., and Varian, H. (1998). Pricing Information In Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press
SF Book (n.d.). The Evolution of the Book
Sweney, M. (2016). Printed book sales rise for the first time in four years as ebooks decline, The Guardian
Dear group 43,
Thank you for your interesting post and video, I enjoyed watching it. I really liked the subject of your TOTW project as I used to have many discussions with people about the advantages of books over e-books.
I used to be a profound fan of actual books. The reason why is that I enjoy picking out books at the shop, going trough them all, seeing the cover. I like the feeling of an actual book in my hand. I travel a lot and instead of thinking about which clothes I should bring, I was thinking about which books I would bring as you have limited weight allowed to bring on the airplane.
I got an e-reader as a present, filled with books already. I was skeptical to use it at first, after a while was I able to see the advantages. No weight that you have to carry around, all your books in one place etc. However I do not like that you can download e-books from the internet. It makes me worry that we don’t meet the needs of the incredible authors and if downloading instead of buying continues to carry on, I’m afraid that the authors won’t see writing as worthwhile anymore.
Printing on demand seems like a plausible option to tackle the ‘leftover’ books. I have never heard of the POD technology before but I did read a bit about it after your post. It made me wonder about a few things. If you only print upon order, wouldn’t the price of the book be quite high as opposed to mass printing? What would be the target group of this technology?
Hey Group 43,
Nice topic and post. I also like the picture of evolution of men and books. I hope that the people who read your post and have some hidden writing ambitious feel empowered by the printing on demand concept which makes it easier to start a career as writer.
The link to the youtube video did not work for me so maybe my feedback is irrelevant if you covered in the video. Suggestions to add some more IS concepts to the discussion of the book industry:
– POD and its role in the long-tail phenomenon
– why the subscription (Spotify) model has not yet worked for books
All the best,
Thijmen