The Times Are Changing in Computer Book Publishing
Everyone in the computer book industry knows that the times they are a changing, and not for the best. Sales are down, advances are down, and it's increasingly hard for authors to make a living. With a few exceptions, publishers are contracting: cutting back on their advances, taking longer and longer to pay, cutting their lists, and (in some cases) going out of business. In investing terms, these are secular, not cyclical, changes. They are probably here to stay.
In a previous entry, I wrote about how Microsoft lost the legions of Mom and Pop developers by killing VB6 without offering a viable (non-enterprise) replacement. PHP is the closest language to filling this bill, because the price is right (open source), it runs on Linux/Apache, and targets the Web.
This kind of thing is taking place across technologies. As Matt Wagner put it eloquently recently: "There's a very natural sort of ecology here where the increasingly complex challenge of trying to control a platform is balanced against the almost organic evolution of software made possible by open source technologies and the legions of programmers who contribute to them." So the net impact for computer book publishers, authors, and agents is less readers at the general level (although specialized, high-priced low-print-run books aimed at the enterprise may be a viable niche).
The next factor hitting this business is, of course, the Web, and the ease of searching it with tools like Google. Most reference information can easily be found on the Internet with no cost, so why should someone buy a book to find it? Back in the mid 1990s, I figured that if I got one useful fact, or one programming technique out of a book, it was worth the purchase price. That kind of logic just does not fly today.
Moving onward, a great big problem are the (to a great extent) dumb and dumber me-too publishers in this industry. (Dear Publishers: If you are reading this, and have published a book of mine, or are thinking about publishing a book of mine, or might sometime publish a book of mine, or you know me personally, I don't mean you. :-))
These publishers have got to get it through their heads (or they will perish like the dinosaurs, to use my seven-year-old's favorite metaphor) that:
- A CD-ROM packaged with a book is so yesterday! Information should be delivered via the Web. Adding a CD simply to boost the price-point is a trick that consumers see through in an instant. They will vote with their dollars and stay away.
- People don't need books anymore about how to use applications like Internet Explorer or Microsoft Word.
- The wide audience for information about a proprietary, closed programming system (like Microsoft's Visual Studio .Net) is gone forever.
- More and more, people will look to the Web as the best place to get technically-oriented information. Publishers (and authors) need to formulate a strategy for success in an environment where you cannot sell content, and typically expect to monetize traffic via advertising. This trend is not going away, in fact it is still in its infancy.
- Publishers need to get it through their heads that their series really do not constitute a long-term viable consumer brand. I know this is a controversial statement, which most publishers will take issue with. But publishers have mistaken the marketing clout that a bit of a budget and a relationship with Barnes and Nobles and Borders have given them for true branding. With a few exceptions, nobody I know cares about the series a book is in. They care if the book has quality, integrity, is written to hold a conversation with them, and if the author has a distinct viewpoint. (Remember: For straight reference information, people just go to the Web.) When publishers wake up and smell the red ink and get out of the series marketing miasma, they will realize that the only branding that makes any sense is to brand the author -- and they will start pursuing this strategy like in other parts of publishing.
Related links: See the rather loud discussion about whether computer book agents earn their commission on Joseph Wikert's blog (he is a publisher at Wiley). If you are looking for an agent, I recommend Matt Wagner.
Posted by Harold Davis at March 17, 2005 09:02 AM
