Tag Archives: publishing

Ape selfies, art and money, and e-books

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What’s the connection between ape selfies, the relationship between art and money, and e-book prices?

There have been interesting posts about each of these subjects this week, making the connection clear.

That ape selfie – Wikipedia has rejected photographer David Slater’s claim to own copyright in the picture, arguing that the animal took the photo. David Allen Green wrote a fascinating FT blog about UK law on this question. The law here says the ape can’t hold copyright but it doesn’t necessarily belong to the camera owner – it depends on the circumstances. Green concludes:

“A thing made by an animal may well be appreciated by humans, but not everything liked by humans can be bought and sold as a chattel or as an intellectual property right. And so when such things do occur, we should not seek to monetise them as some form of property; we should instead realise how lucky we are that such wonderful things exist at all.”

Mr Slater’s view is that as a professional photographer, he needs to be able to monetise pictures captured by his camera. Which takes us to a long n+1 essay on payment for art. It used to be that artists (including writers) who made money were “sellouts”, but now the complaint is that it’s becoming impossible to make money from art because of the ease of digital copying. Hence all the intellectual property debates, and the madness of copyright lasting for 70 years after the death of an author, as if length of term somehow compensates for loss of enforceability. As the essay concludes: “One did not become a writer in order to starve, but nor did one become a writer in order to get rich.” (George Gissing certainly didn’t.) And besides – as the incomparable Dave Birch pointed out to me with this link – there are ways of making money, even if not the same ways as of yore.

Which takes me onto the third link, this post by Toby Mundy criticising Amazon’s philistinism in selling books at ever lower prices by squeezing publisher’s margins. He frames it in terms of the contribution of the book form – long, complex, detailed – to the human achievement of civilisation – but finally makes it an argument about short term consumer gains versus the long term: “The result of these changes will be a much diminished eco-system for stories and ideas, with many fewer publishers and authors earning anything. Ultimately this may benefit a small number of people who hold stock in Amazon, but it will do precious little for our wider culture.”

The common theme is the value of culture, of course, in its form as a photo or book say, and how that value is distributed. It is about monetary versus non-monetary value, and about power in the marketplace and the polity. The specifics are new, the debate is old. All property involves social conventions derived from power relationships. When I sit in a cafe to have a cappucino, I have purchased the liquid in the cup, but not the cup – the owner would be outraged if I walked off putting the cup in my bag. That’s the convention, and the price for the drink reflects competition among local cafes.

I think the mistake many people make in thinking about who gets the value from digital cultural products is to assume that the market from which content creators (or publishers) will get their dibs are the same as in the offline world. The technological ease of copying (cf Walter Benjamin, [amazon_link id=”0141036192″ target=”_blank” ]The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction[/amazon_link]!) means the conventions have to change, and changing social conventions is never a smooth process. But George Gissing was poor long before the Web, despite being a marvellous writer, and I’m willing to bet David Slater will be a better-known and potentially more prosperous photographer post-ape selfie incident.

[amazon_image id=”0141036192″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Penguin Great Ideas)[/amazon_image]

 

Book retailing

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Ever since I was on the 2006 Competition Commission inquiry into the takeover of bookstore chain Ottakars by Waterstones, I’ve been interested in the book retailing business. This week brought news that Penguin Random House have created an online store, My Independent Bookshop, to compete with Amazon. A small proportion of every sale goes to a nominated independent bookshop.

The site hasn’t yet launched so it isn’t possible to compare prices or efficiency of delivery. It will be hard to match Amazon not only on price but also on range, logistics, and the attractions of Prime membership (albeit less attractive since the huge price rise) and the associates programme.

The ironic thing about this venture by the publishers is that when the takeover of Ottakars was under debate, they argued vociferously to us that we should not allow the removal of one physical retail chain on the high street, given the fact that Amazon was destroying the livelihood of the independent stores. What I never fully understood was the publishers’ own short-termism: they told us they wouldn’t accept a lower margin on their sales to the independent stores – which are more costly to deliver books to. So they themselves helped bring about the large online price advantage. If they had seen a lower margin as an investment in their future shop windows, we might not have lost so many small retailers.The Publlishers Association representatives who attended the hearing – I can see the row of dignitaries in my mind’s eye – didn’t understand the point we were trying to make about them facing a strategic choice. We gave the merger the go-ahead.

Still, I wish the new site well – more competition  for Amazon would be good. (The links on this blog are all to the Amazon site because of the associates programme. It brings in £30-50 a month which helps buy other books and pay the occasional guest reviewer.)

The thirst for understanding

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The yearbook from the Publishers Association is always an interesting snapshot of the UK book market. The news this year was that a big (19.2%) increase in the value of digital sales to £509m in 2013 didn’t quite offset the small-ish (-5.2%) decline to £2,880m in physical book sales. The total was down 2.2% overall to just under £3.4bn in sales. The detail is always interesting too. Prices of physical books were up 2.3% in the year, with the biggest increases in non-fiction and academic/reference books – sales in the schools market were down after a couple of years of stonking rises. Intriguingly, the report doesn’t give e-book price changes – I wonder why? By far the fastest growth in e-book sales has been ‘consumer’ e-books ie. not academic, professional or school.

Last weekend there was an article in The Guardian about the revival of Penguin’s Pelican imprint of accessible non-fiction works. This weekend Lorien Kite in the Financial Times has reflected on the news about the Pelican series flapping back into existence. They were the product, he writes, of a more optimistic time when the spirit of self-improvement was strong. The first 10 sixpenny Penguins published in 1935 sold a million copies in four months.

Actually, I think the 1930s were not that optimistic,but rather similar to the 2010s in the degree of uncertainty people feel about the future. There is a great thirst for understanding. But what about books now, when they face such stiff competition from other, trivial, attractions like Candy Crush Saga and Instagramming one’s meals? Kite concludes – and I agree – “Yes, publishers of non-fiction feel embattled but there is plenty to reassure them, not just in the success of titles such as the million-selling [amazon_link id=”0141033576″ target=”_blank” ]Thinking, Fast and Slow[/amazon_link] by Daniel Kahneman, the psychologist – or, for that matter, Piketty’s [amazon_link id=”067443000X” target=”_blank” ]Capital in the Twenty-First Century[/amazon_link]. The popularity of online lectures such as TED talks, the continuing boom in literary festivals, even the internet voluntarism epitomised by Wikipedia, all suggest that the self-improving impulse is alive and well.” In the UK industry figures, the number of units of physical books sold declined 7.3% in 2013, but in that mix was a 22.7% decline in fiction sales compared with a 3.3% drop in non-fiction sales. Penguin looks sensible to be pushing on non-fiction at present.

What’s more, the publishing industry is showing signs of navigating its digital transition rather better than other business sectors. I’d *really* like to know what’s going on with e-book pricing.

Incidentally, I came across somewhere yesterday – I can’t remember where so tell me if it was your tweet! – this from Kahneman: “We don’t think as much as we think we think.” Great line.

[amazon_image id=”0141033576″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Thinking, Fast and Slow[/amazon_image]

I just wanted something to read

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“He just wanted a decent book to read.” That’s the creation story of Penguin Books, as recounted on the inside of a box of postcards of Penguin/Pelican book covers I got for Christmas, ‘he’ being the founder Allen Lane.

The precedent of Penguin’s various series of non-fiction books – the Pelicans, the Specials, the ‘modern economics’ series – along with earlier examples such as the Left Book Club is what led me to wonder if I shouldn’t dabble in publishing some books I’d like to read myself. They would cover economics and technology. They would be short enough for a train journey – in 1935, Allen Lane was fruitlessly looking for something to read on Exeter Station. The authors would be authorities in their field but would write accessibly, and they would have something to say, something with public policy relevance. So the Perspectives series was born, in association with the London Publishing Partnership.

The first four titles are Jim O’Neill’s The BRIC Road to Growth; Bridget Rosewell’s Reinventing London; Andrew Sentance’s Rediscovering Growth After the Crisis; and Julia Unwin’s Why Fight Poverty. There was a soft launch just before Christmas, a separate launch for Bridget’s book last week, and tomorrow night an event on Andrew’s book.

[amazon_image id=”B00I124BKO” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]The BRIC Road to Growth (Perspectives)[/amazon_image][amazon_image id=”B00I11G7FW” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ][/amazon_image][amazon_image id=”B00HZ1YU4Y” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Rediscovering Growth: After the Crisis (Perspectives)[/amazon_image][amazon_image id=”B00I124BLS” link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Why Fight Poverty? (Perspectives)[/amazon_image]

I’m biased, but I think these four live up to the aim of having a clear and authoritative message. Jim argues that the shift in the world’s economic centre of gravity is not in the future – it has already happened, and global institutions need to adapt swiftly. Bridget makes the case for London’s ability to reshape its economy beyond the financial sector, but needs to focus on services other than finance and have in place the right housing, infrastructure and external connections to enable growth. Andrew says that although the UK economy is starting to recover, the lean years are not over yet and we need to get used to a much slower pace of growth than we enjoyed before the crisis. Julia convincingly shows how negative emotions – fear and guilt – get in the way of a rational set of policies to tackle poverty.

Upcoming titles include Dave Birch on digital identity as money, David Walker on when public outsourcing to the private sector works, and when it doesn’t, and Kate Barker on how to get more housing built.

It has been an educational experience publishing books. Dealing with Amazon is tough if you’re small, but of course Kindle editions are essential. It’s a crowded market: there are lots of short, pithy books, lots of small presses and lots of self-published titles out there. But so far, so good. I’ll post occasional updates.

Forerunners

History retweeting itself

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Tom Standage’s latest book, [amazon_link id=”1408842068″ target=”_blank” ]Writing on the Wall: Social Media – the first 2000 years[/amazon_link], has kept me going through a week of travel and meetings. As you’d expect from such a consistently interesting and good writer, it’s a fabulous book. It combines storytelling with the point (similar to that in his equally terrific [amazon_link id=”162040592X” target=”_blank” ]The Victorian Internet[/amazon_link]) that there are some constant themes in the impact of communications technologies through the ages. Here, the point is that all media are social media: they are all means of communication, the defining feature of human societies. It’s what we do. What’s more, the characteristics of different media are complementary, and introducing a new means of communication will certainly change how the older methods are used but will not displace them.

[amazon_image id=”1408842068″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Writing on the Wall: Social Media – The First 2,000 Years[/amazon_image]

Writing on the Wall draws parallels (in a suitably subtle way) between innovations of the past and today’s social media – for example, English Civil War pamphleteering and blogging, or London’s 18th century coffee houses and Twitter. The examples range from Republican Rome to pre-Revolutionary France, Martin Luther and the printing press, and the dawn of modern mass media in 19th century newspapers. In every case, the innovation was enthusiastically used by the many, and condemned as a vehicle for dangerous – blasphemous, uncivilized, destabilizing – by the powerful few. Each technological innovation did disrupt existing political structures, the book suggests.

Some of the less well-known examples (to an English reader) are especially interesting. I liked the example of disrespectful songs about Louis XV circulating in late 18th century Paris – Robert Darnton’s terrific book [amazon_link id=”0674066049″ target=”_blank” ]Poetry and the Police: Communication Networks in 18th Century Paris[/amazon_link] covers this episode. People wrote rhymes on slips of paper they could hand out in the coffee house or leave lying around in the park. The ‘nodes’ of these networks were known as ‘nouvellistes’. The reason these handwritten slips circulated was because the French authorities restricted printing so tightly – they were the Chinese censors of their day. It’s interesting to see that French journalism is still rather respectful of authority. I attended a Franco-British conference last week, and our French counterparts assured us that ‘everyone’ had known about President Hollande’s affair (by word of mouth) for months – impossible to imagine that happening in British journalism.

[amazon_image id=”0674066049″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Poetry and the Police[/amazon_image]

Newspapers played an important role in the American colonies, in paving the way for the war of independence. Although also controlled by the British authorities, publishers successfully resisted the strictest measures, and papers circulated alongside letters in written correspondence. Tom Paine’s catalytic pamphlet [amazon_link id=”1448657113″ target=”_blank” ]Common Sense[/amazon_link] was serialized in many papers.

I loved the title of the Epilogue – ‘History Retweets Itself’. It argues that ‘old’ mass media were an anomaly, and prior to their emergence in the mid-19th century social media networks were the means of sharing information and ideas. There are some interesting thoughts on the future of ‘new’ social media – will they stay in their proprietary silos or not? The book concludes: “The rebirth of social media in the Internet age represents a profound shift – and a return, in many respects, to the way things used to be.