Books, Bookstores, Catalogs by Kevin Hillstrom.
From the post:
The parallels between books, bookstores, and catalogs are significant.
So take fifty minutes this weekend, and watch this session that was recently broadcast on BookTV, titled “The Future of the Book and Bookstore“.
This is fifty minutes of absolutely riveting television, seriously! Boring setting, riveting topic.
Jim Milliot (Publishers Weekly) tossed out an early tidbit: 30% of book sales will be digital by the end of 2012.
LIssa Muscatine, Politics & Prose bootstore owner: When books are a smaller part of the revenue stream, have to diversify the revenue stream. Including print on demand from a catalog of 7 million books.
Sam Dorrance Potomac Books (publisher): Hard copy sales will likely decrease by ten percent (10%) per year for the next several years.
Recurrent theme: Independent booksellers can provide guidance to readers. Not the same thing as “recommendation” because it is more nuanced.
Rafe Sagalyn Sagalyn Literary Agency: Now a buyers market. Almost parity between hard copy and ebook sales.
Great panel but misses the point that books, hard copy or digital, remain isolated islands/silos.
Want to have a value-add that is revolutionary?
Create links across Kindle and other electronic formats, so that licensed users are not isolated within single works.
Did I hear someone say topic maps?
[…] Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity « Books, Bookstores, Catalogs [30% Digital by end of 2012, Books as Islands/Silos] […]
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