Lately, a strange murmur has rippled across the publishing industry and echoed through my inbox; e books are just a fad, close your eyes, take a deep breath and they'll go away. Despite Nielson's own findings that print sales of adult fiction have declined by 37% since 2009 to the tune of over £150m loss, a brief flurry of physical book sales at Christmas appears to have triggered an industry-wide fantasy. Articles proliferated across the web declaring the e book dead. I must have read Tim Waterstone's quote half a dozen times, "— e-books have developed a share of the market, of course they have, but every indication – certainly from America – shows the share is already in decline. The indications are that it will do exactly the same in the UK.” A revisionist reality began to take shape. And across the post modern boardrooms of the Big Five, I could practically hear the murmurs of denial. At this year's London Book Fair Publishing for Digital Minds Conference, keynote speaker Author David Nicholls characterized publishers as social crusaders saying, “But we should … [Read more...] about Big Five Publishing: A Murmur of Denial
Archives for May 2015
