Reading down the publishing business

The old publishing industry is vanishing forever and is rapidly being replaced by online reading. The process had begun more than a decade ago. But the virus has delivered what could well be the coup

At the height of the second wave of the virus, a friend who has written a book asked me to help find a publisher. So I suggested a few names thinking that everyone was working from home, there would be a quick response, without the usual fuss that publishing houses like to make.

I was wrong. The author is still waiting for a reply. So a few days ago he called me again.

I rang one or two of the editors and asked what the problem was. The virus, and the consequent lockdowns, they said, have almost wiped out the publishing business because bookshops are not open. As a result, wholesalers on whom the industry crucially depends, also are not buying and stocking. Sales are down nearly 90 per cent, a friend who owns a publishing company told me.

So, he says, each publishing decision has to be taken extremely carefully. Publishing volumes have therefore fallen drastically.

The question that arises, therefore, is if the industry, which was already reeling under the competition from social media, videos, and OTTs for customer attention, will ever recover to make it viable.

I suspect not. It looks as if the old publishing industry is vanishing forever and is very rapidly being replaced by online reading, PDFs and other forms that you read off the screen.

True, the process had begun more than a decade ago. But the virus has delivered what could well be the coup de grace. 

Adding to the industry-level problem is the one in peoples’ homes: Shortage of space. Barring a few exceptions, the post-1980 generation doesn’t want hard copies at all. They don’t have anywhere to keep them.

Betting shops: So one thing is for sure. Since much less money will be locked up in printing on paper and stocking bound volumes, the investment needed to publish will be reduced substantially.

This means the number of books that are published online will actually go up dramatically and book prices will drop sharply because the old costs will disappear. This includes the cost of high-paid editors. We can already see this happening.

This last is not really a bad thing, actually. I have never come to terms with the power wielded by commissioning editors in publishing houses. I was one for five years between 1975 and 1980 and the preliminary decision, whether or not to pursue a manuscript, was mine. I was just 24 when I started. It was, in retrospect, ridiculous.
 

Another problem with this system has always been that new authors don’t stand much of a chance. In order to succeed as editors, they all pursue celebrities, never mind what rubbish the books contain. That’s why we have so many one-book ponies.

This system also makes publishing resemble a betting shop in that there is no way of knowing if a new author will succeed. It’s like betting on an unknown horse in the Mahalaxmi races.

In the old days you published one thousand copies and took your chances. Now you can print — publish is a misnomer — as few as 200 and see how the market receives it. When you examine it, it is exactly how the odds on a horse evolve.

Who to bet on?

Whether or not a book does well, that is, sells 5,000 copies, depends on how much the publisher is willing to spend on marketing it.

For a new author this amount is nil. The author is supposed to feel grateful someone decided to run him or her because he or she is a complete outsider.

Globally, any given year, maybe half a dozen make the cut. The rest just fall by the wayside, not because the books are bad but because the publisher did not market the book effectively.

I know many such authors who have written good books and are left wondering what went wrong.

Run your own race:  The next question, then, is if self-publishing, which is currently looked upon with derision, will become the order of the day. All that an author would need then is an online distributor. This would be, in a manner of speaking, be the equivalent of self-attestation which does not need a gazetted officers’ — or in this case editors’ — approval. That’s how it used to be before publishing houses appeared on the scene as intermediaries. Their impending exit is something to be welcomed.

So prepare for a deluge of online, cheap books. What’s happened to films with OTT platforms is about to happen to books.