Gerry Johnson: The Voice Of Doom?

I was fascinated to read about Gerry Johnson's speech given to the delegates of the Retail Week conference.  In it he said that booksellers must ready themselves for a digital revolution, similar to the one experienced by the music industry.

I read his comments the morning after addressing the Society Of Young Publishers where I said the complete opposite.  This may surprise you, coming as it does from someone who works for a web-to-print publisher, but I really don't think digital media will have anything like the impact on the book world than it has in the world of music.

Allow me to qualify that statement with a bit of a history lesson.  The music industry has experienced three revolutions, of sorts, in the past 30 years.  The first was the invention of the Walkman, the first time that personal music became truly portable.  This brought on the mix-tape culture, people making their own compilations on cassette to play on the way to work, while jogging, or while rollerskating along a Californian beachfront in shorts and legwarmers.  Next was the onset of the compact disc.  CDs made music (supposedly) better quality, processed it in small units, and, after a short while, encouraged people to convert their entire collections from vinyl to the new format; for a decade or more people were buying the same albums for a second time as they updated their music libraries.  The same thing has happened in recent years with video collections converting to DVD.  On a point of order we should note that many musos have argued as to the superiority of vinyl over compact disc all this time, but most of those are just pissed off that they can't roll their joints as efficiently on a CD case compared to an LP cover.  And the third, and most recent, revolution has been the onslaught of digital media.  In a few short years since it really appeared, many of us have converted our entire music libraries to digital files and store them on a little machine no bigger than a fag packet, and often smaller.  At the moment most of us still own the hard copies as CDs but I cannot imagine that our children or our children's children will be all that bothered.

Now, the reason for that little digression was to point out the major difference between the digital revolution in music compared to what I believe will be more of a digital evolution in  books.  Each stage of the audio revolution has been about making music smaller and more portable; but books are already portable.  The changes in music format and delivery allows us to listen to a wide range of music on the same journey; so we could have a slice of John Coltrane followed by some Flaming Lips and then a bit of Satie - the mix-tape mentality.  We don't need the same sort of flexibility with reading; you don't fancy a couple of chapters of Lee Child and then want to tackle a few pages of Proust and then delve into some metaphysical poetry all on the same train journey.  Well you might, but you would be a bit odd.  The vast majority of readers, when making use of the portability of a book by reading it on the go, will tackle one book at a time.  This, I believe, is a crucial difference between the two media.  Music has become portable over the past three decades, books have been portable for all of that time, and a long while before that.

For digital media to change the face of reading and books within six months of the tipping point, as Johnson suggests, would mean vast numbers of us eschewing paper books for eReaders and online material.  Perhaps this will happen one day, though I doubt it, but it certainly won't happen within six months of E-Day, or whatever it is that will prompt the change.

Having said that, I do think that digital media will have a dramatic impact on certain areas of publishing and reading and that could be a fairly swift process, perhaps over the next couple of years.  A few examples:

COOKBOOKS.  Printed books are, to be honest, quite an impractical format for cooking.  They don't lay open at the right page without some medieval contraption holding them open; they get covered in goo; and the pages containing your most used recipes end up sticking together with the residue of dozens of meals.  They are ripe for a digital takeover.  It will not be long before we are cooking and baking away while looking at a screen.  A little flip down flatscreen will descend from beneath the kitchen cabinet, you punch in the word 'FISH' and up come all the fish recipes.  You select 'BREAM' and the relevant ones pop up.  You press 'NIGELLA' and two of her bream recipes appear before your eyes.  You choose the one you want and then the instructions appear step by step on screen, with video to show you the tricky techniques and her mildly pornographic commentary urging you along.  I love cookbooks, you've seen my cookbook shelf, but the future of cooking at home will not be in the printed form; it will probably be some version of the above, and we are not that far off seeing it.

TRAVEL.  Why carry a travel book around when the entire content can appear in an easier format, and searchable to boot, on your mobile phone or PDA?  The travel publishers have been exploring this technology for some time and have struggled to get bookshops to show any interest.  GPS technology will enable you to press a button while standing in a market square in Prague and immediately get a list of all the decent restaurants within a 5 minute walk.  Again, this is not far off and sales of travel guides will decline as more and more people opt for the digital lifestyle.

BIG FAT HARDBACKS.  A couple of years from now, when you purchase a hefty volume of history or biography, or even fiction, your book will come with a digital keycode.  That code will unlock an online version of the text for you to download to your eReader.  This then makes even the heaviest volume portable.  Imagine you have just spent £30 on a new biography of Nelson that weighs in at 800 pages.  It is bloody heavy.  It sits by your reading chair and you tackle 30 or 40 pages with a cup of cocoa before bedtime.  Next morning you pop your eReader in your bag and pick up from page 41 on the train into work.  That night you revert to your preferred, but heavy, hardback and carry on from where your eReader left off.  This is a concept which I first heard from Rob at Snowbooks and is one I am actually looking forward to seeing.  Again, this isn't far away.

These are just three areas where digital content could make a significant difference to the way we read books.  So, I am not disagreeing with Johnson entirely.  I just think he is being a bit alarmist.

Although, to be completely fair, his comments were largely aimed at book retail, and here he has a very good point.  The Voice Of Doom he may be, but he is absolutely bang on the money, or lack of it.  He is quoted as saying:

"We have witnessed the internet drive down demand for large bookstores. We wouldn't contemplate opening a 15,000 to 20,000 sq ft store, because even if the market will support it now, it won't in the future."

And he is quite right.  In my earlier post, They Just Might Have To Settle For Less, I pointed out that, although retailers are obsessed with market share, the high street stores are just going to have to accept a share decline as readers shop online and in supermarkets more and more.  There is nothing they can do about it.  Sure they can start their own websites, but they are going to struggle to catch up with Amazon and Play who are already miles ahead in that area.

Large bookstores are indeed a thing of the past.  Show me a book superstore now and it is odds-on that it loses money.  Do not be surprised if your favourite multi-floor bookshop closes down in the next few years.  They are very expensive to run and extremely difficult to justify.

So is Gerry Johnson the Voice Of Doom?  I don't think so.  When it comes to book retail he is certainly the Voice Of Reason, alarming though his comments may be.  I do not think we will see the 'revolution' he suggests, at least not from the publishing side, but the bookshops almost certainly will.

Comments

[Andrew Mishmash]

Hi Scott

As usual, a very thought-provoking post. I wonder if I might add some thoughts?

I think the fundamental difference between books and music is that books are unmediated. Of course some people argue that books mediate between the mind of the writer and mind of the reader. What I mean is that you don't need any equipment to read a book; which, for the past sixty years or so , you have needed in order to listen to music. Our parents were the first people to appreciate music through recordings or broadcast; prior to WW2 there was folk song and orchestral performance. For me the portability, like the lack of mediation, are both components of use; and the music biz will never get over the mediation problem.

Your exception for cookbooks is astute, but it's only true of 'cookbook as instruction manual'. We note the rise of cookery writing over the past few years, Toast, Kitchen Confidential, and The Man Who Ate Everything, etc.; and at the same time the collapse of Haynes Publishing. Culinary writing is alive and kicking, but vastly different to its antecedence.

I have a friend who is an architect who tells me the point is not far off where image quality, and accurate library tagging, will take online archtectural publishing ahead of hard copy; at that point he will stop buying all those beatiful expensive phaidons and T&H. I don't know enough about this to argue, but I like your point about the parallel editions; Who's Who does this already i think.

Anyhoo...

Drew Mishmash

[Bela]

Great post.

I've been busy converting my old LPs and cassettes into mp3 files. It's incredibly time-consuming but very satisfying. The kind of thing you do when, as a translator and editor, you've lost most of your work because the people you worked for for nigh on 20 years (namely the British Tourist Authority) have now decided to concentrate on putting their material on a website rather than in printed form. Funny you should mention travel guides: I am also in the process of losing a third of my income thanks to a travel guide publisher going under.

Btw, to lie, lay, lain = to recline > to lie open = :-)
to lay, laid, laid = to put down > to lay open = tut, tut!

Unless you're American, of course. LOL!

[Scott Pack]

Bela - my grammar is terrible. You will find my posts riddled with such mistakes.

Drew - I agree with you on cookery literature, a fine artform. And then there is also the cookery porn enthusiasts. People who love just holding and admiring beautifully made cookbooks.

[dan]

Great blog post. I hadn't really thought about the changes digital technology would bring but can see how your examples would work. Johnson's comments are a bit scary though, if he thinks book superstores are doomed, and he should know, then retail is a bit fucked.

[Marie]

There's also legal volumes and medical textbooks etc - the kind of things that need constant updating with every passing year and are far too heavy to carry anywhere. To have it all on a little updatable e-reader, how marvelous. Of course, I never require a legal or medical textbook or any other kind of book that provides me with information as opposed to fun, so I reckon I will be a luddite paper-lover for some time yet.

[Steerforth]

I agree with Gerry Johnson and I think that during the next few years we'll see quite a few closures before high street book retailing settles down to its natural limits. During the last 25 years, over 400 new bookshops - most of them 4,000 sq ft or more - have opened. Even without the internet and the post-NBA free-for-all, this expansion couldn't have continued ad infinitum.

Ottakar's were probably the first victims of this new trend. Contrary to what some people believe, Ottakar's was an efficient, well-run company and its like-for-like sales were better than Waterstone's for many years. However, little ships sink more quickly than large ones and Ottakar's didn't have the scale to withstand the sudden downturn in high street sales that took place in 2005. I think the writing was on the wall in July 2005, when the sales of the new Harry Potter book were significantly lower than the previous book in 2003.

I wonder how Waterstone's will fare during the next few years? If anyone can get them through the next few years, Gerry Johnson is probably the man to do it. I just hope that HMV's shareholders are willing to stay the course.

I'm not sure about reaching a tipping point within six months, but I'm glad that Gerry Johnson has openly acknowleged what many of us have been muttering about for the last year. I just hope that my sales budgets for next year will reflect this new realism.

[Clive Keeble]

The only way in which Waterstone's will survive is by rationalising, disposing of the big box superstores which were never going to be cost effective, and doing what a bookseller does best - hand selling quality books.

The idea that Waterstone's must try and match every special discount offer from the supermarkets is pure madness.

The digital business, as regards general book publishing, is a total red herring. With music there has to be a manufactured "receiver/reader" - humans have evolved with a rather nifty technical "receiver/reader" for books, the brain and eyes. In fifty years time the idea that basic digital downloads will be 'state-of-the-art' will seem rather comical - I don't know what technological advances are ahead, but I feel sure that the main profitable use of digital download (in the next decade) will be for technical and academic texts. Just remember what happened with many of the internet start-ups : they had no market, and neither, at the present time, does digital downloads for books (thanks to the human "receiver/reader").

[lance]

Without wishing to sound like a total kiss-ass - I agree entirely with Scott's points.
On the music front the portability/variety observation is entirely correct in my experience. Even the most cynical music fan who bemoans the periodic artificial resusitation of the music business by new formats has been won over by the incredible convenience of the download/mp3 player - as have musicians-why spend a fortune on printing 1000 CDs when you can stick a tune up for download for next to nothing and let the whole world hear it?

The e-book upload with hardbacks idea is one I look forward to as it makes perfect sense.
As for the cookery books - who needs 'em, I am a genius in the kitchen (ahem).

The paperback book is the banana of the entertainment world...cheap, perfectly packaged, eminently portable...although it really could do with being waterproof/able to float a couple of inches above bath water...

[Greg S]

Some good points. As Scott has mentioned, the music/digital revolution isn't really directly comparable to what is happening with books. I think that at the moment the way that the book industry is affected by the digital age has more to do with how we buy our books than in any changes to books themselves. We may buy books off Amazon and Play instead of from bookshops, but the books themselves remain largely untouched.

I also think it's very interesting to note how this affects prices. When I go to Play.com, the CDs and DVDs are scandalously cheap, probably because file-sharing technology means that any canny PC user can download a free version of any song/album/film they want, and the industry has to respond accordingly. Whereas the books on Play are not much cheaper than books in the high street, because at the moment there's no real digital alternative to reading a book. Sure, a lot of books are available as PDF files, but at the moment that isn't going to compete with a proper book.

As lots of people have mentioned, this will all probably change when decent e-readers are available. I've never seen one in person, but I imagine that they would have to be pretty amazing to compete with a book. A book is portable, easy-on-the eye and technologically fantastic. To compete, e-readers would have to be equally portable, technologically simple (no complicated softare and constant battery failures), and most importantly, easy on the eye. Most people don't read extended chunks of text on their PCs because after 20 minutes or so, your eyes begin to hurt.

I can imagine that at some point in the future there may be e-readers that are no bigger than a paperback, have interfaces that are as easy on the eye as reading paper, and in which you might be able to store 10,000 novels. At which point, books might be under threat. But until technology can compete with the simplicity and user-friendliness of a paperback, books are probably safe.

[Scott Pack]

Lance, that is a great line: 'the paperback book is the banana of the entertainment world'!

[Clive Keeble]

I am somewhat surprised that nobody has mentioned the planned HMV review due for the middle of this month (Ides of March) when store closures across the chain (inc Waterstone's ?) as well as job losses are anticipated, plus an increased product range for the merchandising outlets.

All this alarmist talk about digital downloads is taking attention away from the lack of positive direction from the HMV/Waterstone management.

[Andrew Mishmash]

Hi

@Clive - I'm a bit out of the loop so hadn't heard about HMV. But you are right, the biggest problem for bookselling is getting the punters through the doors and buying; thereby protecting the jobs of the booksellers.

@Marie - I think the time is coming soon for very technical books like the Medicine Fromulary, to become a pre-subscribed download service, may be to PC maybe to e-reader , and cease to be hard copy at all.

Sad news today about Gay's The Word - is the commercial property business really telling me the London cannot support a feminist bookshop or a gay bookshop? sheesh!

Drew Mishmash

[Paul S]

Scott, sorry a bit late to this thread. You are right on the money as usual. I was at the Ret Wk conference, and heard Gerry speak (he was one of a panel and responding to questions rather than giving a speech). His overall tone was of course more measured than the dramatic headlines quoted. As a bookseller with music sellers for colleagues, he is probably more spooked by the whole digital download threat than a standalone book retailer. But then again not every music retailer has adopted such a dinosaur (or is it ostrich-like) mentality as HMV (until recently)! March 13 is the date when their survival plans are unveiled.

[Anonandon]

My guess is that Gerry is desperately trying to not make the same mistake Alan Giles made a few years back by underestimating the rise of digital media, and in doing so has rushed to the extreme!

[Ben Johncock]

Spot on Scott.

[Pauline Rowson]

Good article, Scott. I am seeing increasing sales in our e books (Rowmark,business titles)and believe this is a sector that will continue to grow. I have long had the idea of personalising our business books, by that I mean readers can choose chapters from different books on line, and create their own business book containing only the information they require, which they can then download to their e reader, just haven't found anyone who can help me turn this into a reality yet. Any ideas? By the way apparently there is a Waitrose somewhere that has ordered in my latest marine mystery, In For The Kill, but where it is I do not know - certainly not locally. If anyone spots a copy in a Waitrose store, perhaps they'd let me know?

[STOCKROOM SCOTLAND]

Thanks to gerry's ethnic cleansing programme i'm about to be unemployed 3 and half years of my life i'll never get back !!! thanks GERRY.