More From Penguin

Sadly, I find this discussion with the CEO of Penguin Books (here) amazing. I say sadly cause I doubt if I have the "je ne sais quoi" to pull off a review that will make a reader want to go read it. So, I'll excerpt what I found amazing and hope that suffices.

WSJ: Will there come a time when physical books are no longer published?

Mr. Makinson: No, I really don't think so. There is a growing distinction between the book reader and the book owner. The book reader just wants the experience of reading the book, and that person is a natural digital consumer: Instead of a disposable mass market book, they buy a digital book. The book owner wants to give, share and shelve books. They love the experience. As we add value to the physical product, particularly the trade paperback and hardcover, the consumer will pay a little more for the better experience. I looked the other day into the sales of public-domain classics in 2009, when all those books were available for free. What I found was that our sales had risen by 30% that year. The reason is that we were starting to sell hardcover editions—more expensive editions—that people were prepared to pay for. There will always be a market for physical books, just as I think there will always be bookstores.

I can empathize with both parties mentioned here. There are many books that I will e-read, then afterward I'll wish I'd bought the book so that I could have it on my shelf. Usually I'll go to the half-price book store and buy it there. The same has happened in reverse as well. I've bought several books that I want on my shelf that I haven't read cause they aren't on the ole Kindle. It's a vicious circle. I guess based on the excerpt I'm experiencing an indentity crisis.

WSJ: What is the most significant challenge facing booksellers at a time when there are millions of physical titles for sale online and e-books are doubling in revenue?

Mr. Makinson: There is a future in book retailing. A lot of the issue is not just that there are too many bookstores, but that they are too big. How do you diversify the offerings to consumers in order to make productive use of space without losing the experience of being in a bookstore?

I've written about this before. I don't hold out much hope. See more (here). I always think about Cactus Records on Shepherd Drive. My brother and I would always swing by there when our folks went to the neighboring BookStop. First it was all records and tapes. Then, with CD's, they had to adapt. They tried (and failed) to keep the place open. Now, it's a novelty store several blocks down that is back to selling records. Gone full circle. I have high hopes for Half-Price Book Stores, not so much for the Borders and Barnes and Noble's.

Last excerpt, I promise.

WSJ: The Amazon Kindle best-seller list is dominated by cheap, self-published titles, often priced at $2.99 or less. How much of a threat to traditional publishers are these self-published works?

Mr. Makinson: This is a new market that can't exist economically in print. You can't manufacture, ship and store a book at those prices. But we as publishers probably need to participate.

We'll look at new content that maybe we can popularize in different ways. We'll also look at our backlist. Maybe there are customers for westerns at $1.99. What we need to be really careful of is ensuring that this new market doesn't compromise the sales of Clive Cussler, Tom Clancy, Patricia Cornwell and Ken Follett.

I think he's being a bit too blaize about it. I believe that the cheap $2.99'ers are are serious threat to even large publishing houses like Penguin. Having absolutely no data to back that up, I don't take myself or my threats too seriously.

Still, an intrigueing article. A nice follow up to this one from last year (here)