Sociologist John B Thompson presents a session based on his recent book, Book Wars: The Digital Revolution in Publishing, which addresses modern developments and trends in the publication and consumption of books. The session discusses the differences between delivery formats, genres, and some key transformative events, and dominance of marketplace platforms.
Speaker
John B Thompson is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge. His publications include Ideology and Modern Culture (1990), The Media and Modernity (1995), Political Scandal (2000), Books in the Digital Age (2005), Merchants of Culture (2010, 2012) and Book Wars (2021). His books have been translated into more than a dozen languages and he was awarded the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and the Social Sciences in 2001 for Political Scandal.
Moderator
Dan Kulp, COPE Chair, and Director of editorial development for journals, American Chemical Society (ACS). He received his PhD in materials science and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and worked for the American Physical Society for nearly 24 years in their editorial office. Dan has been involved in all aspects of publishing including peer review, production, distribution, and personnel and financial management of journals.
Book wars: the impact of the digital revolution on Anglo-American Trade Publishing
John began the session with a comparison of the trends in major forms of media over the last two decades, contrasting the music and newspaper industries, against which book publishing has fared relatively successfully. The introduction of Kindle, eBook, and audiobooks resulted in a succession of increases, plateaus and smaller declines in revenues than has been seen in other media.
John then highlights a range of milestones of development, including the point at which eBook sales peaked at 25% of sales in 2012, to the steady increase in audio book consumption, from a dominance of physical CD in 2010, to 90% digital streaming and download in 2019, and the proportions of sales and revenue of books in different formats; with romance, sci-fi and other fiction categories performing greatest.
Models of publishing and distribution are addressed, revolving around the influence of Amazon and the publishers relationship to it, questions of monopolisation, and several social and business features of its unprecedented development and position; and the dangers of monopolisation are addressed, as a threat to creativity, flexibility and diversity.
The ascent of self-publishing is also covered, including its influence on mainstream trade publishing, through the benefits of personable interactions with readers, instigating another landmark development of building direct relationships with readers, with publishers facilitating and participating in the cultural conversation taking place online.
Among several concluding remarks, John ends the session reflecting on the retail challenge presented to publishers – how to make businesses more reader-centric, building channels of communication and rethink the role publishes could and should play in the environment.
Audience Q&A
There were many questions raised following the presentation that addressed a range of topics including:
- • Self-publishing, and a relation to pre-prints and journal publishing,
- • The extent that accessibility to self-publishing may affect the quality of the content.
- • The possibility of realistic competition to Amazon.
- • Rules or guidelines in book trade publishing in similar vein as journal publishing ethics.
- • The pros and cons of self-publishing