Andrew Roskill's View
Participants in the 2005 Book Summit: Industry Leaders Discussing the Future of Publishing in a Flat World are being asked for their views. Book Summit checked in with Andrew Roskill, director of BookSurge, the print-on-demand company acquired by Amazon.com in April 2005.
What would it take to get digitally printed books into the mainstream distribution channels?
If by mainstream distribution channels you mean brick-and-mortar bookstores, we make them available through both traditional distributors such as Baker & Taylor and our own wholesale ordering system BookSurgeDirect.com. However, with more and more consumers using online channels such as Amazon.com to purchase books and with new, user-friendly features such as Search Inside the Book (SITB), we believe the future of book buying is online.
What do you see as the future direction for print-on-demand publishing companies?
Print-on-demand is the future. It has leveled the playing field for publishers and authors, reduced risk associated with distributing high volume print runs, and is driving industry disintermediation. As digital technology continues to improve and costs continue to be driven down, POD will become more widely accepted and the preferred method of book order fulfillment, particularly for lower velocity titles that have demand across multiple geographies.
With more books from which to choose to sell, what factors will drive the decision to stock and sell a digitally printed book?
Bookstore shelf space is obviously limited. One goal of Amazon is to improve the customer experience by broadening the tail of selection. We want to use POD “virtual inventory” to accomplish this. It’s one of the many beauties of POD--you don’t need to stock books because all of our Amazon.com orders are produced and shipped within 24 hours.
How do publishers find and target micro-niches of readers?
The Internet has truly revolutionized the way publishers find and target these groups. There are so many forums and communities for people with all types of interests out there; it takes patience to find them and sometimes creativity to reach them effectively, but they are there and the internet makes reaching them possible. We are also evaluating a number of services where publishers could get empirical data (sell through, page views, etc.) that could help them make good business decisions on where to invest their value-added services: identifying, refining and marketing great books.
What would it take to get digitally printed books into the mainstream distribution channels?
If by mainstream distribution channels you mean brick-and-mortar bookstores, we make them available through both traditional distributors such as Baker & Taylor and our own wholesale ordering system BookSurgeDirect.com. However, with more and more consumers using online channels such as Amazon.com to purchase books and with new, user-friendly features such as Search Inside the Book (SITB), we believe the future of book buying is online.
What do you see as the future direction for print-on-demand publishing companies?
Print-on-demand is the future. It has leveled the playing field for publishers and authors, reduced risk associated with distributing high volume print runs, and is driving industry disintermediation. As digital technology continues to improve and costs continue to be driven down, POD will become more widely accepted and the preferred method of book order fulfillment, particularly for lower velocity titles that have demand across multiple geographies.
With more books from which to choose to sell, what factors will drive the decision to stock and sell a digitally printed book?
Bookstore shelf space is obviously limited. One goal of Amazon is to improve the customer experience by broadening the tail of selection. We want to use POD “virtual inventory” to accomplish this. It’s one of the many beauties of POD--you don’t need to stock books because all of our Amazon.com orders are produced and shipped within 24 hours.
How do publishers find and target micro-niches of readers?
The Internet has truly revolutionized the way publishers find and target these groups. There are so many forums and communities for people with all types of interests out there; it takes patience to find them and sometimes creativity to reach them effectively, but they are there and the internet makes reaching them possible. We are also evaluating a number of services where publishers could get empirical data (sell through, page views, etc.) that could help them make good business decisions on where to invest their value-added services: identifying, refining and marketing great books.
posted by Brian Jud at 7:25 PM
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