The Impact of Independent Publishers

In the last ten years, independent publishing has grown in popularity at a staggering pace. In a market once reserved for high dollar authors and big named publishers, the independents have broken through, and have solidified a foothold in the industry. With the advent of the internet, the publishing industry found themselves in a rapidly expanding market, full of small and independent publishing houses, which were more nimble and agile and could quickly adapt and produce to the whims of a new consumer driven market. Through Blogs, E-Books and RSS (Really Simple Syndication), these smaller publishers were able to deliver their content directly to the consumer, creating new and scalable business models, that the major publishers were too big to implement, or were too risky to try. As websites like Amazon.com and Lulu.com have taken off, they have empowered the independent publisher, allowing them to reach not only niche target markets, but to have access to world wide distribution.

In 1455, when Johann Gutenberg printed his first book, The Bible, using moveable type, I doubt he could have ever imagined this process would eventually become a 30 billion dollar a year industry in the United States. 80% of the market is made up of the top 50 companies with some of the largest being McGraw-Hill, Random House, Scholastic, Pearson, HarperCollins, John Wiley & Sons, and Simon & Schuster.1 So in such a lucrative, albeit competitive market, where does the independent publisher fit in? The dream of playing with the big boys, and becoming a head in the stable of published writers has driven many a dream forward in the hope of success. The stories of hopeful writers, pitching their ideas to the big named publishers, only to be dismissed with the wave of a hand and inevitably have their ideas stolen, are a dime a dozen. Contrast that with the stories of successful products that provide the big name publishers with a pocket full of cash, but leave the author with a one time success, and nothing to show for it. The publishers thought they had it all figured out, and there was nothing that could topple their empires.

In the early 90’s the internet was brought to the public attention. The internet brought the power back to the little guy. Just as desktop publishing had helped to lower production and printing costs years earlier, the internet also allowed voices and ideas to travel around the world. While hot topics and world news were easy avenues to bring in the readers, suddenly there was a forum for niche topics to be discussed. As the search engines and the blogging software became more effective and easy to use, readers were able to find the topics they cared about, and consume information on demand. There no longer was much of an overhead to write. If you owned a computer, and could connect to the internet, you could begin writing and publishing your ideas to the world. This rapid change forced the larger players in the industry to implement new things. Newspapers began to scramble to get websites established, to devise ways to keep their content relevant, and most importantly keep it theirs. As magazine, newspaper and book sales began to drop, the publishers began to hire bloggers to keep their sites up to the minute and buzz worthy. To compete, the large news sites began to remove their subscription services, and instead offer their content for free. Independent publishing began to get legs.

Along with this literary revolution on the internet, independent publishers were learning to leverage the power of this new social medium to market their books, and attract their readers. They were learning that websites and blogs worked great to attract the readers, to provide that daily dose to keep them coming back for more. Independent publishers were realizing that consumers didn’t care what format they were getting it in, as long as they were getting it, or better yet, they were given the choice to decide how they wanted it. E-Books have steadily grown in popularity, experiencing a 24.1% increase in 2006 at $54 million, with a compound growth rate of 65% since 20022. While this is a drop in the bucket of a 30 billion dollar industry, with an increased demand for conservation and environmentally conscience business practices, one would have to assume that e-book sales, along with quality titles, is going to increase in demand as the market continues to mature. In the last couple years, publishers also began to realize that their content wasn’t just limited to the printed word, but with the popularity of digital music players, audio could be leveraged to get their content out and further monetize their content, again with little to no overhead.

The bane of most independent publishers has always been distribution. The power of getting your books on the major retailers’ shelves was elusive at best for most independent publishers. Again, the internet rose to the task, and suddenly independent publishers found themselves with practical options for distribution and fulfillment. With the general populations acceptance of Amazon.com, an accessible global distributor was born. Independent publishers could produce their books, and could utilize Amazon.com to promote, sell and distribute the product. Of course, this still left the expensive task of printing and binding books up to the publisher. Being an independent publisher, half the battle is estimating how many copies of a book to print, without over-estimating and eating into their profits. Or worst, being left with a house full of books no one wants to buy. In stepped Lulu.com. Seeing the need of Independent publishers to have a professional, on-demand print provider, that would not only take orders, but produce and fulfill demand on a per order basis. Couple this with a multitude of free online services, including everything from word processors, to rss syndication, blogs and promotional tools you have a powerful start. Armed with only an idea, an independent publisher can write, edit, produce, market, sell, print and distribute a book without ever spending a dime on anything besides a computer and internet access.

The market is continually growing but there is a spot for independent publishers. I feel that in the next ten years, not only will independent publishing become an even more lucrative profession, but I believe independents will continue to revolutionize how the large publishers conduct business.
Independent publishing is persevering in an industry that’s presented fewer and fewer opportunities for entry in recent decades, as consolidation and corporate ownership have reduced the number of publishers and bookstores. More than ever, small and midsized publishers are valued for the variety they bring readers and the outlet they provide for writers who can’t get the attention of the industry giants. 3
The biggest benefit is for the consumer. We now have a huge wealth of knowledge on almost every topic available to us and we are no longer limited to the selection available at the local bookstore. Instead we are given a wide variety of writers, content, and delivery methods to choose from to fit our every need and want.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 3:33 pm and is filed under St. Louis Marketing, Publishing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.