James 1 Tiffany James Dr.

McConnell Mass Communications II 09 April 2013 Research Paper Over the course of several decades the publishing industry has had to adapt as the market shifts from one way of selling products to the next. From strictly reading physical products like newspapers and bibles to buying physical products like dime novels in the store and reading them at home to being able to buy and read physical products on the internet the industry has had to change. Now with the market offering consumers a way to reach books that they never would have known existed before, things are moving away from the mass market and into smaller and more concise niche markets. For 500 years, the methods and practices of book publishing remained largely unchanged, but today the industry finds itself faced with the greatest challenges since Gutenberg, (Thompson, John B.). What has brought about these challenges and how will the print industry adapt to a new era of online media and the rise of niche markets. The internet is one the main cause of the market shifting into these smaller markets, after centuries in which books and the process of publishing them barely changed, the digital revolution has thrown the entire business up for grabs, (Hughes, Evan). This all started when the company Amazon was created and started selling books online and the need for physical bookstores declined. With all of the new technology available to us we have taken it and

James 2 created new and more impressive products. Like the e-readers and iPads which can be bought on Amazon, along with the books to read on them. These products that have been created are targeted at certain types of people and certain age groups. With manufactures thinking like this we are more than likely going to end up with more niche markets, than we could possibly need, in the future. According to a December 2011 report by Deloitte, the educational publishing market points toward a fundamental market shift. Now a days younger readers are more interested in reading online or electronically, than reading a hardcopy of something. This leads to these readers possible finding other books with similar topics and buying and reading them. This is one of the reasons that niche markets are coming into creation. They are not formed on purpose, but accidently because of a small group of people who have an interest in similar topics. Editor of Wired magazine, Chris Anderson states that the mass market is declining and will eventually be replaced with niche market, especially, in the book, music, and DVD sales industries. For example Anderson talks about how in 1988, a British mountain climber wrote a book called Touching the Void and how it started to sale again a decade later when a book on the same topic was published. According to Anderson what caused this to happen was online word of mouth. By people comparing these two books online it got other people to read these reviews and comparisons which then sparked a rise in sales of the older, lesser known book. Anderson says that, this is not just a virtue of online booksellers; it is an example of an entirely new economic model for the media and entertainment industries, one just beginning to show its power.

James 3 And the reason that things will change so much is because todays retailers focus on a localized market instead of a national or international market which is now accessible due to the internet. That fact hurts their bottom line because if a store does not carry are certain movie or music album than people will have to resort to going online and then they become accustomed to buying things online that they cannot find anywhere else; that they start buying everything they want online. However according to Anderson, as demand shifts toward the niches, the economics of providing them improve further, and so on, creating a positive feedback loop that will transform entire industries and the culture for decades to come. The market is also changing due to the massively reduced cost and time to market provided by print-on-demand publishing technology. Thanks to this Amazon now sells more e-books than physical books. The economics for a traditional large publisher requires at least 10,000 copies to be sold in the first year for a new book to be considered worthwhile. The production time is 4-6 months which means that many topical books can be outdated by the time they hit the shelves compared to the Kindle or iPad, ( Brown, Christopher). All of this is compared to the e-books that have to sell five times as many copies of a book than a physical copy; especially, the scholarly publishers who seem to be adapting quite rapidly. The failure of the traditional music industry has become the standard cautionary tale for content industries adapting to a digital era. But for scholarly publishers, many factors make the music industry a poor comparison. According, to the leaders in scholarly publishing they have more in common with smaller niche markets than the mass market. According to David Crotty, music is not similar to STM publishing because the market for music is essentially every human being on the planet, whiles the market for high-level journal articles or detailed scientific books is extremely

James 4 limited. Until recently the print industry has not had any luck in selling individual stories to consumers, but with the e-book now out there things are changing. The industry is realizing that consumers want to be able to buy content or products their own way. This is causing niche markets to have the upper hand and now the print industry has referred to them to define areas of specializations where print can stay alive and become successful. According to the Oxford dictionary a niche is a specialized but profitable corner of the market, which is something that the print industry wants a piece of. Another important reason that the industry is declining and is being forced to change is due to electronic and digital formats of print products that are being offered in an attempt to keep up with the times. Small, better, and faster has been the motto of the technology sector for years and the same is true of the print industry, (Geiger, Matthew J). As a consequence, the niche markets for print are taking over. That is one idea of what the public and authorities in the industry believe will become of the print industry. However, there are also several other opinions of what will become of the industry in the coming future. Some people believe that even though even though the traditional form of print, physical products which is slowing dying the need for the information and material is not. And with the shift to e-books, which now represent upwards of 20 percent of big publishers revenue, up from 1 percent in 2008, every aspect of the existing framework is now open to debate. The public still has a need for these products, they just had to update because paper prices are up, postal prices are up and the reading public is increasingly distracted by other media: the Internet, television, computer games, and mobile devices, ( The Future of Printing). According to Steve Jobs, The fact is that people dont read anymore,

James 5 (Hughes, Evan). This is one of the major fears of the print industry and one of the reasons why they had to learn how to adapt. This is why people buy books online now a day because they can buy any length book them want depending on their mood. For those with short attention spans, there are books that are fifteen to twenty pages long and for those who want something that will engage them there are book series. And all of it is easily assessable from the home unlike when a person had to go to the store to get a book. The change is fundamental and irreversible, I believe well look back in five years, says Russ Grandinetti, VP of Kindle content for Amazon, and realize that digital was one of the great expansions of the publishing business. The print industry must develop a peripheral vision as a cultural attribute that enables them to see current and future market shifts and they need much more of a global perspective and collaborative model than the traditional country market fiefdoms that artificially protect geographic markets with local production. They also need to come to terms with the fact that Amazon is now the biggest retailer for print products around the world and they are here to stay; and that physical bookstores are dying and will one day disappear all together due to the fact that the stores wont be able to carry all of the products that consumers want. And as this happens publishers will also have to fight to stay afloat because consumers are starting to care less about who published the book and more about how easy and cost effective it is to get the book. All of this will force publishers and bookstores to fall into the trend of joining a niche market. According, to experts on the changes going on in the print industry and what its future looks like, things will continue to progress forward into a digital age of print media. And

James 6 Amazon will continue to dominate and monopolize the market as the physical bookstores and publishing companies suffer and have to find a way to adapt to this new unknown territory.

James 7 Works Cited Alexander, Alison, and Jarice Hanson. Taking Sides. 12th. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 330334. Print. Anderson, Chris. Alexander, Alison, and Jarice Hanson. Taking Sides. 12th. New York: McGrawHill, 2013. 330-334. Print.. 12th. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2013. 330-334. Print. Brown, Christopher. "Changing Customer Expectations How the publishing industry is adapting to the writing on the wall." Market Culture. Market Culture, 04 Jan 2013. Web. 13 Apr 2013. Crotty, David. "Short Stories and Comics: Niche Markets with Core Lessons for STM Publishers." The Scholarly Kitchen. The Scholarly Kitchen, 26 Apr 2010. Web. 14 Apr 2013. Geiger, Matthew J. "News Trends in the Printing Industry."Yahoo Voices. Yahoo Inc., 10 May 2010. Web. 17 Apr 2013. Hughes, Evan. "Book Publishers Scramble to Rewrite Their Future." Wired. Wired, 19 Mar 2013. Web. 17 Apr 2013. "The Future of Printing." The Fure of Publishing. The Fure of Publishing, 28 Apr 2008. Web. 17 Apr 2013. Thompson, John B.. "Where Is Publishing Headed?: The Future Of Books In 7 Easy Steps." Huffington Post. Huffington Post, 05 Sep 2012. Web. 17 Apr 2013.