These days, you probably have in your home an example of a technological innovation that utterly and violently reshaped the entire business model of the publishing industry. In fact, if you're like most Americans, you probably have more than one of them. They offered publishers much easier and wider distribution of their products, but in exchange they slashed publishers' per-unit revenues by some 90% and reduced authors' earnings to mere pennies. Predictably, it set industry veterans to wailing and gnashing their teeth, declaring that the business was doomed.
No, I'm not talking about smart phone or Kindles or iPads or even laptop computers. I'm talking about paperback books. The market disruption they caused happened 70 years ago.
The American Paperback Revolution began in 1939 when Robert F. DeGraff founded Pocket Books. DeGraff's books were small (4-1/4 by 6-1/2 inches), printed on cheap paper, and bound in semi-stiff covers. They sold for twenty-five cents. In order to expand their market, Pocket sold the books not only through bookstores but also in drugstores, newsstands, and railroad stations. Two other companies quickly followed Pocket's lead. Penguin Books, which had been operating in England since 1935, opened a U.S. branch in 1939. Two years later, magazine publisher Joseph Meyers began Avon Pocket-sized Books. The industry stalled during the Second World War, when paper supplies were strictly rationed, but after the war at least two dozen more firms raced into the market, including New American Library, Bantam, Fawcett, Popular Library, and Dell.
Let's look at some of the parallels between these two disruptive phenomena in the publishing world: what the rise of paperbacks did to traditional hardback book publishing in the middle part of the 20th century and what eBooks and online journalism are doing to the print publishing world today. (For convenience sake, I'll roll eBooks and online journalism/magazines into a single category called "ePublishing")
ePublishing: While traditional publishers are fighting to keep their prices from being slashed a full 90% (which would be pricing an eBook around $2.50 vs. a $25 hardback), they've been knocked down quite a lot—and, there are plenty of $2.99 and even $.99 options out there competing against them. It's even worse for journalism, where ad revenues online are a mere fraction of those of print.
ePublishing: Now, you don't even have to find a retail establishment. You can download a book from your bed, on a train, or while driving down the road in your car, and you can catch up on the latest news and read your favorite long-form journalism anytime, anywhere, too.
ePublishing: Ditto.
ePublishing: We will see. But it seems likely that the sky will not fall, either.
In the end, what appeared at first to be a major threat to authors' livelihood turned out to be an economic boon. We'll use Raymond Chandler, the acclaimed Los Angeles detective novelist and creator of private eye Philip Marlowe, as an example.
At the start of the Paperback Revolution, authors had few options for making money from their books beyond traditional hardback royalties, for the sale of subsidiary rights was not a major factor.
Before paperbacks, the reprint market was limited to a few firms like Grosset & Dunlap, who produced cheap hardback reprints in small print runs--and paid even smaller royalties. In 1940, Raymond Chandler made a whopping $200 from Grosset & Dunlap's $1 reprint edition of The Big Sleep, his first novel, which they produced from the same printing plates used by Knopf, the original publishers.
The movies industry was in its heyday, and authors could sell the movie rights to their books, but the returns were small tiny compared to the prices bestsellers fetch today. In 1941 and 1942, Chandler sold the screen rights for his second novel, Farewell, My Lovely to RKO Pictures, and those for his third, The High Window, to Twentieth Century-Fox. His combined take from the both was $2,750--a nice bonus, for sure, in 1942 dollars, but not enough to be the foundation for a career.
Enter the new cheap, widely-distributed paperbacks editions. They increased authors' potential audience and allowed them to keep their books in print long after they ceased to be available in hardcover. These developments rewrote the terms of professional authorship in the United States, giving previously-struggling novelists a new means of earning income from the new works and, equally or even more important, from their back catalog of things they had finished work on years before.
The paperback industry had gotten started in the late 1930s, but it was largely put on hold by World War II paper shortages. Still, by the beginning of 1945 nearly 750,000 copies of The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, Chandler's first two novels to be reprinted in paperback, had been sold. Four years later, over three million copies of Chandler's works had been published. Despite the penny per copy royalty, with large sales the returns on the reprints were becoming significant.
Chandler had suspended writing novels to pursue income writing screenplays for the studios in Hollywood, a business that paid well but he thoroughly detested. In 1947, he wrote to his agent, "I am a damn fool not to be writing novels. I'm still getting $15,000 a year out of those I did write. If I turned out a really good one in the near future, I'd probably get a lot out of it."
Chandler could not live on the reprint royalties alone, but they provided a significant portion of his income and helped accelerate his return to novel-writing as a full-time profession in the 1950s.
Electronic publishing likely stands to be a boon for both authors and publishers, too, once they figure out how to navigate the new electronic landscape. We'll look at the way some of them are doing just that in an upcoming post.
It's a good reminder of how disruptive technologies often play out in an industry. At first, it seems like the sky is falling, and not every established player adapts their business models correctly to survive the change. Those that are able to adapt, however, often come out on the other side stronger than they were going in.
No, I'm not talking about smart phone or Kindles or iPads or even laptop computers. I'm talking about paperback books. The market disruption they caused happened 70 years ago.
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| Disruptive Technology, 1940s Style |
A Paperback Revolution
The American Paperback Revolution began in 1939 when Robert F. DeGraff founded Pocket Books. DeGraff's books were small (4-1/4 by 6-1/2 inches), printed on cheap paper, and bound in semi-stiff covers. They sold for twenty-five cents. In order to expand their market, Pocket sold the books not only through bookstores but also in drugstores, newsstands, and railroad stations. Two other companies quickly followed Pocket's lead. Penguin Books, which had been operating in England since 1935, opened a U.S. branch in 1939. Two years later, magazine publisher Joseph Meyers began Avon Pocket-sized Books. The industry stalled during the Second World War, when paper supplies were strictly rationed, but after the war at least two dozen more firms raced into the market, including New American Library, Bantam, Fawcett, Popular Library, and Dell.
Let's look at some of the parallels between these two disruptive phenomena in the publishing world: what the rise of paperbacks did to traditional hardback book publishing in the middle part of the 20th century and what eBooks and online journalism are doing to the print publishing world today. (For convenience sake, I'll roll eBooks and online journalism/magazines into a single category called "ePublishing")
Lower Costs
Paperbacks: The low cover price of the new paperback format--twenty-five cents for a paperback compared to between two dollars and three dollars for a typical hardback--made books more affordable for the average reader, but they slashed the per-unit revenue for publishers by almost 90%ePublishing: While traditional publishers are fighting to keep their prices from being slashed a full 90% (which would be pricing an eBook around $2.50 vs. a $25 hardback), they've been knocked down quite a lot—and, there are plenty of $2.99 and even $.99 options out there competing against them. It's even worse for journalism, where ad revenues online are a mere fraction of those of print.
Wider Distribution
Paperbacks: The distribution of paperbacks, which were sold not only in books stores but also in convenient locations such as drugstores and train stations, caused books to be more widely available than ever beforeePublishing: Now, you don't even have to find a retail establishment. You can download a book from your bed, on a train, or while driving down the road in your car, and you can catch up on the latest news and read your favorite long-form journalism anytime, anywhere, too.
Wailing, Lamentation, Gnashing of Teeth
Paperbacks: Publishers declared it was the end of an era and they were all going broke. Authors echoed the sentiment and, except for a early adopters who embraced the new genre, most "serious authors" rejected paperbacks as both cheapening and an assault on their income.ePublishing: Ditto.
And the Sky Did Not Fall
Paperbacks: The book publishing industry got along just fine once they factored the economics and distribution requirements of paperback publishing into their business models. Authors learned to how to value and sell their paperback rights, and they became a major chip in their contract negotiations with publishers.ePublishing: We will see. But it seems likely that the sky will not fall, either.
A Boon to Authors
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| Raymond Chandler Grumpy about Paperbacks (at first) |
At the start of the Paperback Revolution, authors had few options for making money from their books beyond traditional hardback royalties, for the sale of subsidiary rights was not a major factor.
Before paperbacks, the reprint market was limited to a few firms like Grosset & Dunlap, who produced cheap hardback reprints in small print runs--and paid even smaller royalties. In 1940, Raymond Chandler made a whopping $200 from Grosset & Dunlap's $1 reprint edition of The Big Sleep, his first novel, which they produced from the same printing plates used by Knopf, the original publishers.
The movies industry was in its heyday, and authors could sell the movie rights to their books, but the returns were small tiny compared to the prices bestsellers fetch today. In 1941 and 1942, Chandler sold the screen rights for his second novel, Farewell, My Lovely to RKO Pictures, and those for his third, The High Window, to Twentieth Century-Fox. His combined take from the both was $2,750--a nice bonus, for sure, in 1942 dollars, but not enough to be the foundation for a career.
Enter the new cheap, widely-distributed paperbacks editions. They increased authors' potential audience and allowed them to keep their books in print long after they ceased to be available in hardcover. These developments rewrote the terms of professional authorship in the United States, giving previously-struggling novelists a new means of earning income from the new works and, equally or even more important, from their back catalog of things they had finished work on years before.
The paperback industry had gotten started in the late 1930s, but it was largely put on hold by World War II paper shortages. Still, by the beginning of 1945 nearly 750,000 copies of The Big Sleep and Farewell, My Lovely, Chandler's first two novels to be reprinted in paperback, had been sold. Four years later, over three million copies of Chandler's works had been published. Despite the penny per copy royalty, with large sales the returns on the reprints were becoming significant.
Chandler had suspended writing novels to pursue income writing screenplays for the studios in Hollywood, a business that paid well but he thoroughly detested. In 1947, he wrote to his agent, "I am a damn fool not to be writing novels. I'm still getting $15,000 a year out of those I did write. If I turned out a really good one in the near future, I'd probably get a lot out of it."
Chandler could not live on the reprint royalties alone, but they provided a significant portion of his income and helped accelerate his return to novel-writing as a full-time profession in the 1950s.
Electronic publishing likely stands to be a boon for both authors and publishers, too, once they figure out how to navigate the new electronic landscape. We'll look at the way some of them are doing just that in an upcoming post.
It's a good reminder of how disruptive technologies often play out in an industry. At first, it seems like the sky is falling, and not every established player adapts their business models correctly to survive the change. Those that are able to adapt, however, often come out on the other side stronger than they were going in.
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