OPINION
Last year publishers and booksellers looked on in alarm
as Radiohead made digital downloads of their album “In
Rainbows” available from their website, leaving fans to
decide what price, if any, to pay. Ten months on, what can
we conclude from this ground-breaking experiment?
Third-party commentators suggest fans
paid sums varying from nothing to £40,
with the average about £3. Despite not
being available until nearly three months
later, the conventional CD reached
number one in both the UK and US, global
sales are approaching two million units,
the band are still on a massive global tour
and the album is shortlisted for the prestigious
Mercury Music Prize.
So could Radiohead’s direct-to-fans
“honesty box” model work for books? It’s
easy for established creators with a huge, loyal fan base
to experiment in this way. Radiohead pulled off a massive
publicity stunt, and Thom Yorke is hardly scratching
around to find his next mortgage payment. But aspiring
writers, and those yet to taste significant commercial success,
will be ill-equipped to go straight to the public.
But here’s the most surprising conclusion from “In
Rainbows”; despite an explicit invitation by the band to
legally download the album for free, huge numbers chose
to do so illegally. Research by Will Page, chief economist
of copyright organisation MCPS-PRS Alliance, and Eric
Garland, c.e.o. of online media researcher Big Champagne,
reported 400,000 such “torrents” in the first day,
and 2.3 million over the first 25 days. Yet by any standards
the album has been a huge commercial success. Page
and Garland conclude that “torrents and legal downloads
are complements, not competitors”.
In the 1980s the record industry publicly argued that
“home taping is killing music”, while recognising that
hard-up students who had developed a love of music
through illegally copying might become core buyers
in later life. But for the past 10 years, the industry has
been reeling from rampant, near-perfect quality internet
piracy and has responded with a raft of protectionist policies
(restrictive digital rights
management and litigation).
Radiohead’s experiment suggests
that the relaxed ambivalence
of the 1980s might
still be right today.
With the arrival of Sony’s
Reader and Amazon’s Kindle
likely to put digital book content
conveniently and affordably
into readers’ hands, the
question of how to respond
to the threat of piracy is now
facing our industry. The “In
Rainbows” case study should
make us think carefully
about how we view piracy.
Alan Giles, former c.e.o. of HMV, is
now chairman of clothing retailer
Fatface and holds a number of other
non-executive and teaching roles
BOOKS FOR FREE?
Fans could pay what they wanted
for Radiohead’s last album on their
website. Alan Giles asks if the same
model could work for books
ALAN GILES DUNCAN CLARK
“It’s easy for
established
creators with a
huge and loyal
fan base to
experiment in
this way”
READING FOR PLEASURE
Joe Pickering
Simon & Schuster’s press officer on
Michael Chabon’s heroic magnum opus
“‘He just wants to be liked,’ says an Amazon review of Michael Chabon’s recent Maps and
Legends. Amazon reviews are a mixed bag but having finally got round to reading The
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Fourth Estate), I can safely say that, Michael, I like
you an awful lot. Kavalier & Clay represents all that’s good, possible and plain likeable in
great novels: characters that reverberate with the force of their personalities; world-changing
events; a generous, controlled, grandiose plot; considered, funny, immeasurably sad prose; and
an ability to display its inventiveness with élan, without feeling it has to shout about it. Having
had this on my bookshelf for so long, with so many recommendations, and just knowing that
I’d love it, it feels like that time when you meet someone at school, someone you get on with
brilliantly and could know forever, only to lose touch for whatever reason. Then, years later,
you bump into them and become firm friends. Don’t put that friendship off any longer.”
20 The Bookseller | 15 August 2008 www.thebookseller.com
BOOKS ARE NOT MUSIC
Traditional publishers needn’t worry
about the digital future just yet:
e-book readers are no match for the
real thing, says Duncan Clark
I’m the sort of person who should be excited about ebooks.
A hopeless technology junkie, I’ve written books
about iPods and am rarely off the internet. I’m also a
committed green (yes, I’m aware of the contradiction), so
I find paperless publishing an appealing concept.
But despite the Kindle’s imminent UK launch, I’m not
excited at all. On the contrary, I’m increasingly bored of
digital-publishing hype. Especially the endless references
to the coming “iPod moment”, when e-readers will suddenly
become as ubiquitous as Apple’s white earphones.
Comparisons between iPods and e-book readers are
flawed on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to
start. Given the limited space, I’ll highlight just three key
differences.
First, the iPod was a technology waiting to happen. Its
predecessor—the personal CD player—was fiddly, skipprone,
unsexy and required you to carry around loads
of delicate discs. E-book readers, by
comparison, are competing with one of
the best-loved products ever developed.
Books are cheap, convenient and robust.
When you’ve finished reading them, you
can give them to friends or display them
on your bookshelves.
Second, iPods aren’t just for downloads.
They also enable you to make better use
of the music you already own. All those
housebound albums are suddenly available
on the train or car, on holiday, or at
work. E-book readers, by contrast, do
nothing for your existing books: you’re
just buying a receptacle for future downloads.
Third, iPods’ many benefits don’t come at the expense
of the listening experience. The music on an iPod sounds
the same as ever, whereas e-book readers downgrade the
visual and tactile experience of reading. Out with multiple
formats and papers, and beautiful typography; in with a
single-size plastic “page” and a small font selection.
Even if the iPod/Kindle comparison was valid, it would
miss the point that iPods are already yesterday’s news.
The future is represented by the iPhone, which is all
about convergence: phone,
iPod, internet and more in
“E-book readers
are competing
with one of
the best-loved
products ever
made; they do
nothing for your
existing books”
one tiny device. E-book readers
fly in the face of convergence
by requiring people
to buy, charge, maintain and
carry a separate gadget for
just one purpose.
Publishing’s long-term
future may indeed be digital.
But that doesn’t mean anyone
will succeed in selling
e-books in propriety formats
for expensive, single-purpose
gadgets. No wonder we
still haven’t seen sales figures
for the Kindle: they’re
likely to be unimpressive.
Duncan Clark is editorial director of
GreenProfile and a consultant editor
at the Guardian
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