Savior of the week

Ever since Steve Jobs announced the much-rumored iPad in January, the publishing industry has been simultaneously having a collective orgasm at the possibility of a superior e-reader, and trying to figure out what the heck to do with this information.

In this week's New Yorker, Ken Auletta dissects the current state of book publishing, in one of the clearest and most candid pieces I've seen on the subject. What I found most interesting, though, is that much of the article veers from the ostensible subject (e-readers and their glorious potential), and turns into an episode of Everybody Hates Amazon. I'm on the fence about Amazon: professionally, I hate that they're creating a sales stranglehold from the WalMart playbook. But personally, they're the first place I turn when I want a discount on a hardcover bestseller, or don't feel like paying more than ten bucks for a paperback. And I like that they've all but obliterated the distinction between backlist and frontlist. So basically, accessibility good; monopoly bad.

But let's face it: my career is staked on the idea that not only are books necessary in the new Jobsian world order (in whatever format), they need someone to shepherd them along. And Amazon is helping to create an atmosphere where that shepherding is less necessary. The article brings that up directly, the idea that editors and author relationships are getting lost in the shuffle in favor of leaner self-publishing models for digital products. And it's something that's becoming a problem in traditional publishing as well: editorial input being quashed in favor of digital expertise. Is a developer going to take angry phone calls from an author who needs to be soothed? I doubt it.

Another interesting aspect of the piece is how the Big Six trade publishers (Random House, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, Hachette, HarperCollins, and Penguin) and--to a lesser extent the smaller ones--are more or less uniting in this. No real holdouts, even though everyone's negotiating digital royalties, pricing structures, etc. on their own. But everyone seems to carry the new "we heart e-books" mantra like a badge. And all of them seem similarly frustrated by what needs to be implemented now to become truly content agnostic, and somehow stave off complete unprofitability in 5-7 years.

And at this point, Apple is the good son because there's no real plan to take over (like Amazon) or repurpose content (like Google), just push content out there. From the article: "'Ultimately, Apple is in the device—not the content—business,' the Apple insider said. 'Steve Jobs wants to make sure content people are his partner. Steve is in the I win/you win school. Jeff Bezos is in the I win/you lose school.'" So essentially, Google is the oldest kid who outgrew its rebellious phase; Amazon is the rage-filled middle child who hasn't been getting enough attention; and Apple is the favored youngest.

So we'll see, I guess, which company wins out in this codependent mess of a relationship. (Though I'm probably not putting my money down on the Kindle any time soon.)