What’s the future for book publishing ?
A friend of mine Derek sent me this link in regards to current book publishing trends. (You can see the exact article below) Since I know a number of the readers of this blog are writers and are working on books- thought it might be of some (dis)encouragement 
- On a serious note there are still many books that make it and bless others. Also it seems to me that blogs in some ways have replaced books- even Seth Godin's books are like a compilation on blogs- people will read great work - on a kindle, a blog, or book- so keep writing.
Grace and Peace, CJ
http://www.bkcommunity.com/profiles/blogs/updated-version-of-the-10
THE 10 AWFUL TRUTHS ABOUT BOOK PUBLISHING
Steven Piersanti, President, Berrett-Koehler Publishers Updated June 14, 2010
1. The number of books being published in the U.S. has exploded.
Bowker reports that over one million (1,052,803) books were published in the U.S. in 2009, which is more than triple the number of books published four years earlier (2005) in the U.S. (April 14, 2010 Bowker Report). More than two thirds of these books are self-published books, reprints of public domain works, and other print-on-demand books, which is where most of the growth in recent years has taken place. In addition, hundreds of thousands of English-language books are published each year in other countries.
2. Book industry sales are declining, despite the explosion of books published.
Book sales in the U.S. peaked in 2007 and then fell by nearly five percent between 2007 and 2009, according to the Association of American Publishers (April 7, 2010 AAP Report). Similarly, bookstore sales peaked in 2007 and have fallen since, according to the U.S. Census Bureau (Publishers Weekly, February 22, 2010). The major bookstore chains have been especially hard hit, with a 12 percent sales decline between 2007 and 2009 (Publishers Weekly, April 12, 2010).
3. Average book sales are shockingly small, and falling fast.
Combine the explosion of books published with the declining total sales and you get shrinking sales of each new title. According to Nielsen BookScan – which tracks most bookstore, online, and other retail sales of books (including Amazon.com) – only 282 million books were sold in 2009 in the U.S. in all adult nonfiction categories combined (Publishers Weekly, January 11, 2010). The average U.S. nonfiction book is now selling less than 250 copies per year and less than 3,000 copies over its lifetime.
4. A book has less than a 1% chance of being stocked in an average bookstore.
For every available bookstore shelf space, there are 100 to 1,000 or more titles competing for that shelf space. For example, the number of business titles stocked ranges from less than 100 (smaller bookstores) to approximately 1,500 (superstores). Yet there are 250,000-plus business books in print that are fighting for that limited shelf space.
5. It is getting harder and harder every year to sell books.
Many book categories have become entirely saturated, with many books on every topic. It is increasingly difficult to make any book stand out. New titles are not just competing with a million recently published books, they are also competing with more than seven million other books available for sale. And other media are claiming more and more of people’s time. Result: investing the same amount of effort today to market a book as was invested a few years ago will yield a fraction of the sales previously experienced.
6. Most books today are selling only to the authors’ and publishers’ communities.
Everyone in the potential audiences for a book already knows of hundreds of interesting and useful books to read but has little time to read any. Therefore people are reading only books that their communities make important or even mandatory to read. There is no general audience for most nonfiction books, and chasing after such a mirage is usually far less effective than connecting with one’s communities.
7. Most book marketing today is done by authors, not by publishers.
Publishers have managed to stay afloat in this worsening marketplace only by shifting more and more marketing responsibility to authors, to cut costs and prop up sales. In recognition of this reality, most book proposals from agents and experienced authors now have an extensive (usually many pages) section on the author’s marketing platform and what the author will do to market the book. Publishers still fulfill important roles in helping craft books to succeed and making books available in sales channels, but whether the books move in those channels depends primarily on the authors.
8. No other industry has so many new product introductions.
Every new book is a new product, needing to be acquired, developed, reworked, designed, produced, named, manufactured, packaged, priced, introduced, marketed, warehoused, and sold. Yet the average new book generates only $100,000 to $200,000 in sales, which needs to cover all of these expenses, leaving only small amounts available for each area of expense. This more than anything limits how much publishers can invest in any one new book and in its marketing campaign.
9. The digital revolution is expanding the number of products and sales channels but not increasing book sales.
We are in the early stages of an explosion in digital versions of books and digital sales channels for books and portions of books. However, early indications are that the digital revenues are replacing traditional book revenues rather than adding to overall book revenues. The total book publishing pie is not growing, but it is now being divided among even more products and markets, thus further crowding and saturating the marketplace. And although some digital costs are lower, other costs are higher while price points are lower – making digital profits even slimmer than print profits thus far.
10. The book publishing world is in a never-ending state of turmoil.
The thin margins in the industry, high complexities of the business, intense competition in a small industry, rapid growth of new technologies, and expanding competition from other media lead to constant turmoil in book publishing. Translation: expect even more changes and challenges in coming months and years.
STRATEGIES FOR RESPONDING TO “THE 10 AWFUL TRUTHS”
1. The game is now pass-along sales.
2. Events/immersion experiences replace traditional publicity in moving the needle.
3. Leverage the authors’ and publishers’ communities.
4. In a crowded market, brands stand out.
5. Master new sales and marketing channels.
6. Build books around a big new idea.
7. Front-load the main ideas in books and keep books short.
A great Blog Post by Seth Godin- Senior Management
"A newly-retired executive takes a job as an adjunct professor and really shakes things up. Both the school and the students are blown away by her fresh thinking and new approaches.
A forty-year old internet executive who has been running his company for decades misses one new trend after another, because he's still living in 1998.
One thing that happens to management when they get senior is that they get stuck. (As we saw with the new professor, senior isn't about old, it's about how long you've been there).
If you've been doing it forever, you discover (but may not realize) that the things that got you this power are no longer dependable. 
Reliance on the tried and true can backfire (Rupert keeps missing one opportunity after another, and keeps misunderstanding the medium he works in) or it can (rarely) pay off (Steve Jobs keeps repeating the same business model again and again--it's not an accident that Apple has no real online or social media footprint. Steve believes in beautifully designed objects, closed systems and evangelizing to developers and creatives).
Worth quoting--one of Arthur C. Clarke's lesser known three laws: "When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is probably wrong."
The paradox is that by the time you get to be senior, the decisions that matter the most are the ones that would be best made made by people who are junior..."
Posted and Written by Seth @ http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/08/senior-management.html
Orbiting the Giant Hairball
BOOK REVIEW- Found this today and it was a great summary of a great book-
Orbiting the Giant Hairball
A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace By Gordon MacKenzie Viking Penguin, 1998
This month’s book review is a particular pleasure for me to write. Not only is Orbiting the Giant Hairball an excellent read, I found out to my surprise that I actually knew the author in another life. While browsing the “Business Motivation” section at my local Barnes and Noble a couple of years ago, I saw the name “Gordon MacKenzie” and thought to myself, could it be the same person I knew so many years ago when I worked for Hallmark Cards? A quick examination of the first pages of the book confirmed this and also had me hooked—I had to buy the book!
When I knew Gordon in the early 1980’s, he seemed to know everyone at Hallmark. He was a very unique sort of company cheerleader. We all knew that Gordon worked in the Contemporary Cards Division, but no one knew for sure what his job was. He was extremely likable and, upon meeting you, treated you as if he had known you for a long time. He was also a true artist, and had a refreshing perspective on just about everything. By reading the book, I learned that Gordon had, in subsequent years, managed to create his own job at Hallmark conducting creativity seminars and ultimately the selfstyled position of Creative Paradox. As Creative Paradox, Gordon encouraged those whose creative ideas had been caught up in the corporate “hairball” helping them bring their ideas to fruition.
I tried to contact Gordon after I discovered his book through an exhaustive internet search. With much sadness, I learned that he passed away a few years after he had retired from Hallmark and had embarked on a career as a corporate speaker. It’s a shame that his particular brand of “inperson” genius is now lost, but we have these words with which to remember him.
The book is entertaining and refreshing, written in a spontaneous, streamof consciousness style with childlike drawings and pictures throughout, even hand written in places. The first time I read it, I found myself laughing out loud (and you will too) at Gordon’s view of corporate America. But there is something deeper in this book. On the second read, I found myself gaining a new understanding of Gordon’s message. I will do my best to recap it here, because I think it is important.
Gordon defines “hairball” as the bureaucracy that companies create through endless rules, policies, procedures, management layers and practices. Each “rule” is like a little hair that gets connected or knotted to other hairs, and the result is a giant hairball. Gordon spends a lot of the book cautioning against becoming caught up in the hairball. He says he spent many years trying toextricate himself and others from the hairball, but finally decided that wasn’t possible, so he recommends “orbiting” the hairball. Orbiting is just what it implies—using the hairball as a source for energy, but moving in an oval around the hairball at a fast enough rate so as to not be sucked into its vacuum. The hairball is actually good and necessary and serves a purpose by keeping creativity grounded, but it must not be regarded as the company itself.
Gordon says hairball policies are based on past successes and have no relevance to future success. Creativity is all about future success. Hairball policies are linear in nature, creativity is nonlinear. A linear system is simply the sum total of its parts, while a nonlinear system becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
Gordon decries the lack of creativity within organizations, and the damping effect of hairball procedures on the creativity of employees. To prove how the educational system (a hairball organization) stifles creativity early on, Gordon relates an experience he had while delivering creativity workshops to children. At his children’s workshops, he always asked, “How many artists do we have here today?” In the first grade classes, every child raised and waved their hands in the air. In the second grade classes, about 50% of the children raised their hands. In the third grade, about 10 out of 30 timidly raised their hands. In the sixth grade classes, only 1 or 2 children raised their hands. Gordon claims that our business organizations (hairballs) are inadvertently designed to further stifle individual creativity.
He says employees who are not in touch with and exploring their own personal creativity are, in fact, of little use to the organization itself. Organizations that do not encourage creativity risk remaining in the past and will struggle to create the products and organic systems that will propel growth.
I have heard this book described by other reviewers as the “cult classic” of creativity. If you decide to read this book, I think you’ll find it highly entertaining and useful in your business life.
Order the book here: Orbiting the Giant Hairball
Al Jazeera News Story-NGO’s Wrestle with Arming Themselves
"Since the end of the Cold War, aid workers have found themselves in complex environments in close proximity to government forces, occupying powers, armed groups and private security firms.
Their work is a constant struggle to maintain relationships with these actors to allow the freeflow of aid, while avoiding being too closely identified with any side in a conflict.
Some governments have tried to embrace the work of non-govermental organisations (NGOs) as part of their overall political and military efforts, blurring the line between humanitarian assistance and political and military objectives.
Nato and US officials in Afghanistan, for example, have sought to co-opt humanitarian assistance by deploying military personnel under the label of "humanitarian assistance". In 2001, Colin Powell, the then-US secretary of state described NGOs as "force multipliers".
Thus, it came as no surprise to many Afghanis when they heard in 2003 that Mullah Omar, the spiritual leader of Taliban in Afghanistan, had called international aid agencies, "the worst enemy of Islam".
Dialogue with all
Both the International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) and Muslim Aid say that it is essential to invest time in dialogue with all parties of a conflicts to explain that their mission is solely humanitarian and they have no political allegiances.
Muslim Aid believes that they have been less targeted that other organisations because of their success in adopting this approach.
"When security incidents happen, we realise that they are due to the lack of awareness about our work. When we explain to people that we are neutral and want to help only, they start respecting us," Azad tells Al Jazeera.
ICRC says that its extensive networks and commitment to dialogue with all parties of conflict has allowed it access to areas Afghanistan where most aid organisations have no access.
"We are still foreigners and strangers coming into their country. We need to explain why we are here," Florian Westphal, the ICRC spokesperson, says.
Yet, these approaches have not always guaranteed security. In extremely hostile environments such as Russia's North Caucasus region and Somalia, where neither governments nor armed groups are willing to guarantee adequate security measures, many humanitarian organisations have decided to pack up and leave.
"You simply cannot talk with Somalia's Shabab, for example," Care's Daudan says.
Armed humanitarians
Some organisations, however, have taken more direct measures to protect themselves, including the hiring of private security firms with staff that are armed.
According a report by Overseas Development Institute published in 2009, "at least 41 per cent of the major humanitarian organisations contracted some form of armed protective services [guards, escorts or bodyguards] for one or more of their operations".
"No major humanitarian provider - UN, NGO or Red Cross - can claim that it has never paid for armed security," the report said.
However, many of these mainstream humanitarian agencies, including ICRC and CARE, say they remain concerned by the growing role of private security companies, believing they harm the global image of humanitarian NGOs.
While the ICRC acknowledges that it has employed armed escorts in Somalia and North Caucasus, it describes them as "a very exceptional measure". The ICRC's Westphal says that the organisation believes that employing private security companies is not normally the right approach.
"Under international humanitarian law, people in need have the right to neutral and independent delivery of aid." he tells Al Jazeera.
"This approach could very much make humanitarian workers seem as part of the conflict and therefore legitimate targets. So I urge other humanitarian organisations to really double check if employing security workers makes their staff safer in the long term."
Care's Daudin says: "We should not have arms. If we were attacked, we can't escalate. We are not a militia."
"In a way, we have the advantage of being weak," he says. "Our weakness is our strength.""
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/08/20108199227928620.html