It is very interesting to find, compare and contrast the very different models of marketing, sales and distribution in the online book trade. Two distinct models that address different market pressures and concerns can be seen in the Kingdom Houses and the Small Houses. I say “Kingdom” because the business model of corporate media with large houses reflects the conglomeration of power and the top down decision making from CEOs to presidents to all the vice-presidents in all of the corporate divisions that play a compartmentalized role in the book/media industry. Those companies such as the Lagadere Media conglomerate who owns the Hatchette Group and Time Warner Books and the imprint of Little, Brown and Co. have a different presence in the online book industry as opposed to the smaller publishers.
The small Houses typically are designed in more of a democratic role in their own pursuit for capital and sales. The social relations around the small publishing house can be seen as more of a horizontal distribution of power in what may be relegated as a cooperative environment of shared power. With less capital and leverage there is slimmer profit margin, which depends collectively on everyone in the smaller house sharing equal responsibilities in the house. While the small publishing house has a president, leader, manager, etc., the head of the company may be more accessible and open to various other departments that make up the press and can turn more quickly to make market pressure decisions without needing to meet with a board of directors for permission and clarification.
Getting back to the online presence, I found the kingdom model prevalent with companies such as the Hatchette Book Group and Little, Brown and Co. After sifting through digital pages of subsidiaries, imprints, genres of the various imprints, authors, and finally titles, it became clear that HBG and LBC are not in the book business to deal directly with online sales. The volume of books, authors, accounting, and legal issues would be another division to add to the company’s overall expenses and probably prohibitive to their bottom line. While they could make some money from direct publisher to consumer, it would only be a small percentage of their overall revenue as opposed to going with a specific distributor and or wholesaler to market and sell their books. The purpose of the online presence is more designed as a branding mechanism with links to retailers on how to purchase the books. The kingdom companies would not want to compete with their distributors and alienate the designated purpose of the distributor, to sell the publisher’s books.
I found the small publishing house model to have a much different feel on their online presence as opposed to the kingdom model. The publishing company, Permuted Press (www.permutedpress.com) was immediately apparent to me that this is a small publishing house with a niche market in the horror industry. The motto at the top of the page is: “the Formula has been Changed, Shifted, Altered, Twisted…” This motto seems to have two meanings. On the surface, the theme of horror is clearly apparent with the graphics of zombies and vampires on the title pictures of the books, but Permuted Press also promotes the direct to consumer online presence with an order button under each book title with the price. Permuted Press describes itself as a traditional press in terms of how they select books and go through the editing filters with a sales and marketing mindset to promote their titles, but their online presence doesn’t utilize the traditional distributorship of physical retail bookstores such as B&N and Borders. The website also has a margin on the left side with links to “Home,” “News Blog,” “Bookstore,” “Kindle Store,” “T-shirts,” “Read Excerpts,” “Watch Teasers,” “Contact,” “Message Board,” “Mailing List,” “Submissions,” “Anthologies,” “Novels,” “FAQ,” “Wholesale,” and “About Us.” Interesting that the “Wholesale” link describes the publishers rules around a 40% discount for wholesalers and NO RETURNS. Buyer also pays for shipping unless the order is over 10 books.
Personally, I like the idea of small publishers whose websites are set up as direct sales to customers over the internet. While medium to large publishers still stick with the traditional distribution channels of sales and marketing through an independent contractor like Ingram, it ultimately breaks down to economies of scale. For large publishers dealing with a volume of a million plus copies for best selling authors, it makes sense to outsource the distribution to an independent contractor. I think we will continue to see small independent publishers carving out their own niche market with their own online sales. The only thing that would prevent independent publishers in continuing to pursue their online sales through their own website would be if net neutrality is struck down and the internet providers start charging publishers with tolls to users to download content. Net neutrality has been a contentious issue in congress with the Right-wing wanting to privatize the internet against common sense Americans who want to keep the internet free as a public resource for the health of democracy. We should all cross our fingers that net neutrality will always be upheld for the free distribution of ideas. If the Supreme Court can decide however that a corporation is a person and a corporation can give unbridled amounts of money to politicians and campaigns to influence elections, we should prepare ourselves for the worst.
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