Pack your bags and go to India
Together with the United States and the Scandinavian countries, theIndia is the nation with the more brilliant industry of the with and related services. The technology hub of Bangalore, in southern India, has nothing to envy to San Francisco or Berlin. THE manager di Indian origin they are climbing steeply up the corporate ladder most wanted e highest paid the world. Satya Nadella became CEO of ecosystem and the capitalization of the Seattle company returned to the values of 2000; Sundar Pichai was seen delivering the direction of the most important activities of Google after the two founders took over the leadership of Alphabet; Shantanu narayen, at the head of Adobe, Has ferried successfully the feat of Photoshop and Illustrator in one complicated and difficult step to the cloud. The "Guardian" has drawn up a listsurprisingly, of the most influential Indian-born technologists who have contributed and contribute to making Silicon Valley the unique phenomenon we know.
Il prominent role of Indians in the world of global affairs va over la technology: Ajay Banga is at the head of Mastercard, Indira Nooyi di PepsiCo e Ivan Menezes of the beverage giant Diageothat style of the Indian managers è unmistakable: they know to listen, they are not impulsive, they are genuinely humble, they know work as a team, I am reliable e certain in the actions they take. Working with them is also relaxing it's theirs whiteness è contagious. Merit of crop who has them formats and which continues to inspire their way of being and acting. When we think of wisdom and balance, our first thought goes to India. Once Steve Jobs he had the opportunity to say that if Bill Gates had been in India, Its ecosystem it would have been top. An indirect prophecy given that with Satya Nadella, head of Microsoft, the latter really looks better. “Pack your bags for India” was the advice of the same Jobs to the young man Mark Zuckerberg, when Facebook was still called The Facebook .
It is therefore no coincidence that the better analysis that we happened to read about state of the book and bookstore industry faced with the challenge of digital comes right from Anuj Srivas, the technology and business reporter for "The Hindu", India's largest and most widely read English-language newspaper. We decided to offer our readers, in the Italian translation by Ilaria Amurri, the article by Srivas entitled The Past, Present and Future of the Printed Book, published by “The Wire” magazine.
The Amazon bookstore
Do you hear this noise? It's Johannes Gutenberg that you revolt of grave. Amazon, who more than anyone else has tried to destroy the paperback industry, has decided to open a real library.
On “The New Republic” there is one beautiful review by Dustin Kurtz on what Bezos' company is promoting as a "real shop without walls", Meaning what Amazon books, positioned at the exit of the University Village shopping center in Seattle and in pure Amazon style, complete with reviews, rankings and more. THE titles are organized in sections like “Most wish-listed cookbooks”, you can read online reviews while leafing through the books and prices are established with the same algorithm that the company uses for its site website.
Maybe it's okay that Amazon has opened a shop, because this shows that, after ten years in which the change in publishing has wrong-footed analysts over and over again, the circle has finally come full circle.
La usual story of digital revolution which has wiped out television (with Netflix), means of transport (with applications such as the American Uber or the Indian OlaCabs), accommodation (with Airbnb) and music (with iTunes and Spotify) immense è over to the same way in the world of books. Nobody wants to imply that Amazon is throwing in the towel and plans to open more bookstores or take this strategy seriously, but surely theAdvanced of the digital immense ha following il known course.
The past: the fear of the digital apocalypse
Le traditional bookstores they crossed two responsibilities phases di disintermediation. First were born i e-commerce sites (a term that sounds increasingly outdated), where you could order books online and have them delivered directly to your home. Due between main categories of consumers have adapted immediately: who buys books to give and who wants to have thelatest chapter of book of the moment the same day it comes out. The others arrived later, attracted by the convenience.
La next phase it started in 2007, when the founder of Amazon Jeff Bezos has introdotto il Kindle, which he said would “revive the passion for reading,” because people would see him as “a ingenious device and not as an austere means of transmitting culture”.
Sales of ebook are increased a out of proportion between 2008 and 2010 (according to one estimate more than 1260%) and many publishers feared leaving the pens. Thus, questioning its very existence, in 2009 the American chain of bookstores Barnes & Noble decided to try his luck by creating his own ebook reader, namely the Nook.
Anxiety and the concern that enveloped the sector have achieved the culmination when the chain Borders said bankruptcy since 2011, although to tell the truth the rival of Barnes & Noble was focusing more on merchandising and had made an unfortunate choice by investing millions in music and CDs a few years before iTunes arrived.
In 2011 it seemed that the digital metamorphosis of books (at least in the more developed area of the western market) pits almost complete, to the point that Amazon had announced that for the first time, in the first half of the year, the sales di ebook Kindles in the United States they had superato those gods books paper.
The present: the peak of ebooks?
After tree of the 2011, however, the sales they started to slow down. The ebooks sold in the United States are increased only from 43% during the rest of the year, a growth sustained, but slightly waning compared to the three digits of previous years, and in subsequent years, if we exclude a slight improvement in 2013, the growth rate in western markets it is stabilized below 50%.
As with all new products, a first phase of natural resistance seemed to be underway Forecasts more pessimistic the market for ebook risked reaching a saturation point. In fact, if between 2010 and 2011 digital books covered just under 20% of the entire US book market, in 2014 they barely passed the 20%.
Actually, these personal data do reference mainly at traditional publishing houses and not they hold in considerazione theincrease of digital publications independent supported by Amazon. The recent science fiction film Survivor - The Martian, for example, is taken from a book that was published through Kindle Direct Publishing. The same goes for the television series Wayward Pines, taken from the self-published series of the same name on the Kindle Store.
In any case it is clear that immense we are witnessing a radical change, not like the one introduced by Uber in the field of transport or like the one produced by emails and instant messages in the sphere of communication.
The statistics published by Nielsen BookScan, for example, show that moles first nine months of the 2015 and for the first time since 2007 the market of book of the UK has expanded considerably compared to 2014. The British chain Waterstone's, which finally saw a boost in book sales last December, decided to remove il Kindle from its stores, after having started a collaboration with Amazon in 2012, presenting it as a chance for survival in the digital future.
Therefore, the death quick and painful of papery that many had predicted in 2008 immense seems about to materialize. Ebooks have never invaded the market, indeed, we are now in 2015 and Amazon has just opened a bookstore!
But then what is that prevents ai books di assert itself in format digital, as happened to music instead (even in India)? Here are some possible causes:
1) The price: the most important (and fundamentally boring) factor. Analysts and the press are quick to point out that ebooks aren't much cheaper than paper books. In India, for example, in the ebook section of Flipkart a digital copy of Fifty shades of black costs 254 Rupees, while the paper book costs 250. I clients who pounced on e-readers they expect of being able buy ebook a low cost, but they usually stay disappointed.
2) The spread of tablets: the success ofiPad it was seen at first as a factor that he could profit to the sales of ebook, only that tablets are revealed a source di distraction for readers, including email, Google, Facebook, Whatsapp, etc. On the Kindle the “ebook application” is always open, on the tablet it isn't. So if someone has a special reader it is much easier to buy ebooks, but the fact that i tablets are generally more sold than e-readers is, ultimately, a brake.
3) The type and occasion of reading: little by little it turned out that the digital it lends itself more to some literary genres and to be precise moments of reading. Sales data reveals that Kindle ebook readers prefer la narrative to non-fiction and that prefers some genres in particular (US women over XNUMX, for example, prefer the digital format for reading erotic novels).
At the same time it seems that in many, especially the students, they prefer il papery for non-fiction and for university texts. Having to guess why, one could venture that ebooks lead to scrolling through pages faster, a habit that comes from years of internet research, while in this type of text it is better not to lose anything.
Plus the ebook are more comfortable in some situations, for example when travelling or when flying, as the benefits diminish until they turn into deleterious factors in other contexts, such as when curled up in bed on a cold rainy night.
These factors are very interesting because they indicate how humans interact with books and the result is that perhaps ebook they will never replace paper like digital music has replaced vinyl, but will become a simple alternative or better a complementary option.
The future: an open ending
All that immense means that ebook are intended to stay inshadowindeed, perhaps they will soon dominate the market. Amazon is currently using to its advantage the fact that publishers refuse to lower prices by introducing subscription services (Kindle Unlimited), like Spotify did with music, but immense can be said with certainty if these systems they will be successful (Oyster, one of the largest subscription reading companies just closed its doors).
Furthermore, the fact that ebooks have not managed to conquer the world does not mean that publishing houses and above all libraries have accused un bad shot.
In India, for example, the disruptive effects of digitization begin to do feel only now: in the south of the country the chain Landmark it is in liquidation and in New Delhi people were shocked when they heard that the famous bookstore Fact & Fiction He was about to to close.
Amazon books will perhaps give the good example to the others shops that are looking for di to adapt atit was digital? Most likely not. Many decisions and Amazon is taking on the plan of design and editorial choices are dictated da information di public domain (reviews, rankings, and wishlists) and someone else could very well do the same (Amazon's sales data in the Seattle region would likely reveal some competitive edge).
Someone said that Amazon books it's just a mirage, a Trojan horse whose only purpose is to do brand advertising, just like the "experience stores" that Microsoft has opened throughout the United States. That may be the case, but Amazon would be even more subtle than it appears if it were trying to take over the relatively high percentage of books that are still sold in "offline" bookstores (about 50%, with just over 7 billion in revenues ).
Most booksellers passes sleepless nights puzzling over how to do the same thing: i clients they come, they take a look, they hang around for a while and then they go home and yeah buy books onlineand a lowest price.
Bookstores have to bear the operational costs of selling and customer experience, but then it's the online store (ie Amazon) that reaps the rewards of their labor. So, if on the one hand bookstores still earn some money, on the other they lose customers due to the fault of online retailers, but obviously Amazon Books will never lose against the competition from the web, given that the Seattle giant sells about 70% of books purchased on the internet in the United States.
If the piano di Amazon really this the others libraries they won't succeed never to replicate his success. It's the classic “leveraging the well-being of your ecosystem” trick, as Apple and Microsoft have done in the past.
What is, in conclusion, the future of libraries? The big ones chains they did the expense of situation more than anyone else and their problems are not over, due to the greed and constant need to expand of some companies in the sector. Returning to the example of India, an industrial base like Chennai can be satisfied with two or three large chains, not to mention that the choice di extend the offer to merchandising, To scents, music and toys ha outcomes basically negative, because often the libraries they end up lose their roots and higher profits don't translate into a high-quality experience.
At the same time the independent bookstores they must not forget theirs role di cultural institutions and their ability to magnetize literary communities, as frequently happens in America and with moderate success (according to the most recent statistics, independent bookstores have increased from 1.651 in 2009 to 2.094 in 2014).
Also, don't ignore the government measures in the field of rents and price control, that is, the anti-Amazon laws, which in Europe and especially in France they had effects partially positive and that India is also looking for to imitate for support le small bookshops. In New Delhi though, the rent control has recently been changed in favor of housing lobbies and as explained by Ajit Vikram Singh, the owner of Fact & Fiction, it was this change that gave the final blow to what was one of libraries most prestigious in the city.
