Publishers Hope to Learn From Mistakes of Music Industry

As the digital age continues to guide the music industry, publishers are hoping to learn from the mistakes of their peers in the record industry. Plagued by piracy and illegal downloads from the Napster’s and Kazaa’s of the world, the decline in physical sales (as a trend of increasing digital sales) has been the main disease of recent years for the music business. As publishers have learned, if online sales are not profitable, any business dealing with the sales of music or services thereof are in serious trouble. With this in mind, publishers believe that sales of “e-books” will add value to the industry, experts believe. "Our aim is not to beat up the music industry ... but that said, they sure did screw it up," Andrew Albanese, Publisher's Weekly features editor, told a panel discussion on the topic at the recent Book Expo America in New York City. Unlike mp3’s, which are the digital base for music files, e-books are not a value-subtract medium, but a value-add medium in that books themselves are still desired, whereas people have started to prefer to buy single tracks whether than whole albums. The demand is there for digital books, it’s just a matter of time that electronic distribution for them takes place.

--Will Hackett currently listening to “Spaceman” by The Killers

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