New mail from Usa, by Linda Nordstrom (leggi in italiano)
Dear Michele, let me give a little input on what happens on this side of ocean with this editor’s note Okes of OR publishing that i’ve received this week. I hope the article will contribute to the debate on the issue of digital book that, as I understand, it is also felt by you.
Herewith figures most of us have heard in some variant: half of U.S. book sales will be digital by 2015 and brick-and-mortar book sales will drop by 50% in that time.
I’m not a theoretician: I’m an editor and publisher, and what I am looking for is a practical solution to fix things, something that can be implemented. I’ve been in independent publishing for the last twenty-five years, and each year, at each of the five companies I’ve worked with, the scenario has been pretty much the same: declining revenues despite occasional upward blips, the stores getting sparser and those that remain, skipping titles more and more.